,,anton ,,tchekhov ,,and ,,other ,,essais ,,by ,,leon ,,shestov ,,translated ,,by ,s4 ,,koteliansky ,,and ,j4 ,m4 ,,murry ,,maunsel ,,and ,,co4 ,,ltd4 ,,dublin ,,and ,,london #aiaf ,,contents ,,anton ,,tchekhov 7,,creation ,,from ,,the ,,void7 ,,the ,,gift ,,of ,,prophecy ,,penultimate ,,words ,,the ,,theory ,,of ,,knowledge ,,introduction ,it is not to be denied that ,russian thought is chiefly manifested in the great ,russian novelists4 ,tolstoi1 ,dostoevsky1 and ,tchekhov made explicit in their works conceptions of the world which yield nothing in definiteness to the philosophic schemes of the great dogmatists of old1 and perhaps may be regarded as even superior to them in that by their nature they emphasise a relation of which the professional philosopher is too often careless--the intimate connection between philosophy and life4 ,they attacked fearlessly and with a high devotion of which we ,english readers are slowly becoming sensible the fundamental problem of all philosophy worthy the name4 ,they were preoccupied with the answer to the question3 ,is life worth living8 ,and the great assumption which they made1 at least in the beginning of the quest1 was that to live life must mean to live it wholly4 ,to live was not to pass by life on the other side1 not suppress the deep or even the dark passions of body or soul1 not to lull by some lying and narcotic phrase the urgent questions of the mind1 not to deny life4 ,to them life was the sum of all human potentialities4 ,they accepted them all1 loved them all1 and strove to find a place for them all in a pattern in which none should be distorted4 ,they failed1 but not one of them fainted by the way1 and there was not one of them but with his latest breath bravely held to his belief that there was a way and that the way might be found4 ,tolstoi went out alone to die1 yet more manifestly than he had lived1 a seeker after the secret2 death overtook ,dostoevsky in his supreme attempt to wrest a hope for mankind out of the abyss of the imagined future2 and ,tchekhov died when his most delicate fingers had been finally eager in lighting ,the ,cherry ,orchard with the tremulous glint of laughing tears1 which may perhaps be the ultimate secret of the process which leaves us all bewildered and full of pity and wonder4 ,there were great men and great philosophers4 ,it may be that this cruelly conscious world will henceforward recognise no man as great unless he has greatly sought3 for to seek and not to think is the essence of philosophy4 ,to have greatly sought1 ,i say1 should be the measure of man's greatness in the strange world of which there will be only a tense1 sorrowful1 disillusioned remnant when this grim ordeal is over4 ,it should be so3 and we1 who are1 according to our strength1 faithful to humanity1 must also strive according to our strength to make it so4 ,we are not1 and we shall not be1 great men3 but we have the elements of greatness4 ,we have an impulse to honesty1 to think honestly1 to see honestly1 and to speak the truth to ourselves in the lonely hours4 ,it is only an impulse1 which1 in these barren1 bitter1 years1 so quickly withers and dies4 ,it is almost that we dare not be honest now4 ,our hearts are dead3 we cannot wake the old wounds again4 ,and yet if anything of this generation that suffered is to remain1 if we are to hand any spark of the fire which once burned so brightly1 if we are to be human still1 then we must still be honest at whatever cost4 ,we--and ,i speak of that generation which was hardly man when the war burst upon it1 which was ardent and generous and dreamed dreams of devotion to an ideal of art or love or life--are maimed and broken for ever4 ,let us not deceive ourselves4 ,the dead voices will never be silent in our ears to remind us of that which we once were1 and that which we have lost4 ,we shall die as we shall live1 lonely and haunted by memories that will grow stranger1 more beautiful1 more terrible1 and more tormenting as the years go on1 and at the last we shall not know which was the dream--the years of plenty or the barren years that descended like a storm in the night and swept our youth away4 ,yet something remains4 ,not those lying things that they who cannot feel how icy cold is sudden and senseless death to all-daring youth1 din in our ears4 ,we shall not be inspired by the memory of heroism4 ,we shall be shattered by the thought of splendid and wonderful lives that were vilely cast away4 ,what remains is that we should be honest as we shall be pitiful4 ,we shall never again be drunk with hope3 let us never be blind with fear4 ,there can be in the lap of destiny now no worse thing which may befall us4 ,we can afford to be honest now4 ,we can afford to be honest3 but we need to learn how1 or to increase our knowledge4 ,the ,russian writers will help us in this2 and not the great ,russians only1 but the lesser also4 ,for a century of bitter necessity has taught that nation that the spirit is mightier than the flesh1 until those eager qualities of soul that a century of social ease has almost killed in us are in them well-nigh an instinct4 ,let us look among ourselves if we can find a ,wordsworth1 a ,shelley1 a ,coleridge1 or a ,byron to lift this struggle to the stars as they did the ,french ,revolution4 ,there is none4--,it will be said3 ',but that was a great fight for freedom4 ,humanity itself marched forward with the ,revolutionary armies4' ,but if the future of mankind is not in issue now1 if we are fighting for the victory of no precious and passionate idea1 why is no voice of true poetry uplifted in protest8 ,there is no third way4 ,either this is the greatest struggle for right1 or the greatest crime1 that has ever been4 ,the unmistakable voice of poetry should be certain either in protest or enthusiasm3 it is silent or it is trivial4 ,and the cause must be that the keen edge of the soul of those century-old poets which cut through false patriotism so surely is in us dulled and blunted4 ,we must learn honesty again3 not the laborious and meagre honesty of those who weigh advantage against advantage in the ledger of their minds1 but the honesty that cries aloud in instant and passionate anger against the lie and the half-truth1 and by an instinct knows the authentic thrill of contact with the living human soul4 ,the ,russians1 and not least the lesser ,russians1 may teach us this thing once more4 ,among these lesser1 ,leon ,shestov holds an honourable place4 ,he is hardly what we should call a philosopher1 hardly again what we would understand by an essayist4 ,the ,russians1 great and small alike1 are hardly ever what we understand by the terms which we victims of tradition apply to them4 ,in a hundred years they have accomplished an evolution which has with us slowly unrolled in a thousand4 ,the very foundations of their achievement are new and laid within the memory of man4 ,where we have sharply divided art from art1 and from science and philosophy1 and given to each a name1 the ,russians have still the sense of a living connection between all the great activities of the human soul4 ,from us this connection is too often concealed by the tyranny of names4 ,we have come to believe1 or at least it costs us great pains not to believe1 that the name is a particular reality1 which to confuse with another name is a crime4 ,whereas in truth the energies of the human soul are not divided from each other by any such impassable barriers3 they flow into each other indistinguishably1 modify1 control1 support1 and decide each other4 ,in their large unity they are real2 isolated1 they seem to be poised uneasily between the real and the unreal1 and become deceptive1 barren half-truths4 ,plato1 who first discovered the miraculous hierarchy of names1 though he was sometimes drunk with the new wine of his discovery1 never forgot that the unity of the human soul was the final outcome of its diversity2 and those who read aright his most perfect of all books--,the ,republic--know that it is a parable which fore-shadows the complete harmony of all the soul's activities4 ,not the least of ,shestov's merits is that he is alive to this truth in its twofold working4 ,he is aware of himself as a soul seeking an answer to its own question2 and he is aware of other souls on the same quest4 ,as in his own case he knows that he has in him something truer than names and divisions and authorities1 which will live in spite of them1 so towards others he remembers that all that they wrote or thought or said is precious and permanent in so far as it is the manifestation of the undivided soul seeking an answer to its question4 ,to know a man's work for this1 to have divined the direct relation between his utterance and his living soul1 is criticism3 to make that relation between one's own soul and one's speech direct and true is creation4 ,in essence they are the same3 creation is a man's lonely attempt to fix an intimacy with his own strange and secret soul1 criticism is the satisfaction of the impulse of loneliness to find friends and secret sharers among the souls that are or have been4 ,as creation drives a man to the knowledge of his own intolerable secrets1 so it drives him to find others with whom he may whisper of the things which he has found4 ,other criticism than this is1 in the final issue1 only the criminal and mad desire to enforce material order in a realm where all is spiritual and vague and true4 ,it is only the jealous protest of the small soul against the great1 of the slave against the free4 ,against this smallness and jealousy ,shestov has set his face4 ,to have done so does not make him a great writer2 but it does make him a real one4 ,he is honest and he is not deceived4 ,but honesty1 unless a man is big enough to bear it1 and often even when he is big enough to bear it1 may make him afraid4 ,where angels fear to tread1 fools rush in3 but though the folly of the fool is condemned1 some one must enter1 lest a rich kingdom be lost to the human spirit4 ,perhaps ,shestov will seem at times too fearful4 ,then we must remember that ,shestov is ,russian in another sense than that ,i have tried to make explicit above4 ,he is a citizen of a country where the human spirit has at all times been so highly prized that the name of thinker has been a key to unlock not merely the mind but the heart also4 ,the ,russians not only respect1 but they love a man who has thought and sought for humanity1 and1 ,i think1 their love but seldom stops 'this side idolatry4' ,they will exalt a philosopher to a god2 they are even able to make of materialism a religion4 ,because they are so loyal to the human spirit they will load it with chains1 believing that they are garlands4 ,and that is why dogmatism has never come so fully into its own as in ,russia4 ,when ,shestov began to write nearly twenty years ago1 ,karl ,marx was enthroned and infallible4 ,the fear of such tyrannies has never departed from ,shestov4 ,he has fought against them so long and so persistently--even in this book one must always remember that he is face to face with an enemy of which we ,english have no real conception--that he is at times almost unnerved by the fear that he too may be made an authority and a rule4 ,i do not think that this ultimate hesitation1 if understood rightly1 diminishes in any way from the interest of his writings3 but it does suggest that there may be awaiting him a certain paralysis of endeavour4 ,there is indeed no absolute truth of which we need take account other than the living personality1 and absolute truths are valuable only in so far as they are seen to be necessary manifestations of this mysterious reality4 ,nevertheless it is in the nature of man1 if not to live by absolute truths1 at least to live by enunciating them2 and to hesitate to satisfy this imperious need is to have resigned a certain measure of one's own creative strength4 ,we may trust to the men of insight who will follow us to read our dogmatisms1 our momentary angers1 and our unshakable convictions1 in terms of our personalities1 if these shall be found worthy of their curiosity or their love4 ,and it seems to me that ,shestov would have gained in strength if he could have more firmly believed that there would surely be other ,shestovs who would read him according to his own intention4 ,but this1 ,i also know1 is a counsel of perfection3 the courage which he has not would not have been acquired by any intellectual process1 and its possession would have deprived him of the courage which he has4 ,as dogmatism in ,russia enjoys a supremacy of which we can hardly form an idea1 so a continual challenge to its claims demands in the challenger a courage which it is hard for us rightly to appreciate4 ,i have not written this foreword in order to prejudice the issue4 ,shestov will1 no doubt1 be judged by ,english readers according to ,english standards1 and ,i wish no more than to suggest that his greatest quality is one which has become rare among us1 and that his peculiarities are due to ,russian conditions which have long since ceased to obtain in ,england4 ,the ,russians have much to teach us1 and the only way we shall learn1 or even know1 what we should accept and what reject1 is to take count as much as we can of the ,russian realities4 ,and the first of these and the last is that in ,russia the things of the spirit are held in honour above all others4 ,because of this the ,russian soul is tormented by problems to which we have long been dead1 and to which we need to be alive again4 ,j4 ,m4 ,m4 ,postscript4--,leon ,shestov is fifty years old4 ,he was born at ,kiev1 and studied at the university there4 ,his first book was written in #ahih4 ,as a writer of small production1 he has made his way to recognition slowly3 but now he occupies a sure position as one of the most delicate and individual of modern ,russian critics4 ,the essays contained in this volume are taken from the fourth and fifth works in the following list3-- #ahih4 ,shakespeare and his ,critic1 ,brandes4 #aijj4 ,good in the teaching of ,dostoevsky and ,nietzsche3 ,philosophy and ,preaching4 #aijc4 ,dostoevsky and ,nietzsche3 ,the ,philosophy of ,tragedy4 #aije4 ,the ,apotheosis of ,groundlessness3 ,an ,essay on ,dogmatism4 #aijh4 ,beginnings and ,ends4 #aiab4 ,great ,vigils4 ,,anton ,,tchekhov 7,,creation ,,from ,,the ,,void7 ,rsigne-toi1 mon cur1 dors ton sommeil de brute4 7,,charles ,,baudelaire47 ,i ,tchekhov is dead2 therefore we may now speak freely of him4 ,for to speak of an artist means to disentangle and reveal the 'tendency' hidden in his works1 an operation not always permissible when the subject is still living4 ,certainly he had a reason for hiding himself1 and of course the reason was serious and important4 ,i believe many felt it1 and that it was partly on this account that we have as yet had no proper appreciation of ,tchekhov4 ,hitherto in analysing his works the critics have confined themselves to common-place and clich4 ,of course they knew they were wrong2 but anything is better than to extort the truth from a living person4 ,mihailovsky alone attempted to approach closer to the source of ,tchekhov's creation1 and as everybody knows1 turned away from it with aversion and even with disgust4 ,here1 by the way1 the deceased critic might have convinced himself once again of the extravagance of the so-called theory of 'art for art's sake4' ,every artist has his definite task1 his life's work1 to which he devotes all his forces4 ,a tendency is absurd when it endeavours to take the place of talent1 and to cover impotence and lack of content1 or when it is borrowed from the stock of ideas which happen to be in demand at the moment4 ',i defend ideals1 therefore every one must give me his sympathies4' ,such pretences we often see made in literature1 and the notorious controversy concerning 'art for art's sake' was evidently maintained upon the double meaning given to the word 'tendency' by its opponents4 ,some wished to believe that a writer can be saved by the nobility of his tendency2 others feared that a tendency would bind them to the performance of alien tasks4 ,much ado about nothing3 ready-made ideas will never endow mediocrity with talent2 on the contrary1 an original writer will at all costs set himself his own task4 ,and ,tchekhov had his own business1 though there were critics who said that he was the servant of art for its own sake1 and even compared him to a bird1 carelessly flying4 ,to define his tendency in a word1 ,i would say that ,tchekhov was the poet of hopelessness4 ,stubbornly1 sadly1 monotonously1 during all the years of his literary activity1 nearly a quarter of a century long1 ,tchekhov was doing one thing alone3 by one means or another he was killing human hopes4 ,herein1 ,i hold1 lies the essence of his creation4 ,hitherto it has been little spoken of4 ,the reasons are quite intelligible4 ,in ordinary language what ,tchekhov was doing is called crime1 and is visited by condign punishment4 ,but how can a man of talent be punished8 ,even ,mihailovsky1 who more than once in his lifetime gave an example of merciless severity1 did not raise his hand against ,tchekhov4 ,he warned his readers and pointed out the 'evil fire' which he had noticed in ,tchekhov's eyes4 ,but he went no further4 ,tchekhov's immense talent overcame the strict and rigorous critic4 ,it may be1 however1 that ,mihailovsky's own position in literature had more than a little to do with the comparative mildness of his sentence4 ,the younger generation had listened to him uninterruptedly for thirty years1 and his word had been law4 ,but afterwards every one was bored with eternally repeating3 ',aristides is just1 ,aristides is right4' ,the younger generation began to desire to live and to speak in its own way1 and finally the old master was ostracised4 ,there is the same custom in literature as in ,terra del ,fuego4 ,the young1 growing men kill and eat the old4 ,mihailovsky struggled with all his might1 but he no longer felt the strength of conviction that comes from the sense of right4 ,inwardly1 he felt that the young were right1 not because they knew the truth--what truth did the economic materialists know8--but because they were young and had their lives before them4 ,the rising star shines always brighter than the setting1 and the old must of their own will yield themselves up to be devoured by the young4 ,mihailovsky felt this1 and perhaps it was this which undermined his former assurance and the firmness of his opinion of old4 ,true1 he was still like ,gretchen's mother in ,goethe3 he did not take rich gifts from chance without having previously consulted his confessor4 ,tchekhov's talent too was taken to the priest1 by whom it was evidently rejected as suspect2 but ,mihailovsky no longer had the courage to set himself against public opinion4 ,the younger generation prized ,tchekhov for his talent1 his immense talent1 and it was plain they would riot disown him4 ,what remained for ,mihailovsky ,he attempted1 as ,i say1 to warn them4 ,but no one listened to him1 and ,tchekhov became one of the most beloved of ,russian writers4 ,yet the just ,aristides was right this time too1 as he was right when he gave his warning against ,dostoevsky4 ,now that ,tchekhov is no more1 we may speak openly4 ,take ,tchekhov's stories1 each one separately1 or better still1 all together2 look at him at work4 ,he is constantly1 as it were1 in ambush1 to watch and waylay human hopes4 ,he will not miss a single one of them1 not one of them will escape its fate4 ,art1 science1 love1 inspiration1 ideals--choose out all the words with which humanity is wont1 or has been in the past1 to be consoled or to be amused--,tchekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and die4 ,and ,tchekhov himself faded1 withered and died before our eyes4 ,only his wonderful art did not die--his art to kill by a mere touch1 a breath1 a glance1 everything whereby men live and wherein they take their pride4 ,and in this art he was constantly perfecting himself1 and he attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in ,european literature4 ,maupassant often had to strain every effort to overcome his victim4 ,the victim often escaped from ,maupassant1 though crushed and broken1 yet with his life4 ,in ,tchekhov's hands1 nothing escaped death4 ,,ii ,i must remind my reader1 though it is a matter of general knowledge1 that in his earlier work ,tchekhov is most unlike the ,tchekhov to whom we became accustomed in late years4 ,the young ,tchekhov is gay and careless1 perhaps even like a flying bird4 ,he published his work in the comic papers4 ,but in #ahhh and #ahhi1 when he was only twenty-seven and twenty-eight years old1 there appeared ,the ,tedious ,story and the drama ,ivanov1 two pieces of work which laid the foundations of a new creation4 ,obviously a sharp and sudden change had taken place in him1 which was completely reflected in his works4 ,there is no detailed biography of ,tchekhov1 and probably will never be1 because there is no such thing as a full biography--,i1 at all events1 cannot name one4 ,generally biographies tell us everything except what it is important to know4 ,perhaps in the future it will be revealed to us with the fullest details who was ,tchekhov's tailor2 but we shall never know what happened to ,tchekhov in the time which elapsed between the completion of his story ,the ,steppe and the appearance of his first drama4 ,if we would know1 we must rely upon his works and our own insight4 ,ivanov and ,the ,tedious ,story seem to me the most autobiographical of all his works4 ,in them almost every line is a sob2 and it is hard to suppose that a man could sob so1 looking only at another's grief4 ,and it is plain that his grief is a new one1 unexpected as though it had fallen from the sky4 ,here it is1 it will endure for ever1 and he does not know how to fight against it4 ,in ,ivanov the hero compares himself to an overstrained labourer4 ,i do not believe we shall be mistaken if we apply this comparison to the author of the drama as well4 ,there can be practically no doubt that ,tchekhov had overstrained himself4 ,and the overstrain came not from hard and heavy labour2 no mighty overpowering exploit broke him3 he stumbled and fell1 he slipped4 ,there comes this nonsensical1 stupid1 all but invisible accident1 and the old ,tchekhov of gaiety and mirth is no more4 ,no more stories for ,the ,alarm ,clock4 ,instead1 a morose and overshadowed man1 a 'criminal' whose words frighten even the experienced and the omniscient4 ,if you desire it1 you can easily be rid of ,tchekhov and his work as well4 ,our language contains two magic words3 'pathological1' and its brother 'abnormal4' ,once ,tchekhov had overstrained himself1 you have a perfectly legal right1 sanctified by science and every tradition1 to leave him out of all account1 particularly seeing that he is already dead1 and therefore cannot be hurt by your neglect4 ,that is if you desire to be rid of ,tchekhov4 ,but if the desire is for some reason absent1 the words 'pathological' and 'abnormal' will have no effect upon you4 ,perhaps you will go further and attempt to find in ,tchekhov's experiences a criterion of the most irrefragable truths and axioms of this consciousness of ours4 ,there is no third way3 you must either renounce ,tchekhov1 or become his accomplice4 ,the hero of ,the ,tedious ,story is an old professor2 the hero of ,ivanov a young landlord4 ,but the theme of both works is the same4 ,the professor had overstrained himself1 and thereby cut himself off from his past life and from the possibility of taking an active part in human affairs4 ,ivanov also had overstrained himself and become a superfluous1 useless person4 ,had life been so arranged that death should supervene simultaneously with the loss of health1 strength and capacity1 then the old professor and young ,ivanov could not have lived for one single hour4 ,even a blind man could see that they are both broken and are unfit for life4 ,but for reasons unknown to us1 wise nature has rejected coincidence of this kind4 ,a man very often goes on living after he has completely lost the capacity of taking from life that wherein we are wont to see its essence and meaning4 ,more striking still1 a broken man is generally deprived of everything except the ability to acknowledge and feel his position4 ,nay1 for the most part in such cases the intellectual abilities are refined and sharpened and increased to colossal proportions4 ,it frequently happens that an average man1 banal and mediocre1 is changed beyond all recognition when he falls into the exceptional situation of ,ivanov or the old professor4 ,in him appear signs of a gift1 a talent1 even of genius4 ,nietzsche once asked3 ',can an ass be tragical8' ,he left his question unanswered1 but ,tolstoi answered for him in ,the ,death of ,ivan ,ilyich4 ,ivan ,ilyich1 it is evident from ,tolstoi's description of his life1 is a mediocre1 average character1 one of those men who pass through life avoiding anything that is difficult or problematical1 caring exclusively for the calm and pleasantness of earthly existence4 ,hardly had the cold wind of tragedy blown upon him1 than he was utterly transformed4 ,the story of ,ivan ,ilyich in his last days is as deeply interesting as the life-story of ,socrates or ,pascal4 ,in passing ,i would point out a fact which ,i consider of great importance4 ,in his work ,tchekhov was influenced by ,tolstoi1 and particularly by ,tolstoi's later writings4 ,it is important1 because thus a part of ,tchekhov's 'guilt' falls upon the great writer of the ,russian land4 ,i think that had there been no ,death of ,ivan ,ilyich1 there would have been no ,ivanov1 and no ,tedious ,story1 nor many others of ,tchekhov's most remarkable works4 ,but this by no means implies that ,tchekhov borrowed a single word from his great predecessor4 ,tchekhov had enough material of his own3 in that respect he needed no help4 ,but a young writer would hardly dare to come forward at his own risk with the thoughts that make the content of ,the ,tedious ,story4 ,when ,tolstoi wrote ,the ,death of ,ivan ,ilyich1 he had behind him ,war and ,peace1 ,anna ,karenina1 and the firmly established reputation of an artist of the highest rank4 ,all things were permitted to him4 ,but ,tchekhov was a young man1 whose literary baggage amounted in all to a few dozen tiny stories1 hidden in the pages of little known and uninfluential papers4 ,had ,tolstoi not paved the way1 had ,tolstoi not shown by his example1 that in literature it was permitted to tell the truth1 to tell everything1 then perhaps ,tchekhov would have had to struggle long with himself before finding the courage of a public confession1 even though it took the form of stories4 ,and even with ,tolstoi before him1 how terribly did ,tchekhov have to struggle with public opinion4 ',why does he write his horrible stories and plays8' every one asked himself4 ',why does the writer systematically choose for his heroes situations from which there is not1 and cannot possibly be1 any escape8' ,what can be said in answer to the endless complaints of the old professor and ,katy1 his pupil8 ,this means that there is1 essentially1 something to be said4 ,from times immemorial1 literature has accumulated a large and varied store of all kinds of general ideas and conceptions1 material and metaphysical1 to which the masters have recourse the moment the over-exacting and over-restless human voice begins to be heard4 ,this is exactly the point4 ,tchekhov himself1 a writer and an educated man1 refused in advance every possible consolation1 material or metaphysical4 ,not even in ,tolstoi1 who set no great store by philosophical systems1 will you find such keenly expressed disgust for every kind of conceptions and ideas as in ,tchekhov4 ,he is well aware that conceptions ought to be esteemed and respected1 and he reckons his inability to bend the knee before that which educated people consider holy as a defect against which he must struggle with all his strength4 ,and he does struggle with all his strength against this defect4 ,but not only is the struggle unavailing2 the longer ,tchekhov lives1 the weaker grows the power of lofty words over him1 in spite of his own reason and his conscious will4 ,finally1 he frees himself entirely from ideas of every kind1 and loses even the notion of connection between the happenings of life4 ,herein lies the most important and original characteristic of his creation4 ,anticipating a little1 ,i would here point to his comedy1 ,the ,sea-,gull1 where1 in defiance of all literary principles1 the basis of action appears to be not the logical development of passions1 or the inevitable connection between cause and effect1 but naked accident1 ostentatiously nude4 ,as one reads the play1 it seems at times that one has before one a copy of a newspaper with an endless series of news paragraphs1 heaped upon one another1 without order and without previous plan4 ,sovereign accident reigns everywhere and in everything1 this time boldly throwing the gauntlet to all conceptions4 ,in this1 ,i repeat1 is ,tchekhov's greatest originality1 and this1 strangely enough1 is the source of his most bitter experiences4 ,he did not want to be original2 he made super-human efforts to be like everybody else3 but there is no escaping one's destiny4 ,how many men1 above all among writers1 wear their fingers to the bone in the effort to be unlike others1 and yet they cannot shake themselves free of clich--yet ,tchekhov was original against his will6 ,evidently originality does not depend upon the readiness to proclaim revolutionary opinions at all costs4 ,the newest and boldest idea may and often does appear tedious and vulgar4 ,in order to become original1 instead of inventing an idea1 one must achieve a difficult and painful labour2 and1 since men avoid labour and suffering1 the really new is for the most part born in man against his will4 ,,iii ',a man cannot reconcile himself to the accomplished fact2 neither can he refuse so to reconcile himself3 and there is no third course4 ,under such conditions action is impossible4 ,he can only fall down and weep and beat his head against the floor4' ,so ,tchekhov speaks of one of his heroes2 but he might say the same of them all1 without exception4 ,the author takes care to put them in such a situation that only one thing is left for them1--to fall down and beat their heads against the floor4 ,with strange1 mysterious obstinacy they refuse all the accepted means of salvation4 ,nicolai ,stepanovich1 the old professor in ,the ,tedious ,story1 might have attempted to forget himself for a while or to console himself with memories of the past4 ,but memories only irritate him4 ,he was once an eminent scholar3 now he cannot work4 ,once he was able to hold the attention of his audience for two hours on end2 now he cannot do it even for a quarter of an hour4 ,he used to have friends and comrades1 he used to love his pupils and assistants1 his wife and children2 now he cannot concern himself with any one4 ,if people do arouse any feelings at all within him1 then they are only feelings of hatred1 malice and envy4 ,he has to confess it to himself with the truthfulness which came to him--he knows not why nor whence--in place of the old diplomatic skill1 possessed by all clever and normal men1 whereby he saw and said only that which makes for decent human relations and healthy states of mind4 ,now everything which he sees or thinks only serves to poison1 in himself and others1 the few joys which adorn human life4 ,with a certainty which he never attained on the best days and hours of his old theoretical research1 he feels that he is become a criminal1 having committed no crime4 ,all that he was engaged in before was good1 necessary1 and useful4 ,he tells you of his past1 and you can see that he was always right and ready at any moment of the day or the night to answer the severest judge who should examine not only his actions1 but his thoughts as well4 ,now not only would an outsider condemn him1 he condemns himself4 ,he confesses openly that he is all compact of envy and hatred4 ',the best and most sacred right of kings1' he says1 'is the right to pardon4 ,and ,i have always felt myself a king so long as ,i used this right prodigally4 ,i never judged1 ,i was compassionate1 ,i pardoned every one right and left4444 ,but now ,i am king no more4 ,there's something going on in me which belongs only to slaves4 ,day and night evil thoughts roam about in my head1 and feelings which ,i never knew before have made their home in my soul4 ,i hate and despise2 ,i'm exasperated1 disturbed1 and afraid4 ,i've become strict beyond measure1 exacting1 unkind and suspicious4444 ,what does it all mean8 ,if my new thoughts and feelings come from a change of my convictions1 where could the change come from8 ,has the world grown worse and ,i better1 or was ,i blind and indifferent before8 ,but if the change is due to the general decline of my physical and mental powers--,i am sick and losing weight every day--then ,i am in a pitiable position4 ,it means that my new thoughts are abnormal and unhealthy1 that ,i must be ashamed of them and consider them valueless4444 ,the question is asked by the old professor on the point of death1 and in his person by ,tchekhov himself4 ,which is better1 to be a king1 or an old1 envious1 malicious 'toad1' as he calls himself elsewhere8 ,there is no denying the originality of the question4 ,in the words above you feel the price which ,tchekhov had to pay for his originality1 and with how great joy he would have exchanged all his original thoughts--at the moment when his 'new' point of view had become clear to him--for the most ordinary1 banal capacity for benevolence4 ,he has1 no doubt felt that his way of thinking is pitiable1 shameful and disgusting4 ,his moods revolt him no less than his appearance1 which he describes in the following lines3 '444 ,i am a man of sixty-two1 with a bald head1 false teeth and an incurable tic4 ,my name is as brilliant and prepossessing1 as ,i myself am dull and ugly4 ,my head and hands tremble from weakness2 my neck1 like that of one of ,turgeniev's heroines1 resembles the handle of a counter-bass2 my chest is hollow and my back narrow4 ,when ,i speak or read my mouth twists1 and when ,i smile my whole face is covered with senile1 deathly wrinkles4' ,unpleasant face1 unpleasant moods6 ,let the most sweet natures and compassionate person but give a side-glance at such a monster1 and despite himself a cruel thought would awaken in him3 that he should lose no time in killing1 in utterly destroying this pitiful and disgusting vermin1 or if the laws forbid recourse to such strong measures1 at least in hiding him as far as possible from human eyes1 in some prison or hospital or asylum4 ,these are measures of suppression sanctioned1 ,i believe1 not only by legislation1 but by eternal morality as well4 ,but here you encounter resistance of a particular kind4 ,physical strength to struggle with the warders1 executioners1 attendants1 moralists--the old professor has none2 a little child could knock him down4 ,persuasion and prayer1 he knows well1 will avail him nothing4 ,so he strikes out in despair3 he begins to cry over all the world in a terrible1 wild1 heartrending voice about some rights of his3 '444 ,i have a passionate and hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud4 ,i want to cry out that fate has doomed me1 a famous man1 to death2 that in some six months here in the auditorium another will be master4 ,i want to cry out that ,i am poisoned2 that new ideas that ,i did not know before have poisoned the last days of my life1 and sting my brain incessantly like mosquitoes4 ,at that moment my position seems so terrible to me that ,i want all my students to be terrified1 to jump from their seats and rush panic-stricken to the door1 shrieking in despair4' ,the professor's arguments will hardly move any one4 ,indeed ,i do not know if there is any argument in those words4 ,but this awful1 inhuman moan4444 ,imagine the picture3 a bald1 ugly old man1 with trembling hands1 and twisted mouth1 and skinny neck1 eyes mad with fear1 wallowing like a beast on the ground and wailing1 wailing1 wailing4444 ,what does he want8 ,he had lived a long and interesting life2 now he had only to round it off nicely1 with all possible calm1 quietly and solemnly to take leave of this earthly existence4 ,instead he rends himself1 and flings himself about1 calls almost the whole universe to judgment1 and clutches convulsively at the few days left to him4 ,and ,tchekhov--what did ,tchekhov do8 ,instead of passing by on the other side1 he supports the prodigious monster1 devotes pages and pages to the 'experiences of his soul1' and gradually brings the reader to a point at which1 instead of a natural and lawful sense of indignation1 unprofitable and dangerous sympathies for the decomposing1 decaying creature are awakened in his heart4 ,but every one knows that it is impossible to help the professor2 and if it is impossible to help1 then it follows we must forget4 ,that is as plain as a b c4 ,what use or what meaning could there be in the endless picturing--daubing1 as ,tolstoi would say--of the intolerable pains of the agony which inevitably leads to death8 ,if the professor's 'new' thoughts and feelings shone bright with beauty1 nobility or heroism1 the case would be different4 ,the reader could learn something from it4 ,but ,tchekhov's story shows that these qualities belonged to his hero's old thoughts4 ,now that his illness has begun1 there has sprung up within him a revulsion from everything which even remotely resembles a lofty feeling4 ,when his pupil ,katy turns to him for advice what she should do1 the famous scholar1 the friend of ,pirogov1 ,kavelin and ,nekrassov1 who had taught so many generations of young men1 does not know what to answer4 ,absurdly he chooses from his memory a whole series of pleasant-sounding words2 but they have lost all meaning for him4 ,what answer shall he give8 he asks himself4 ',it is easy to say1 ,work1 or divide your property among the poor1 or know yourself1 and because it is easy1 ,i do not know what to answer4' ,katy1 still young1 healthy and beautiful1 has by ,tchekhov's offices fallen like the professor into a trap from which no human power can deliver her4 ,from the moment that she knew hopelessness1 she had won all the author's sympathy4 ,while a person is settled to some work1 while he has a future of some kind before him1 ,tchekhov is utterly indifferent to him4 ,if he does describe him1 then he usually does it hastily and in a tone of scornful irony4 ,but when he is entangled1 and so entangled that he cannot be disentangled by any means1 then ,tchekhov begins to wake up4 ,colour1 energy1 creative force1 inspiration make their appearance4 ,therein perhaps lies the secret of his political indifferentism4 ,notwithstanding all his distrust of projects for a brighter future1 ,tchekhov like ,dostoevsky was evidently not wholly convinced that social reforms and social science were important4 ,however difficult the social question may be1 still it may be solved4 ,some day1 perhaps people will so arrange themselves on the earth as to live and die without suffering3 further than that ideal humanity cannot go4 ,perhaps the authors of stout volumes on ,progress do guess and foresee something4 ,but just for that reason their work is alien to ,tchekhov4 ,at first by instinct1 then consciously1 he was attracted to problems which are by essence insoluble like that presented in ,the ,tedious ,story3 there you have helplessness1 sickness1 the prospect of inevitable death1 and no hope whatever to change the situation by a hair4 ,this infatuation1 whether conscious or instinctive1 clearly runs counter to the demands of common sense and normal will4 ,but there is nothing else to expect from ,tchekhov1 an overstrained man4 ,every one knows1 or has heard1 of hopelessness4 ,on every side1 before our very eyes1 are happening terrible and intolerable tragedies1 and if every doomed man were to raise such an awful alarm about his destruction as ,nicolai ,stepanovich1 life would become an inferno2 ,nicolai ,stepanovich must not cry his sufferings aloud over the world1 but be careful to trouble people as little as possible4 ,and ,tchekhov should have assisted this reputable endeavour by every means in his power4 ,as though there were not thousands of tedious stories in the world--they cannot be counted6 ,and above all stories of the kind that ,tchekhov tells should be hidden with special care from human eyes4 ,we have here to do with the decomposition of a living organism4 ,what should we say to a man who would prevent corpses from being buried1 and would dig decaying bodies from the grave1 even though it were on the ground1 or rather on the pretext1 that they were the bodies of his intimate friends1 even famous men of reputation and genius8 ,such an occupation would rouse in a normal and healthy mind nothing but disgust and terror4 ,once upon a time1 according to popular superstition1 sorcerers1 necromancers and wizards kept company with the dead1 and found a certain pleasure or even a real satisfaction in that ghastly occupation4 ,but they generally hid themselves away from mankind in forests and caves1 or betook themselves to deserts where they might in isolation surrender themselves to their unnatural inclinations2 and if their deeds were eventually brought to light1 healthy men requited them with the stake1 the gallows1 and the rack4 ,the worst kind of that which is called evil1 as a rule1 had for its source and origin an interest and taste for carrion4 ,man forgave every crime--cruelty1 violence1 murder2 but he never forgave the unmotived love of death and the seeking of its secret4 ,in this matter modern times1 being free from prejudices1 have advanced little from the ,middle ,ages4 ,perhaps the only difference is that we1 engaged in practical affairs1 have lost the natural flair for good and evil4 ,theoretically we are even convinced that in our time there are not and cannot be wizards and necromancers4 ,our confidence and carelessness in this reached such a point1 that almost everybody saw even in ,dostoevsky only an artist and a publicist1 and seriously discussed with him whether the ,russian peasant needed to be flogged and whether we ought to lay hands on ,constantinople4 ,mihailovsky alone vaguely conjectured what it all might be when he called the author of ,the ,brothers ,karamazov a 'treasure-digger4' ,i say he 'dimly conjectured1 because ,i think that the deceased critic made the remark partly in allegory1 even in joke4 ,but none of ,dostoevsky's other critics made1 even by accident1 a truer slip of the pen4 ,tchekhov1 too1 was a 'treasure-digger1' a sorcerer1 a necromancer1 an adept in the black art2 and this explains his singular infatuation for death1 decay and hopelessness4 ,tchekhov was not of course the only writer to make death the subject of his works4 ,but not the theme is important but the manner of its treatment4 ,tchekhov understands that4 ',in all the thoughts1 feelings1 and ideas1' he says1 'which ,i form about anything1 there is wanting the something universal which could bind all these together in one whole4 ,each feeling and each thought lives detached in me1 and in all my opinions about science1 the theatre1 literature1 and my pupils1 and in all the little pictures which my imagination paints1 not even the most cunning analyst will discover what is called the general idea1 or the god of the living man4 ,and if this is not there1 then nothing is there4 ,in poverty such as this1 a serious infirmity1 fear of death1 influence of circumstances and people would have been enough to over-throw and shatter all that ,i formerly considered as my conception of the world1 and all wherein ,i saw the meaning and joy of my life4444' ,in these words one of the 'newest' of ,tchekhov's ideas finds expression1 one by which the whole of his subsequent creation is defined4 ,it is expressed in a modest1 apologetic form3 a man confesses that he is unable to subordinate his thoughts to a higher idea1 and in that inability he sees his weakness4 ,this was enough to avert from him to some extent the thunders of criticism and the judgment of public opinion4 ,we readily forgive the repentant sinner6 ,but it is an unprofitable clemency3 to expiate one's guilt1 it is not enough to confess it4 ,what was the good of ,tchekhov's putting on sackcloth2 and ashes and publicly confessing his guilt1 if he was inwardly unchanged8 ,if1 while his words acknowledged the general idea as god 7without a capital1 indeed71 he did nothing whatever for it8 ,in words he burns incense to god1 in deed he curses him4 ,before his disease a conception of the world brought him happiness1 now it had shattered into fragments4 ,is it not natural to ask whether the conception actually did ever bring him happiness8 ,perhaps the happiness had its own independent origin1 and the conception was invited only as a general to a wedding1 for outward show1 and never played any essential part4 ,tchekhov tells us circumstantially what joys the professor found in his scientific work1 his lectures to the students1 his family1 and in a good dinner4 ,in all these were present together the conception of the world and the idea1 and they did not take away from1 but as it were embellished life2 so that it seemed that he was working for the ideal1 as well as creating a family and dining4 ,but now1 when for the same ideal's sake he has to remain inactive1 to suffer1 to remain awake of nights1 to swallow with effort food that has become loathsome to him--the conception of the world is shattered into fragments6 ,and it amounts to this1 that a conception with a dinner is right1 and a dinner without a conception equally right--this needs no argument--and a conception an und fr sich is of no value whatever4 ,here is the essence of the words quoted from ,tchekhov4 ,he confesses with horror the presence within him of that 'new' idea4 ,it seems to him that he alone of all men is so weak and insignificant1 that the others 444 well1 they need only ideals and conceptions4 ,and so it is1 surely1 if we may believe what people write in books4 ,tchekhov plagues1 tortures and worries himself in every possible way1 but he can alter nothing2 nay worse1 conceptions and ideas1 towards which a great many people behave quite carelessly--after all1 these innocent things do not merit any other attitude--in ,tchekhov become the objects of bitter1 inexorable1 and merciless hatred4 ,he cannot free himself at one single stroke from the power of ideas3 therefore he begins a long1 slow and stubborn war1 ,i would call it a guerilla war1 against the tyrant who had enslaved him4 ,the whole history and the separate episodes of his struggle are of absorbing interest1 because the most conspicuous representatives of literature have hitherto been convinced that ideas have a magical power4 ,what are the majority of writers doing but constructing conceptions of the world--and believing that they are engaged in a work of extraordinary importance and sanctity8 ,tchekhov offended very many literary men4 ,if his punishment was comparatively slight1 that was because he was very cautious1 and waged war with the air of bringing tribute to the enemy1 and secondly1 because to talent much is forgiven4 ,,iv ,the content of ,the ,tedious ,story thus reduces to the fact that the professor1 expressing his 'new' thoughts1 in essence declares that he finds it impossible to acknowledge the power of the 'idea' over himself1 or conscientiously to fulfil that which men consider the supreme purpose1 and in the service whereof they see the mission1 the sacred mission of man4 ',god be my judge1 ,i haven't courage enough to act according to my conscience1' such is the only answer which ,tchekhov finds in his soul to all demands for a 'conception4' ,this attitude towards 'conceptions' becomes second nature with ,tchekhov4 ,a conception makes demands2 a man acknowledges the justice of these demands and methodically satisfies none of them4 ,moreover1 the justice of the demands meets with less and less acknowledgment from him4 ,in ,the ,tedious ,story the idea still judges the man and tortures him with the mercilessness peculiar to all things inanimate4 ,exactly like a splinter stuck into a living body1 the idea1 alien and hostile1 mercilessly performs its high mission1 until at length the man firmly resolves to draw the splinter out of his flesh1 however painful that difficult operation may be4 ,in ,ivanov the rle of the idea is already changed4 ,there not the idea persecutes ,tchekhov1 but ,tchekhov the idea1 and with the subtlest division and contempt4 ,the voice of the living nature rises above the artificial habits of civilisation4 ,true1 the struggle still continues1 if you will1 with alternating fortunes4 ,but the old humility is no more4 ,more and more ,tchekhov emancipates himself from old prejudices and goes--he himself could hardly say whither1 were he asked4 ,but he prefers to remain without an answer1 rather than to accept any of the traditional answers4 ',i know quite well ,i have no more than six months to live2 and it would seem that now ,i ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the darkness beyond the grave1 and the visions which will visit my sleep in the earth4 ,but somehow my soul is not curious of these questions1 though my mind grants every atom of their importance4' ,in contrast to the habits of the past1 reason is once more pushed out of the door with all due respect1 while its rights are handed over to the 'soul1' to the dark1 vague aspiration which ,tchekhov by instinct trusts more than the bright1 clear consciousness which beforehand determines the beyond1 now that he stands before the fatal pale which divides man from the eternal mystery4 ,is scientific philosophy indignant8 ,is ,tchekhov undermining its surest foundations8 ,but he is an overstrained1 abnormal man4 ,certainly you are not bound to listen to him2 but once you have decided to do so then you must be prepared for anything4 ,a normal person1 even though he be a metaphysician of the extremest ethereal brand1 always adjusts his theories to the requirements of the moment2 he destroys only to build up from the old material once more4 ,this is the reason why material never fails him4 ,obedient to the fundamental law of human nature1 long since noted and formulated by the wise1 he is content to confine himself to the modest part of a seeker after forms4 ,out of iron1 which he finds in nature ready to his hand1 he forges a sword or a plough1 a lance or a sickle4 ,the idea of creating out of a void hardly even enters his mind4 ,but ,tchekhov's heroes1 persons abnormal par excellence1 are faced with this abnormal and dreadful necessity4 ,before them always lies hopelessness1 helplessness1 the utter impossibility of any action whatsoever4 ,and yet they live on1 they do not die4 ,a strange question1 and one of extraordinary moment1 here suggests itself4 ,i said that it was foreign to human nature to create out of a void4 ,yet nature often deprives man of ready material1 while at the same time she demands imperatively that he should create4 ,does this mean that nature contradicts herself1 or that she perverts her creatures8 ,is it not more correct to admit that the conception of perversion is of purely human origin4 ,perhaps nature is much more economical and wise than our wisdom1 and maybe we should discover much more if instead of dividing people into necessary and superfluous1 useful and noxious1 good and bad1 we suppressed the tendency to subjective valuation in ourselves and endeavoured with greater confidence to accept her creations8 ,otherwise you come immediately--to 'the evil gleam1' 'treasure-digging1' sorcery and black magic--and a wall is raised between men which neither logical argument nor even a battery of artillery can break down4 ,i hardly dare hope that this consideration will appear convincing to those who are used to maintaining the norm2 and it is probably unnecessary that the notion of the great opposition of good and bad which is alive among men should die away1 just as it is unnecessary that children should be born with the experience of men1 or that red cheeks and curly hair should vanish from the earth4 ,at any rate it is impossible4 ,the world has many centuries to its reckoning1 many nations have lived and died upon the earth1 yet as far as we know from the books and traditions that have survived to us1 the dispute between good and evil was never hushed4 ,and it always so happened that good was not afraid of the light of day1 and good men lived a united1 social life2 while evil hid itself in darkness1 and the wicked always stood alone4 ,nor could it have been otherwise4 ,all ,tchekhov's heroes fear the light4 ,they are lonely4 ,they are ashamed of their hopelessness1 and they know that men cannot help them4 ,they go somewhere1 perhaps even forward1 but they call to no one to follow4 ,all things are taken from them3 they must create everything anew4 ,thence most probably is derived the unconcealed contempt with which they behave to the most precious products of common human creativeness4 ,on whatever subject you begin to talk with a ,tchekhov hero he has one reply to everything3 ,nobody can teach me anything4 ,you offer him a new conception of the world3 already in your very first words he feels that they all reduce to an attempt to lay the old bricks and stones over again1 and he turns from you with impatience1 and often with rudeness4 ,tchekhov is an extremely cautious writer4 ,he fears and takes into account public opinion4 ,yet how unconcealed is the aversion he displays to accepted ideas and conceptions of the world4 ,in ,the ,tedious ,story1 he at any rate preserves the tone and attitude of outward obedience4 ,later he throws aside all precautions1 and instead of reproaching himself for his inability to submit to the general idea1 openly rebels against it and jeers at it4 ,in ,ivanov it already is sufficiently expressed2 there was reason for the outburst of indignation which this play provoked in its day4 ,ivanov1 ,i have already said1 is a dead man4 ,the only thing the artist can do with him is to bury him decently1 that is1 to praise his past1 pity his present1 and then1 in order to mitigate the cheerless impression produced by death1 to invite the general idea to the funeral4 ,he might recall the universal problems of humanity in any one of the many stereotyped forms1 and thus the difficult case which seemed insoluble would be removed4 ,together with ,ivanov's death he should portray a bright young life1 full of promise1 and the impression of death and destruction would lose all its sting and bitterness4 ,tchekhov does just the opposite4 ,instead of endowing youth and ideals with power over destruction and death1 as all philosophical systems and many works of art had done1 he ostentatiously makes the good-for-nothing wreck ,ivanov the centre of all events4 ,side by side with ,ivanov there are young lives1 and the idea is also given her representatives4 ,but the young ,sasha1 a wonderful and charming girl1 who falls utterly in love with the broken hero1 not only does not save her lover1 but herself perishes under the burden of the impossible task4 ,and the idea8 ,it is enough to recall the figure of ,doctor ,lvov alone1 whom ,tchekhov entrusted with the responsible rle of a representative of the all-powerful idea1 and you will at once perceive that he considers himself not as subject and vassal1 but as the bitterest enemy of the idea4 ,the moment ,doctor ,lvov opens his mouth1 all the characters1 as though acting on a previous agreement1 vie with each other in their haste to interrupt him in the most insulting way1 by jests1 threats1 and almost by smacks in the face4 ,but the doctor fulfils his duties as a representative of the great power with no less skill and conscientiousness than his predecessors--,starodoum#a and the other reputable heroes of the old drama4 ,he champions the wronged1 seeks to restore rights that have been trodden underfoot1 sets himself dead against injustice4 ,has he stepped beyond the limits of his plenipotentiary powers8 ,of course not2 but where ,ivanovs and hopelessness reign there is not and cannot be room for the idea4 ,they cannot possibly live together4 ,and the eyes of the reader1 who is accustomed to think that every kingdom may fall and perish1 yet the kingdom of the idea stands firm in saecula saeculorum1 behold a spectacle unheard of3 the idea dethroned by a helpless1 broken1 good-for-nothing man6 ,what is there that ,ivanov does not say8 ,in the very first act he fires off a tremendous tirade1 not at a chance comer1 but at the incarnate idea--,starodoum-,lvov4 ',i have the right to give you advice4 ,don't you marry a ,jewess1 or an abnormal1 or a blue-stocking4 ,choose something ordinary1 greyish1 without any bright colours or superfluous shades4 ,make it a principle to build your life of clichs4 ,the more grey and monotonous the background1 the better4 ,my dear man1 don't fight thousands single-handed1 don't tilt at windmills1 don't run your head against the wall4 ,god save you from all kinds of ,back-to-the-,landers' advanced doctrines1 passionate speeches4444 ,shut yourself tight in your own shell1 and do the tiny little work set you by ,god4444 ,it's cosier1 honester1 and healthier4' ,doctor ,lvov1 the representative of the all-powerful1 sovereign idea1 feels that his sovereign's majesty is injured1 that to suffer such an offence really means to abdicate the throne4 ,surely ,ivanov was a vassal1 and so he must remain4 ,how dare he let his tongue advise1 how dare he raise his voice when it is his part to listen reverently1 and to obey in silent resignation8 ,this is rank rebellion6 ,lvov attempts to draw himself up to his full height and answer the arrogant rebel with dignity4 ,nothing comes of it4 ,in a weak1 trembling voice he mutters the accustomed words1 which but lately had invincible power4 ,but they do not produce their customary effect4 ,their virtue is departed4 ,whither8 ,lvov dares not own it even to himself4 ,but it is no longer a secret to any one4 ,whatever mean and ugly things ,ivanov may have done--,tchekhov is not close-fisted in this matter3 in his hero's conduct-book are written all manner of offences2 almost to the deliberate murder of a woman devoted to him--it is to him and not to ,lvov that public opinion bows4 ,ivanov is the spirit of destruction1 rude1 violent1 pitiless1 sticking at nothing3 yet the word 'scoundrel1' which the doctor tears out of himself with a painful effort and hurls at him1 does not stick to him4 ,he is somehow right1 with his own peculiar right1 to others inconceivable1 yet still1 if we may believe ,tchekhov1 incontestable4 ,sasha1 a creature of youth and insight and talent1 passes by the honest ,starodoum-,lvov unheeding1 on her way to render worship to him4 ,the whole play is based on that4 ,it is true1 ,ivanov in the end shoots himself1 and that may1 if you like1 give you a formal ground for believing that the final victory remained with ,lvov4 ,and ,tchekhov did well to end the drama in this way--it could not be spun out to infinity4 ,it would have been no easy matter to tell the whole of ,ivanov's history4 ,tchekhov went on writing for fifteen years after1 all the time telling the unfinished story1 yet even then he had to break it off without reaching the end4444 ,it would show small understanding of ,tchekhov to take it into one's head to interpret ,ivanov's words to ,lvov as meaning that ,tchekhov1 like the ,tolstoi of the ,war and ,peace period1 saw his ideal in the everyday arrangement of life4 ,tchekhov was only fighting against the idea1 and he said to it the most abusive thing that entered his head4 ,for what can be more insulting to the idea than to be forced to listen to the praise of everyday life8 ,but when the opportunity came his way1 ,tchekhov could describe everyday life with equal venom4 ,the story1 ,the ,teacher of ,literature1 may serve as an example4 ,the teacher lives entirely by ,ivanov's prescription4 ,he has his job1 and his wife--neither ,jewess nor abnormal1 nor blue-stocking--and a home that fits like a shell4442 but all this does not prevent ,tchekhov from driving the poor teacher by slow degrees into the usual trap1 and bringing him to a condition wherein it is left to him only 'to fall down and weep1 and beat his head against the floor4' ,tchekhov had no 'ideal1' not even the ideal of 'everyday life' which ,tolstoi glorified with such inimitable and incomparable mastery in his early works4 ,an ideal presupposes submission1 the voluntary denial of one's own right to independence1 freedom and power2 and demands of this kind1 even a hint of such demands1 roused in ,tchekhov all that force of disgust and repulsion of which he alone was capable4 ,footnote #a3 ,a hero from ,fon-,vizin's play ,the ,minor4 ,starodoum is a raisonneur1 a 'positive' type1 always uttering truisms4 ,v ,thus the real1 the only hero of ,tchekhov1 is the hopeless man4 ,he has absolutely no action left for him in life1 save to beat his head against the stones4 ,it is not surprising that such a man should be intolerable to his neighbours4 ,everywhere he brings death and destruction with him4 ,he himself is aware of it1 but he has not the power to go apart from men4 ,with all his soul he endeavours to tear himself out of his horrible condition4 ,above all he is attracted to fresh1 young1 untouched beings2 with their help he hopes to recover his right to life which he has lost4 ,the hope is vain4 ,the beginning of decay always appears1 all-conquering1 and at the end ,tchekhov's hero is left to himself alone4 ,he has nothing1 he must create everything for himself4 ,and this 'creation out of the void1' or more truly the possibility of this creation1 is the only problem which can occupy and inspire ,tchekhov4 ,when he has stripped his hero of the last shred1 when nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall1 ,tchekhov begins to feel something like satisfaction1 a strange fire lights in his burnt-out eyes1 a fire which ,mihailovsky did not call 'evil' in vain4 ,creation out of the void6 ,is not this task beyond the limit of human powers1 of human rights8 ,mihailovsky obviously had one straight answer to the question4444 ,as for ,tchekhov himself1 if the question were put to him in such a deliberately definite form1 he would probably be unable to answer1 although he was continually engaged in the activity1 or more properly1 because he was continually so engaged4 ,without fear of mistake1 one may say that the people who answer the question without hesitation in either sense have never come near to it1 or to any of the so-called ultimate questions of life4 ,hesitation is a necessary and integral element in the judgment of those men whom ,fate has brought near to false problems4 ,how ,tchekhov's hand trembled while he wrote the concluding lines of his ,tedious ,story6 ,the professor's pupil--the being nearest and dearest to him1 but like himself1 for all her youth1 overstrained and bereft of all hope--has come to ,kharkov to seek his advice4 ,the following conversation takes place3 ,nicolai ,stepanich6 she says1 growing pale and pressing her hands to her breast4 ,nicolai ,stepanich6 ,i can't go on like this any longer4 ,for ,god's sake tell me now1 immediately4 ,what shall ,i do8 ,tell me1 what shall ,i do8 ,what can ,i say8 ,i am beaten4 ,i can say nothing4 ,but tell me1 ,i implore you1 she continues1 out of breath and trembling all over her body4 ,i swear to you1 ,i can't go on like this any longer4 ,i haven't the strength4 ,she drops into a chair and begins to sob4 ,she throws her head back1 wrings her hands1 stamps with her feet2 her hat falls from her head and dangles by its string1 her hair is loosened4 ,help me1 help1 she implores4 ,i can't bear it any more4 ,there's nothing that ,i can say to you1 ,katy1 ,i say4 ,help me1 she sobs1 seizing my hand and kissing it4 ,you 're my father1 my only friend4 ,you're wise and learned1 and you've lived long ,i ,you were a teacher4 ,tell me what to do4 ',upon my conscience1 ,katy1 ,i do not know4 ',i am bewildered and surprised1 stirred by her sobbing1 and ,i can hardly stand upright4 ',let's have some breakfast1 ,katy1 ,i say with a constrained smile4 ',instantly ,i add in a sinking voice3 ,i shall be dead soon1 ,katy4444 ',only one word1 only one word1 she weeps and stretches out her hands to me4 ,what shall ,i do8444' ,but the professor has not the word to give4 ,he turns the conversation to the weather1 ,kharkov and other indifferent matters4 ,katy gets up and holds out her hand to him1 without looking at him4 ',i want to ask her1' he concludes his story4 ',so it means you won't be at my funeral8 ,but she does not look at me2 her hand is cold and like a stranger's 444 ,i escort her to the door in silence4444 ,she goes out of my room and walks down the long passage1 without looking back4 ,she knows that my eyes are following her1 and probably on the landing she will look back4 ,no1 she did not look back4 ,the black dress showed for the last time1 her steps were stilled4444 ,good-bye1 my treasure6444' ,the only answer which the wise1 educated1 long-lived ,nicolai ,stepanovich1 a teacher all his life1 can give to ,katy's question is1 ',i don't know4' ,there is not1 in all his great experience of the past1 a single method1 rule1 or suggestion1 which might apply1 even in the smallest degree1 to the wild incongruity of the new conditions of ,katy's life and his own4 ,katy can live thus no longer2 neither can he himself continue to endure his disgusting and shameful helplessness4 ,they both1 old and young1 with their whole hearts desire to support each other2 they can between them find no way4 ,to her question3 ',what shall ,i do8' he replied3 ',i shall soon be dead4' ,to his ',i shall soon be dead' she answers with wild sobbing1 wringing her hands1 and absurdly repeating the same words over and over again4 ,it would have been better to have asked no question1 not to have begun that frank conversation of souls4 ,but they do not yet understand that4 ,in their old life talk would bring them relief and frank confession1 intimacy4 ,but now1 after such a meeting they can suffer each other no longer4 ,katy leaves the old professor1 her foster-father1 her true father and friend1 in the knowledge that he has become a stranger to her4 ,she did not even turn round towards him as she went away4 ,both felt that nothing remained save to beat their heads against the wall4 ,therein each acts at his own peril1 and there can be no dreaming of a consoling union of souls4 ,,vi ,tchekhov knew what conclusions he had reached in ,the ,tedious ,story and ,ivanov4 ,some of his critics also knew1 and told him so4 ,i cannot venture to say what was the cause--whether fear of public opinion1 or his horror at his own discoveries1 or both together--but evidently there came a moment to ,tchekhov when he decided at all costs to surrender his position and retreat4 ,the fruit of this decision was ,ward ,no4 #f4 ,in this story the hero of the drama is the same familiar ,tchekhov character1 the doctor4 ,the setting1 too1 is quite the usual one1 though changed to a slight extent4 ,nothing in particular has occurred in the doctor's life4 ,he happened to come to an out-of-the-way place in the provinces1 and gradually1 by continually avoiding life and people1 he reached a condition of utter will-lessness1 which he represented to himself as the ideal of human happiness4 ,he is indifferent to everything1 beginning with his hospital1 where he can hardly ever be found1 where under the reign of the drunken brute of an assistant the patients are swindled and neglected4 ,in the mental ward reigns a porter who is a discharged soldier3 he punches his restless patients into shape4 ,the doctor does not care1 as though he were living in some distant other world1 and does not understand what is going on before his very eyes4 ,he happens to enter his ward and to have a conversation with one of his patients4 ,he listens quietly to him2 but his answer is words instead of deeds4 ,he tries to show his lunatic acquaintance that external influences cannot affect us in any way at all4 ,the lunatic does not agree1 becomes impertinent1 presents objections1 in which1 as in the thoughts of many lunatics1 nonsensical assertions are mixed with very profound remarks4 ,indeed1 there is so little nonsense that from the conversation you would hardly imagine that you have to do with a lunatic4 ,the doctor is delighted with his new friend1 but does nothing whatsoever to make him more comfortable4 ,the patient is still under the porter's thumb as he used to be1 and the porter gives him a thrashing on the least provocation4 ,the patient1 the doctor1 the people round1 the whole setting of the hospital and the doctor's rooms1 are described with wonderful talent4 ,everything induces you to make absolutely no resistance and to become fatalistically indifferent3--let them get drunk1 let them fight1 let them thieve1 let them be brutal--what does it matter6 ,evidently it is so predestined by the supreme council of nature4 ,the philosophy of inactivity which the doctor professes is as it were prompted and whispered by the immutable laws of human existence4 ,apparently there is no force which may tear one from its power4 ,so far everything is more or less in the ,tchekhov style4 ,but the end is completely different4 ,by the intrigues of his colleague1 the doctor himself is taken as a patient into the mental ward4 ,he is deprived of freedom1 shut up in a wing of the hospital1 and even thrashed1 thrashed by the same porter whose behaviour he had taught his lunatic acquaintance to accept1 thrashed before his acquaintance's very eyes4 ,the doctor instantly awakens as though out of a dream4 ,a fierce desire to struggle and to protest manifests itself in him4 ,true1 at this moment he dies2 but the idea is triumphant1 still4 ,the critics could consider themselves quite satisfied4 ,tchekhov had openly repented and renounced the theory of non-resistance2 and1 ,i believe1 ,ward ,no4 #f met with a sympathetic reception at the time4 ,in passing ,i would say that the doctor dies very beautifully3 in his last moments he sees a herd of deer4444 ,indeed1 the construction of this story leaves no doubt in the mind4 ,tchekhov wished to compromise1 and he compromised4 ,he had come to feel how intolerable was hopelessness1 how impossible the creation from a void4 ,to beat one's head against the stones1 eternally to beat one's head against the stones1 is so horrible that it were better to return to idealism4 ,then the truth of the wonderful ,russian saying was proved3 ',don't forswear the beggar's wallet nor the prison4' ,tchekhov joined the choir of ,russian writers1 and began to praise the idea4 ,but not for long4 ,his very next story1 ,the ,duel1 has a different character4 ,its conclusion is also apparently idealistic1 but only in appearance4 ,the principal hero ,layevsky is a parasite like all ,tchekhov's heroes4 ,he does nothing1 can do nothing1 does not even wish to do anything1 lives chiefly at others' expense1 runs up debts1 seduces women4444 ,his condition is intolerable4 ,he is living with another man's wife1 whom he had come to loathe as he loathes himself1 yet he cannot get rid of her4 ,he is always in straitened circumstances and in debt everywhere3 his friends dislike and despise him4 ,his state of mind is always such that he is ready to run no matter where1 never looking backwards1 only away from the place where he is living now4 ,his illegal wife is in roughly the same position1 unless it be even more horrible4 ,without knowing why1 without love1 without even being attracted1 she gives herself to the first1 commonplace man she meets2 and then she feels as though she had been covered from head to foot in filth1 and the filth had stuck so close to her that not ocean itself could wash her clean4 ,this couple lives in the world1 in a remote little place in the ,caucasus1 and naturally attracts ,tchekhov's attention4 ,there is no denying the interest of the subject3 two persons befouled1 who can neither tolerate others nor themselves4444 ,for contrast's sake ,tchekhov brings ,layevsky into collision with the zoologist1 ,von ,koren1 who has come to the seaside town on important business--every one recognises its importance--to study the embryology of the medusa4 ,von ,koren1 as one may see from his name1 is of ,german origin1 and therefore deliberately represented as a healthy1 normal1 clean man1 the grandchild of ,goncharov's ,stolz1 the direct opposite of ,layevsky1 who on his side is nearly related to our old friend ,oblomov4 ,but in ,goncharov the contrast between ,stolz and ,oblomov is quite different in nature and meaning to the contrast in ,tchekhov4 ,the novelist of the 'forties hoped that a rapprochement with ,western culture would renew and resuscitate ,russia4 ,and ,oblomov himself is not represented as an utterly hopeless person4 ,he is only lazy1 inactive1 unenterprising4 ,you have the feeling that were he to awaken he would be a match for a dozen ,stolzs4 ,layevsky is a different affair4 ,he is awake already1 he was awakened years ago1 but his awakening did him no good4444 ',he does not love nature2 he has no ,god2 he or his companions had ruined every trustful girl he had known2 all his life long he had not planted one single little tree1 nor grown one blade of grass in his own garden1 nor while he lived among the living1 had he saved the life of one single fly2 but only ruined and destroyed1 and lied1 and lied4444' ,the good-natured sluggard ,oblomov degenerated into a disgusting1 terrible animal1 while the clean ,stolz lived and remained clean in his posterity6 ,but to the new ,oblomov he speaks differently4 ,von ,koren calls ,layevsky a scoundrel and a rogue1 and demands that he should be punished with the utmost severity4 ,to reconcile them is impossible4 ,the more they meet1 the deeper1 the more merciless1 the more implacable is their hatred for each other4 ,it is impossible that they should live together on the earth4 ,it must be one or the other3 either the normal ,von ,koren1 or the degenerate decadent ,layevsky4 ,of course1 all the external1 material force is on ,von ,koren's side in the struggle4 ,he is always in the right1 always victorious1 always triumphant--in act no less than in theory4 ,it is curious that ,tchekhov1 the irreconcilable enemy of all kinds of philosophy--not one of his heroes philosophises1 or if he does1 his philosophising is unsuccessful1 ridiculous1 weak and unconvincing--makes an exception for ,von ,koren1 a typical representative of the positive1 materialistic school4 ,his words breathe vigour and conviction4 ,they have in them even pathos and a maximum of logical sequence4 ,there are many materialist heroes in ,tchekhov's stories1 but in their materialism there is a tinge of veiled idealism1 according to the stereotyped prescription of the 'sixties4 ,such heroes ,tchekhov ridicules and derides4 ,idealism of every kind1 whether open or concealed1 roused feelings of intolerable bitterness in ,tchekhov4 ,he found it more pleasant to listen to the merciless menaces of a downright materialist than to accept the dry-as-dust consolations of humanising idealism4 ,an invincible power is in the world1 crushing and crippling man--this is clear and even palpable4 ,the least indiscretion1 and the mightiest and the most insignificant alike fall victims to it4 ,one can only deceive oneself about it so long as one knows of it only by hearsay4 ,but the man who had once been in the iron claws of necessity loses for ever his taste for idealistic self-delusion4 ,no more does he diminish the enemy's power1 he will rather exaggerate it4 ,and the pure logical materialism which ,von ,koren professes gives the most complete expression of our dependence upon the elemental powers of nature4 ,von ,koren's speech has the stroke of a hammer1 and each blow strikes not ,layevsky but ,tchekhov himself on his wounds4 ,he gives more and more strength to ,von ,koren's arm1 he puts himself in the way of his blows4 ,for what reason8 ,decide as you may4 ,perhaps ,tchekhov cherished a secret hope that self-inflicted torment might be the one road to a new life8 ,he has not told us so4 ,perhaps he did not know the reason himself1 and perhaps he was afraid to offend the positive idealism which held such undisputed sway over contemporary literature4 ,as yet he dared not lift up his voice against the public opinion of ,europe--for we do not ourselves invent our philosophical conceptions2 they drift down on the wind from ,europe6 ,and1 to avoid quarrelling with people1 he devised a commonplace1 happy ending for his terrible story4 ,at the end of the story ,layevsky 'reforms'3 he marries his mistress2 gives up his dissolute life2 and begins to devote himself to transcribing documents1 in order to pay his debts4 ,normal people can be perfectly satisfied1 since normal people read only the last lines of the fable1--the moral2 and the moral of ,the ,duel is most wholesome3 ,layevsky reforms and begins transcribing documents4 ,of course it may seem that such an ending is more like a gibe at morality2 but normal people are not too penetrating psychologists4 ,they are scared of double meanings and1 with the 'sincerity' peculiar to themselves1 they take every word of the writer for good coin4 ,good luck to them6 ,,vii ,the only philosophy which ,tchekhov took seriously1 and therefore seriously fought1 was positivist materialism--just the positivist materialism1 the limited materialism which does not pretend to theoretical completeness4 ,with all his soul ,tchekhov felt the awful dependence of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and ostentatiously soulless laws of nature4 ,and materialism1 above all scientific materialism1 which is reserved and does not hasten in pursuit of the final word1 and eschews logical completeness1 wholly reduces to the definition of the external conditions of our existence4 ,the experience of every day1 every hour1 every minute1 convinces us that lonely and weak man brought to face with the laws of nature1 must always adapt himself and give way1 give way1 give way4 ,the old professor could not regain his youth2 the overstrained ,ivanov could not recover his strength2 ,layevsky could not wash away the filth with which he was covered--interminable series of implacable1 purely materialistic non possumus1 against which human genius can set nothing but submission or forgetfulness4 ,rsigne-toi1 mon cur1 dors ton sommeil de brute--we shall find no other words before the pictures which are unfolded in ,tchekhov's books4 ,the submission is but an outward show2 under it lies concealed a hard1 malignant hatred of the unknown enemy4 ,sleep and oblivion are only seeming4 ,does a man sleep1 does he forget1 when he calls his sleep1 sommeil de brute8 ,but how can he change8 ,the tempestuous protests with which ,the ,tedious ,story is filled1 the need to pour forth the pent-up indignation1 soon begin to appear useless1 and even insulting to human dignity4 ,tchekhov's last rebellious work is ,uncle ,vanya4 ,like the old professor and like ,ivanov1 ,uncle ,vanya raises the alarm and makes an incredible pother about his ruined life4 ,he1 too1 in a voice not his own1 fills the stage with his cries3 ',life is over1 life is over1'--as though indeed any of these about him1 any one in the whole world1 could be responsible for his misfortune4 ,but wailing and lamentation is not sufficient for him4 ,he covers his own mother with insults4 ,aimlessly1 like a lunatic1 without need or purpose1 he begins shooting at his imaginary enemy1 ,sonya's pitiable and unhappy father4 ,his voice is not enough1 he turns to the revolver4 ,he is ready to fire all the cannon on earth1 to beat every drum1 to ring every bell4 ,to him it seems that the whole of mankind1 the whole of the universe1 is sleeping1 that the neighbours must be awakened4 ,he is prepared for any extravagance1 having no rational way of escape2 for to confess at once that there is no escape is beyond the capacity of any man4 ,then begins a ,tchekhov history3 ',he cannot reconcile himself1 neither can he refuse so to reconcile himself4 ,he can only weep and beat his head against the wall4' ,uncle ,vanya does it openly1 before men's eyes2 but how painful to him is the memory of this frank unreserve6 ,when every one has departed after a stupid and painful scene1 ,uncle ,vanya realises that he should have kept silence1 that it is no use to confess certain things to any one1 not even to one's nearest friend4 ,a stranger's eye cannot endure the sight of hopelessness4 ',your life is over--you have yourself to thank for it3 you are a human being no more1 all human things are ah en to you4 ,your neighbours are no more neighbours to you1 but strangers4 ,you have no right either to help others or to expect help from them4 ,your destiny is--absolute loneliness4' ,little by little ,tchekhov becomes convinced of this truth3 ,uncle ,vanya is the last trial of loud public protest1 of a vigorous 'declaration of rights4' ,and even in this drama ,uncle ,vanya is the only one to rage1 although there are among the characters ,doctor ,astrov and poor ,sonya1 who might also avail themselves of their right to rage1 and even to fire the cannon4 ,but they are silent4 ,they even repeat certain comfortable and angelic words concerning the happy future of mankind2 which is to say that their silence is doubly deep1 seeing that 'comfortable words' upon the lips of such people are the evidence of their final severance from life3 they have left the whole world1 and now they admit no one to their presence4 ,they have fenced themselves with comfortable words1 as with the ,great ,wall of ,china1 from the curiosity and attention of their neighbours4 ,outwardly they resemble all men1 therefore no man dares to touch their inward life4 ,what is the meaning and significance of this straining inward labour in those whose lives are over8 ,probably ,tchekhov would answer this question as ,nicolai ,stepanovich answered ,katy's1 with ',i do not know4' ,he would add nothing4 ,but this life alone1 more like to death than life1 attracted and engaged him4 ,therefore his utterance grew softer and slower with every year4 ,of all our writers ,tchekhov has the softest voice4 ,all the energy of his heroes is turned inwards4 ,they create nothing visible2 worse1 they destroy all things visible by their outward passivity and inertia4 ,a 'positive thinker' like ,von ,koren brands them with terrible words1 and the more content is he with himself and his justice1 the more energy he puts into his anathemas4 ',scoundrels1 villains1 degenerates1 degraded animals6'--what did ,von ,koren not devise to fit the ,layevskys8 ,the manifestly positive thinker wants to force ,layevsky to transcribe documents4 ,the surreptitiously positive thinkers--idealists and metaphysicians--do not use abusive words4 ,instead they bury ,tchekhov's nerves alive in their idealistic cemeteries1 which are called conceptions of the world4 ,tchekhov himself abstains from the 'solution of the question' with a persistency to which most of the critics probably wished a better fate1 and he continues his long stories of men and the life of men1 who have nothing to lose1 as though the only interest in life were this nightmare suspension between life and death4 ,what does it teach us of life or death8 ,again we must answer3 ',i do not know1'--those words which arouse the greatest aversion in positive thinkers1 but appear in some mysterious way to be the permanent elements in the ideas of ,tchekhov's people4 ,this is the reason why the philosophy of materialism1 though so hostile1 is yet so near to them4 ,it contains no answer which can compel man to cheerful submission4 ,it bruises and destroys him1 but it does not call itself rational2 it does not demand gratitude2 it does not demand anything1 since it has neither soul nor speech4 ,a man may acknowledge it and hate it4 ,if he manages to get square with it--he is right2 if he fails--vae victis4 ,how comfortably sounds the voice of the unconcealed ruthlessness of inanimate1 impersonal1 indifferent nature1 compared with the hypocritical and cloying melodies of idealistic1 humanistic conceptions of the world6 ,then again--and this is the chiefest thing of all--men can struggle with nature still6 ,and in the struggle with nature every weapon is lawful4 ,in the struggle with nature man always remains man1 and1 therefore1 right1 whatever means he tries for his salvation1 even if he were to refuse to accept the fundamental principle of the world's being--the indestructibility of matter and energy1 the law of inertia and the rest--since who will dispute that the most colossal dead force must be subservient to man8 ,but a conception of the world is an utterly different affair6 ,before uttering a word it puts forward an irreducible demand3 man must serve the idea4 ,and this demand is considered not merely as something understood1 but as of extraordinary sublimity4 ,is it strange then that in the choice between idealism and materialism ,tchekhov inclined to the latter--the strong but honest adversary8 ,with idealism a man can struggle only by contempt1 and ,tchekhov's works leave nothing to be desired in this respect4444 ,but how shall a man struggle with materialism8 ,and can it be overcome8 ,perhaps ,tchekhov's method may seem strange to my reader1 nevertheless it is clear that he came to the conclusion that there was only one way to struggle1 to which the prophets of old turned themselves3 to beat one's head against the wall4 ,without thunder or cannon or alarm1 in loneliness and silence1 remote from their fellows and their fellows' fellows1 to gather all the forces of despair for an absurd attempt long since condemned by science4 ,have you any right to expect from ,tchekhov an approval of scientific methods8 ,science has robbed him of everything3 he is condemned to create from the void1 to an activity of which a normal man1 using normal means1 is utterly incapable4 ,to achieve the impossible one must first leave the road of routine4 ,however obstinately we may pursue our scientific quests1 they will not lead us to the elixir of life4 ,science began with casting away the longing for human omnipotence as in principle unattainable3 her methods are such that success along certain of her paths preclude even seeking along others4 ,in other words1 scientific method is defined by the character of the problems which she puts to herself4 ,indeed1 not one of her problems can be solved by beating one's head against the wall4 ,but this method1 old-fashioned though it is--,i repeat1 it was known to the prophets and used by them--promised more to ,tchekhov and his nerves than all inductions and deductions 7which were not invented by science1 but have existed since the beginning of the world74 ,this prompts a man with some mysterious instinct1 and appears upon the scene whenever the need of it arises4 ,science condemns it4 ,but that is nothing strange3 it condemns science4 ,,viii ,now perhaps the further development and direction of ,tchekhov's creation will be intelligible1 and that peculiar and unique blend in him of sober materialism and fanatical stubbornness in seeking new paths1 always round about and hazardous4 ,like ,hamlet1 he would dig beneath his opponent a mine one yard deeper1 so that he may at one moment blow engineer and engine into the air4 ,his patience and fortitude in this hard1 underground toil are amazing and to many intolerable4 ,everywhere is darkness1 not a ray1 not a spark1 but ,tchekhov goes forward1 slowly1 hardly1 hardly moving4444 ,an inexperienced or impatient eye will perhaps observe no movement at all4 ,it may be ,tchekhov himself does not know for certain whether he is moving forward or marking time4 ,to calculate beforehand is impossible4 ,impossible even to hope4 ,man has entered that stage of his existence wherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service4 ,it is impossible for him to present to himself a clear and distinct notion of what is going on4 ,everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity4 ,one believes and disbelieves--everything4 ,in ,the ,black ,monk ,tchekhov tells of a new reality1 and in a tone which suggests that he is himself at a loss to say where the reality ends and the phantasmagoria begins4 ,the black monk leads the young scholar into some mysterious remoteness1 where the best dreams of mankind shall be realised4 ,the people about call the monk a hallucination and fight him with medicines--drugs1 better foods and milk4 ,kovrin himself does not know who is right4 ,when he is speaking to the monk1 it seems to him that the monk is right2 when he sees before him his weeping wife and the serious1 anxious faces of the doctors1 he confesses that he is under the influence of fixed ideas1 which lead him straight to lunacy4 ,finally the black monk is victorious4 ,kovrin has not the power to support the banality which surrounds him2 he breaks with his wife and her relations1 who appear like inquisitors in his eyes1 and goes away somewhere--but in our sight he arrives nowhere4 ,at the end of the story he dies in order to give the author the right to make an end4 ,this is always the case3 when the author does not know what to do with his hero he kills him4 ,sooner or later in all probability this habit will be abandoned4 ,in the future1 probably1 writers will convince themselves and the public that any kind of artificial completion is absolutely superfluous4 ,the matter is exhausted--stop the tale short1 even though it be on a half-word4 ,tchekhov did so sometimes1 but only sometimes4 ,in most cases he preferred to satisfy the traditional demands and to supply his readers with an end4 ,this habit is not so unimportant as at first sight it may seem4 ,consider even ,the ,black ,monk4 ,the death of the hero is as it were an indication that abnormality must1 in ,tchekhov's opinion1 necessarily lead through an absurd life to an absurd death3 but this was hardly ,tchekhov's firm conviction4 ,it is clear that he expected something from abnormality1 and therefore gave no deep attention to men who had left the common track4 ,true1 he came to no firm or definite conclusions1 for all the tense effort of his creation4 ,he became so firmly convinced that there was no issue from the entangled labyrinth1 that the labyrinth with its infinite wanderings1 its perpetual hesitations and strayings1 its uncaused griefs and joys uncaused--in brief1 all things which normal men so fear and shun--became the very essence of his life4 ,of this and this alone must a man tell4 ,not of our invention is normal life1 nor abnormal4 ,why then should the first alone be considered as the real reality8 ,the ,sea-,gull must be considered one of the most characteristic1 and therefore one of the most remarkable of ,tchekhov's works4 ,therein the artist's true attitude to life received its most complete expression4 ,here all the characters are either blind1 and afraid to move from their seats in case they lose the way home1 or half-mad1 struggling and tossing about to no end nor purpose4 ,arkadzina the famous actress clings with her teeth to her seventy thousand roubles1 her fame1 and her last lover4 ,tregovin the famous writer writes day in1 day out2 he writes and writes1 knowing neither end nor aim4 ,people read his works and praise them1 but he is not his own master2 like ,marko1 the ferryman in the tale1 he labours on without taking his hand from the oar1 carrying passengers from one bank to the other4 ,the boat1 the passengers1 and the river too1 bore him to death4 ,but how can he get rid of them8 ,he might give the oars over to the first-comer3 the solution is simple1 but after it1 as in the tale1 he must go to heaven4 ,not ,tregovin alone1 but all the people in ,tchekhov's books who are no longer young remind one of ,marko the ferryman4 ,it is plain that they dislike their work1 but1 exactly as though they were hypnotised1 they cannot break away from the influence of the alien power4 ,the monotonous1 even dismal1 rhythm of life has lulled their consciousness and will to sleep4 ,everywhere ,tchekhov underlines this strange and mysterious trait of human life4 ,his people always speak1 always think1 always do one and the same thing4 ,one builds houses according to a plan made once for all 7,my ,life72 another goes on his round of visits from morn to night1 collecting roubles 7,yonitch72 a third is always buying up houses 7,three ,years74 ,even the language of his characters is deliberately monotonous4 ,they are all monotonous1 to the point of stupidity1 and they are all afraid to break the monotony1 as though it were the source of extraordinary joys4 ,read ,tregovin's monologue3 '444 ,let us talk4444 ,let us talk of my beautiful life4444 ,what shall ,i begin with8 ,musing a little4 444 ,there are such things as fixed ideas1 when a person thinks day and night1 for instance1 of the moon1 always of the moon4 ,i too have my moon4 ,day and night ,i am at the mercy of one besetting idea3 ,i must write1 ,i must write1 ,i must4 ,i have hardly finished one story than1 for some reason or other1 ,i must write a second1 then a third1 and after the third1 a fourth4 ,i write incessantly1 post-haste4 ,i cannot do otherwise4 ,where then1 ,i ask you1 is beauty and serenity8 ,what a monstrous life it is6 ,i am sitting with you now1 ,i am excited1 but meanwhile every second ,i remember that an unfinished story is waiting for me4 ,i see a cloud1 like a grand piano4 ,it smells of heliotrope4 ,i say to myself3 a sickly smell1 a half-mourning colour4444 ,i must not forget to use these words when describing a summer evening4 ,i catch up myself and you on every phrase1 on every word1 and hurry to lock all these words and phrases into my literary storehouse4 ,perhaps they will be useful4 ,when ,i finish work ,i run to the theatre1 or go off fishing3 at last ,i shall rest1 forget myself4 ,but no6 a heavy ball of iron is dragging on my fetters1--a new subject1 which draws me to the desk1 and ,i must make haste to write and write again4 ,and so on for ever1 for ever4 ,i have no rest from myself1 and ,i feel that ,i am eating away my own life4 ,i feel that the honey which ,i give to others has been made of the pollen of my most precious flowers1 that ,i have plucked the flowers themselves and trampled them down to the roots4 ,surely1 ,i am mad4 ,do my neighbours and friends treat me as a sane person8 ,what are you writing8 ,what have you got ready for us8 ,the same thing1 the same thing eternally1 and it seems to me that the attention1 the praise1 the enthusiasm of my friends is all a fraud4 ,i am being robbed like a sick man1 and sometimes ,i am afraid that they will creep up to me and seize me1 and put me away in an asylum4' ,but why these torments8 ,throw up the oars and begin a new life4 ,impossible4 ,while no answer comes down from heaven1 ,tregovin will not throw up the oars1 will not begin a new life4 ,in ,tchekhov's work1 only young1 very young and inexperienced people speak of a new life4 ,they are always dreaming of happiness1 regeneration1 light1 joy4 ,they fly head-long into the flame1 and are burned like silly butterflies4 ,in ,the ,sea-,gull1 ,nina ,zaryechnaya and ,trepliev1 in other works other heroes1 men and women alike--all are seeking for something1 yearning for something1 but not one of them does that which he desires4 ,each one lives in isolation2 each is wholly absorbed in his life1 and is indifferent to the lives of others4 ,and the strange fate of ,tchekhov's heroes is that they strain to the last limit of their inward powers1 but there are no visible results at all4 ,they are all pitiable4 ,the woman takes snuff1 dresses slovenly1 wears her hair loose1 is uninteresting4 ,the man is irritable1 grumbling1 takes to drink1 bores every one about him4 ,they act1 they speak--always out of season4 ,they cannot1 ,i would even say they do not want to1 adapt the outer world to themselves4 ,matter and energy unite according to their own laws2--people live according to their own1 as though matter and energy had no existence at all4 ,in this ,tchekhov's intellectuals do not differ from illiterate peasants and the half-educated bourgeois4 ,life in the manor is the same as in the valley farm1 the same as in the village4 ,not one believes that by changing his outward conditions he would change his fate as well4 ,everywhere reigns an unconscious but deep and ineradicable conviction that our will must be directed towards ends which have nothing in common with the organised life of mankind4 ,worse still1 the organisation appears to be the enemy of the will and of man4 ,one must spoil1 devour1 destroy1 ruin4 ,to think out things quietly1 to anticipate the future--that is impossible4 ,one must beat one's head1 beat one's head eternally against the wall4 ,and to what purpose8 ,is there any purpose at all8 ,is it a beginning or an end8 ,is it possible to see in it the warrant of a new and inhuman creation1 a creation out of the void8 ',i do not know' was the old professor's answer to ,katy4 ',i do not know' was ,tchekhov's answer to the sobs of those tormented unto death4 ,with these words1 and only these1 can an essay upon ,tchekhov end4 ,rsigne-toi1 mon cur1 dors ton sommeil de brute4 ,,the ,,gift ,,of ,,prophecy 7,for the twenty-fifth anniversary of ,f4 ,m4 ,dostoevsky's death47 ,i ,vladimir ,soloviev used to call ,dostoevsky 'the prophet1' and even 'the prophet of ,god4' ,immediately after ,soloviev1 though often in complete independence of him1 very many people looked upon ,dostoevsky as the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened2 and this happened not only after his death1 but even while he was yet alive4 ,apparently ,dostoevsky himself too1 if he did not regard himself as a prophet--he was too eagle-eyed for that--at least thought it right that all people should see a prophet in him4 ,to this bears witness the tone of ,the ,journal of an ,author1 no less than the questions upon which he generally touches therein4 ,the ,journal of an ,author began to appear in #ahgc1 that is on ,dostoevsky's return from abroad1 and therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest period of his life4' ,dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family1 a man of secure position1 a famous writer1 the author of a whole series of novels known to all3 ,the ,house of the ,dead1 ,the ,idiot1 ,the ,possessed4 ,he has everything which can be required from life1 or1 more truly1 he has taken everything which can be taken from life4 ,you remember ,tolstoi's deliberations in his ,confession8 ',finally1 ,i shall be as famous as ,pushkin1 ,gogol1 ,goethe and ,shakespeare--and what shall come after8' ,indeed1 it is difficult to become a more famous writer than ,shakespeare2 and even if one succeeded1 the inevitable question1 ',and what shall come after8' would by no means be removed4 ,sooner or later in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further perfection seems impossible4 ,how shall a man be greater than himself in the world of literature8 ,if he would move1 then by his own will or in spite of it he must step on to another plane4 ,and this is plainly the beginning of prophecy in a writer4 ,in the general view the prophet is greater than the writer2 and even the possession of genius is not always a guarantee against the general view4 ,even men so sceptical as ,tolstoi and ,dostoevsky1 men always ready to doubt everything1 more than once were the victims of prejudices4 ,prophetic words were expected of them1 and they went out to meet men's desires1 ,dostoevsky even more readily than ,tolstoi4 ,moreover both prophesied clumsily3 they promised one thing1 and something wholly different happened4 ,so ,tolstoi promised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would put away from them fratricidal war1 and would begin to live as true ,christians should1 fulfilling the ,gospel commandment of love4 ,tolstoi prophesied and preached2 people read him1 as1 it seems1 they read no other writer3 but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes4 ,for the last ten years ,tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole series of horrible and most savage wars4 ,and now there is our present revolution#a--;armed mobs rioting1 the gallows set up1 men shot down1 bombs--the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the ,far ,east6 ,and this is in ,russia1 where ,tolstoi was born1 lived1 taught and prophesied1 where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the greatest genius of all6 ,even in his own family ,tolstoi could not effect the change that he desired4 ,one of his sons is an officer in the army2 the other writes in the ,novoe ,vremya1 as though he were ,souvorin's#b son1 not ,tolstoi's4444 ,where1 then1 is the gift of prophecy8 ,why is it that a man so great as ,tolstoi can foresee nothing1 and seems to peer his way through life8 ',what will to-morrow bring forth8' ',to-morrow ,i'll work miracles1' said the magician to the ,russian prince of old4 ,for reply the prince drew his sword and struck off the magician's head2 and the excited mob1 which believed in the magician-prophet1 became calm and departed home4 ,history is ever striking off the heads of prophetic predictions1 and yet the crowd still runs after the prophets4 ,of little faith1 the crowd looks for a sign1 because it desires a miracle4 ,but can the ability to predict be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles8 ,it is possible to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet1 but this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant4 ,an enlightened mind is secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible1 there is no miracle1 since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing presupposes a strict uniformity4 ,therefore not he will appear a prophet who has great spiritual gifts1 nor he who desires to dominate the world and to command the very laws1 neither the magician1 nor the sorcerer1 nor the artist1 but he who1 having yielded himself beforehand to the actual and its laws1 has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of record and calculation4 ,bismarck could foretell the greatness of ,russia and ,germany2 and not only ,bismarck1 but an ordinary ,german politician1 for whom everything is reduced to ,deutschland1 ,deutschland ber alles1 could read the future for many years ahead2 yet ,dostoevsky and ,tolstoi could foresee nothing4 ,in ,dostoevsky the failure is still more remarkable than in ,tolstoi1 because he more often attempted prediction3 more than half of his ,journal consists in unfulfilled prophecies4 ,so often did he commit his prophetic genius4 ,footnote #a3 ,this essay was written during the revolution of #aije4 ,footnote #b3 ,the famous editor of the ,novoe ,vremya4 ,,ii ,to some it may perhaps seem out of place that in an article devoted to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the writer's death1 ,i call to mind his mistakes and errors4 ,the reproach is hardly just4 ,a certain kind of defect in a great man is at least as characteristic and important as his qualities4 ,dostoevsky was not a ,bismarck4 ,but is that so terrible that we must lament it8 ,moreover1 for writers of the type of ,tolstoi and ,dostoevsky1 their social and political ideas are without any value4 ,they know well that no one obeys them4 ,whatever they may say1 history and political life will go on in the same way1 since it is not their books and articles which guide events4 ,and1 probably1 here is the explanation of the amazing boldness of their opinions4 ,if ,tolstoi really imagined that it would be enough for him to write an article demanding that all 'soldiers1 policemen1 judges1 ministers' and the rest1 all those guardians of the public peace1 whom he detested--and1 by the way1 who loves them8--should be dismissed1 for all prison-doors to be flung wide before the murderers and robbers--who can tell whether he would have shown himself sufficiently firm and resolute in his opinions1 to take upon himself the responsibility for the effects of the measures which he proposed8 ,but he knows beyond all doubt that he will not be obeyed1 and therefore he calmly preaches anarchy4 ,dostoevsky's part as a preacher was quite different2 but it too was1 so to speak1 platonic4 ,probably it came as a surprise even to himself1 that he became the prophet1 not of 'ideal' politics1 but of those most realistic tasks which governments always set themselves in countries where a few men direct the destinies of peoples4 ,listening to ,dostoevsky1 one may imagine that he is discovering ideas which the government must take for its guidance and set itself to realise4 ,but you will soon convince yourself that ,dostoevsky did not discover one single original political idea4 ,everything of the kind that he possessed he had borrowed without examination from the ,slavophiles1 who in their turn appeared original only to the extent to which they were able without outside assistance to translate from the ,german and the ,french3 ,russland1 ,russland ber alles4 7,even the rhythm of the verse is not affected by the substitution of the one word47 ,but what is most important is1 that the ,slavophiles with their ,russo-,german glorification of nationality1 and with them ,dostoevsky who joined the chorus1 have neither taught nor educated one single man among the ruling classes4 ,our government knew all that it needed to know by itself1 without the ,slavophiles and without ,dostoevsky4 ,from time immemorial it had gone its way by the road which the theorists so passionately praised3 so that nothing was left to them but to eulogise those in power and to defend the policy of the ,russian government against the public opinion which was hostile to it4 ,autocracy1 ,orthodoxy1 ,nationality--all these were held so firmly in ,russia that in the 'seventies when ,dostoevsky began to preach they needed no support whatever4 ,and surely every one knows that power never seriously reckons upon the help of literature4 ,certainly it requires that the ,muses should pay tribute to it with the others1 nobly formulating its demands in the words3 ,blessed be the union of the sword and the lyre4 ,it used to happen that the ,muses did not refuse the request1 sometimes sincerely1 sometimes because1 as ,heine said1 it is particularly disagreeable to wear iron chains in ,russia1 on account of the heavy frosts4 ,in any case the ,muses were only allowed to sing the praises of the sword1 but by no means to wield it4 ,there are all kinds of unions4 ,and here again ,dostoevsky1 for all his independent nature1 still appeared in the rle of a prophet of the ,russian government3 that is1 he divined the secret devices of the powers that were1 and in this connection then recalled all the 'high and beautiful' words which he had managed to hoard up in the course of his long wanderings4 ,for instance1 the government began to cast covetous glances towards the ,east 7at that time the ,near ,east still72 ,dostoevsky begins to argue that we must have ,constantinople1 and to prophesy that ,constantinople will soon be ours4 ,his 'argument' is1 of course1 of a purely 'moral character1' and1 sure enough1 he is a writer4 ,only from ,constantinople1 he says1 can we make avail the purely ,russian ideal of embracing all humanity4 ,of course our government1 though indeed we had no ,bismarcks1 perfectly well understood the value of moral argument and of prophecy based upon them1 and would have preferred a few well-equipped divisions and improved guns4 ,to realist politicians one single soldier1 armed not with a gun but with a blunderbuss1 is of more importance than the sublimest conception of moral philosophy4 ,but still they do not drive away the humble prophet1 if the prophet knows his place4 ,dostoevsky accepted the rle1 since it gave him still the opportunity of displaying his refractory nature in the struggle with ,liberal literature4 ,he sang paeans1 made protests1 uttered absurdities--and worse than absurdities4 ,for instance1 he counselled all the ,slav peoples to unite under the aegis of ,russia1 assuring them that only thus would full independence be guaranteed them1 and the right of shaping themselves by their own culture1 and so on--and that in the face of the millions of ,polish ,slavs living in ,russia4 ,or again1 the ,moscow ,gazette gives its opinion that it would be well for the ,crimean ,tartars to emigrate to ,turkey1 since it would then be possible for ,russians to settle in the peninsula4 ,dostoevsky catches up this original idea with enthusiasm4 ',indeed1' he says1 'on political and state and similar considerations'--,i do not know how it is with other people1 but when ,i hear such words as 'state' and 'political' on ,dostoevsky's lips1 ,i cannot help smiling--'it is necessary to expel the ,tartars and to settle ,russians on their lands4' ,when the ,moscow ,gazette projects such a measure1 it is intelligible4 ,but ,dostoevsky6 ,dostoevsky who called himself a ,christian1 who so passionately preaches love to one's neighbour1 self-abasement1 self-renunciation1 who taught that ,russia must 'serve the nations'--how could he be taken with an idea so rapacious8 ,and indeed almost all his political ideas have the mark of rapacity upon them3 to grab and grab1 and still to grab4444 ,as the occasion demands1 he now expresses the hope that we may have ,germany's friendship1 and again threatens her2 now he argues that we have need of ,england1 and again he asserts that we could do without her1--just like a leader-writer in a bien-pensant provincial paper4 ,one thing alone makes itself felt among all these ludicrous and eternally contradictory assertions1--,dostoevsky understands nothing1 absolutely nothing1 about politics1 and moreover1 he has nothing at all to do with politics4 ,he is forced to go in tow of others who1 compared with him1 are utter nonentities1 and he goes4 ,even his ambition--and he had a colossal ambition1 an ambition unique in its kind1 as befitted a universal man--suffers not one whit3 chiefly because men expected prophecy from him1 because the next title to that of a great writer is that of a prophet1 and because a ring of conviction and a loud voice are the signs of the prophetic gift4 ,dostoevsky could speak aloud3 he could also speak with the tone of one who knows secrets1 and of one with authority4 ,one learns much in the underworld4 ,all these things served him4 ,men took the poet-laureate of the existing order for the inspirer of thoughts and the governor of ,russia's remotest destinies4 ,it was enough for ,dostoevsky4 ,it was even necessary for ,dostoevsky4 ,he knew of course that he was no prophet2 but he knew that there had never been one on earth1 and that those who were prophets had no better right to the title than he4 ,,iii ,i will permit myself to remind the reader of ,tolstoi's letter to his son1 lately published by the latter in the newspapers4 ,it is very interesting4 ,once more1 not from the standpoint of the practical man who has to decide the questions of the day--from this standpoint ,tolstoi1 ,dostoevsky1 and their similars are quite useless--but man does not live by bread alone4 ,even now in the terrible days through which we have to live1 now1 if you will1 more than ever before1 one cannot read newspapers alone1 nor think only of the awful surprises which to-morrow prepares for us4 ,to every one is left an hour of leisure between the reading of newspapers and party programmes1 if it be not an hour in the day when the noise of events and the pressure of immediate work distracts1 then an hour in the deep night1 when everything that was possible has been already done1 and everything that was required has been said4 ,then come flying in the old thoughts and questions1 frightened away by business1 and for the thousandth time one returns to the mystery of human genius and human greatness4 ,where and how far can genius know and accomplish more than ordinary men8 ,then ,tolstoi's letter1 which during the day aroused only anger and indignation1--is it not outrageous and revolting1 think some1 that in the great collision of forces which contend with one another in ,russia1 ,tolstoi cannot distinguish the right force from the wrong1 but stigmatises all the struggling combatants by the one name of ungodly8 ,during the day1 ,i say1 it is surely outrageous3 in the daytime we would like ,tolstoi to be with us and for us1 because we are convinced that we and we alone are seeking the truth1--nay1 that we know the truth1 while our enemies are defending evil and falsehood1 whether in malice or in ignorance4 ,but this is during the day4 ,in the night-time1 things are changed4 ,one remembers that ,goethe also overlooked1 simply did not notice1 the great ,french ,revolution4 ,true1 he was a ,german who lived far from ,paris1 while ,tolstoi lives close to ,moscow1 where men1 women1 and children have been shot1 cut down1 and burnt alive4 ,moreover1 there is no doubt that ,tolstoi has overlooked not merely ,moscow1 but everything that went before ,moscow4 ,what is happening now does not seem to him important or extraordinary4 ,for him only that is important to which he1 ,tolstoi1 has set his hand3 all that occurs outside and beside him1 for him has no existence4 ,this is the great prerogative of great men4 ,and sometimes it seems to me--perhaps it is only that ,i would have it seem so--as though there were in that prerogative a deep and hidden meaning4 ,when we have no more strength in us to listen to the endless tales of horrible atrocities which have already been committed1 and to anticipate in imagination all that the future holds in store for us1 then we recall ,tolstoi and his indifference4 ,it is not in our human power to return the murdered fathers and mothers to the children nor the children to their fathers and mothers4 ,nor stands it even in our power to revenge ourselves upon the murderers1 nor will vengeance reconcile every one to his loss4 ,and we try no longer to think with logic1 and to seek a justification of the horrors there where there is and can be none4 ,what if we ask ourselves whether ,tolstoi and ,goethe did not sec the ,revolution and did not suffer its pain1 only because they saw something else1 something1 it may even be1 more necessary and important8 ,maybe there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy4 ,now we may return to ,dostoevsky and his 'ideas'2 we may call them fearlessly by the names which they deserve1 for though ,dostoevsky is a writer of genius1 this does not mean that we must forget our daily needs4 ,the night and the day have each their rights4 ,dostoevsky wanted to be a prophet1 he wanted people to listen to him and cry ',hosanna6' because1 ,i say again1 he thought that if men had ever cried ',hosanna6' to any one1 then there was no reason why he1 ,dostoevsky1 should be denied the honour4 ,that is the reason why in the 'seventies he made his appearance in the new rle of a preacher of ,christianity1 and not of ,christianity merely1 but of orthodoxy4 ,again1 ,i would draw attention to the far from accidental circumstances that his preaching coincided with the 'serenest' period of his life4 ,he who had in time past been a homeless wanderer1 a poor man who had not where to lay his head1 had provided himself with a family and a house of his own1 even with money 7for his wife was saving74 ,the failure had become a celebrity2 the convict a full citizen4 ,the underworld1 where-into his fate had but lately driven him1 it might seem for ever1 now appeared to him a phantasmagoria which never had been real4 ,in the galleys and the underworld had been born within him a great hunger for ,god which lived long2 there he fought a great fight1 the fight of life against death2 there for the first time were made the new and awful experiments which allied ,dostoevsky with everything that is rebellious and restless on earth4 ,what ,dostoevsky wrote during the closing years of his life 7not merely ,the ,journal of an ,author1 but ,the ,brothers ,karamazov as well7 has value only in so far as ,dostoevsky's past is reflected therein4 ,he made no new step onwards4 ,as he was1 so he remained1 on the eve of a great truth4 ,but in the old days that did not suffice him1 he hungered for something beyond2 but now he does not want to struggle1 and he cannot explain to himself or to others what is really happening within him4 ,he pretends to be struggling still1 nay1 more1 he behaves as though he had won the final victory1 and demands that his triumph should be acknowledged by public opinion4 ,he loves to think that the night is already past and the actual day begun3 and the galleys and the underworld1 reminding him that the day is not yet1 are no more4 ,all the evidences of a complete illusion of victory seem to be there--let him only choose the text and preach6 ,dostoevsky clutched at orthodoxy4 ,why not ,christianity8 ,because ,christianity is not for him who has a house1 a family1 money1 fame1 and a father-land4 ,christ said3 ',let him leave all that he hath and follow me4' ,but ,dostoevsky was afraid of solitude1 he desired to be the prophet of modern1 settled men to whom pure ,christianity1 unadapted to the needs of civilised existence in a governed state1 is unfitted4 ,how should a ,christian seize ,constantinople1 drive out the ,tartars from the ,crimea1 reduce all ,slavs to the condition of the ,poles1 and the rest--for all the projects of ,dostoevsky and the ,moscow ,gazette defy enumeration8 ,so1 before accepting the ,gospel1 he must explain it4444 ,however strange it may appear1 it must be confessed that one cannot find in the whole of literature a single man who is prepared to accept the ,gospel as a whole1 without interpretation4 ,one man wants to seize ,constantinople according to the ,gospel1 another to justify the existing order1 a third to exalt himself or to thrust down his enemy2 and each considers it as his right to diminish from1 or even to supplement1 the text of ,holy ,writ4 ,i have1 of course1 only those in view who acknowledge1 at least in word1 the divine origin of the ,new ,testament2 since he who sees in the ,gospel only one of the more or less remarkable books of his library1 naturally has the right to subject it to whatever critical operations he may choose4 ,but here we have ,tolstoi1 ,dostoevsky1 and ,vladimir ,soloviev4 ,it is generally believed1 and the belief is particularly supported and developed by the most recent criticism1 that ,tolstoi alone rationalised ,christianity1 while ,dostoevsky and ,soloviev accepted it in all the fullness of its mysticism1 denying reason the right to separate truth from falsehood in the ,gospel4 ,i consider this belief mistaken3 for ,dostoevsky and ,soloviev were afraid to accept the ,gospel as the fountain of knowledge1 and relied much more upon their own reason and their experience of life than upon the words of ,christ4 ,but1 if there was a man among us who1 though but in part1 took the risk of accepting the mysterious and obviously dangerous words of the ,gospel precepts1 that man was ,leo ,tolstoi4 ,i will explain myself4 ,we are told that ,tolstoi made the attempt1 in his works published abroad1 to explain the miracles of the ,gospel in a way intelligible to human reason4 ,dostoevsky and ,soloviev1 on the other hand1 readily accepted the inexplicable4 ,but generally the miracles of the ,gospel attract the people who believe least1 for it is impossible to repeat the miracles1 and this being so1 then it follows that a merely external faith is sufficient1 a mere verbal assertion4 ,a man says that he believes in miracles3 'his reputation as a religious man is made1 both in his own mind and in others'1 and as for the rest of the ,gospel1 there remains 'interpretation4' ,consider1 for instance1 the doctrine of non-resistance to evil4 ,it need not be said that the doctrine of non-resistance is the most terrible1 and the most irrational1 and mysterious thing that we read in the ,gospel4 ,all our reasoning soul is indignant at the thought that full material freedom should be given to the murderer to accomplish his murderous acts4 ,how can you allow a murderer to kill an innocent child before your very eyes1 and yet not draw the sword8 ,who has the right to give that abominable precept8 ,soloviev#c and ,dostoevsky alike repeat that question1 the one in a disguised1 the other in an open attack on ,tolstoi4 ,yet since the ,gospel plainly declares ',resist not evil1' both of our believers in miracles have suddenly remembered reason and turned to its testimony1 knowing that reason will naturally destroy any meaning whatever that may be in the precept4 ,in other words1 they repeat the question of the doubting ,jews concerning ,christ3 ',who is ,he that speaketh as one having authority8' ,god commanded ,abraham that he should offer up his son4 ,by his reason1 his human reason1 ,abraham refused to acknowledge any intelligible meaning in the cruel command1 but yet made ready to act according to the word of ,god and made no attempt to rid himself of the hard and inhuman obligation by cunning interpretation4 ,but ,dostoevsky and ,soloviev refuse to fulfil ,christ's demands so soon as they find no justification in the human reason4 ,yet they say that they believe that ,lazarus was raised from the dead and that the man who was sick of a palsy was cured1 and all the other miracles which are related by the ,apostles4 ,why then does their belief end just at the point where it begins to place obligations upon them8 ,why the sudden recourse to reason1 when we know exactly that ,dostoevsky came to the ,gospels only to be rid of the power of reason8 ,but that was in the days of the underworld4 ,now the 'serene' period of his life has begun4 ,but ,soloviev1 evidently1 had never even known the underworld4 ,only ,tolstoi boldly and resolutely tries to test the truth of the ,christian teaching1 not in his thoughts alone1 but in part in his life also4 ,from the human point of view it is mad to make no resistance to evil4 ,he knows that every whit as well as ,dostoevsky1 ,soloviev and the rest of his many opponents4 ,but he is really seeking in the ,gospels that divine madness1 since human reason does not satisfy him4 ,tolstoi began to follow the ,gospel in that clouded period of his life when he was haunted by the phantoms of ,ivan ,ilyich and ,pozdnyshiev4 ,here belief in miracles1 belief in the abstract1 divorced from life1 avails nothing4 ,for belief's sake one must surrender all that is dearest--even a son--to the sacrifice4 ,who is ,he that spake as one having authority8 ,we cannot now verify whether ,he did in truth raise ,lazarus from the dead1 or satisfy thousands with a few handfuls of loaves4 ,but if we unhesitatingly perform ,his precepts1 then we may discover whether ,he has given us the truth4444 ,so it was with ,tolstoi2 and he turned to the ,gospel which is the sole and original source of ,christianity4 ,but ,dostoevsky turned to the ,slavophiles and the teachings of their state-religion4 ,orthodoxy infallible1 not ,catholicism nor ,protestantism nor even simple ,christianity2 and then1 the original idea3 ,russland1 ,russland ber alles4 ,tolstoi could prophesy nothing in history1 but then1 as if deliberately1 he does not interfere with the historical life4 ,for him our present reality does not exist3 he concentrates himself wholly upon the riddle which ,god set ,abraham4 ,but ,dostoevsky desired at all costs to prophesy1 prophesied constantly and was constantly mistaken4 ,we have not taken ,constantinople1 we have not united the ,slavs1 and even the ,tartars still live in the ,crimea4 ,he terrified us by prophesying that ,europe would be drenched in rivers of blood because of the warfare between the classes1 while in ,russia1 thanks to our ,russian ideal of universal humanity1 not only would our internal problems be peacefully solved1 but a new unheard-of word would still be found whereby we should save hapless ,europe4 ,a quarter of a century has passed4 ,so far nothing has happened in ,europe4 ,but we are drowning ourselves1 literally drowning ourselves1 with blood4 ,not only is our alien population oppressed1 ,slav and non-,slav alike1 but our own brother is tortured1 the miserable starving ,russian peasant who understands nothing at all4 ,in ,moscow1 in the heart of ,russia1 women1 children1 and old men have been shot down4 ,where now is the ,russian universal soul of which ,dostoevsky prophesied in his speech on ,pushkin8 ,where is love1 where are the ,christian precepts8 ,we see only ',governmentalism1' over which the ,western nations also fought2 but they fought with means less cruel and less hostile to civilisation4 ,russia will again have to learn from the ,west as she had to learn more than once before4 ,and ,dostoevsky would have done far better had he never attempted to prophesy4 ,but there is no great harm done even if he did prophesy4 ,i am glad with all my heart even now that he rested a little while from the galleys at the end of his life4 ,i am deeply convinced that even had he remained in the underworld until the day of his death1 yet he would have found no solution of the questions which tormented him4 ,however much energy of soul a man puts into his work1 he will still remain 'on the eve' of truth1 and will not find the solution he desires4 ,that is the law of human kind4 ,and ,dostoevsky's preaching has done no harm4 ,those listened to him who1 even without his voice1 would have marched on ,constantinople1 oppressed the ,poles1 and made ready the sufferings which are necessary to the soul of the peasant4 ,though ,dostoevsky gave them his sanction1 on the whole he adds nothing to them4 ,they had no need of literary sanction1 quite correctly judging that in practical matters not the printed page1 but bayonets and artillery are of deciding value4 ,all that he had to tell1 ,dostoevsky told us in his novels1 which even now1 twenty-five years after his death1 attract all those who would wrest from life her secrets4 ,and the title of prophet1 which he sought so diligently1 considering that it was his by right1 did not suit him at all4 ,prophets are ,bismarcks1 but they are ,chancellors too4 ,the first in the village is the first in ,rome4444 ,is a ,dostoevsky doomed eternally to be 'on the eve'8 ,let us once more try to reject logic1 this time perhaps not logic alone1 and say3 ',so let it be4' ,footnote #c3 ,war and ,christianity1 by ,vladimir ,soloviev4 ,,penultimate ,,words ,i ,de omnibus dubitandum ,there are but few orthodox ,hegelians left among philosophers nowadays1 yet ,hegel is still supreme over the minds of our contemporaries4 ,it may even be that certain of his ideas have taken deeper root nowadays than when ,hegelianism was in full bloom3 for instance1 the conception that history is the unfolding of the idea in reality1 or1 to put it more briefly and in terms more familiar to the modern mind--the idea of progress4 ,try to convince an educated person of the contrary3 you are sure to be worsted4 ,but1 de omnibus dubitandum1 which means in other words1 that doubt is called upon to fulfil its mission above all in those cases where a conviction is particularly strong and unshakable4 ,therefore one must admit1 whether he will or no1 that progress so called--the development of mankind in time--is a fiction4 ,we have wireless telegraphy1 radium and the rest1 yet we stand no higher than the ,romans or the ,greeks of old4 ,you admit this8 ,then1 one step further3 although we have wireless telegraphy and all the other blessings of civilisation1 still we stand no higher than red-or black-skinned savages4 ,you protest3 but the principle compels4 ,you began to doubt3 then what is the use of drawing back8 ,for myself1 ,i must confess that the idea of the spiritual perfection of savages entered my mind but lately1 when1 for the first time for many years1 ,i looked through the works of ,tylor1 ,lubbock and ,spencer4 ,they speak with such certainty of the advantages of our spiritual organisation1 and have such sincere contempt for the moral misery of the savage1 that in spite of myself stole in the thought3 ,is it not exactly here1 where all are so certain that no one ever examines the question1 that the source of error is to be found8 ,high time to recall ,descartes and his rule6 ,and as soon as ,i began to doubt1 all my former certainty--of course ,i fully shared the opinion of the ,english anthropologists--disappeared in a moment4444 ,it began to appear that the savage indeed is higher and more important than our savants1 and not our materialists only1 as ,professor ,paulsen thinks1 but our idealists1 metaphysicians1 mystics1 and even our convinced missionaries 7sincere believers1 not the profit-mongering sort71 whom ,europe sends forth into the world to enlighten the backward brethren4 ,it seemed to me that the credit transactions common among savages1 with a promise to pay in the world beyond the grave1 have a deep meaning4 ,and human sacrifices6 ,in them ,spencer sees a barbarity1 as an educated ,european should4 ,i also see in them barbarity1 because ,i also am a ,european and have a scientific education4 ,but ,i deeply envy their barbarity1 and curse the cultivation which has herded me together with believing missionaries1 idealist1 materialist1 and positivist philosophers1 into the narrow fold of the sultry and disgusting apprehensible world4 ,we may write books to prove the immortality of the soul1 but our wives won't follow us to the other world3 they will prefer to endure the widow's lot here on the earth4 ,our morality1 based on religion1 forbids us to hurry into eternity4 ,and so in everything4 ,we are guessing1 at the best we are sicklied with dreams1 but our life passes outside our guesses and our dreams4 ,one man still accepts the rites of the ,church1 however strange they may be1 and seriously imagines that he is brought into contact with other worlds4 ,beyond the rites no step is taken4 ,kant died when he was eighty2 had it not been for cholera1 ,hegel would have lived a hundred years2 while the savages--the young ones kill the old and 444 ,i dare not complete the sentence for fear of offending sensitive ears4 ,again ,i recall ,descartes and his rule3 who is right1 the savages or we8 ,and if the savages are right1 can history be the unfolding of the idea8 ,and is not the conception of progress in time 7that is the development from the past to the present and to the future7 the purest error8 ,perhaps1 and most probably1 there is development1 but the direction of this development is in a line perpendicular to the line of time4 ,the base of the perpendicular may be any human personality4 ,may ,god and the reader forgive one the obscurity of the last words4 ,i hope the clarity of the foregoing exposition will to some extent atone for it4 ,,ii ,self-renunciation and ,megalomania ,we are obliged to think that nothing certain can be said either of self-renunciation or of megalomania1 though each one of us in his own experience knows something of the former as well as of the latter4 ,but it is well known that the impossibility of solving a question never yet kept people from reflecting4 ,on the contrary3 to us the most alluring questions are those to which there is no actual1 no universally valid1 answer4 ,i hope that sooner or later1 philosophy will be thus defined1 in contrast to science3--philosophy is the teaching of truths which are binding on none4 ,thereby the accusation so often made against philosophy will be removed1 that philosophy properly consists of a series of mutually exclusive opinions4 ,this is true1 but she must be praised for it1 not blamed3 there is nothing bad in it1 but good1 a very great deal of good4 ,on the other hand1 it is bad1 extremely bad1 that science should consist of truths universally binding4 ,for every obligation is a constraint4 ,temporarily1 one can submit to a restraint1 put on a corset1 fetters2 one can agree to anything temporarily4 ,rut who will voluntarily admit the mastery over himself of an eternal law8 ,even from the quiet and clear ,spinoza ,i sometimes hear a deep sigh1 and ,i think that he is longing for freedom--he who wasted all his life1 all his genius in the glorification of necessity4444 ,with such an introduction one may say what he pleases4 ,it seems to me that self-renunciation and megalomania1 however little they resemble one another apparently1 may be observed successively1 even simultaneously1 in one and the same person4 ,the ascetic1 who has denied life and humbles himself before everybody1 and the madman 7like ,nietzsche or ,dostoevsky71 who affirms that he is the light1 the salt of the earth1 the first in the whole world or even in the whole universe--both reach their madness--,i hope there is no necessity to demonstrate that self-renunciation as well as megalomania is a kind of madness--under conditions for the most part identical4 ,the world does not satisfy the man and he begins to seek for a better4 ,all serious seeking brings a man to lonely paths1 and lonely paths1 it is well known1 end in a great wall which sets a fatal bound to man's curiosity4 ,then arises the question1 how shall a man pass beyond the wall1 by overcoming either the law of impenetrability or the equally invincible law of gravity1 in other words1 how shall a man become infinitely small or infinitely great8 ,the first way is that of self-renunciation3 ,i want nothing1 ,i myself am nothing1 ,i am infinitely small1 and therefore ,i can pass through the infinitely small pores of the wall4 ,the other way is megalomania4 ,i am infinitely strong1 infinitely great1 ,i can do all things1 ,i can shatter the wall1 ,i can step over it1 though it be higher than all the mountains of the earth and though it has hitherto dismayed the strongest and the bravest4 ,this is probably the origin of the two most mysterious and mighty spiritual transformations4 ,there is no single religion upon which are not more or less clearly impressed the traces of these methods of man's struggle with the poverty of his powers4 ,in ascetic religions the tendency to self-renunciation predominates3 ,buddhism glorifies the suppression of the individual and has for its ideal ,nirvana4 ,the ,greeks dreamed of ,titans and heroes4 ,the ,jews consider themselves the chosen people and await the ,messiah4 ,as for the ,gospel1 it is hard to say to which method of struggle it gives the preference4 ,on the one hand are the great miracles1 the raising from the dead1 the healing of the sick1 the power over the winds and the sea2 on the other3 ',blessed are the poor in spirit4' ,the ,son of ,god who will sit on the right hand of power now lives in the company of publicans1 beggars1 and harlots1 and serves them4 ',who is not for us1 is against us'2 the promise to thrust down his enemies into the fiery hell2 eternal torment for blasphemy against the ,holy ,spirit1 and equal with these the exhortation to the extreme of humility and love to the enemy3 ',turn to him the other cheek also4' ,throughout1 the ,gospel is permeated with contradictions1 which are not extraneous and historical1 concerned with facts1 but intrinsic1 contradictions of mood1 of 'ideals1' as the modern man would say4 ,what is in one chapter praised as the noblest task is in the next degraded to an unworthy labour4 ,it is in no way strange that the most opposite teachings should find justification in this little book1 which is half composed of repetitions4 ,the ,inquisitors1 the ,jesuits1 and the old ascetics called themselves4 ,christians2 so do the modern ,protestants and our ,russian sectaries4 ,to a greater or less degree they all are right1 even the ,protestants4 ,such contradictory elements are intertwined in the ,gospel1 that men1 above all those who travel the high road1 who can move in one direction only1 and under one conspicuous flag1 who have become accustomed to believe in the unity of reason and the infallibility of logical laws1 could never fully grasp the teaching of the ,gospel1 and always aspired to give to the words and deeds of ,christ a uniform explanation which should exclude contradictions1 and more or less correspond to the common conceptions of the work and problems of life4 ,they read in the mysterious book1 ',have faith and thou shalt say to this mountain3 be thou removed1' and understood it to mean that always1 every hour and every minute1 one must think and desire the self-same thing1 prescribed beforehand and fully denned2 whereas in these words the ,gospel allows and commends the maddest and most perilous experiments4 ,that which is1 did not exist for ,christ2 and only that existed1 which is not4 ,the old ,roman1 ,pilate1 who was apparently an educated man1 clever and not bad at heart1 though weak in character1 could neither understand nor elucidate the cause of the strange struggle which took place before him4 ,with his whole heart he pitied the pale ,jew before him1 who was guilty of nothing4 ',what is truth8' he asked ,christ4 ,christ did not answer him1 nor could ,he answer1 not through ignorance1 as the heathen desired to believe1 but because that question cannot be answered in words4 ,it would have been necessary to take ,pilate's head1 and turn it towards the other side1 in order that he might see what he had never seen before4 ,or1 still better2 to have used the method to which the hunch-backed pony turns in the fairy tale1 in order to change sleepy ,ivanushka into a wizard and a beauty3 first1 to plunge him into a cauldron of boiling milk1 then into another of boiling water1 then a third of ice-cold water4 ,there is every reason to suppose that with this preliminary preparation ,pilate would have begun to act differently1 and ,i think the hunch-backed pony would agree that self-renunciation and megalomania would be a fair substitute for the cauldrons of the tale4 ,great privations and great illusions so change the nature of man that things which seemed before impossible1 become possible1 and the unattainable1 attainable4 ,,iii ,eternal ,truths ,in the ,memorabilia ,xenophon tells of the meeting of ,socrates with the famous sophist ,hippias4 ,when ,hippias came to ,socrates1 the latter as usual held forth1 and as usual asked why it is that men who wish to learn carpentry or smith's work know to whom they should apply1 but if they desire to learn virtue1 cannot possibly find a teacher4 ,hippias1 who had heard these opinions of ,socrates many times before1 remarked ironically3 ',so you're still saying the same old things1 that ,i heard from you years ago6' ,socrates understood and accepted the challenge1 as he always accepted challenges of this kind4 ,a dispute began1 by which it was demonstrated 7as usual in ,plato and ,xenophon7 that ,socrates was a stronger dialectician than his opponent4 ,he succeeded in showing that his conception of justice was based on the same firm foundation as all his other conceptions1 and that convictions once formed1 if they are true1 are as little liable to the action of time as noble metals to rust4 ,socrates lived seventy years4 ,he was once a youth1 once a man1 once a greybeard4 ,but what if he had lived a hundred and forty years1 experienced once again all the three seasons of life1 and had again met ,hippias8 ,or1 better still1 if the soul1 as ,socrates taught1 is immortal and ,socrates now lives somewhere in the moon or ,sirius1 or in any other place predestined for immortal souls1 does he really go on plaguing his companions with discourses on justice1 carpenters1 and smiths8 ,and does he still emerge victorious as of old from the dispute with ,hippias and other persons who dare to affirm that everything 7human convictions included7 may be1 and ought to be1 subject to the laws of time1 and that mankind not only loses nothing1 but gains much by such subjection8 ,,iv ,earth and ,heaven ,the word justice is on all men's lips4 ,but do men indeed so highly prize justice as one would think1 who believed all that has been said and is still being said concerning it8 ,more than this1 is it so highly appreciated by its sworn advocates and panegyrists--poets1 philosophers1 moralists1 theologians--even by the best of them1 the most sincere and gifted8 ,i doubt it1 ,i doubt it deeply4 ,glance at the works of any wise man1 whether of the modern or the ancient world4 ,justice1 if we understand it as the equality of all living men before the laws of creation--and how else can we understand it8--never occupied any one's attention4 ,plato never once asked ,destiny why she created ,thersites contemptible and ,patroclus noble4 ,plato argues that men should be just1 but never once dares to arraign the gods for their injustice4 ,if we listen to his discourses1 a suspicion will steal into our souls that justice is a virtue for mortals1 while the immortals have virtues of their own which have nothing in common with justice4 ,and here is the last trial of earthly virtue4 ,we do not know whether the human soul is mortal or immortal4 ,some1 we know1 believe in immortality1 others laugh at the belief4 ,if it were proved that they were both in the wrong1 and that men's destinies after death are as unequal as they are in life3 the successful1 the chosen take up their abode in heaven1 the others remain to rot in the grave and perish with their mortal clay4 7,it is true that such an admission is made by our ,russian prophet1 the priest of love and justice1 ,dostoevsky1 in his ,legend of the ,grand ,inquisitor47 ,now1 if it should turn out that ,dostoevsky is really immortal1 while his innumerable disciples and admirers1 the huge mass of grey humanity which is spoken of in ,the ,grand ,inquisitor1 end their lives in death as they began them with birth1 would ,dostoevsky himself 7whom ,i have named deliberately as the most passionate defender of the ideal of justice1 though there have been yet more fervent and passionate and remarkable defenders of justice on earth whom ,i ought perhaps to name1 were it not that ,i would avoid speaking lightly of sacred things--let him who finds ,dostoevsky small1 himself choose another7--would ,dostoevsky reconcile himself to such an injustice1 would he rise in revolt beyond the grave against the injustice1 or would he forget his poor brethren when he occupied the place prepared for him8 ,it is hard to judge a priori3 a posteriori one would imagine that he would forget4 ,and between ,dostoevsky and a small provincial author the gulf is colossal2 the injustice of the inequality cries out to heaven4 ,nevertheless we take no heed1 we live on and do not cry1 or if we do1 we cry very rarely1 and then1 to tell the truth1 it is hard to say certainly why we cry4 ,is it because we would draw the attention of the indifferent heaven1 or is it because there are many amateurs of lamentation among our neighbours1 like the pilgrim woman in ,ostrovsky's ,storm1 who passionately loved to hear a good howl8 ,all these considerations will seem particularly important to those who1 like myself at the present moment--,i cannot speak for to-morrow--share ,dostoevsky's notion that even if there is immortality1 then it is certainly not for everybody but for the few4 ,moreover1 ,i follow ,dostoevsky further and admit that they alone will rise from the dead who on the existing hypotheses should expect the worse fate after death4 ,the first here will be the first still1 there1 while of the last not even a memory will remain4 ,and no one will be found to champion those who have perished3 a ,dostoevsky1 a ,tolstoi1 and all the other 'first' who succeed in entering heaven will be engaged in business incomparably more important4 ,so continue1 if you will1 to take thought for the just arrangement of the world1 and1 after the fashion of ,plato1 to make the teaching of justice the foundation of philosophy4 ,v ,the ,force of ,argument ,schopenhauer answered the question of the immortality of the soul in the negative4 ,in his opinion1 man as ,thing-in-,himself is immortal1 but as phenomenon mortal4 ,in other words1 all that is individual in us exists only in the interval between birth and death2 but since each individual according to ,schopenhauer's teaching is a manifestation of ',will' or ',thing-in-,itself1' the unalterable and eternal principle which is the only reality of the world1 continually made object in the manifold of phenomena1 then1 in so far as this principle is displayed in man1 he is eternal4 ,this is ,schopenhauer's opinion1 evidently derived as a logical conclusion from his general philosophic doctrine1 both from that relating to the ,thing-in-,itself1 and from that which relates to the individual4 ,the first part shall go unregarded3 after all1 if ,schopenhauer was mistaken1 and the ,thing-in-,itself is mortal1 we need not weep over it1 nor is there any cause to rejoice over its immortality4 ,but here is the individual4 ,he is deprived of his right to immortality1 and for reason is alleged an argument which is at first sight irrefutable4 ,everything which has a beginning has an end also1 says ,schopenhauer4 ,the individual has a beginning1 birth2 therefore an end1 death1 awaits him4 ,to ,schopenhauer himself the general proposition as well as the conclusion seemed so obvious1 that he did not admit the possibility of mistake even for a moment4 ,but this time we have an incontestable case of a wrong conclusion from a wrong premiss4 ,first1 why must everything which has a beginning also have an end8 ,the observations of experience point to such an hypothesis2 but are the observations of experience really strong enough to support general propositions8 ,and are we really entitled to make use of propositions so acquired as first principles for the solution of the most important problems of philosophy8 ,and even if we admit that the premiss is correct1 nevertheless the conclusion at which ,schopenhauer arrived is wrongly drawn4 ,it may indeed be that everything which has a beginning also has an end2 it may indeed be that the individual is sooner or later doomed to perish2 but why identify the moment of the soul's destruction with the death of the body8 ,it may be that the body will die1 but the soul which the same fate attends at some future time will find for itself a more or less suitable integument somewhere in a distant planet1 perhaps still unknown to us1 and live on1 though only for a little while and not for all eternity1 as the extreme optimists believe4 ,how important would it be for poor humanity to retain even such a hope3 particularly seeing that we can hardly say with certainty what it is that men desire when they speak of the immortality of the soul4 ,is it that they merely desire at all costs to live eternally1 or would they be satisfied with one or two lives more1 especially if the subsequent lives should appear to be less offensively insignificant than this earthly existence1 wherein even the lowest rank of nobility is to many an unattainable ideal8 ,it seems to me that it is not every one who would consent to live eternally4 ,and what if every possibility should have been exhausted1 and endless repetition should begin8 ,it does not of course follow from this that we have the right to reckon upon an existence beyond the grave4 ,the question remains open as before1 even when ,schopenhauer's arguments have been refuted4 ,but it does follow that the best arguments on closer consideration often appear worthless4 ,quod erat demonstrandum-- naturally pending the discovery of arguments to refute my refutation of ,schopenhauer's4 ,i make this reserve to deprive my critics of the pleasure and possibility of a little wordplay4 ,,vi ,swan ,songs ,it cannot be doubted that ,when ,we ,dead ,awake is one of the most autobiographical of ,ibsen's plays4 ,nearly all his dramas reveal striking traces of his personal experience2 their most valuable quality1 even1 is the possibility of following out in them the history of the author's inward struggle4 ,but there is a particular significance in ,when ,we ,dead ,awake1 which comes from the fact that it was conceived and written by the author in his old age4 ,those who are interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done on the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity of communing with very old men1 with the dying1 and generally with men who are placed in exceptional conditions1 above all when they are not afraid to speak the truth1 and have by past experience developed in themselves the art and the courage--the former is as necessary as the latter--to look straight into the eyes of reality4 ,to such men ,ibsen seems even more interesting than ,tolstoi4 ,tolstoi indeed has not yet betrayed his gift2 but he is primarily a moralist4 ,now1 as in his youth1 power over men is the dearest thing of all to him1 and more fascinating than all the other blessings of the world4 ,he still gives orders1 makes demands1 and desires at all costs to be obeyed4 ,one may1 and one ought1 to consider this peculiarity of ,tolstoi's nature with attention and respect4 ,not ,tolstoi alone1 but many a regal hermit of thought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender of mankind4 ,on the day of his death1 an hour before end1 ,socrates taught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had discovered4 ,plato in his extreme old age journeyed to ,syracuse to plant the seeds of wisdom there4 ,it is probable that such stubbornness in great men has its explanation and its deep meaning4 ,tolstoi1 and also ,socrates and ,plato1 and the ,jewish prophets1 who in this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of wisdom1 probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one gigantic inward task1 the condition of its successful performance being the illusion that the whole world1 the whole universe1 works in concert and unison with them4 ,in ,tolstoi's case ,i have elsewhere shown that he finds himself at present on the brink of ,solipsism in his conception of the world4 ,tolstoi and the whole world are to him synonymous4 ,without such a temporary delusion of his whole being--it is not an intellectual delusion1 of the head1 for the head knows well that the world is by itself1 and ,tolstoi by himself--he would have to give up his most important work4 ,so it is with us1 who know since ,copernicus that the earth moves round the sun1 that the stars are not clear1 bright1 golden rings1 but huge lumps of various composition1 that there is not a firm blue vault overhead4 ,we know these things3 nevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take delight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world4 ,truth so-called has but a limited value4 ,nor does the sacrifice of ,galileo by any means refute my words4 ,e pur si muove1 if ever he uttered the phrase1 might not have referred to the movement of the earth1 though it was spoken of the earth4 ,galileo did not wish to betray the work of his life4 ,who will1 however1 stand surety to us that not only ,galileo is capable of such sacrifice1 but his pupil also1 even the most devoted and courageous1 who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle but from the lips of his master4 ,peter in one night thrice denied ,christ4 ,probably we could not find a single man in all the world who would consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of ,galileo4 ,evidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider into the secret of their great deeds4 ,evidently they cannot themselves always give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks which they set themselves4 ,socrates himself1 who all his life long so stubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose1 and introduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing reality2 ,socrates1 who spent thirty days without interruption in persuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and justice2 ,socrates himself1 ,i say1 perhaps1 most probably even1 knew as little why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death1 or as babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power they have been summoned from nonentity into being4 ,such is our life3 wise men and fools1 old men and children march at random to goals which have not yet been revealed by any books1 whether worldly or spiritual1 common or sacred4 ,it is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism into contempt that ,i recall these considerations4 ,i have always been convinced1 and am still certain1 that dogmatists feel no shame1 and are by no means to be driven out of life2 besides1 ,i have lately come to the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their stubbornness4 ,belief1 and the need of belief1 are strong as love1 as death4 ,in the case of every dogmatist ,i now consider it my sacred duty to concede everything in advance1 even to the acknowledgment of the least1 and least significant1 shades of his convictions and beliefs4 ,there is but one limitation1 one only1 imperceptible and almost invisible3 the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely and universally binding1 that is1 not binding upon the whole of mankind without exception4 ,the majority1 the vast majority1 millions1 even tens of millions of people1 ,i will readily allow him1 on the understanding that they themselves desire it1 or that he will show himself skilful enough to entice them to his side--violence is surely not to be admitted in matters of belief4 ,in a word1 ,i allow him almost the whole of humankind1 in consideration whereof he must agree that his convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or tens that remain4 ,i agree to an outward submission4 ,and the dogmatist1 after such a victory--my confession is surely a complete victory for him--must consider himself satisfied in full4 ,socrates was right1 ,plato1 ,tolstoi1 the prophets were right3 there is only one truth1 one ,god2 truth has the right to destroy lie1 light to destroy darkness4 ,god1 omniscient1 most gracious and omnipotent1 will like ,alexander of ,macedon conquer nearly all the known world1 and will drive out from his possessions1 amid the triumphant and delighted shouts of his millions of loyal subjects1 the devil and all those who are disobedient to his divine word4 ,but he will renounce his claim to power over the souls of his few opponents1 according to the agreement1 and a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle1 invisible to the millions1 and will there continue their free1 peculiar life4 ,and here--to return to the beginning--among these few disobedient will be found ,ibsen as he was in the last years of his life1 as he is seen in his last drama4 ,for in ,when ,we ,dead ,awake ,ibsen approves and glorifies that which ,gogol actually did fifty years ago4 ,he renounces his art1 and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once the business of his life4 ,on ,april #ae1 #ahff1 ,ibsen wrote to ,king ,karl3 ',i am not fighting for a careless existence2 ,i am fighting for the work of my life1 in which ,i unflinchingly believe1 and which ,i know ,god has given me to do4' ,by the way1 you will hardly find one of the great workers who has not repeated this assertion of ,ibsen's1 whether in the same or in another form4 ,evidently1 without such an illusion1 temporary or permanent1 one cannot compass the intense struggle and the sacrifices which are the price of great work4 ,evidently1 illusions of various kinds are necessary even for success in small things4 ,in order that a little man should fulfil his microscopical work1 he too must strain his little forces to the extreme4 ,and who knows whether it did not seem to ,akaky ,akakievitch that ,god had assigned to him the task of copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made8 ,of course he would never dare to say so1 and he would never be able to1 first because of his timidity1 and then because he has not the gift of expression4 ,the ,muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak3 they sing only ,croesus and ,caesar4 ,but there is no doubt that the first in the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the first in ,rome4 ,caesar felt this1 and not mere ambition alone spoke in him when he uttered the famous phrase4 ,men do not believe in themselves and always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty1 whether justified or mistaken1 may spring up within them that they stand in the sight of ,god4 ,but with years all illusions vanish1 and among them the illusion that ,god chooses certain men for his particular purposes and puts on them particular charges4 ,gogol1 who had thus long understood his task as an author1 burnt his best work before his death4 ,ibsen did almost the same4 ,in the person of ,professor ,rubek he renounces his literary activity and jeers at it1 though it had brought him everything that he could have expected from it1 fame1 respect1 riches4444 ,and think why6 ,because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of the artist1 to give up ,irene whom he loved1 to marry a woman to whom he was indifferent4 ,did ,ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that ,god had appointed him the task of being a male8 ,but all men are males1 while only individuals are artists4 ,had this been said1 not by ,ibsen1 but by a common mortal1 we would call it the greatest vulgarity4 ,on the lips of ,ibsen1 an old man of seventy years1 the author of ,brand1 from which the divines of ,europe draw the matter for their sermons1 on the lips of ,ibsen who wrote ,emperor and ,galilean such a confession acquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning4 ,here you cannot escape with a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile4 ,not anybody1 but ,ibsen himself speaks--the first1 not in the village1 not in ,rome even1 but in the world4 ,here surely is the human law at work3 ',forswear not the prison nor the beggar's wallet6' ,perhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of ,turgeniev4 ,turgeniev1 too1 had high ideals which he probably thought he had received direct from ,god4 ,we may with assurance put into the mouth of ,brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay1 ,hamlet and ,don ,quixote1 concludes3 ',everything passes1 good deeds remain4' ,in these words is the whole ,turgeniev1 or better1 the whole conscious ,turgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs4 ,and not only in that period1 but up to the last minutes of his life1 the conscious ,turgeniev would not recant those words4 ,but in the ,prose ,poems an utterly different motive is heard4 ,all that he there relates1 and all that ,ibsen tells in his last drama1 is permeated with one infinite1 inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain1 for a life which had been spent in preaching 'good4' ,yet neither youth1 nor health1 nor the powers that fail are regretted4 ,perhaps even death has no terrors4444 ,what the old ,turgeniev cannot away with are his memories of 'the ,russian girl4' ,he described and sang her as no one in ,russian literature before him1 but she was to him only an ideal2 he1 like ,rubek1 had not touched her4 ,ibsen had not touched ,irene2 he went off to ,madame ,viardo4 ,and this is an awful sin1 in no wise to be atoned1 a mortal sin1 the sin of which the ,bible speaks4 ,all things will be forgiven1 all things pass1 all things will be forgotten3 this crime will remain for ever4 ,that is the meaning of ,turgeniev's senilia2 that is the meaning of ,ibsen's senilia4 ,i have deliberately chosen the word senilia1 though ,i might have said swan songs1 though it would even have been more correct to speak of swan songs4 ',swans1' says ,plato1 'when they feel the approach of death1 sing that day better than ever1 rejoicing that they will find ,god1 whom they serve4' ,ibsen and ,turgeniev served the same ,god as the swans1 according to the ,greek belief1 the bright ,god of songs1 ,apollo4 ,and their last songs1 their senilia1 were better than all that had gone before4 ,in them is a bottomless depth awful to the eye1 but how wonderful6 ,there all things are different from what they are with us on the surface4 ,should one hearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men1 or should he tie himself to the mast of conviction1 verified by the experience of mankind1 and cover his ears as once the crafty ,ulysses did to save himself from the ,syrens8 ,there is a way of escape3 there is a word which will destroy the enchantment4 ,i have already uttered it3 senilia4 ,turgeniev wished to call his ,prose ,poems by this name--manifestations of sickness1 of infirmity1 of old age4 ,these are terrible2 one must run away from these6 ,schopenhauer1 the philosopher and metaphysician1 feared to revise the works of his youth in his old age4 ,he felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch4 ,and all men mistrust old age1 all share ,schopenhauer's apprehensions4 ,but what if all are mistaken8 ,what if senilia bring us nearer to the truth8 ,perhaps the soothsaying birds of ,apollo grieve in unearthly anguish for another existence2 perhaps their fear is not of death but of life2 perhaps in ,turgeniev's poems1 as well as in ,ibsen's last drama1 are already heard1 if not the last1 then at least the penultimate words of mankind4 ,,vii ,what is ,philosophy8 ,in text-books of philosophy you will find most diverse answers to this question4 ,during the twenty-five hundred years of its existence it has been able to make an immense quantity of attempts to define the substance of its task4 ,but up till now no agreement has been reached between the acknowledged representatives of the lovers and favourites of wisdom4 ,every one judges in his own way1 and considers his opinion as the only true one2 of a consensus sapientium it is impossible even to dream4 ,but strangely enough1 exactly in this disputable matter wherein the agreement of savants and sages is so impossible1 the consensus profanorum is fully attained4 ,all those who were never engaged in philosophy1 who have never read learned books1 or even any books at all1 answer the question with rare unanimity4 ,true1 it is apparently impossible to judge of their opinions directly1 because people of this kind cannot speak at all in the language evolved by science2 they never put the question in such a form1 still less can they answer it in the accepted words4 ,but we have an important piece of indirect evidence which gives us the right to form a conclusion4 ,there is no doubt that all those who have gone to philosophy for answers to the questions which tormented them1 have left her disenchanted1 unless they had a sufficiently eminent gift to enable them to join the guild of professional philosophers4 ,from this we may unhesitatingly conclude1 although the conclusion is for the time being only negative1 that philosophy is engaged in a business which may be interesting and important to the few1 but is tedious and useless to the many4 ,this conclusion is highly consoling as well for the sage as for the profane4 ,for every sage1 even the most exalted1 is at the same time one of the profane--if we discard the academical use of words--a human being1 pure and simple4 ,to him also it may happen that those tormenting questions will arise1 which ordinary people used to bring to him1 as for instance in the case of ,tolstoi's ,ivan ,ilyich or ,tchekhov's professor in ,the ,tedious ,story4 ,and then he will of course be obliged to confess that the necessary answers are missing from the great tomes which he has studied so well4 ,for what can be more terrible to a man than to be compelled in the hard moments of his life to acknowledge any doctrine of philosophy as binding upon him8 ,for instance1 to be compelled to hold with ,plato1 ,spinoza1 or ,schopenhauer that the chief problem of life is moral perfection1 or in other words1 self-renunciation4 ,it was easy for ,plato to preach justice4 ,it did not in the least prevent him from being the son of his time1 or from breaking to a permissible extent the commandments which he himself had given4 ,by all the evidence ,spinoza was much more resolute and consequent than ,plato2 he indeed kept the passions in subservience1 but that was his personal and individual inclination4 ,consistence was not merely a property of his mind1 but of his whole being4 ,displaying it1 he displayed himself4 ,as for ,schopenhauer1 it is known that he praised the virtues only in his books2 but in life1 like many another clever1 independent man1 he was guided by the most diverse considerations4 ,but these are all masters1 who devise systems and imperatives4 ,whereas the pupil1 seeking in philosophy an answer to his questions1 cannot permit himself any liberties and digressions from the universal rules1 for the essence and the fundamental problem of any doctrine reduces to the subordination not merely of men's conduct1 but of the life of the whole universe to one regulating principle4 ,individual philosophers have discovered such principles1 but to this day they have reached no final agreement among themselves1 and this to some extent lightens the burden of those unhappy ones who1 having lost the hope of finding help and guidance elsewhere1 have turned to philosophy4 ,if there is not in philosophy one universal principle binding upon and acknowledged by all1 it means that it is permitted to each man1 at least for the meantime1 to feel and even to act in his own way4 ,a man may listen to ,spinoza1 or he may stop his ears4 ,he may kneel before ,plato's eternal ideas1 or he may give his allegiance to the ever-changing1 ever-flowing reality4 ,finally1 he may accept ,schopenhauer's pessimism1 but nothing on earth can compel him to celibacy on the ground that ,schopenhauer successfully laughed at love4 ,nor is there any necessity at all1 in order to win such freedom for one's self1 to be armed with the light dialectic of the old ,greek philosopher1 or with the heavy logic of the poor ,dutch ,jew1 or with the subtle wit of the profound ,german4 ,neither is it necessary to dispute them4 ,it is even possible to agree with them all4 ,the room of the world is infinite1 and will not only contain all those who lived once and those who are yet to be born1 but will give to each one of them all that he can desire3 to ,plato1 the world of ideas1 to ,spinoza1 the one eternal and unchangeable substance1 to ,schopenhauer1 the ,nirvana of ,buddhism4 ,each of these1 and all the other philosophers1 will find what they want in the universe even to the belief1 even to the conviction1 that theirs are the only true and universal doctrines4 ,but1 at the same time1 the profane will find suitable worlds for themselves4 ,from the fact that people are cooped up on the earth1 and that they must put forth efforts beyond belief to gain each cubit of earth1 and even their illusory liberties1 it by no means follows that poverty1 obscurantism1 and despotism must be considered eternal and original principles1 and that economical uniformity is the last refuge of man4 ,a plurality of worlds1 a plurality of men and gods amid the vast spaces of the vast universe--this is1 if ,i may be forgiven the word1 an ideal4 ,it is true it is not built according to the idealists4 ,yet what a conclusion does it foreshadow6 ,we leave the disputes and arguments of philosophers aside1 so soon as we begin to speak of gods4 ,according to the existing beliefs and hypotheses the gods also have always been quarrelling and fighting among themselves4 ,even in monotheistic religions people always made their ,god enter a fight1 and devised an eminent opponent for him--the devil4 ,men can by no means rid themselves of the thought that everything in heaven goes on in exactly the same way as it does on the earth1 and they attribute all their own bad qualities as well as their good ones to the denizens of heaven4 ,whereas it is by far the most probable that a great many of the things which are1 according to our notions1 perfectly inseparable from life do not exist in heaven4 ,among other things1 there is no struggle4 ,and this is well4 ,for every struggle1 sooner or later1 develops inevitably into a fight4 ,when the supply of logical and ethical arguments is exhausted1 one thing is left for the irreconcilable opponents--to come to blows1 which do in fact usually decide the issue4 ,the value of logical and ethical arguments is arbitrarily assigned1 but material force is measured by foot-pounds and can be calculated in advance4 ,so that where on the common supposition there will be no foot-pounds1 the issue of the fight will very often remain undecided4 ,when ,lermontov's demon goes to ,tamara's cell1 an angel meets him on the way4 ,the demon says that ,tamara belongs to him2 the angel demands her for himself4 ,the demon will not be dissuaded by words and arguments3 he is not built that way4 ,as for the angel1 he always considers himself doubly right4 ,how can the issue be decided8 ,at last ,lermontov1 who could not or dared not devise a new solution1 admitted the interference of material force3 ,tamara is dragged away from the demon exactly as the stronger robber pulls his prey from the weaker on earth4 ,evidently the poet admitted that conclusion1 that he might pay his tribute to the piety of tradition4 ,but in my opinion the solution is not pious1 but merely blasphemous4 ,in it the traces of barbarity and idolatry are still clearly visible4 ,the tastes and attributes of which earthly despots dream are attributed to ,god4 ,by all means he must be1 he desires to be1 the strongest1 the very first1 just like ,julius ,caesar in his youth4 ,he fears rivalry above all things1 and never forgives his unconquered enemies4 ,this is evidently a barbarous mistake4 ,god does not want to be the strongest1 the very first1 at all4 ,certainly--for that would be intelligible and in accordance with common sense--he would not like to be weaker than others1 in order that he might not be exposed to violence2 but there is no foundation at all for attributing to him ambition or vainglory4 ,therefore there is equally no reason to think that he does not suffer equals1 desires to be supreme1 and seeks at all costs to destroy the devil4 ,most probably he lives in peace and concord even with those who least adapt themselves to his tastes and habits4 ,perhaps he is even delighted that not all are as he1 and he readily shares his possessions with the devil1 the more readily because by such a division neither loses1 since the infinite--,i admit that ,god's possessions are infinite--divided by two and even by the greatest possible finite number still leaves infinity4 ,now we can return to the original question1 and it seems that we can even give an answer to it--two answers even1 one for the sage1 another for the profane4 ,to the first1 philosophy is art for art's sake4 ,every philosopher tries to construct a harmonious and various system1 curiously and nicely fashioned1 using for his material his own intrinsic experience as well as his own personal observations of the life beyond him1 and the observations of others4 ,a philosopher is an artist of his kind1 to whom his works are dearer than everything in life1 sometimes dearer than life itself4 ,we very often see philosophers sacrifice everything for the sake of their work--even truth4 ,not so the profane4 ,to them philosophy--more exactly1 that which they would call philosophy if they possessed a scientific terminology--is the last refuge when material forces have been wasted1 when there are no weapons left to fight for their stolen rights4 ,then they run for help and support to a place which they have always taken care to avoid before4 ,think of ,napoleon at ,st4 ,helena4 ,he who had been collecting soldiers and guns all his life1 began to philosophise when he was bound hand and foot4 ,certainly he behaved in this new sphere like a beginner1 a very inexperienced and1 strange to say1 a pusillanimous novice4 ,he who feared neither pestilence nor bullet1 was afraid1 we know1 of a dark room4 ,men used to philosophy1 like ,schopenhauer1 walk boldly and with confidence in a dark room1 though they run away from gun shots1 and even less dangerous things4 ,the great captain1 the once ,emperor of nearly all ,europe1 ,napoleon1 philosophised on ,st4 ,helena1 and even went so far as to begin to ingratiate himself with morality1 evidently supposing that upon morality his ultimate fate depended4 ,he assured her that for her sake1 and her sake alone1 he had contrived his murderous business--he who1 all the while a crown was on his head and a victorious army in his hands1 hardly knew even of the existence of morality4 ,but this is so intelligible4 ,if one were to come upon a perfectly new and unknown world at the age of forty-five1 then surely everything would seem terrible1 and one would take the incorporeal morality for the arbiter of destiny4 ,and one would plan to seduce her1 if possible1 with sweet words and false promises1 as a lady of the world4 ,but these were the first steps of a tyro4 ,it was as hard for ,napoleon to master philosophy as it was for ,charlemagne at the end of his days to learn to write4 ,but he knew why he had come to the new place1 and neither ,plato nor ,spinoza nor ,kant could dissuade him of this4 ,perhaps at the beginning1 while he was as yet unused to the darkness1 he would pretend to agree with the acknowledged authorities1 thinking that here too1 just as there where he lived before1 exalted personages do not tolerate opposition2 perhaps he would lie to them as he lied to morality1 but his business he would not forget4 ,he came to philosophy with demands1 and would not rest till he had received satisfaction4 ,he had already seen how a ,corsican lieutenant had become a ,french ,emperor4 ,why should not the beaten ,emperor fight his last fight8444 ,and how shall he be reconciled with self-renunciation8 ,philosophy will surrender3 it is only necessary not to surrender in one's self4 ,so does a ,napoleon come to philosophy1 and so does he understand her4 ,and until the contrary is proven1 nothing can prevent us from thinking that the ,napoleons are right1 and therefore that academical philosophy is not the last nor even the penultimate word4 ,for1 perhaps1 the last word is hidden in the hearts of the tongue-tied1 but bold1 persistent1 implacable men4 ,,viii ,heinrich ,heine ,more than a hundred years have passed since the birth1 and fifty years since the death1 of this remarkable man1 but the history of literature has not yet finally settled accounts with him4 ,even the ,germans1 perhaps the ,germans above all1 find it impossible to agree upon the valuation of his gift4 ,some consider him a genius1 others a man devoid of talent and insipid4 ,moreover1 his enemies still bring as much passion to their attacks upon him as they did before1 as though they were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one4 ,they hate him for the same things which made his contemporaries hate him4 ,we know that it was principally for his insincerity that they did not forgive him4 ,no one could tell when he was speaking seriously and when in jest1 what he loved and what he hated1 and finally it was quite impossible to determine whether or not he believed in ,god4 ,it must be confessed that the ,germans were right in many of their accusations4 ,i value ,heine extremely highly2 in my opinion he is one of the greatest ,german poets2 and yet ,i cannot undertake to say with certainty what he loved1 what he believed1 and often ,i cannot tell how serious he is in uttering one or another of his opinions4 ,nevertheless ,i find it impossible to detect any insincerity in his works4 ,on the contrary1 those peculiarities of his1 which so irritated the ,germans1 are in my eyes so many proofs of his wonderful and unique sincerity4 ,i think that if the ,germans were mistaken and misunderstood ,heine1 hypertrophied self-love and the power of prejudice is the cause4 ,heine's usual method is to begin to speak with perfect seriousness1 and to end with biting raillery and sarcasm4 ,critics and readers1 who generally do not guess at the outset what awaits them in the event1 have taken the unexpected laughter to their own account1 and have been deeply offended4 ,wounded self-love never forgives2 and the ,germans could not forgive ,heine for his jests4 ,and yet ,heine but rarely attacked others3 most of his mockery is directed against himself1 and above all in the work of his last creative period1 of the years when he lived in the ,matrazengrab4 ,with us in ,russia many were offended with ,gogol1 believing that he was jeering at them4 ,later1 he confessed that he had been describing himself4 ,nor does the inconstancy of ,heine's opinions in any way prove him insincere4 ,his intention was by no means always to fling at the ,philistines4 ,indeed1 he did not know what to believe2 he changed his tastes and attachments1 and did not even always know for certain what he preferred at the moment4 ,of course1 had he wished1 he might have pretended to be consequent and consistent4 ,or1 had he been less eagle-eyed1 he might with the vast majority of men have adopted a ceremonial dress once for all1 he might have professed and invariably preached ideas which had no relation to his real emotions and moods4 ,many people think that one ought to act thus1 that 7particularly in literature7 one must speak only officially and exhibit lofty ideas that have been proclaimed by wise men since time immemorial1 without their having made the least inquiry whether they correspond to their own natures or not4 ,often cruel1 vindictive1 spiteful1 selfish1 mean people sincerely praise goodness1 forgiveness1 love to one's enemy1 generosity and magnanimity in their books1 while of their tastes and passions they speak not a single word4 ,they are confident that passions exist only to be suppressed1 and that convictions only are to be exhibited or displayed4 ,a man rarely succeeds in suppressing his passions1 but it is extremely easy to hide them1 especially in books4 ,and such dissimulation is not only not condemned1 but recognised and even encouraged4 ,the common and familiar programme is accepted3 in life 'passions' judge 'convictions1' in books 'convictions1' or 'ideals1' as they are called1 pass sentence upon 'passions4' ,i would emphasise the fact that most writers are convinced that their business is not to tell of themselves1 but to praise ideals4 ,heine's sincerity was really of a different order4 ,he told everything1 or nearly everything1 of himself4 ,and this was thought so shocking that the sworn custodians of convention and good morals considered themselves wounded in their best and loftiest feelings4 ,it seemed to them that it would be disastrous if ,heine were to succeed in acquiring a great literary influence1 and in getting a hold upon the minds of his contemporaries4 ,then would crumble the foundations1 constructed through centuries of arduous labour by the united efforts of the most distinguished representatives of the nation4 ,this is perhaps true3 the lofty magnificence of life can be preserved only upon the indispensable condition of hypocrisy4 ,in order that it should be beautiful1 much must be hidden and thrust away as far and deep as possible4 ,the sick and the mad must be herded into hospitals2 poverty into cellars2 disobedient passions into the depths of the soul4 ,truth and freedom are only allowed to obtrude upon the attention as far as is compatible with the interests of a life well arranged within and without4 ,the ,protestant ,church understood this as well as the ,catholic1 perhaps better4 ,strict puritanism elevated spiritual discipline to the highest moral law1 which ruled life with unrelenting and inexorable despotism4 ,marriage and the family1 not love1 must be the aim of man2 and poor ,gretchen1 who gave herself to ,faust without observing the established ceremonial1 was forced to consider herself eternally damned4 ,the inward discipline still more than the outward guarded the foundations and gave strength and force to the ,state as well as to the people4 ,men and women were not spared2 they were not even taken into account4 ,hundreds and thousands of ,gretchens1 men and women1 were sacrificed1 and are being sacrificed still1 without pity to 'the highest spiritual interests4' ,acknowledgment and respect for the prescribed order had become so deeply rooted in the ,german soul--,i speak of ,germany1 because no other nation upon earth is so highly disciplined--that even the most independent characters yielded to it4 ,the most dreadful sin is not the breaking of the law--a violation which like ,gretchen's can be explained by weakness and weakness alone1 though it was not forgiven1 was less severely condemned--but rebellion against the law1 the open and daring refusal to obey1 even though it be expressed in the most insignificant act4 ,therefore every one tends to show his loyalty from that side first of all4 ,in a greater or less degree all have transgressed the law1 but the more one has violated it in act1 the more imperative he considers its glorification in words4 ,and this order of things aroused neither suspicion nor discontent4 ,therein could be seen acknowledged the superiority of spirit over body1 of mind over passion4 ,nobody ever asked the question3 ',is it really true that the spirit must have the mastery over the body1 and the mind over the passions8' ,and when ,heine allowed himself to put the question and to answer it in his own way1 the whole force of ,german indignation burst upon him4 ,first of all they suspected his sincerity and truthfulness4 ',it is impossible1' said the pious1 'that he really should not acknowledge the law4 ,he is only pretending4' ,such a supposition was the more natural because the ring of conviction was not always to be heard in ,heine's tone3 one of his poems ends with the following words3 ',i seek the body1 the body1 the young and tender body4 ,the soul you may bury deep in the ground--,i myself have soul enough4' ,the poem is daring and provocative in the extreme1 but in it1 as in all ,heine's daring and provocative poems1 may be heard a sharp and nervous laugh1 which must be understood as the expression of the divided soul1 as a mockery of himself4 ,it is he who tells of his meeting with two women1 mother and daughter4 ,both please him3 the mother by her much knowledge1 the daughter by her innocence4 ,and the poet stands between them1 in his own words1 like ,buridan's ass between two bundles of hay4 ,again1 daring1 again1 the laugh2 and again the well-balanced ,german is irritated4 ,he would prefer that no one should ever speak of such emotions1 and if they are to be spoken of1 then it must be at least in a penitent tone1 with self-accusation4 ,but ,heine's misplaced laughter is indecent and quite uselessly disconcerting4 ,i repeat that ,heine himself was not always sure that his 'sincerity' was lawful4 ,while he was still a youth he told how there suddenly ran through his soul1 as through the whole earth1 a rent which split asunder the unity of his former emotions4 ,king ,david when he praised ,god and good did not remember his dark deeds--of which there were not a few--or1 if he did remember them1 it was only to repent4 ,his soul was also divided1 but he was able to preserve a sequence4 ,when he wept1 he could not and did not want to rejoice2 when he repented1 he was already far from sin2 when he prayed1 he did not scoff2 when he believed1 he did not doubt4 ,the ,germans1 brought up on the great king's psalms1 had come to think that these things were impossible and ought never to be possible4 ,they admitted the succession of different1 and even contradictory spiritual conditions1 but their simultaneous existence appeared to them unintelligible and disgusting1 in contradiction with divine commandments and the laws of logic4 ,it seemed to them that everything which formerly existed as separate1 had become confused1 that the place of stringent harmony had been usurped by absurdity and chaos4 ,they thought that such a state of things threatened innumerable miseries4 ,they did not admit the idea that ,heine himself might not understand it2 in his creation they saw the manifestation of a false and evil will1 and they invoked divine and human judgment upon it4 ,the ,philistine irritation reached the extreme when it became clear that ,heine had not humbled himself even before the face of death4 ,stricken by paralysis1 he lay in his ,matrazengrab1 unable to stir a limb2 he suffered the most intense bodily pains1 with no hope of cure1 or even of relief1 yet he still continued to blaspheme as before4 ,worse still1 his sarcasms every day became more ruthless1 more poisonous1 more refined4 ,it might have been thought that it was left to him1 crushed and destroyed1 only to acknowledge his defeat and to commit himself utterly to the magnanimity of the victor4 ,but in the weak flesh a strong spirit lived4 ,all his thoughts were turned to ,god1 the power of whose right hand1 like every dying man1 he could not but feel upon him4 ,but his thoughts of ,god1 his attitude to ,god1 were so original that the serious people of the outer world could only shrug their shoulders4 ,no one ever spoke thus to ,god1 either aloud or to himself4 ,the thought of death usually inspires mortals with fear or admiration2 therefore they either kneel before him and implore forgiveness or sing his praises4 ,heine has neither prayer nor praise4 ,his poems are permeated with a charming and gracious cynicism1 peculiar and proper to himself alone4 ,he does not want to confess his sins1 and even now on the threshold of another life he remains as he was in youth4 ,he desires neither paradise1 nor bliss1 nor heaven2 he asks ,god to give him back his health1 and to put his money affairs in order4 ',i know there is much evil and many vices on earth4 ,but ,i have grown used to all that now1 and besides ,i seldom leave my room4 ,o ,god1 leave me here1 but heal my infirmities1 and spare me from want1' he writes in one of his last poems4 ,he derides the legends of the blissful life of sinless souls in paradise4 ',sitting on the clouds and singing psalms is a pastime quite unsuited to me4' ,he remembers the beautiful ,venus of the ,louvre and praises her as in the days of youth4 ,his poem1 ,das ,hohelied1 is a mixture of extreme cynicism1 nobility1 despair1 and incredible sarcasm4 ,i do not know whether dying men have had such thoughts as those which are expressed in this poem1 but ,i am confident that no one has expressed anything like them in literature4 ,in ,goethe's ,prometheus there is nothing of the provocative1 unshakable1 calm pride and the consciousness of his rights which inspired the author of ,das ,hohelied4 ,god1 who created heaven and earth and man upon the earth1 is free to torment my body and soul to his fill1 but ,i myself know what ,i need and desire1 ,i myself decide what is good and what is bad4 ,that is the meaning of this poem1 and of all that ,heine wrote in the last years of his life4 ,he knew as well as any one that according to the doctrines of philosophy1 ethics1 and religion1 repentance and humility are the condition of the soul's salvation1 the readiness even with the last breath of life to renounce sinful desires4 ,nevertheless1 with his last breath he does not want to own the power over himself of the age-old authorities of the world4 ,he laughs at morality1 at philosophy1 and at existing religions4 ,the wise men think so1 the wise men want to live in their own way2 let them think1 let them live4 ,but who gave them the right to demand obedience from me8 ,can they have the power to compel me to obedience8 ,listening to the words of the dying man1 shall we not repeat his question8 ,shall we not take one step further8 ,heine is crushed1 and if we may believe1 as we have every reason to believe what he tells us in his ',song of ,songs1' his painful and terrible illness was the direct effect and consequence of his manner of life4 ,does it mean that in the future1 too 7if future there is71 new persecutions await him1 until the day when of his own accord he will subscribe to the proclaimed and established morality8 ,have we the right to suppose that there are powers somewhere in the universe preoccupied with the business of cutting out all men1 even down to the last1 after the same pattern8 ,perhaps ,heine's contumacy points to quite a different intention of the arbiters of destiny4 ,perhaps the illness and torture prepared for those who fight against collars and blinkers--experience demonstrates with sufficient certainty that any declination from the high road and the norm inevitably brings suffering and ruin in its train--are only the trial of the human spirit4 ,who will endure them1 who will stand up for himself1 afraid neither of ,god nor of the devil and his ministers1 he will enter victoriously into another world4 ,sometimes ,i even think1 in opposition to existing opinion1 that there the stubborn and inflexible are valued above all others1 and that the secret is hidden from mortals lest the weak and compliant should take it into their heads to pretend to be stubborn1 in order to deserve the favour of the gods4 ,but he who will not endure1 but will deny himself1 may expect the fate of which philosophers and metaphysicians generally dream4 ,he will be united with the primum mobile1 he will be dissolved in the essence of being together with the mass of individuals like himself4 ,i am tempted to think that the metaphysical theories which preach self-renunciation for the sake of love1 and love for the sake of self-renunciation1 are by no means empty and idle1 as the positivists affirm4 ,in them lies a deep1 mysterious1 and mystical meaning3 in them is hidden a great truth4 ,their only mistake is that they pretend to be absolute4 ,for some reason or other men have decided that empirical truths are many1 but that metaphysical truth is one4 ,metaphysical truths are also many1 but that does not in the least prevent them from living in harmony one with another4 ,empirical truths like all earthly beings are continually quarrelling1 and cannot get on without superior authority4 ,but metaphysical truths are differently arranged and know nothing whatsoever of our rivalry4 ,there is no doubt that people who feel the burden of their individuality and thirst for self-renunciation are absolutely right4 ,every probability points to their at last attaining their purpose and being united to that to which they should be united1 whether neighbour or remote1 or perhaps1 as the pantheists desire1 even to inanimate nature4 ,but it is just as probable that those who value their individuality and do not consent to renounce it either for the sake of their neighbours or of a lofty idea1 will preserve themselves and will remain themselves1 if not for ever and ever1 at least for a sufficiently long while1 until they are weary4 ,therefore the ,germans must not be cross with ,heine1 at least those ,germans who have judged him not from the utilitarian point of view--from this point of view ,i too utterly condemn him1 and find for him no justification at all--but from the lofty1 religious or metaphysical point of view1 as it is called nowadays4 ,he cannot possibly disturb them in any way4 ,they will be united1 down to the last they probably will be united in the ,idea1 the thing in itself1 in ,substance1 or any other alluring unity2 and not ,heine with his sarcasms will keep them from their lofty aspirations4 ,while if he and those like him continue to live in their own way in a place apart and even laugh at ideas--can that really be the occasion of serious annoyance8 ,,ix ,what is ,truth8 ,the sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist1 and the assertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind1 that the only philosophy which has spread in our day is that of ,kant1 which takes scepticism for its point of departure4 ,but read the preface to the first edition of ,the ,critique of ,pure ,reason attentively1 and you will be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question3 ',what is truth8' ,he only set himself to solve the problem1 what should a man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the objective truth4 ,the old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven assertions1 which could not bear criticism1 irritated ,kant1 and he decided to get rid1 even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of scepticism1 of the unscientific discipline which he1 as a teacher of philosophy1 had to represent4 ,but the confidence of the sceptics and ,kant's deference are not in the least binding upon us4 ,and after all ,kant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook4 ,for if we do not know what is truth1 what value have the postulates of the existence of ,god and the immortality of the soul8 ,how can we justify or explain any one of the existing religions1 ,christianity included8 ,although the ,gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions of the laws of nature1 yet it does not in itself contain anything contrary to reason4 ,we do not disbelieve in miracles because they are impossible4 ,on the contrary1 it is as clear as day to the most ordinary common sense that life itself1 the foundation of the world1 is the miracle of miracles4 ,and if the task of philosophy had reduced to the mere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle1 her business would have been splendidly accomplished long ago4 ,the whole trouble is that visible miracles are not enough for people1 and that it is impossible to deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place that other miracles1 without which mere existence is often impossible1 will also happen in due course4 ,men are being born--without doubt a great miracle2 there exists a beautiful world--also a miracle of miracles4 ,but does it follow that men will rise from the grave1 and that paradise is made ready for them8 ,the raising of ,lazarus is not much believed nowadays even by those who revere the ,gospel1 not because they will not admit the possibility of miracles in general1 but because they cannot decide a priori which miracles are possible and which are not1 and therefore they are obliged to judge a posteriori4 ,they readily accept a miracle that has happened1 but they doubt the miracle that has not happened1 and the more they doubt1 the more passionately do they desire it4 ,it costs nothing to believe in the final triumph of good upon the earth 7though it would be an absolute miracle71 in progress or the infallibility of the ,pope 7these too are miracles and by no means inconsiderable71 for after all men are quite sufficiently indifferent to good1 to progress1 and to the virtues of the ,pope4 ,it is much harder1 nay quite impossible1 standing before the dead body of one who is near and dear1 to believe that an angel will fly down from heaven and bring the dead to life again1 although the world is full of happenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead4 ,therefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no truth4 ,truth exists1 but we do not know it in all its volume1 nor can we formulate that which we do know3 we cannot imagine why it happened thus and not otherwise1 or whether that which happened had to happen thus1 or whether something else quite different might have happened4 ,once it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity1 but ,hume explained that the notion of necessity is subjective1 and therefore must be discarded as illusory4 ,his idea was caught up 7without the deduction7 by ,kant4 ,all those of our judgments which have the character of universality and necessity1 acquire it only by virtue of our psychological organisation4 ,in those cases where we are particularly convinced of the objective value of our judgment1 we have merely to do with a purely subjective certainty1 though it is immutable and secure in the visible world4 ,it is well known that ,kant did not accept ,hume's deduction3 not only did he make no attempt to banish the false premisses from our intellectual economy1 as ,hume did with the conception of necessity1 but1 on the contrary1 he declared that such an attempt was quite impracticable4 ,the practical reason suggested to ,kant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their source1 yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world of phenomena1 that is in the space between the birth and death of man4 ,if a man has lived before birth 7as ,plato held71 and will live after death1 then his 'truths' were not1 and will not be necessary there1 in the other world4 ,what truths are there1 and whether there are any truths at all1 ,kant only guesses1 and he succeeds in his guesses only because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions4 ,he suddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world1 a right of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his special patronage by the philosopher himself4 ,but why can faith do that which reason cannot8 ,and a yet more insidious question3 ,are not all postulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights in the first ,critique1 but which subsequently obtained a verdict of restitutio in integrum1 by changing the name of the firm8 ,the last hypothesis is the most probable4 ,and if so1 then does it not follow that in the real world so carefully divided by ,kant from the world of phenomena we will find much that is new1 but not a little that is old4 ,in general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world of an instant1 a brief dream1 utterly unlike real life1 is mistaken4 ,this assumption1 first enunciated by ,plato1 and afterwards elaborated and maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical thought1 is based upon no data at all4 ,there's no denying1 it is very pleasant4 ,but as often happens1 as soon as the wish was invested with language1 by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an expression1 so that it lost all resemblance to itself4 ,the essence of the true1 primordial life beyond the grave appears to ,plato as absolute good refined from all alloy1 as the essence of virtue4 ,but after all ,plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness of the ideal existence1 and constantly flavours it with elements which are by no means ideal1 but which give interest and intensity to his dialogues4 ,if you have never had the occasion to read ,plato himself1 acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching of any of his admirers and appreciators1 and you will be struck by its emptiness4 ,read the thick volume of ,natorp's well-known work1 and you will see what value there is in ,plato's 'purified' doctrine4 ,and in passing ,i would recommend as a general rule1 this method of examining the ideas of famous philosophers1 by acquainting oneself with them not only in the original works1 but in the expositions of their disciples1 particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples4 ,when the fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the naked1 unadorned 'truth' remains--disciples always believe that the master had the truth1 and they reveal it without any embellishment or fig leaf--only then does it become quite clear of how little value are the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers4 ,still more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins to draw conclusions from his master's proportions4 ,the book of the aforesaid ,natorp1 a great ,plato expert1 is a reductio ad absurdum of all his master's ideas4 ,plato is revealed as a logical ,neo-,kantian1 a narrow-minded savant1 who had been put thoroughly through the mill at ,freiburg or ,heidelberg4 ,it is also revealed that ,plato's ideas1 in the pure state1 do not in the least express his real attitude to life and to the world4 ,one must take the whole ,plato with his contradictions and inconsequence1 with his vices and virtues1 and value his defects at least as much as his qualities1 or even add one or two defects1 and be blind to one or two virtues4 ,for it is probable that he1 as a man to whom nothing human was alien1 tried to assume a few virtues which he did not possess1 and to conceal a few failings4 ,this course should be followed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines4 ,then 'the other world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our earthly vale4 ,and perhaps1 in spite of ,kant1 some empirical truths will be found common to both worlds4 ,then ,pilate's question will lose much of its all-conquering certainty4 ,he wished to wash his hands of the business1 and he asked1 ',what is truth8' ,after him and before him1 many who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and taken their stand upon scepticism4 ,but every one knows that truth does exist1 and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the clarity and precision demanded by ,descartes4 ,is the miraculous bounded by the miracles that have already been seen on earth1 or are its limits set much wider8 ,and if wider1 then how much8 ,x ,more of ,truth ,perhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between men is impossible1 at least the usual communication by means of language4 ,every one may know it in himself1 but in order to enter into communication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept some conventional lie4 ,nevertheless the value and importance of truth is by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market valuation4 ,if you were asked what is truth1 you could not answer the question even though you had given your whole life to the study of philosophical theories4 ,in yourself1 if you have no one to answer1 you know well what the truth is4 ,therefore truth does not by nature resemble empirical truth in the least1 and before entering the world of philosophy1 you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search1 and to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge4 ,in a word1 you must be ready to accept something absolutely new1 quite unlike what is traditional and old4 ,that is why the tendency to discredit scientific knowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the inexperienced eye4 ,that is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the investigator4 ,the most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has been1 and always will be1 inculcated habit4 ,from the practical point of view it is much more important to a man to know the things which may help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his existence1 than those which have a timeless value4 ,the instinct of self-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for knowledge4 ,moreover1 one must remember that the instinct has at its disposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence1 that all human faculties without exception are under its command1 from unconscious reflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness4 ,much and often has been said in this regard1 and for once the consensus sapientium is on my side4 ,true1 this is treated as an undeniable perversion of human nature--and here ,i make my protest4 ,i think that there is in this nothing undesirable4 ,our mind and consciousness must consider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of instinct1 even if it be the instinct of self-preservation4 ,they should not be conceited1 and to tell the truth they are not conceited1 but readily fulfil their official mission4 ,they pretend to priority only in books1 and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life4 ,if by some accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad with terror1 like children lost in a forest at night4 ,every time that the mind and consciousness begin to judge independently1 they reach destructive conclusions4 ,and then they see with surprise that this time too they were not acting freely1 but under the dictation of the self-same instinct1 which had assumed a different character4 ,the human soul desired the work of destruction1 and she loosed the slaves from their chains1 and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their freedom by making great havoc1 not in the least suspecting that they remained just as they were before1 slaves who work for others4 ,long ago ,dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction is as natural to the human soul as that of creation4 ,beside these two instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological properties1 required only under given1 and accidental1 conditions4 ,of truth--as not only the crass materialists now confess1 but the idealists also have found in their metaphysic--nothing remains but the idea of the norm4--,to speak in more expressive and intelligible language1 truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time and space might establish between themselves some kind of communication at least4 ,that is1 a man must choose between absolute loneliness with truth1 on the one side1 and communion with his neighbours and falsehood1 on the other4 ,which is the better1 it will be asked4 ,the question is idle1 ,i reply4 ,there is a third way still3 to accept both1 though it may at first appear utterly absurd1 especially to people who have once for all decided that logic1 like mathematics1 is infallible4 ,whereas it is possible1 and not merely possible--we would not be content with a possibility3 only a ,german idealist can be satisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all--it is continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states do coexist4 ,all men lie when they begin to speak3 our language is so imperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes a readiness to speak untruth4 ,the more abstract the subject is1 the more does the disposition to lie increase1 until1 when we touch upon the most complicated questions1 we have to lie incessantly1 and the lie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are4 ,for a sincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of contradictions1 and in order to avoid all appearance of lie1 he tries to make a logical agreement between his opinions3 that is to raise his lie to ,herculean heights4 ,in his turn1 when he receives the opinions of others1 he applies the same criterion1 and the moment he notices the smallest contradiction1 he begins naively to cry out against the violation of the fundamental decencies4 ,what is particularly curious is that all the learned students of philosophy--and it is strictly to them that ,i address myself here1 as the reader has probably observed long ago--certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest philosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions from his system4 ,how well armed was ,spinoza6 ,he spared no effort1 and stuck at nothing1 and yet his remarkable system will not bear logical criticism4 ,that is a matter of common knowledge4 ,so it appears that we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency1 and whether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's conception of the world4 ,and after ,kant1 his disciples and successors might have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of consistency1 and that truth lives by contradictions4 ,as a matter of fact1 ,hegel and ,schopenhauer1 each in his own way1 partly attempted to make an admission of this kind1 but they derived small profit from it4 ,let us try to draw some conclusions from the foregoing4 ,certainly1 while logic can be useful1 it would be unjustifiable recklessness to refuse its services4 ,nor are the conclusions devoid of interest1 as we shall see4 ,first of all1 when you speak1 never trouble to be consistent with what you said before3 that will put an unnecessary check upon your freedom1 which1 without that additional fetter1 is already chained in words and grammatical forms4 ,when you are listening to a friend or reading a book1 do not assign great value to individual words or even to phrases4 ,forget separate thoughts1 and give no great consideration even to logically arranged ideas4 ,remember that though your friend desires it1 he cannot express himself save by ready-made forms of speech4 ,look well to the expression of his face1 listen to the intonation of his voice--this will help you to penetrate through his words to his soul4 ,not only in conversation1 but even in a written book1 can one over-hear the sound1 even the timbre of the author's voice1 and notice the finest shades of expression in his eyes and face4 ,do not fasten upon contradictions1 do not dispute1 do not demand argument3 only listen with attention4 ,in return for which1 when you begin to speak1 you also will have to face no dispute1 nor to produce arguments1 which you know well you neither have nor could have4 ,so you will not be annoyed by having pointed out to you your contradictions which you know well were always there1 and will always be there1 and with which it is painful1 nay quite impossible1 for you to part4 ,then1 then--and this is most important of all--you will at last be convinced that truth does not depend on logic1 that there are no logical truths at all1 that you therefore have the right to search for what you like1 how you like1 without argument1 and that if something results from your search1 it will not be a formula1 not a law1 not a principle1 not even an idea6 ,only think3 while the object of search is 'truth1' as it is understood nowadays1 one must be prepared for anything4 ,for instance1 the materialists will be right1 and matter and energy are the basis of the world4 ,it does not matter that we can immediately confound the materialists with their conclusions4 ,the history of thought can show many cases of the complete rehabilitation of opinions that have been cast off and reviled4 ,yesterday's error may be to-morrow's truth1 even a self-evident truth4 ,and apart from its content1 wherein is materialism bad8 ,it is a harmonious1 consistent1 and well-sustained system4 ,i have already pointed out that the materialistic conception of the world is just as capable of enchanting men as any other--pantheistic or idealistic4 ,and since we have come so far1 ,i confess that in my opinion no ideas at all are bad in themselves3 so far ,i have been able to follow with pleasure the development of the idea of progress to the accompaniment of factories1 railways1 and aeroplanes4 ,still1 it seems to me childish to hope that all these trivialities--,i mean the ideas--will become the object of man's serious seeking4 ,if that desperate struggle of man with ,god and the world were possible1 of which legend and history tell--think of ,prometheus alone--then it was not for truth and not for the idea4 ,man desires to be strong and rich and free1 the wretched1 insignificant creature of dust1 whom the first chance shock crushes like a worm before one's eyes1--and if he speaks of ideas it is only because he despairs of success in his proper search4 ,he feels that he is a worm1 he fears that he must again return to the dust which he is1 and he lies1 pretending that his misery is not terrible to him1 if only he knew the truth4 ,forgive him his lie1 for he speaks it only with his lips4 ,let him say what he will1 how he will2 so long as we hear in his words the familiar note of the call to battle1 and the fire of desperate inexorable resolution burns in his eyes1 we will understand him4 ,we are used to decipher hieroglyphs4 ,but if he1 like the ,germans of to-day1 accepts truth and the norm as the final goal of human aspiration1 we shall also know with whom we have to deal1 were he by destiny endowed with the eloquence of ,cicero4 ,better utter loneliness than communion with such a man4 ,yet such communion does not exclude utter loneliness2 perhaps it even assists the hard achievement4 ,,xi ,i and ,thou ,the familiar expression1 'to look into another's soul1' which by force of habit at first sight seems extremely intelligible1 on closer observation appears so unintelligible that one is forced to ask whether it has any meaning at all4 ,try to bend1 mentally1 over another's soul3 you will see nothing but a vast1 empty1 black abyss1 and you will only be seized with giddiness for your pains4 ,thus1 properly speaking1 the expression 'to look into another's soul' is only an abortive metaphor4 ,all that we can do is to argue from the outward data to the inward feelings4 ,from tears we deduce pain1 from pallor1 fear1 from a smile1 joy4 ,but is this to look into another's soul8 ,it is only to give room to a series of purely logical processes in one's head4 ,the other's soul remains as invisible as before2 we only guess at it1 perhaps rightly1 perhaps mistakenly4 ,naturally this conclusion irritates us4 ,what a miserable world it is where it is quite impossible to see the very thing that we desire above all to see4 ,but irritation is almost the normal spiritual state of a man who thinks and seeks4 ,whenever it is particularly important to him to be sure of something1 after a number of desperate attempts he is convinced that his curiosity cannot be satisfied4 ,and now the mocking mind adds a new question to the old3 ,why look for another's soul when you have not seen your own8 ,and is there a soul8 ,many have believed and still do believe that there is no soul at all1 but only a science of it1 called psychology4 ,it is known that psychology says nothing of the soul1 considering that its task is confined to the study of spiritual states--states1 by the way1 which have as yet hardly been studied at all4444 ,what is the way out8 ,one can answer irony with irony1 or even with abuse4 ,one can deny psychology the right to be called a science and call the materialists a pack of fools1 as is often done4 ,incontestably1 anger has its rights4 ,but this has sense and meaning only while you are among people and are listened to4 ,nobody wants to be indignant alone with oneself1 when one is not even reckoning upon making use of one's indignation for literary purposes3 for even a writer is not always writing1 and is more often preoccupied with transitory thoughts than with his forthcoming works4 ,one prefers to approach the enchanted cave1 though for the thousandth time1 with every possible precaution4 ,perhaps it is only upon the approach of an outside soul that another's soul becomes invisible1 and if she be caught unawares she will not have time to disappear4 ,so that ponderous psychology1 which like any other science always proclaims its plans and methods aloud before undertaking anything1 is utterly unsuited to the capture of a thing so light and mobile as the human soul4 ,but let us leave psychology with the honourable name of science2 let us even respect the materialists1 while we endeavour to track down the soul by other means4 ,perhaps in the depth of the dark abyss of which we spoke1 something might be found1 were it not for the giddiness4 ,therefore it is not so necessary to invent new methods as to learn to look fearlessly into the depths1 which always appear unfathomable to the unaccustomed eye4 ,after all1 unfathomability is not so entirely useless to man4 ,it was driven into our heads as children that the human mind could compass only those things which are limited4 ,but this only proves that we have yet another prejudice to get rid of4 ,if it comes to giving up the right of abusing the materialists and of being taught by psychology1 and something else into the bargain--well1 we are used to that4 ,but in return we may at last be granted a glimpse of the mysterious 'thou1' and perhaps the ',i' will cease to be problematical as well4 ,patience is a sickening thing2 but remember the fakirs and the other worthies of the same kind4 ,they succeed by patience alone4 ,and apparently they arrive at something2 but not at universal truths1 ,i am ready to vouch for that4 ,the world has long been weary of universal truths4 ,even 'truth' pure and simple makes no whisper in my ear4 ,we must find a way of escape from the power of every kind of truth4 ,this victory the fakirs tried to win4 ,they can produce no arguments to prove their right1 for the visible victory was never on their side4 ,one conquers by bayonets1 big guns1 microscopes and logical arguments4 ,microscopes and logic give the palm to limitation4 ,and yet1 though limitation often strengthens1 it also happens that it kills4 ,,the ,,theory ,,of ,,knowledge ,the ,theory of ,knowledge as ,apologetics ,the modern theory of knowledge1 though it always consciously takes its rise from ,kant1 has in one respect quite disregarded the master's commandment4 ,it is very strange that the theorists of knowledge1 who usually cannot agree among themselves upon anything1 have as it were agreed to understand the problem of knowledge quite otherwise than ,kant4 ,kant undertook to investigate our cognitive faculties in order to establish foundations1 in virtue of which certain existing sciences could be accepted1 and others rejected4 ,one may say that the second purpose was chief4 ,hume's scepticism made him uneasy only in theory4 ,he knew beforehand that whatever theory of knowledge he might invent1 mathematics and the natural sciences would remain sciences and metaphysics be rejected4 ,in other words1 his aim was not to justify science but to explain the possibility of its existence2 and he started from the point of view that no one can seriously doubt the truths of mathematics and natural science4 ,but now the position is different4 ,the theorists of knowledge direct all their efforts towards justifying scientific knowledge4 ,why8 ,does scientific knowledge really need justification8 ,of course there are cranks1 sometimes even cranks of genius1 like our own ,tolstoi1 who attack science2 but their attacks offend no one1 nor do they cause alarm4 ,scientists continue their researches as before2 the universities flourish2 discovery follows discovery4 ,and the theorists of knowledge themselves do not spend sleepless nights in the endeavour to find new justifications for science4 ,yet1 ,i repeat1 though they can come to an understanding about practically nothing else1 they amaze us by their unanimity upon this point--they are all convinced that it is their duty to justify science and exalt her4 ,so that the modern theory of knowledge is no longer a science1 but an apology4 ,and its demonstrations are like those of apology4 ,once science must be defended1 it is necessary to begin by praising her1 that is by selecting evidence and data to show that science fulfils some mission or other1 but indubitably a very high and important one1 or1 on the other hand1 by painting a picture of the fate that would overtake mankind1 if it was deprived of science4 ,thus the apologetic element has begun to play almost as large a part in the theory of knowledge as it has done hitherto in theology4 ,perhaps the time is at hand when scientific apologetics will be officially recognised as a philosophic discipline4 ,but1 qui s'excuse s'accuse4 ,it is plain that all is not well with science1 since she has begun to justify herself4 ,besides1 apologetics are only apologetics1 and sooner or later the theory of knowledge will be tired of psalms of praise1 and will demand a more complex and responsible task1 and a real labour4 ,at present the theorists start with the assumption that scientific knowledge is perfect knowledge1 and therefore the premisses upon which it is builded are not subject to criticism4 ,the law of causation is not justified because it appears to be the expression of a real relation of things1 nor even because we have data at our disposal which could convince us that it does not and will never admit exceptions1 that uncaused effects are impossible4 ,all these things are lacking2 but1 we are told1 they are not needed4 ,the chief thing is that the causal law makes science possible1 while to reject it means to reject science and knowledge generally1 all anticipation1 and even1 as some few hold1 reason itself4 ,clearly1 if one has to choose between a slightly dubious admission on the one side and the prospect of chaos and insanity on the other1 there will be no long hesitation4 ,apologetics1 we see1 has chosen the most powerful of arguments1 ad hominem4 ,but all such arguments partake of one common defect2 they are not constant1 and they are double-edged4 ,to-day they defend scientific knowledge2 to-morrow they will attack it4 ,indeed1 it so happens that the very belief in the causal law begets a great disquiet and turmoil in the soul1 which finally produces all the horrors of chaos and madness4 ,the certainty that the existing order is immutable is for certain minds synonymous with the certainty that life is nonsensical and absurd4 ,probably the disciples of ,christ had that feeling when the last words of their crucified ,master reached them from the cross3 ',my ,god1 my ,god1 why hast ,thou forsaken me8' ,and the modern theorists may explain triumphantly that when the law became the instrument of chaos and madness1 it was ipso facto abolished4 ',christ has risen1' say the disciples of ,christ4 ,i have said that the theorists may triumph2 but ,i must confess that ,i have not found in any of them an open glorification of such an obvious proof of the truth of their teaching4 ,of the resurrection of ,christ they say not a word--on the contrary1 they make every effort to avoid it and pass it by in silence4 ,and this circumstance compels us to pause and think4 ,a dilemma arises3 if you grant that the law of causation suffers no exception1 then your soul will be eternally haunted by the last words of the crucified ,christ2 if you do not1 then you will have no science4 ,some assert that it is impossible to live without science1 without knowledge1 that such a life is horror and madness2 others cannot be reconciled to the thought that the most perfect of men died the death of a murderer4 ,what shall we do8 ,without which thing is it impossible for man to live8 ,without scientific knowledge1 or without the conviction that truth and spiritual perfection are in the last resort the victors of this world8 ,and how will the theory of knowledge stand with regard to questions such as these8 ,will it still continue its exercises in apologetics or will it at last understand that this is not its real problem1 and that if it would preserve the right to be called philosophy1 it will have not to justify and exalt the existing science1 but to examine and direct some science of its own4 ,it means above all to put the question3 ,is scientific knowledge really perfect1 or is it perhaps imperfect1 and should it therefore yield its present honourable place to another science8 ,evidently this is the most important question for the theory of knowledge1 yet this question it never puts4 ,it wants to exalt existing science4 ,it has been1 is now1 and probably will long continue to be1 apologetics4 ,truth and ,utility ,mill1 seeking to prove that all our sciences1 even the mathematical1 have an empiric origin1 brings forward the following consideration4 ,if on every occasion that we had to take twice two things1 some deity slipped one extra thing into our hands1 we should be convinced that twice two is not four but five4 ,and perhaps ,mill is right3 perhaps we should not divine what was the matter4 ,we are much more concerned to discover what is practically necessary and directly useful to us than to search for truth4 ,if a deity with each four things slipped a fifth into our hands1 we should accept the additional thing and consider it natural1 intelligible1 necessary1 impossible to be otherwise4 ,the very uniformity in the sequence of phenomena observed by the empirical philosophers was also slipped into our hands4 ,by whom8 ,when8 ,who dares to ask8 ,once the law is established no one is interested in anything any more4 ,now we can foretell the future1 now we can use the thing slipped into our hands1 and the rest--cometh of the evil one4 ,philosophers and ,teachers ,every one knows that ,schopenhauer was for many years not only not recognised1 but not even read4 ,his books were used for waste-paper4 ,it was only towards the end of his life that he had readers and admirers--and1 of course1 critics4 ,for every admirer is at bottom a most merciless and importunate critic4 ,he must understand everything1 make everything agree1 and of course the master must supply the necessary explanations4 ,schopenhauer1 who did not have the experience of being a master till his old age1 at first behaved very benevolently to his disciples' questions and patiently gave the explanations required4 ,but the further one goes into the forest1 the thicker are the trees4 ,the most loyal perplexities of his pupils became more and more importunate1 until at last the old man lost patience4 ',i didn't undertake to explain all the secrets of the universe to every one who wanted to know them1' he once exclaimed1 when a certain pupil persisted in emphasising the contradictions he had noticed in ,schopenhauer4 ,and really--is a master obliged to explain everything8 ,in ,schopenhauer's words we are given an answer1 not ambiguous4 ,a philosopher not only cannot be a teacher1 he does not want to be one4 ,there are teachers in schools1 in universities3 they teach arithmetic1 grammar1 logic1 metaphysics4 ,the philosopher has quite a different task1 one which does not in the least resemble teaching4 ,truth as a ,social ,substance ,there are many ways1 real and imaginary1 of objectively verifying philosophic opinions4 ,but they all reduce1 we know1 to trial by the law of contradiction4 ,true1 every one is aware that no single philosophic doctrine is able to support such a trial1 so that1 pending a better future1 people consider it possible to display a certain tenderness in the examination4 ,they are usually satisfied if they come to the conclusion that the philosopher made a genuine attempt to avoid contradictions4 ,for instance1 they forgive ,spinoza his inconsistency because of his amor intellectualis ,dei2 ,kant1 for his love of morality and his praise of disinterestedness2 ,plato1 for the originality and purity of his idealistic impulses2 and ,aristotle1 for the vastyness and universality of his knowledge4 ,so that1 strictly speaking1 we must confess that we have no real objective method of verifying a philosophical truth1 and when we criticise other people's systems1 we judge arbitrarily after all4 ,if a philosopher suits us for some reason1 we do not trouble him with the law of contradiction2 if he does not1 we summon him before the court to be judged with the utmost rigour of the law1 confident beforehand that he will be found guilty on every count4 ,but sometimes there arises the desire to verify one's own philosophic convictions4 ,to play the farce of objective verification with them1 to look for contradictions in oneself--,i do not suppose that even ,germans are capable of that4 ,and yet one desires to know whether he does indeed possess the truth or whether he has only a universal error in his hands4 ,what is to be done8 ,i think there is a way4 ,he should think to himself that it is absolutely impossible for his truth to be binding upon anybody4 ,if in spite of this he still refuses to renounce her1 if the truth can suffer such an ordeal and yet remain the same to him as she was before1 then it may be supposed that she is worth something4 ,for often we appreciate conviction1 not because it has an intrinsic value1 but because it commands a high price in the market4 ,robinson ,crusoe probably had a totally different way of thinking to that of a modern writer or professor1 whose books are exposed to the appreciation of his numerous confrres1 who can create for him the renown of a wise man and a scholar1 or utterly ruin his reputation4 ,even with the ,greeks1 whom we are accustomed to regard as model thinkers1 opinions had--to use the language of economics--not so much a demand1 as an exchange value4 ,the ,greeks had no knowledge of the printing-press1 and no literary reviews4 ,they usually took their wisdom out into the market-place1 and applied all their efforts to persuade people to acknowledge its value4 ,and it is hard to maintain that wisdom1 which is constantly being offered to people1 should not adapt itself to people's tastes4 ,it is truer to say that wisdom became accustomed to value itself to the exact degree to which it could count on people's appreciation4 ,in other words1 it appears that the value of wisdom1 like that of all other commodities1 not only with us1 but with the ,greeks before us1 is a social affair4 ,the most modern philosophy has given up concealing the fact4 ,the teleology of the rationalists1 who follow ,fichte1 as well as of the pragmatists who consider themselves the successors of ,mill is openly based upon the social point of view1 and speaks of collective creations4 ,truth which is not good for all1 and always1 in the home market and the foreign--is not truth4 ,perhaps its value is even defined by the quantity of labour spent upon it4 ,marx might triumph3 under different flags his theory has found admission into every sphere of contemporary thought4 ,there would hardly be found one philosopher who would apply the method of verifying truth which ,i have proposed2 and hardly a single modern idea which would stand the test4 ,doctrines and ,deductions ,if you want to ruin a new idea--try to give it the widest possible publicity4 ,men will begin to reflect upon it1 to try it by their daily needs1 to interpret it1 to make deductions from it1 in a word to squeeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus2 or1 more likely1 they will cover it up with the dbris of their own habitual and intelligible ideas1 and it will become as dead as everything that is begotten by logic4 ,perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers to so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of the general public to them4 ,the majority of philosophic systems are chaotically and obscurely expounded1 so that not every educated person can understand them4 ,it is a pity to kill one's own child1 and every one does his best to save it from premature death4 ,the most dangerous enemies of an idea are 'deductions' from it1 as though they followed of themselves4 ,the idea does not presuppose them2 they are usually pressed upon it4 ,indeed1 people very often say3 ',the idea is quite right1 but it leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable4' ,again1 how often has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil's deserting all his ideas1 and feeding only upon the conclusions from them4 ,every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention while he was yet alive1 knows by bitter experience what 'deductions' are4 ,and yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and courageous resistance to his continuators2 and still more rarely a philosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation1 that it will not bear continuation1 that it exists only in and for itself1 that it is self-sufficient4 ,if some one said this1 how would he be answered8 ,people could not dispute with him--try to dispute with a man who wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate4 ,the only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict1 to lynch law4 ,people are so weak and nave that they will at all costs see a teacher 7in the usual sense of the word7 in every philosopher4 ,in other words1 they really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their actions1 their present1 their future1 and their whole fate4 ,socrates was not executed for teaching1 but because the ,athenians thought he was dangerous to ,athens4 ,and in all ages men have approached truth with this criterion1 as though they knew beforehand that truth must be of use and able to protect them4 ,one of the greatest teachings1 ,christianity1 was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the self-appointed guardians1 or1 if you will1 because it was really very dangerous to ,roman ideals4 ,of course1 neither ,socrates' death nor the deaths of thousands of the early ,christians saved the ancient culture and polity from decay3 but no one has learned anything from the lesson4 ,people think that these were all accidental mistakes1 against which no one was secure in ancient times1 but which will never again recur2 and therefore they continue to make 'deductions' as they used from every truth1 and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made4 ,and they have their reward4 ,although there have been on earth many wise men who knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures for which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives1 still wisdom is to us a book with seven seals1 a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay our hands4 ,many--the vast majority--are even seriously convinced that philosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed some miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called philosophers4 ,i believe that even professors of philosophy1 the more clever of them1 not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein lies the ultimate secret of their science1 revealed to the initiate alone4 ,fortunately1 the position is otherwise4 ,it may be that mankind is destined never to change in this respect1 and a thousand years hence men will care much more about 'deductions1' theoretical and practical1 from the truth than about truth itself2 but real philosophers1 men who know what they want and at what they aim1 will hardly be embarrassed by this4 ,they will utter their truths as before1 without in the least considering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of logic4 ,truths1 ,proven and ,unproven ,whence did we get the habit of requiring proofs of each idea that is expressed8 ,if we put aside the consideration1 as having no real meaning in the present case1 that men do often purposely deceive their neighbours for gain or other interests1 then strictly speaking the necessity for proof is entirely removed4 ,it is true that we can still deceive ourselves and fall into involuntary error4 ,sometimes we take a vision for a reality1 and we wish to guard against that offensive mistake4 ,but as soon as the possibility of bona fide error is removed1 then we may relate simply without arguments1 judgments1 or references4 ,if you please1 believe2 if you don't1 don't4 ,and there is one province1 the very province which has always attracted to itself the most remarkable representatives of the human race1 where proofs in the general acceptation are even quite impossible4 ,we have been hitherto taught that that which cannot be proved1 should not be spoken about4 ,still worse1 we have so arranged our language that1 strictly speaking1 everything we say is expressed in the form of a judgment1 that is1 in a form which presupposes not merely the possibility but the necessity of proofs4 ,perhaps this is the reason why metaphysics has been the object of incessant attack4 ,metaphysics evidently was not only unable to find a form of expression for her truths which would free her from the obligation of proof2 she did not even want to4 ,she considered herself the science par excellence1 and therefore supposed that she had more largely and more strictly to prove the judgments which she took under her wing4 ,she thought that if she were to neglect the duty of demonstration she would lose all her rights4 ,and that1 ,i imagine1 was her fatal mistake4 ,the correspondence of rights and duties is perhaps a cardinal truth 7or a cardinal fiction7 of the doctrine of law1 but it has been introduced into the sphere of philosophy by a misunderstanding4 ,here1 rather1 the contrary principle is enthroned3 rights are in inverse proportion to duties4 ,and only there where all duties have ceased is the greatest and most sovereign right acquired--the right of communion with ultimate truths4 ,here we must not for one moment forget that ultimate truths have nothing in common with middle truths1 the logical construction of which we have so diligently studied for the last two thousand years4 ,the fundamental difference is that the ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible4 ,unintelligible1 ,i repeat1 but not inaccessible4 ,it is true that middle truths also are1 strictly speaking1 unintelligible4 ,who will assert that he understands light1 heat1 pain1 pride1 joy1 degradation8 ,nevertheless1 our mind1 in alliance with omnipotent habit1 has1 with the assistance of some strained interpretation1 given to the combination of phenomena in the segment of universal life that is accessible to us1 a certain kind of harmony and unity1 and this from time immemorial has gained repute under the name of an intelligible explanation of the created world4 ,but the known1 which is the familiar1 world is sufficiently unintelligible to make good faith require of us that we should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate of being4 ,it is impossible to hold1 as some do1 that the only reason why we do not understand the world is that something is hidden from us or that our mind is weak1 so that if the ,supreme ,being wished to unveil the secret of creation to us1 or if the human brain should so much develop in the next ten million years that he will excel us as far as we excel our official ancestor1 the ape1 then the world will be intelligible4 ,no1 no1 no6 ,by their very essence the operations which we perform upon reality to understand it are useful and necessary only so long as they do not pass a certain limit4 ,it is possible to understand the arrangement of a locomotive4 ,it is also legitimate to seek an explanation of an eclipse of the sun1 or of an earthquake4 ,but a moment comes--only we cannot define it exactly--when explanations lose all meaning and are good for nothing any more4 ,it is as though we were led by a rope--the law of sufficient reason--to a certain place and left there3 ',now go wherever you like4' ,and since we have grown so used to the rope in our lives1 we begin to believe that it is part of the very essence of the world4 ,one of the most remarkable thinkers1 ,spinoza1 thought that ,god himself was bound by necessity4 ,let any one probe himself carefully1 and he will find that he is not merely unable to think but almost unable to live without the hypothesis of ,spinoza4 ,the work of ,hume1 who so brilliantly disputed the axiom of causal necessity1 was only half done4 ,he clearly showed that it is impossible to prove the existence of necessary connection4 ,but it is also impossible to prove the contrary4 ,in the result1 everything remained as before3 ,kant1 and all mankind after him1 has returned to ,spinoza's position4 ,freedom has been driven into an intellectual world1 an unknown land1 'from whose bourne ,no traveller returns1' and everything is in its former place4 ,philosophy wants to be a science at all costs4 ,it is absolutely impossible for her to succeed in this2 but the price she has paid for the right to be called a science1 is not returned to her4 ,she has waived the right of seeking that which she needed wherever she would1 and she is deprived of the right for ever4 ,but did she really need it8 ,if you glance at contemporary ,german philosophy you will say without hesitation that it was not needed at all4 ,neither by mistake1 nor even in pursuit of a new title1 did she renounce her great vocation3 it has become an intolerable burden to her4 ,however hard it may be to confess1 it is nevertheless indubitable that the great secrets of the universe cannot be manifested with the clarity and distinctness with which the visible and tangible world is opened to us4 ,not only others--you will not even convince yourself of your truth with the obviousness with which you can convince all men without exception of scientific truths4 ,revelations1 if they do occur1 are always revelations for an instant4 ,mahomet--,dostoevsky explains--could only stay in paradise a very short time1 from half a second to five seconds1 even if he succeeded in falling into it4 ,and ,dostoevsky himself entered paradise only for an instant4 ,and here on earth1 both of them lived for years1 for tens of years1 and there seemed to be no end to the hell of earthly existence4 ,the hell was obvious1 demonstrable2 it could be fixed1 exhibited1 ad oculos4 ,but how could paradise be proven8 ,how could one fix1 how express1 those half-seconds of paradisic beatitude1 which were from the outside manifested in ugly and horrible epileptic fits with convulsions1 paroxysms1 a foaming mouth1 and sometimes an ill-omened sudden fall1 with the spilling of blood8 ,again1 believe1 if you will3 if you won't1 don't4 ,surely a man who lives now in paradise1 now in hell sees life utterly differently from others4 ,and he wants to think that he is right1 that his experience is of great value1 that life is not at all as it is described by men of different experience and more limited emotions4 ,how desperately did ,dostoevsky desire to persuade all men of his rightness1 how stubbornly he used to demonstrate1 and how angry he was made by the consciousness that lived in the depths of his soul that he was impotent to prove anything4 ,but a fact remains a fact4 ,perhaps epileptics and madmen know things of which normal men have not even the remotest presentiment1 but it is not vouchsafed to them to communicate their knowledge to others1 or to prove it4 ,and there is a universal knowledge which is the very object of philosophical seeking1 with which one may commune1 but which by its very essence cannot be communicated to all1 that is1 cannot be turned into verified and demonstrable universal truths4 ,to renounce this knowledge in order that philosophy should have the right to be called a science6 ,at times men acted thus4 ,there were sober epochs when the pursuit of positive knowledge absorbed every one capable of intellectual labour4 ,or perhaps there were epochs in which men who sought something other than positive science were condemned to universal contempt1 and passed unregarded3 in such an epoch ,plato would have found no sympathy1 but would have died in obscurity4 ,one thing at least is clear4 ,he whose chief interest and motive in life is in undemonstrable truths is doomed to complete or relative sterility in the sense in which the word is generally understood4 ,if he is clever and gifted1 men may perhaps be interested in his mind and talent1 but they will pass his work with indifference1 contempt1 and even horror2 and they will begin to warn the world against him4 ',look at him1 my children1 ,he is stern and pale and lean4 ,he is poor and naked1 ,and all men count him mean4' ,has not the work of the prophets who sought for ultimate truths been barren and useless8 ,did life hold them in any account8 ,life went its own way1 and the voices of the prophets have been1 are1 and ever will be1 voices in the wilderness4 ,for that which they see and know1 cannot be proved and is not capable of proof4 ,prophets have always been isolated1 dissevered1 separate1 helpless men1 locked up in their pride4 ,prophets are kings without an army4 ,for all their love to their subjects1 they can do nothing for them1 for subjects respect only those kings who possess a formidable military power4 ,and--long may it be so6 ,the ,limits of ,reality ,after all1 not even the most consistent and convinced realist represents life to himself as it really is4 ,he overlooks a great deal2 and on the other hand he often sees something which has no existence in reality4 ,i do not think there is any need to show this by example4 ,for all our desire to be objective we are1 after all1 extremely subjective1 and those things which ,kant calls synthetic judgments a priori1 by which our mind forms nature and dictates laws to her1 do play a great and serious part in our lives4 ,we create something like the veil of ,maia3 we are awake in sleep1 and sleep in wakefulness1 exactly as though some magic power had charmed us4 ,and just as in sleep we feel for instants that what is happening to us is like a half-dream1 an intermediate half-life4 ,schopenhauer and the ,buddhists were right in asserting that it is equally wrong to say of the veil of ,maia1 the world accessible to us1 either that it exists or does not exist4 ,it is true that logic does not admit such judgments and persecutes them most implacably1 for they violate its most fundamental laws4 ,but it cannot be helped3 when one has to choose between philosophy which is alluring and promising1 and empty logic1 one will always sacrifice the latter for the former4 ,and philosophy without contradictory judgments would be either doomed to eternal silence1 or would be churned into a mud of commonplace and reduced to nothing4 ,philosophers know that4 ,the same is true of our own case3 we must confess that we are at the same time awake and dreaming dreams1 and at times we must own that though we are alive1 yet we have long since been dead4 ,as living beings we still hold to the accepted synthetic judgments a priori1 and as dead1 we try to do without them1 or to replace them by other judgments which have nothing in common with the former but are even opposite to them4 ,philosophy is occupied in this work with extreme diligence1 and in this and this alone is the meaning of the idealistic movement which has never1 since the time of ,plato1 disappeared from history4 ,the problem is not for us to find another1 primordial1 better1 and eternal world to replace the visible world accessible to all1 as idealistic philosophy is usually interpreted by her official and1 unfortunately1 her most influential representatives4 ,interpretation of that kind too obviously bears the mark of its empiric utilitarian origin3 they bring us as near to super-empiric reality as do the notions wherewith we define what is valuable in life4 ,we might as well consider the super-empiric world as one of gold1 diamond1 or pearls simply because gold1 diamonds1 and pearls are very costly4 ,but so it usually happens4 ,god himself is usually represented as glimmering with gold and precious stones1 as omniscient and omnipotent4 ,he is called the ,king of ,kings since on earth the lot of a crowned head is considered most enviable4 ,the meaning and value of idealistic philosophy thus appears to be that she for ever ratifies all that we have found valuable on earth during our brief existence4 ,herein1 ,i believe1 is a fatal error4 ,idealistic philosophy1 it is true1 gave an excuse for falsely interpreting her1 since she loved to be arrayed in sumptuous apparel4 ,the religion of almost all nations has always sought for forms outwardly beautiful without stopping even before such an obvious paradox--not to put it more strongly--as a golden cross studded with diamonds4 ,and for the sake of sumptuous words and golden crosses men overlooked great truths1 and perhaps great possibilities4 ,the philosophy of the schools also loved to array herself1 so that she should not be behind the masters in this respect1 and for the sake of dress she often forgot her necessary work4 ,plato taught that our life was only a shadow of another reality4 ,if this is true1 and he discovered the truth1 then surely our first task is to begin to live a different life1 to turn our back to the wall above which the shadows are walking and to turn our face to the source of light which created the shadows or to those things of which the visible outlines give only a remote resemblance4 ,we must be awakened1 if only in part2 to this end what is usually done to a person sound asleep must be done to us4 ,he is pulled1 pinched1 beaten1 tickled1 and if all these things fail1 still stronger and more heroic measures must be applied4 ,at all events1 it is out of the question to advise contemplation1 which may well make one still sleepier1 or quietude1 which leads to the same result4 ,philosophy should live by sarcasm1 irony1 alarm1 struggles1 despairs1 and allow herself contemplation and quietude only from time to time1 as a relaxation4 ,then perhaps she will succeed in creating1 by the side of realistic dreams1 dreams of a quite different order1 and visibly demonstrate that the universally accepted dreams are not the only ones4 ',what is the use8' ,i do not think this question need be answered4 ,he who asks it1 shows by the fact that he needs neither an answer nor philosophy1 while he who needs them will not ask but will patiently await events3 a temperature of #abj1 an epileptic fit1 or something of this kind1 which facilitates the difficult task of seeking4444 ,the ,given and the ,possible ,the law of causation as a principle of inquiry is an excellent thing3 the existing sciences afford us convincing evidence of that4 ,but as an idea in the ,platonic sense it is of little value1 at times at least4 ,the strict harmony and order of the world have fascinated many people3 such giants of thought as ,spinoza and ,goethe paused with reverent wonder in contemplation of the great and unchangeable order of nature4 ,therefore they exalted necessity even to the rank of a primordial1 eternal1 original principle4 ,and we must confess that ,goethe's and ,spinoza's conception of the world lives so much in each one of us that in most cases we can love and respect the world only when our souls feel in it a symmetrical harmony4 ,harmony seems to us at once-the highest value and the ultimate truth4 ,it gives to the soul great peace1 a stable firmness1 a trust in the ,creator--the highest boons accessible to mortal men1 as the philosophers teach4 ,nevertheless1 there are other yearnings4 ,man's heart is suddenly possessed by a longing for the fantastic1 the unforeseen1 for that which cannot be foreseen4 ,the beautiful world loves its beauty1 peace of soul seems disgraceful1 stability is felt as an intolerable burden4 ,just as a youth grown to manhood suddenly feels irritated by the bountiful tutelage of his parents1 from which he has received so much1 though he does not know what to do with his freedom1 so is a man of insight ashamed of the happiness which is given to him1 which some one has created4 ,the law of causation1 like the whole harmony of the world1 seems to him a pleasant gift1 facilitating life1 but yet a degrading one4 ,he has sold his birthright for peace1 for undisturbed happiness--his great birthright of free creation4 ,he does not understand how a giant like ,goethe could have been seduced by the temptation of a pleasant life1 he suspects the sincerity of ,spinoza4 ,there is something rotten in the state of ,denmark4 ,the apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil1 has become to him the sole purpose of life1 even though the path to it should lie through extreme suffering4 ,and1 strangely1 nature herself seems to be preoccupied in urging man to that fatal path4 ,there comes a time in our life when some imperative and secret voice forbids us to rejoice at the beauty and grandeur of the world4 ,the world allures us as before1 but it no longer gives pure happiness4 ,remember ,tchekhov4 ,how he loved nature6 ,what immeasurable yearning is audible in his wonderful descriptions of nature6 ,just as though each time that he glanced at the blue sky1 the troubled sea or the green woods1 a voice of authority whispered to him3 ',all this is yours no longer4 ,you may look at it1 but you have no right to rejoice4 ,prepare yourself for another life1 where nothing will be given1 complete1 prepared1 where nothing will be created1 where there will be illimitable creation alone4 ,and everything which is in this world shall be given to destruction1 to destruction and destruction1 even this nature which you so passionately love1 and which it is so hard and painful for you to renounce4' ,everything drives us to the mysterious realm of the eternally fantastic1 eternally chaotic1 and--who knows8--it may be1 the eternally beautiful4444 ,experiment and ,proof ,when cogito ergo sum came into ,descartes' head1 he marked the day--,november #aj1 #afai--;as a remarkable day3 ',the light of a wonderful discovery1' he wrote in his diary1 'flashed into my mind4' ,schelling relates the same thing of himself3 in the year #ahja he 'saw the light4' ,and to ,nietzsche when he roamed the mountains and the valleys of the ,engadine there came a mighty change3 he grasped the doctrine of eternal recurrence4 ,one might name many philosophers1 poets1 artists1 preachers1 who like these three suddenly saw the light1 and considered their vision the beginning of a new life4 ,it is even probable that all men who have been destined to display to the world something perfectly new and original have without exception experienced that miracle of sudden metamorphosis4 ,nevertheless1 though much is spoken of these miracles and often1 in nearly all biographies of great men1 we cannot strictly make any use of them4 ,descartes1 ,schelling1 ,nietzsche tell the story of their conversion2 and with us1 ,tolstoi and ,dostoevsky tell of theirs2 in the less remote past1 there are ,mahomet and ,paul the ,apostle2 in far antiquity the legend of ,moses4 ,but if ,i had chosen tenfold the number1 if thousands even had been collected1 it would still be impossible for the mind to make any deduction from them4 ,in other words1 all these cases have no value as scientific material1 whereas one fossil skeleton or a unique case of an unknown rare disease is a precious windfall to the scientist4 ,what is still more interesting1 ,descartes was so struck with his cogito ergo sum1 ,nietzsche with his eternal recurrence1 ,mahomet with his paradise1 ,paul the ,apostle with his vision1 while we remain more or less indifferent to anything they may relate of their experiences4 ,only the most sensitive among us have an ear for stories of that kind1 and even they are obliged to hide their impressions within them1 for what can be done with them8 ,it is even impossible to fix them as indubitable facts1 for facts also require a verification and must be proved4 ,there are no proofs4 ,philosophic and religious teachings offered by men who have had extraordinary inward experiences1 not only do not generally confirm1 but rather refute their own stories of revelation4 ,for philosophic and religious teaching have always hitherto assigned themselves the task of attracting all and sundry to themselves1 and in order to attain this end they had to have recourse to such methods as have effect with the ordinary man1 who knows of nothing extraordinary--to proof1 to the authority of visible and tangible phenomena1 which can be measured1 weighed and counted4 ,in their pursuit of proofs1 of persuasiveness and popularity1 they had to sacrifice the important and essential1 and expose for show that which is agreeable to reason--things already more or less known1 and therefore of little interest and importance4 ,in course of time1 as experimental science1 so-called1 gained more and more power1 the habit of hiding in oneself all that cannot be demonstrated ad oculos1 has become more and more firmly rooted1 until it is almost man's second nature4 ,nowadays we 'naturally' share but a small part of an experience with our friends1 so that if ,mahomet and ,paul lived in our time1 it would not enter their heads to tell their extraordinary stories4 ,and for all his bravery1 ,nietzsche nevertheless passes quickly over eternal recurrence1 and is much more occupied with preaching the morality of the ,superman1 which1 though it at first astounded people1 was after all accepted with more or less modification1 because it was demonstrable4 ,evidently we are confronted with a great dilemma4 ,if we continue to cultivate modern methodology1 we run the risk of becoming so accustomed to it that we will lose not only the faculty of sharing all undemonstrable and exceptional experiences with others1 but even of retaining them firmly in the memory4 ,they will begin to be forgotten as dreams1 they will even seem to be waking dreams4 ,thus we will cut ourselves off for ever from a vast realm of reality1 whose meaning and value have by no means been divined or appreciated4 ,in olden times men could add dreams and madmen's visions to reality2 but we shall curtail the real indubitable reality1 transferring it to the realm of hallucinations and dreams4 ,i suppose even a modern man will feel some hesitation in coming over to the side of this methodology1 even though he is incapable of thinking1 with the ancients1 that dreams are by no means worthless things4 ,and if this is so1 then the rights of experiences must not be defined by the degree of their demonstrability4 ,however capricious our experiences may be1 however little they agree with the rooted and predominant conceptions of the necessary character of events in the inward and outward life--once they have taken place in the soul of man1 they acquire1 ipso facto1 the lawful right of figuring side by side with facts which are most demonstrable and susceptible of control and verification1 and even with a deliberate experiment4 ,it may be said that we would not then be protected against deliberate frauds4 ,people who have never been in paradise will give themselves out for ,mahomets4 ,that is true2 they will talk and they will he4 ,there will be no method of objective verification4 ,but they will surely tell the truth also4 ,for the sake of that truth we may make up our minds to swim through a whole ocean of lies4 ,yes1 it is not in the least impossible to distinguish truth from lie in this realm1 though1 certainly1 not by the signs which have been evolved by logic2 and not even by signs1 but by no signs at all4 ,the signs of the beautiful have not yet been even approximately1 defined1 and1 please ,god--be it said without offence to the ,germans--they never will be defined1 but yet we distinguish between ,apollo and ,venus4 ,so it is with truth3 she too may be recognised4 ,but what if a man cannot distinguish without signs1 and1 moreover1 does not want to8444 ,what is to be done with him8 ,really1 ,i do not know2 besides1 ,i do not imagine that all men down to the last should act in unison4 ,when did all men act in agreement8 ,men have mostly acted separately1 meeting in certain places1 and parting in others4 ,long may it be so6 ,some will recognise and seek after truth by signs1 others without signs1 as they please1 and yet others1 in both ways4 ,the ,seventh ,day of ,creation ,socrates said that he often used to hear from poets thoughts remarkable for their profundity and seriousness1 but when he began to inquire of them more particularly1 he became convinced that they themselves did not understand what they were saying4 ,what did he really mean8 ,did ,socrates wish to compare the poets to parrots or trained blackbirds who can learn by heart1 with the assistance of a man to teach them1 any ideas whatever1 perfectly foreign to them4 ,that can hardly be4 ,socrates hardly thought that what the poets say had been overheard by them from some one1 and mechanically fixed in their mind1 though it remained quite foreign to their soul4 ,most probably he used the word 'understand' in the sense that they could not demonstrate or explain the soundness and stability of their ideas1--they could not deduce them and relate them to a definite conception of the world4 ,as every one knows1 ,socrates thought that not merely poets1 but all men1 from eminent statesmen down to ignorant artisans1 had ideas1 even a great many ideas1 but they never could explain where they had got them1 or make them agree among themselves4 ,in this respect poets were the same as the rest of people4 ,from some mysterious source they had acquired truths1 often great and profound1 but they were unable to explain them4 ,this seemed to ,socrates a great misery1 a real misfortune4 ,i do not know how it happened--not a single historian of philosophy has explained it1 and indeed very little interest has been taken in it--but ,socrates for some reason decided that an unproven and unexplained truth had less value than a proven and explained one4 ,in our times1 when a whole theory1 even a conception of the world1 has been made of ,socrates's idea1 this notion seems so natural and self-evident that no one doubts it4 ,but in antiquity the case was different4 ,strictly1 ,socrates thought that the poets had acquired their truths1 which they were unable to prove1 from a very respectable source1 which deserved all possible confidence3 he himself compared the poets with oracles1 and consequently admitted that they had communion with the gods4 ,there was1 therefore1 a most excellent guarantee that the poets were possessed of real1 undiluted truth--the pledge of its purity being the divine authority4 ,socrates said that he himself had frequently been guided in his actions1 not by considerations of reason1 but by the voice of his mysterious 'demon4' ,that is1 at times1 he abstained from certain actions--his demon gave him never positive1 but only negative advice--without being able to produce reasons1 simply because the secret voice1 more authoritative than any human mind1 demanded abstinence from them4 ,is it not strange that under such circumstances1 at an epoch when the gods vouchsafed truths to men1 there should have suddenly appeared in a man the unexplained desire to acquire truths without the help of the gods1 and in independence of them1 by the dialectic method so beloved of the ,greeks8 ,it is doubtful which is more important for us1 to acquire the truth or to acquire for one's self with one's own effort1 it may be a false1 but one's own judgment4 ,the example of ,socrates1 who has been a pattern for all subsequent generations of thinking men1 leaves not the slightest doubt4 ,men do not need a truth ready made2 they turn away from the gods to devote themselves to independent creations4 ,practically the same story is told in the ,bible4 ,what indeed was lacking to ,adam8 ,he lived in paradise1 in direct proximity to ,god1 from whom he could learn anything he wanted4 ,and yet it did not suit him4 ,it was enough that the ,serpent should make his perfidious proposal for the man to forget the wrath of ,god1 and all the dangers which threatened him1 and to pluck the apple from the forbidden tree4 ,then the truth1 which until the creation of the world and man had been one1 split and broke with a great1 perhaps an infinitely great1 number of most diverse truths1 eternally being born1 and eternally dying4 ,this was the seventh day of creation1 unrecorded in history4 ,man became ,god's collaborator4 ,he himself became a creator4 ,socrates renounced the divine truth and even spoke contemptuously of it1 merely because it was not proven1 that is1 because it does not bear the marks of man's handiwork4 ,socrates really did not prove anything1 but he was proving1 creating1 and in this he saw the meaning of his own life and of all human lives4 ,thus1 surely1 the pronouncement of the ,delphic oracle seems true even now3 ,socrates was the wisest of men4 ,and he who would be wise must1 imitating ,socrates1 not be like him in anything4 ,thus did all great men1 and all great philosophers4 ,what does the ,history of ,philosophy teach us8 ,neo-,kantianism is the prevalent school of modern philosophy4 ,the literature about ,kant has grown to unheard-of proportions4 ,but if you attempt to analyse the colossal mass that has been written upon ,kant1 and put the question to yourself1 what has really been left to us of ,kant's teaching1 then to your great amazement you will have to reply3 ,nothing at all4 ,there is an extraordinary1 incredibly famous name--,kant1 and there is positively not a single ,kantian thesis which in an uninterpreted form would have survived till our day4 ,i say in an uninterpreted form1 for interpretations resolve at bottom into arbitrary recastings1 which often have not even an outward resemblance to the original4 ,these interpretations began while ,kant was still alive4 ,fichte gave the first example4 ,it is well known that ,kant reacted1 demanding that his teaching should be understood not in the spirit but in the letter4 ,and ,kant was1 naturally1 quite right4 ,of two things one3 either you take his teaching as it is1 or you invent your own4 ,but the fate of all thinkers who have been destined to give their names to an epoch is similar3 they have been interpreted1 recast1 till they are unrecognisable4 ,for after a short time had elapsed1 it became clear that their ideas were so overburdened with contradictions1 that in the form in which they emerged from the hands of their creators1 they are absolutely unacceptable4 ,indeed1 all the critics who had not made up their minds beforehand to be orthodox ,kantians1 came to the conclusion that ,kant had not proved a single one of his fundamental propositions4 ,something stronger may be said4 ,by virtue of the fact that ,kant1 owing to the central position which he occupied1 attracted much attention to himself and was forced to submit to very careful criticism1 there gradually emerged a truth which might have been known beforehand3 that ,kant's teaching is a mass of contradictions4 ,the sum-total of more than a century's study of ,kant may be resumed in a few words4 ,although he was not afraid of the most crying contradictions1 he did not have the smallest degree of success in proving the correctness of his teaching4 ,with an extraordinary power and depth of mind1 with all the originality1 boldness1 and talent of his constructions1 he really provided nothing that might be indisputably called a positive acquisition of philosophy4 ,i repeat that ,i am not expressing my own opinion4 ,i am only reckoning the sum-total of the opinions of the ,german critics of ,kant1 of those same critics who built him a monument aere perennius4 ,the same may be said of all the great representatives of philosophic thought beginning with ,plato and ,aristotle1 and ending with ,hegel1 ,schopenhauer and ,nietzsche4 ,their works astonish by their power1 depth1 boldness1 beauty and originality of thought4 ,while you read them it seems that truth herself speaks with their lips4 ,and what strong measures of precaution did they take to prevent themselves from being mistaken6 ,they believed in nothing that men had grown accustomed to believe4 ,they methodically doubted everything1 reexamined everything1 tens1 hundreds of times4 ,they gave their life to the truth not in words1 but in deed4 ,and still the sum-total is the same in their case as in ,kant's3 not one of them succeeded in inventing a system free from internal contradictions4 ,aristotle was already criticising ,plato1 and the sceptics criticised both of them1 and so on until in our day each new thinker struggles with his predecessors1 refutes their contradictions and errors1 although he knows that he is doomed to the same fate4 ,the historians of philosophy are at infinite pains to conceal the most glaring and noticeable trait of philosophic creation1 which is1 at bottom1 no secret to any one4 ,the uninitiated1 and people generally who do not like thinking1 and therefore wish to be contemptuous of philosophy1 point to the lack of unity among philosophers as evidence that it is not worth while to study philosophy4 ,but they are both wrong4 ,the history of philosophy not only does not inspire us with the thought of the continual evolution of an idea1 but palpably convinces us of the contrary1 that among philosophers there is not1 has not been1 and will never be1 any aspiration towards unity4 ,neither will they find in future a truth free from contradiction1 for they do not seek the truth in the sense in which the word is understood by the people and by science2 and1 after all1 contradictions do not frighten them1 but rather attract4 ,schopenhauer begins his criticism of ,kant's philosophy with the words of ,voltaire3 ',it is the privilege of genius to make great mistakes with impunity4' ,i believe that the secret of the philosophic genius lies here4 ,he makes great1 the greatest1 mistakes1 and with impunity4 ,moreover his mistakes are put to his credit1 for the important matter is not his truths1 or his judgments1 but himself4 ,when you hear from ,plato that the life we see is only a shadow1 when ,spinoza1 intoxicated by ,god1 exalts the idea of necessity1 when ,kant declares that reason dictates laws to ,nature1--listening to them you do not examine whether their assertions are true or not1 you agree with each of them1 whatever he says1 and only this question arises in your soul3 ',who is he that speaketh as one having authority8' ,later on1 you will reject all their truths1 with horror1 perhaps with indignation and disgust1 even with utter indifference4 ,you will not consent to accept that our life is only a shadow of actual reality1 you will revolt against ,spinoza's ,god1 who cannot love1 yet demands love for himself1 ,kant's categorical imperative will seem to you a cold monster1--but you will never forget ,plato1 or ,spinoza1 or ,kant1 and will for ever keep your gratitude to them1 who made you believe that authority is given to mortals4 ,then you will understand that there are no errors and no truths in philosophy2 that errors and truths are only for him above whom is set a superior authority1 a law1 a standard4 ,but philosophers themselves create laws and standards4 ,this is what we are taught by the history of philosophy2 this is what is most difficult for man to master and understand4 ,i have already said that the historians of philosophy draw quite a different moral from the study of the great human creations4 ,science and ,metaphysics ,in his autobiography ,spencer confesses that he had really never read ,kant4 ,he had had ,the ,critique of ,pure ,reason in his hands1 and had even read the beginning1 the ,transcendental ,aesthetic1 but the beginning convinced him it was no use for him to read further4 ,once a man had made the unconvincing admission which ,kant had made1 by accepting the subjectivity of one form of perception1 of space and time1 he could not be seriously taken into account4 ,if he is consistent1 all his philosophy will be a system of absurdity and nonsense2 if he is inconsistent1--the less attention does he deserve4 ,spencer confidently asserts that1 once he could not accept ,kant's fundamental proposition1 he not only could not be a ,kantian any more1 but he found it useless even to become further acquainted with ,kant's philosophy4 ,that he did not become a ,kantian is nothing to grieve over --there are ,kantians enough without him--but that he did not acquaint himself with ,kant's principal works1 and above all with the whole school that rose out of ,kant1 may be sincerely regretted4 ,perhaps1 as a new man1 remote from ,continental traditions1 he would have made a curious discovery1 and would have convinced himself that it was not at all necessary to accept the proposition of the subjectivity of space and time in order to become a ,kantian4 ,and perhaps with the frankness and simplicity peculiar to him1 which is not afraid to be taken for navet1 he would have told us that not a single ,kantian 7,schopenhauer excepted71 not even ,kant himself1 has ever seriously accepted the fundamental propositions of the ,transcendental ,aesthetic1 and therefore has never made from them any conclusions or deductions whatever4 ,on the contrary1 the ,transcendental ,aesthetic was itself a deduction from another proposition1 that we have synthetic judgments a priori4 ,the original rle of this1 the most original of all theories ever invented1 was to be a support and an explanation of the mathematical sciences4 ,it had never had an independent1 material content1 susceptible of analysis and investigation4 ,space and time are the eternal forms of our perception of the world3 to this1 according to the strict meaning of ,kant's teaching1 nothing can be added1 and nothing abated4 ,spencer1 not having read the book to the end1 imagined that ,kant would begin to make deductions and became nervous4 ,but if he had read the book to the end1 he would have been convinced that ,kant had not made any deductions1 and that the whole meaning of ,the ,critique of ,pure ,reason indeed is that from the propositions of the ,transcendental ,aesthetic no deductions can be made4 ,it is now about a hundred and fifty years since ,the ,critique of ,pure ,reason appeared4 ,no philosophic work has been so much studied and criticised4 ,and yet where are the ,kantians who attempt to make deductions from the proposition as to the subjectivity of space and time8 ,schopenhauer is the only exception4 ,he indeed took the ,kantian idea seriously1 but it may be said without exaggeration that of all ,kantians the least like ,kant was ,schopenhauer4 ,the world is a veil of ,maia4 ,would ,kant really have agreed to such an interpretation of his ,transcendental ,aesthetic8 ,or what would ,kant have said1 if he had heard that ,schopenhauer1 referring to the same ,aesthetic in which he saw the greatest philosophic revelation1 had admitted the possibility of clairvoyance and magic8 ,probably ,spencer thought that ,kant would himself make all these deductions1 and therefore threw away the book which bound him to conclusions so absurd4 ,it is a pity that ,spencer was in such a hurry4 ,had he acquainted himself with ,kant1 he would have been convinced that the most absurd idea might serve a very useful purpose2 and that there is not the least necessity to make from an idea all the deductions to which it may lead4 ,a man is a free agent and he can deduce if he has a mind to2 if he has not1 he will not2 and there is no necessity to judge the character of a philosophic theory by its general postulates4 ,even ,schopenhauer did not exploit ,kant's theory to the full1 which1 if it had really divined the truths hitherto hidden from men1 would have not only put an end to metaphysical researches1 but also have given an impulse and a justification to perfectly new experiments which from the previous standpoint were quite mad and unimaginable4 ,for if space and time are forms of our human perception1 then they do indeed hide the ultimate truth from us4 ,while men knew nothing of this1 and1 simple minded1 accepted the visible reality for the actual real1 they could not of course dream of true knowledge4 ,but from the moment when the truth was revealed to them through ,kant's penetration1 it is clear that their true task was to use every possible means to free themselves from the harness and to break away from it1 while consolidating all those judgments which ,kant calls synthetic judgments a priori for all eternity4 ,and the new1 the critical metaphysics1 which should take account of the stupid situation in which these had hitherto found themselves who saw in apodeictic judgments eternal truths1 had a great task to set herself3 to get rid at all costs of apodeictic judgments1 knowing them for false4 ,in other words1 ,kant's task should not have been to minimise the destructive effect of ,hume's scepticism1 but to find a still more deadly explosive to destroy even those limits which ,hume was obliged to preserve4 ,it is surely evident that truth lies beyond synthetic judgments a priori1 and that it cannot at all resemble an a priori judgment1 and in fact cannot be like a judgment of any kind4 ,and it must be sought by methods quite different from those by which it has been sought hitherto4 ,to some extent ,kant attempted to describe how he represented to himself the meaning hidden beneath the words3 ',space and time are subjective forms of perception4' ,he even gave an object-lesson1 saying that perhaps there are beings who perceive the world otherwise than under the forms of space and time3 which means that for such beings there is no change4 ,all that we perceive by a succession of changes1 they perceive at once4 ,to them ,julius ,caesar is still alive1 though he is dead2 to them the twenty-fifth century ,a4,d41 which none of us will live to see1 and the twenty-fifth century ,b4,c41 which we reconstruct with such difficulty from the fragmentary traces of the past which have accidentally been preserved to us1 the remote ,north ,pole1 and even the stars which we cannot see through the telescope--all are as accessible to them as to us the events which are taking place before our eyes4 ,nevertheless ,kant1 in spite of all temptation to acquire the knowledge to which such beings have access1 notwithstanding his profound conviction of the truth of his discovery1 did nothing to dispel the charm of forms of perception and categories of the reason1 or to tear the blinkers from his eyes and see all the depth of the mysterious reality hitherto hidden from us4 ,he does not even give a little circumstantial explanation why he considered such a task impracticable1 and he confines himself to the dogmatic assertion that man cannot conceive a reality beyond space and time4 ,why8 ,it is a question of immense importance4 ,compared with it all the problems of ,the ,critique of ,pure ,reason are secondary4 ,how is mathematics possible1 how are natural sciences possible8--these are not even questions at all compared to the question whether it is possible to free ourselves from conventional human knowledge in order to attain the ultimate1 all-embracing truth4 ,herein the ,kantians display an even greater indifference than ,kant himself3 they are even proud of their indifference1 they plume themselves upon it as a high virtue4 ,they assert that truth is not beyond synthetic judgments a priori1 but indeed in them2 and that it is not the ,creator who put blinkers upon us1 but we ourselves devised them1 and that any attempt to remove them and look open-eyed upon the world is evidence of perversity4 ,if the old ,serpent appeared nowadays to seduce the modern ,adam1 he would retire discomfited4 ,even ,eve herself would be no use to him4 ,the twentieth-century ,eve studies in a university and has quite sufficiently blunted her natural curiosity4 ,she can talk excellently well of the teleological point of view and is quite as proof as man against temptation4 ,i do not share ,kant's confidence that space and time are forms of our perception1 nor do ,i see a revelation in it4 ,but if ,i had once accepted this apocalyptic assertion1 and could think that there was some truth in it1 ,i would not depart from it to positive science4 ,it is a pity that ,spencer did not read ,the ,critique of ,pure ,reason to the end4 ,he would have convinced himself of an important truth3 that a philosopher has no need to take into consideration all the deductions from his premisses4 ,he need only have goodwill1 and he can draw from the most paradoxical and suspicious premisses conclusions which are fully conformable to common-sense and the rules of decency4 ,and since ,kant's will was as good as ,spencer's1 they would have agreed perfectly in their deductions1 though they were so far apart from each other in their premisses4 ,a ,tacit ,assumption ,schopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life4 ,and he gave a definite answer3 in life there is much more suffering than joy1 therefore life must be renounced4 ,i must add that strictly speaking he asked not only the value of life1 but also the value of joy and suffering4 ,and to this question he gave an equally definite answer4 ,according to his teaching joy is always negative1 suffering always positive4 ,therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering4 ,in all this philosophical construction1 both in formulating and answering the questions1 there is one tacit1 particularly curious1 and interesting and unexpressed postulate4 ,schopenhauer starts from the assumption that his valuation of life1 joy and suffering1 in order to have the right to be called truth1 must contain something universal1 by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with the valuation of all other people4 ,whence did he derive this idea8 ,psychologically the train of ,schopenhauer's thought is intelligible and easily explained4 ,he was used to the scientific formulation and solution of problems1 and he transferred to the question which engaged him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct us to the truth4 ,he did not verify his premiss ad hoc1 and usually it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises for it4 ,it is not even becoming to exhibit it1 to speak of it4 ,it is understood4 ,if the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal and obligatory1 then in the given case the true answer to the question of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind4 ,so ,schopenhauer would probably have answered1 if any one had questioned his right to formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life4 ,still ,schopenhauer would hardly be right4 ,this1 by the way1 is being made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents4 ,he is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a subjective point of view--eudaemonism4 ,the question of the value of life1 people object1 is not at all decided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or vice versa4 ,life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy1 life may in itself be one compact horror1 and still be valuable4 ,schopenhauer's philosophy was not discussed in his lifetime1 so that he could not answer his opponents4 ,but1 if he were still alive1 would he accept these objections and renounce his pessimism8 ,i am convinced that he would not4 ,at the same time ,i am convinced that his opponents would be no less firm and would go on repeating3 ',the question is not one of happiness or suffering4 ,we value life by a quite different and independent standard4' ,and in the discussion it would perhaps become clear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above1 which both accepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation1 does indeed require proofs and explanations1 but is provided with neither4 ,to one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive1 to another contemptible and degrading1 and he seeks the meaning of life in a higher1 ethical or aesthetic purpose4 ,there are also people who love sorrow and pain1 and see in them the justification and the source of the depth and importance of life4 ,nor do ,i mention the fact that when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants reach different and directly contradictory results1 or that insoluble questions arise concerning these1 or other details4 ,schopenhauer for instance finds1 as we have seen1 that sufferings are positive1 joys negative4 ,and hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit to the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy4 ,what answer can be made8 ,how can he be convinced of the contrary8 ,nevertheless the fact is obvious3 many people regard the matter in quite a different light4 ,for the sake of a single happiness they are ready to endure a great many serious hardships4 ,in a word1 ,schopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified1 and not only cannot be accepted as an indubitable truth1 but must be qualified as an indubitable error4 ,it is impossible to be certain beforehand that to the question of the value of life a single1 universally valid answer can be given4 ,so here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case from the point of view of the theory of knowledge4 ,it appears that by the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given to one of the most important questions1 perhaps the most important question of philosophy4 ,if you are asked what is life1 good or evil1 you are obliged to say that life is both good and evil2 or something independent of good and evil2 or a mixture of good and evil in which there is more good than evil1 or more evil than good4 ,and1 ,i repeat1 each of these answers1 although they logically quite exclude each other1 has the right to claim the title of truth2 for if it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before it1 at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents' attacks and to defend its sovereign rights4 ,instead of a sole and omnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble1 you have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths excellently armed and defended4 ,instead of absolutism1 you have a feudal system4 ,and the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles that an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable4 ,i took for my instance ,schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life4 ,but many philosophic doctrines1 although they issue from the premiss of one sovereign truth1 display examples of the plurality of truths4 ,it is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy in order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered its delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth4 ,my opinion is that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person1 who is not infected by modern prejudices1 to a directly opposite conclusion4 ,there can be no doubt that a whole series of questions exists1 like that of the value of life1 which by their very essence do not admit of a uniform solution4 ,to this testimony is often borne by men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of sovereign truth3 ,natorp confidently asserts that ,aristotle not only did not understand but could not understand ,plato4 ',der tiefere ,grund ist die ewige ,unfhigkeit des ,dogmatismus sich in der ,gesichtspunkt der kritischen ,philosophie berhaupt zu versetzen4' ',eternal incapability' --what words6 ,and used not of any common-place person1 but of the greatest human genius known to us1 of ,aristotle4 ,had ,natorp been a little more inquisitive1 'eternal incapability' of that kind should have worried him at least as much as ,plato's philosophy1 on which he wrote a large book4 ,for here is evidently a great riddle4 ,different people1 according to the different constitution of their souls1 are while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different philosophies4 ,it reminds me of the famous ,calvinistic view of predetermination4 ,just as from before birth ,god has destined some to damnation1 others to salvation2 so to some it is given and from others withheld1 to know the truth4 ,and not ,natorp alone argues thus4 ,it would be true to say all modern philosophers1 who are always contending with each other and suspecting each other of 'eternal incapability4' ,philosophers have not the same means of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive sciences3 they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions4 ,their ultima ratio1 their personal opinion1 their private conviction1 their last refuge1 is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to understand them4 ,here the tragic dilemma is clear to all4 ,of two things one3 either renounce philosophy entirely1 or allow that that which ,natorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness1 but a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood4 ,aristotle1 indeed1 was organically incapable of understanding ,plato1 just as ,plato could not have understood ,aristotle1 just as neither of them could understand the sceptics or the sophists1 just as ,leibnitz could not understand ,spinoza1 as ,schopenhauer could not understand ,hegel1 and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher can understand any one except himself4 ,besides1 philosophers do not aspire to mutual understanding and unity1 but usually it is with the utmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their predecessors4 ,when the similarity of ,schopenhauer's teaching to that of ,spinoza was pointed out to him1 he said ,pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint4 ,but representatives of the other positive sciences understand each other1 rarely dispute1 and never argue by referring to the 'eternal incapability' of their confrres4 ,perhaps in philosophy this chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the craft4 ,perhaps in this realm it is necessary that ,aristotle should not understand ,plato and should not accept him1 that the materialists should always be at war with the idealists1 the sceptics with the dogmatists4 ,in other words1 the premiss with which ,schopenhauer began the investigation into the value of life1 and which as we have shown he took without verification from the representatives of positive science1 though perfectly applicable in its proper sphere1 is quite out of place in philosophy4 ,and indeed1 though they never speak of it1 philosophers value their own personal convictions much more highly than universally valid truth4 ,the impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic truth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves1 who1 so soon as they have worked out their own convictions1 take not the smallest trouble to secure general recognition for them4 ,they are only busy with getting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights for themselves4 ,the question whether there will be other sovereigns by their side hardly concerns them at all4 ,the history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency should be clearly manifest4 ,this would spare us from many prejudices1 and would clear the way for new and important inquiries4 ,kant1 who shared the opinion that truth is the same for all1 was convinced that metaphysics must be a science a priori1 and since it cannot be a science a priori1 must therefore cease to exist4 ,if the history of philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his day1 it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights of metaphysics4 ,and probably he would not have been vexed by the contradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various schools of metaphysics4 ,it cannot be otherwise1 neither should it be4 ,the interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of philosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon wide and deep development4 ,philosophers have always had an instinctive longing for this3 that is why they are so troublesome to the historian of philosophy4 ,the ,first and the ,last ,in the first volume of ,human1 ,all too ,human1 which ,nietzsche wrote at the very beginning of his disease1 when he was still far from final victory and chiefly told of his defeats1 there is the following remarkable1 though half-involuntary confession3 ',the complete irresponsibility of ,man for his actions and his being is the bitterest drop for the man of knowledge to drink1 since he has been accustomed to see in responsibility and duty the very patent of his title to manhood4' ,much bitterness has the inquiring spirit to swallow1 but the bitterest of all is in the knowledge that his moral qualities1 his readiness to fulfil his duty ungrudgingly1 gives him no preference over other men4 ,he thought he was a man of noble rank1 even a prince of the blood1 crowned with a crown1 and the other men boorish peasantry--but he is just the same1 a peasant1 the same as all the rest4 ,his patent of nobility was that for which he fulfilled his most arduous duty and made sacrifices2 in it he saw the meaning of life4 ,and when it is suddenly revealed that there is no provision made for titles or patents1 it is a horrible catastrophe1 a cataclysm--and life loses all meaning4 ,evidently the conviction expressed with such moving frankness in these words1 was with ,nietzsche a second nature1 which he could not master all his life long4 ,what is the ,superman but a title1 a patent1 giving the right to be called a noble among the canaille8 ,what is the pathos of distance and all ,nietzsche's teaching of ranks8 ,the formula1 beyond good and evil1 was by no means so all-destructive as at first sight it seemed4 ,on the contrary1 by erasing certain laws graven on the tables of mankind of old1 that formula as it were revealed other commandments1 obliterated by time1 and therefore invisible to many4 ,all morality1 all good in and for itself is rejected1 but the patent of nobility grows more precious until it becomes1 if not the only value1 at least the chief4 ,life loses its meaning once titles and ranks are destroyed1 once he is deprived of the right to hold his head high1 to throw out his chest1 his belly even1 and to look with contempt upon those about him4 ,in order to show to what extent the doctrine of rank has become attached to the human soul1 ,i would recall the words of the ,gospel about the first and last4 ,christ1 who seemed to speak in a language utterly new1 who taught men to despise earthly blessings--riches1 fame1 honours1 who so easily yielded ,caesar his due1 because he thought that only ,caesar would find it useful--,christ himself1 when he spoke to men1 did not think it possible to take away from them their hope of distinction4 ',the first shall be last4' ,what will there be first and second there1 too8 ,yes1 so it stands in the ,gospel4 ,is it because there is indeed in the division of men into ranks something original and warrantable1 or is it because ,christ who spoke to humankind could not but use human words8 ,it may be that1 but for that promise1 and generally the series of promises of rewards1 accessible to the human understanding1 the ,gospel would not have fulfilled its great historic mission1 it would have passed unnoticed on the earth1 and no one would have detected or recognised in it the ,evangel4 ,christ knew that men could renounce all things1 save the right to superiority alone1 to superiority over one's neighbours1 to that which ,nietzsche calls 'the patent of nobility4' ,without that superiority men of a certain kind cannot live4 ,they become what the ,germans so appropriately call ,vogelfrei1 deprived of the protection of the laws1 since the laws are the only source of their right4 ,rude1 nonsensical1 disgusting reality--against which1 ,i repeat1 their only defence is the patent of nobility1 the unwritten charter--approaches them closer and closer1 with more and more menace and importunacy1 and claims its right4 ',if you are the same as all other men1' it says1 'take your experience of life from me1 fulfil your trivial obligations1 worse than that1 accept from me the fines and reprimands to which the rank and file are subject1 even to corporal punishment4' ,how could he accept these degrading conditions who had been used to think he had the right to carry his head high1 to be proud and independent8 ,nietzsche tries with dull submissiveness to swallow the horrible bitterness of his confession1 but courage and endurance1 even his courage and endurance1 are not enough for this his greatest and most terrible task4 ,he cannot bear the horror of a life deprived of rights and defences3 he seeks again for power and authority which would protect him and give him his lost rights again4 ,he will not rest until he receives under another name a restitutio in integrum of all the rights which had previously been his4 ,and surely not ,nietzsche alone acted thus4 ,the whole history of ethics1 the whole history of philosophy is to no small degree the incessant search for prerogative and privilege1 patents and charters4 ,the ,christians--,tolstoi and ,dostoevsky--do not in the least differ from the enemy of ,christianity1 ,nietzsche4 ,the humble ,jew1 ,spinoza1 and the meek pagan1 ,socrates1 the idealist ,plato1 and the idealist ,aristotle1 the founders of the newest1 noblest and loftiest systems1 ,kant1 ,fichte1 ,hegel1 even ,schopenhauer1 the pessimist1 all as one man seek a charter1 a charter1 a charter4 ,evidently life on earth without a charter becomes for the 'best' men a horrible nightmare and an intolerable torment4 ,even the founder of ,christianity1 who so easily renounced all privileges1 considered it possible to preserve this privilege for his disciples1 and perhaps--who knows8--for himself too4 ,whereas if ,nietzsche and those other philosophers had been able resolutely to renounce titles1 ranks1 and honours1 which are distributed not only by morality1 but by all the other ,sanhedrim1 real and imaginary1 which are set over man2 if they could have drunk this cup to the dregs1 then they might have known1 seen1 and heard much that was suspected by none of them before4 ,long since men have known that the road to knowledge lies by way of a great renunciation4 ,neither righteousness nor genius gives a man privilege above others4 ,he is deprived1 for ever deprived1 of the protection of earthly laws4 ,there are no laws4 ,to-day he is a king1 to-morrow a slave2 to-day ,god1 to-morrow a worm2 to-day first1 to-morrow last4 ,and the worm crushed by him to-day will be ,god1 his god to-morrow4 ,all the measures and balances by which men are distinguished one from another are defaced for ever1 and there is no certainty that the place a man once occupied will still be his4 ,and all philosophers have known this2 ,nietzsche1 too1 knew it1 and by experience4 ,he was the friend1 the ally1 and the collaborator of the great ,wagner1 the herald of a new era upon earth2 and later1 he grovelled in the dust1 broken and crushed4 ,and a second time this thing happened to him4 ,when he had finished ,zarathustra1 he became insane1 more exactly1 he became half-idiot4 ,it is true he carried the secret of the second fall with him to the grave4 ,yet something has reached us1 for all his sister's efforts to conceal from carnal eyes the change that had befallen him4 ,and now we ask3 ,is the essence of life really in the rank1 the charter1 the patent of nobility8 ,and can the words of ,christ be understood in their literal sense8 ,are not all the ,sanhedrim set over man1 and as it were giving meaning to his life1 mere fictions1 useful and even necessary in certain moments of life1 but pernicious and dangerous1 to say no more1 when the circumstances are changed8 ,does not life1 the real and desirable life1 which men have sought for thousands of years1 begin there where there is neither first nor last1 righteous or sinner1 genius or incapable8 ,is not the pursuit of recognition1 of superiority1 of patents and charters1 of rank1 that which prevents man from seeing life with its hidden miracles8 ,and must man really seek protection in the ,college of ,heralds1 or has he another power that time cannot destroy8 ,one may be a good1 able1 learned1 gifted man1 even a man of genius1 but to demand in return any privileges whatsoever1 is to betray goodness and ability1 and talent and genius1 and the greatest hopes of mankind4 ,the last on earth will nowhere be first4444