,,all ,,things ,,are ,,possible ,,by ,,leo ,,shestov ,,authorised ,,translation ,,by ,s4 ,s4 ,,koteliansky ,,with ,a ,,foreword ,,by ,d4 ,h4 ,,lawrence ,,london3 ,,martin ,,secker #aibj ,,note ,leo ,shestov is one of the living ,russians4 ,he is about fifty years old4 ,he was born at ,kiev1 and studied at the university there4 ,his first book appeared in #ahih1 since which year he has gradually gained an assured position as one of the best critics and essayists in ,russia4 ,a list of his works is as follows3-- #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 ,groundlessness 7here translated under the title ,all ,things are ,possible74 #aijh4 ,beginnings and ,ends4 #aiab4 ,great ,vigils4 ,,foreword ,in his paragraph on ,the ,russian ,spirit1 ,shestov gives us the real clue to ,russian literature4 ,european culture is a rootless thing in the ,russians4 ,with us1 it is our very blood and bones1 the very nerve and root of our psyche4 ,we think in a certain fashion1 we feel in a certain fashion1 because our whole substance is of this fashion4 ,our speech and feeling are organically inevitable to us4 ,with the ,russians it is different4 ,they have only been inoculated with the virus of ,european culture and ethic4 ,the virus works in them like a disease4 ,and the inflammation and irritation comes forth as literature4 ,the bubbling and fizzing is almost chemical1 not organic4 ,it is an organism seething as it accepts and masters the strange virus4 ,what the ,russian is struggling with1 crying out against1 is not life itself3 it is only ,european culture which has been introduced1 into his psyche1 and which hurts him4 ,the tragedy is not so much a real soul tragedy1 as a surgical one4 ,russian art1 ,russian literature after all does not stand on the same footing as ,european or ,greek or ,egyptian art4 ,it is not spontaneous utterance4 ,it is not the flowering of a race4 ,it is a surgical outcry1 horrifying1 or marvellous1 lacerating at first2 but when we get used to it1 not really so profound1 not really ultimate1 a little extraneous4 ,what is valuable1 is the evidence against ,european culture1 implied in the novelists1 here at last expressed4 ,since ,peter the ,great ,russia has been accepting ,europe1 and seething ,europe down in a curious process of katabolism4 ,russia has been expressing nothing inherently ,russian4 ,russia's modern ,christianity even was not ,russian4 ,her genuine ,christianity1 ,byzantine and ,asiatic1 is incomprehensible to us4 ,so with her true philosophy4 ,what she has actually uttered is her own unwilling1 fantastic reproduction of ,european truths4 ,what she has really to utter the coming centuries will hear4 ,for ,russia will certainly inherit the future4 ,what we already call the greatness of ,russia is only her pre-natal struggling4 ,it seems as if she had at last absorbed and overcome the virus of old ,europe4 ,soon her new1 healthy body will begin to act in its own reality1 imitative no more1 protesting no more1 crying no more1 but full and sound and lusty in itself4 ,real ,russia is born4 ,she will laugh at us before long4 ,meanwhile she goes through the last stages of reaction against us1 kicking away from the old womb of ,europe4 ,in ,shestov one of the last kicks is given4 ,true1 he seems to be only reactionary and destructive4 ,but he can find a little amusement at last in tweaking the ,european nose1 so he is fairly free4 ,european idealism is anathema4 ,but more than this1 it is a little comical4 ,we feel the new independence in his new1 half-amused indifference4 ,he is only tweaking the nose of ,european idealism4 ,he is preaching nothing3 so he protests time and again4 ,he absolutely refutes any imputation of a central idea ,he is so afraid lest it should turn out to be another hateful hedge-stake of an ideal4 ,everything is possible--this is his really central cry4 ,it is not nihilism4 ,it is only a shaking free of the human psyche from old bonds4 ,the positive central idea is that the human psyche1 or soul1 really believes in itself1 and in nothing else4 ,dress this up in a little comely language1 and we have a real new ideal1 that will last us for a new1 long epoch4 ,the human soul itself is the source and well-head of creative activity4 ,in the unconscious human soul the creative prompting issues first into the universe4 ,open the consciousness to this prompting1 away with all your old sluice-gates1 locks1 dams1 channels4 ,no ideal on earth is anything more than an obstruction1 in the end1 to the creative issue of the spontaneous soul4 ,away with all ideals4 ,let each individual act spontaneously from1 the forever-incalculable prompting of the creative well-head within him4 ,there is no universal law4 ,each being is1 at his purest1 a law unto himself1 single1 unique1 a ,godhead1 a fountain from the unknown4 ,this is the ideal which ,shestov refuses positively to state1 because he is afraid it may prove in the end a trap to catch his own free spirit4 ,so it may4 ,but it is none the less a real1 living ideal for the moment1 the very salvation4 ,when it becomes ancient1 and like the old lion who lay in his cave and whined1 devours all its servants1 then it can be despatched4 ,meanwhile it is a really liberating word4 ,shestov's style is puzzling at first4 ,having found the ands and buts and becauses and therefores hampered him1 he clips them all off deliberately and even spitefully1 so that his thought is like a man with no buttons on his clothes1 ludicrously hitching along all undone4 ,one must be amused1 not irritated4 ,where the armholes were a bit tight1 ,shestov cuts a slit4 ,it is baffling1 but really rather piquant4 ,the real conjunction1 the real unification lies in the reader's own amusement1 not in the author's unbroken logic4 ,d4 ,h4 ,,lawrence4 ,,part ,i ,zu fragmentarisch ist ,welt und ,leben4 ,h4 ,,heine4 #a ,the obscure streets of life do not offer the conveniences of the central thoroughfares3 no electric light1 no gas1 not even a kerosene lamp-bracket4 ,there are no pavements3 the traveller has to fumble his way in the dark4 ,if he needs a light1 he must wait for a thunderbolt1 or else1 primitive-wise1 knock a spark out of a stone4 ,in a glimpse will appear unfamiliar outlines2 and then1 what he has taken in he must try to remember1 no matter whether the impression was right or false4 ,for he will not easily get another light1 except he run his head against a wall1 and see sparks that way4 ,what can a wretched pedestrian gather under such circumstances8 ,how can we expect a clear account from him whose curiosity 7let us suppose his curiosity so strong7 led him to grope his way among the outskirts of life8 ,why should we try to compare his records with those of the travellers through brilliant streets8 #b ,the law of sequence in natural phenomena seems so plausible1 so obvious1 that one is tempted to look for its origin1 not in the realities of actual life1 but in the promptings of the human mind4 ,this law of sequence is the most mysterious of all the natural laws4 ,why so much order8 ,why not chaos and disorderliness8 ,really1 if the hypothesis of sequence had not offered such blatant advantages to the human intelligence1 man would never have thought of raising it to the rank of eternal and irrefutable truth4 ,but he saw his opportunity4 ,thanks to the grand hypothesis1 man is forewarned and forearmed4 ,thanks to this master-key1 the future is at his mercy4 ,he knows1 in order that he may foreknow3 savoir pour prvoir4 ,here1 is man1 by virtue of one supreme assumption1 dictator henceforward of all nature4 ,the philosophers have ever bowed the knee to success4 ,so down they went before the newly-invented law of natural sequence1 they hailed it with the title of eternal truth4 ,but even this seemed insufficient4 ,l'apptit vient en mangeant4 ,like the old woman in the fairy-tale about the golden fish1 they had it in their minds that the fish should do their errands4 ,but some few people at last could not stand this impudence4 ,some very few began to object4444 #c ,the comfortable settled man says to himself3 ,how could1 one live without being sure of the morrow2 how could one sleep without a roof over one's head8 ,but misfortune turns him out of house and home4 ,he must perforce sleep under a hedge4 ,he cannot rest1 he is full of terrors4 ,there may be wild beasts1 fellow-tramps4 ,but in the long run he gets used to it4 ,he will trust himself to chance1 live like a tramp1 and sleep his sleep in a ditch4 #d ,a writer1 particularly a young and inexperienced writer1 feels himself under an obligation to give his reader the fullest answers to all possible questions4 ,conscience will not let him shut his eyes to tormenting problems1 and so he begins to speak of first and ultimate things4 ,as he cannot say anything profitable on such subjects--for it is not the business of the young to be profoundly philosophical--he grows excited1 he shouts himself to hoarseness4 ,in the end he is silent from exhaustion4 ,and then1 if his words have had any success with the public1 he is astonished to find that he has become a prophet4 ,whereupon1 if he be an average sort of person1 he is filled with an insatiable desire to preserve his influence till the end of his days4 ,but if he be more sensitive or gifted than usual1 he begins to despise the crowd for its vulgar credulity1 and himself for having posed in the stupid and disgraceful character of a clown of lofty ideas4 #e ,how painful it is to read ,plato's account of the last conversations of ,socrates6 ,the days1 even the hours of the old man are numbered1 and yet he talks1 talks1 talks4444 ,crito comes to him in the early morning and tells him that the sacred ships will shortly return to ,athens4 ,and at once ,socrates is ready to talk1 to argue4444 ,it is possible1 of course1 that ,plato is not altogether to be trusted4 ,it is said that ,socrates observed1 of the dialogues already written down by ,plato4 ,how much that youth has belied me6 ,but then from all sources we have it1 that ,socrates spent the month following his verdict in incessant conversations with his pupils and friends4 ,that is what it is to be a beloved master1 and to have disciples4 ,you can't even die quietly4444 ,the best death is really the one which is considered the worst3 to die alone1 in a foreign land1 in a poor-house1 or1 as they say1 like a dog under a hedge4 ,then at least one may spend one's last moments honestly1 without dissembling or ostentation1 preparing oneself for the dreadful1 or wonderful1 event4 ,pascal1 as his sister tells us1 also talked a great deal before his death1 and de ,musset cried like a baby4 ,perhaps ,socrates and ,pascal talked so much1 for fear they should start crying4 ,it is a false shame6 #f ,the fact that some ideas1 or some series of ideas1 are materially unprofitable to mankind cannot serve as a justification for their rejection4 ,once an idea is there1 the gates must be opened to it4 ,for if you close the gates1 the thought will force a way in1 or1 like the fly in the fable1 will sneak through unawares4 ,ideas have no regard for our laws of honour or morality4 ,take for example realism in literature4 ,at its appearance it aroused universal indignation4 ,why need we know the dirt of life8 ,and honestly1 there is no need4 ,realism could give no straightforward justification for itself4 ,but1 as it had to come through1 it was ready with a lie2 it compared itself to pathology1 called itself useful1 beneficial1 and so obtained a place4 ,we can all see now that realism is not beneficial1 but harmful1 very harmful1 and that it has nothing in common with pathology4 ,nevertheless1 it is no longer easy to drive it from its place4 ,the prohibition evaded1 there is now the justus titulus possessions4 #g ,count ,tolstoy preached inaction4 ,it seems he had no need4 ,we inact remarkably4 ,idleness1 just that idleness ,tolstoy dreamed of1 a free1 conscious idling that despises labour1 this is one of the chief characteristics of our time4 ,of course ,i speak of the higher1 cultured classes1 the aristocracy of spirit--,we write books1 paint pictures1 compose symphonies--,but is that labour8 ,it is only the amusement of idleness4 ,,so that ,tolstoy is much more to the point when1 forgetting his preaching of inaction1 he bids us trudge eight hours a day at the tail of the plough4 ,in this there is some sense4 ,idleness spoils us4 ,we were returning to the most primitive of all the states of our forefathers4 ,like paradisal ,adam and ,eve1 having no need to sweat for our bread1 we were trying to pilfer the fruit from the forbidden tree4 ,truly we received a similar punishment4 ,divine laws are inscrutable4 ,in ,paradise everything is permitted1 except curiosity4 ,even labour is allowed1 though it is not obligatory1 as it is outside4 ,tolstoy realised the dangers of the paradisal state4 ,he stooped to talk of inaction for a moment--and then he began to work4 ,since in regular1 smooth1 constant1 rhythmical labour1 whether it is efficient or whether it merely appears efficient1 like ,tolstoy's farming1 there is peace of mind4 ,look at the industrious ,germans1 who begin and who end their day with a prayer4 ,in ,paradise1 where there is no labour1 and no need for long rest and heavy sleep1 all temptations become dangerous4 ,it is a peril to live there4444 ,perhaps present-day people eschew the paradisal state4 ,they prefer work1 for where there is no work there is no smoothness1 no regularity1 no peacefulness1 no satisfaction4 ,in ,eden1 even the well-informed individuals ,cannot tell what will come next1 savoir pour prvoir does not answer1 and everlasting laws are exposed to ridicule4 ,amongst ourselves also a few of the work-abjurors1 the idlers1 are beginning to question our established knowledge4 ,but the majority of men1 and particularly ,germans1 still defend a priori judgments1 on the ground that without these1 perfect knowledge would be impossible1 there could be no regulation of the course of natural phenomena1 and no looking ahead4 #h ,to escape from the grasp of contemporary ruling ideas1 one should study history4 ,the lives of other men in other lands in other ages teach us to realise that our eternal laws and infallible ideas are just abortions4 ,take a step further1 imagine mankind living elsewhere than on this earth1 and all our terrestial eternalities lose their charm4 #i ,we know nothing of the ultimate realities of our existence1 nor shall we ever know anything4 ,let that be agreed4 ,but it does not follow that therefore we must accept some or other dogmatic theory as a modus vivendi1 no1 not even positivism1 which has such a sceptical face on it4 ,it only follows that man is free to change his conception of the universe as often as he changes his boots or his gloves1 and that constancy of principle belongs only to one's relationships with other people1 in order that they may know where and to what extent they may depend on us4 ,therefore1 on principle man should respect order in the external world and complete chaos in the inner4 ,and for those who find it difficult to bear such a duality1 some internal order might also be provided4 ,only1 they should not pride themselves on it1 but always remember that it is a sign of their weakness1 pettiness1 dullness4 #aj ,the ,pythagoreans assumed that the sun is motionless and that the earth turns round4 ,what a long time the truth had to wait for recognition6 #aa ,in spite of ,epicurus and his exasperation we are forced to admit that anything whatsoever may result from anything whatsoever4 ,which does not mean1 however1 that a stone ever turned into bread1 or that our visible universe was ever naturally formed from nebulous puffs4 ,but from our own minds and our own experience we can deduce nothing that would serve us as a ground for setting even the smallest limit to nature's own arbitrary behaviour4 ,if whatever happens now had chanced to happen quite differently1 it would not1 therefore1 have seemed any the less natural to us4 ,in other words1 although there may be an element of inevitability in our human judgments concerning the natural phenomena1 we have never been able and probably never shall be able to separate the grain of inevitable from the chaff of accidental and casual truth4 ,moreover1 we do not even know which is more essential and important1 the inevitable or the casual4 ,hence we are forced to the conclusion that philosophy must give up her attempt at finding the veritates aeternae4 ,the business of philosophy is to teach man to live in uncertainty--man who is supremely afraid of uncertainty1 and who is forever hiding himself behind this or the other dogma4 ,more briefly1 the business of philosophy is not to reassure people1 but to upset them4 #ab ,when man finds in himself a certain defect1 of which he can by no means rid himself1 there remains but to accept the so-called failing as a natural quality4 ,the more grave and important the defect1 the more urgent is the need to ennoble it4 ,from sublime to ridiculous is only one step1 and an ineradicable vice in strong men is always rechristened a virtue4 #ac ,on the whole1 there is little to choose between metaphysics and positivism4 ,in each there is the same horizon1 but the composition and colouring are different4 ,positivism chooses grey1 colourless paint and ordinary composition2 metaphysics prefers brilliant colouring and complicated design1 and always carries the vision away into the infinite2 in which trick it often succeeds1 owing to its skill in perspective4 ,but the canvas is impervious1 there is no melting through it into the other world4 ,nevertheless1 skilful perspectives are very alluring1 so that metaphysicians will still have something to quarrel about with the positivists4 #ad ,the task of a writer3 to go forward and share his impressions with his reader4 ,in spite of everything to the contrary1 he is not obliged to prove anything4 ,but1 because every step of his progress is dogged by those police agents1 morality1 science1 logic1 and so forth1 he needs always to have ready some sort of argument with which to frustrate them4 ,there is no necessity to trouble too deeply about the quality of the argumentation4 ,why fret about being inwardly right4 ,it is quite enough if the reasoning which comes handiest will succeed in occupying those guardians of the verbal highways whose intention it is to obstruct his passage4 #ae ,the ,secret of ,poushkin's inner harmony4--,to ,poushkin nothing was hopeless4 ,nay1 he saw hopeful signs in everything4 ,it is agreeable to sin1 and it is just as delightful to repent4 ,it is good to doubt1 but it is still better to believe4 ,it is jolly with feet shod in steel to skate the ice1 it is pleasant to wander about with gypsies1 to pray in church1 to quarrel with a friend1 to make peace with an enemy1 to swoon on waves of harmony1 to weep over a passing fancy1 to recall the past1 to peep into the future4 ,poushkin could cry hot tears1 and he who can weep can hope4 ,i want to live1 so that ,i may think and suffer1 he says2 and it seems as if the word to suffer1 which is so beautiful in the poem1 just fell in accidentally1 because there was no better rhyme in ,russian for to die4 ,the later verses1 which are intended to amplify to think and to suffer1 prove this4 ,poushkin might repeat the words of the ancient hero3 danger is dangerous to others1 but not to me4 ,therein lies the secret of his harmonious moods4 #af ,the well-trodden field of contemporary thought should be dug up4 ,therefore1 on every possible occasion1 in season and out1 the generally-accepted truths must be ridiculed to death1 and paradoxes uttered in their place4 ,then we shall see4444 #ag ,what is a ,weltanschauung1 a world-conception1 a philosophy8 ,as we all know1 ,turgenev was a realist1 and from the first he tried to portray life truthfully4 ,although we had had no precise exponents of realism1 yet after ,poushkin it was impossible for a ,russian writer to depart too far from actuality4 ,even those who did not know what to do with real life had to cope with it as best they could4 ,hence1 in order that the picture of life should not prove too depressing1 the writer must provide himself in due season with a philosophy4 ,this philosophy still plays the part of the magic wand in literature1 enabling the author to turn anything he likes into anything else4 ,most of ,turgenev's works are curious in respect of philosophy4 ,but most curious is his ,diary of a ,superfluous ,man4 ,turgenev was the first to introduce the term a superfluous man into ,russian literature4 ,since then an endless amount has been written about superfluous people1 although up till now nothing important has been added to what was already said fifty years ago4 ,there are superfluous people1 plenty of them4 ,but what is to be done with them8 ,no one knows4 ,there remains only to invent philosophies on their behalf4 ,in #ahej ,turgenev1 then a young man1 thus solved the problem4 ,he ends the ,diary--with a humorous postscript1 supposed to have been scribbled by an impertinent reader on the last fly-leaf of the ,,ms4 ,this ,,ms4 was ready and contents thereof disapproved1 by ,peter ,zudotyeshin4 ,m4,m4,m4,m4 ,dear ,sir1 ,peter ,zudotyeshin1 ,my dear ,sir4 ,it is obvious ,turgenev felt that after a tragedy must follow a farce1 and therein lies the substance of his philosophy4 ,it is also obvious that in this feeling he has the whole of ,european civilisation behind him4 ,turgenev was the most educated1 the most cultured of all ,russian writers4 ,he spent nearly all his life abroad1 and absorbed into himself all that ,european learning could offer4 ,he knew this1 although he never directly admitted it1 owing to an exaggerated modesty which sometimes irritates us by its obviousness4 ,he believed profoundly that only learning1 only ,european science could open men's eyes to life1 and explain all that needed explanation4 ,according to this belief he judges even ,tolstoy4 ,the saddest instance of the lack of real freedom1 the sixty-year-old ,turgenev writes of ,war and ,peace1 in his literary memoirs3 the saddest instance of the lack of real freedom1 arising from the lack of real knowledge1 is revealed to us in ,leo ,tolstoy's latest work1 a work which at the same time1 by virtue of its creative1 poetic force1 ranks almost first among all that has appeared in ,russian literature since #ahdj4 ,no6 without culture1 without freedom in the widest sense1 freedom within oneself1 freedom from preconceived ideas1 freedom with regard to one's own nation and history1 without this1 the real artist is unthinkable2 without this free air he cannot breathe4 ,listening to ,turgenev one might imagine that he had learned some great secret in the ,west1 a secret which gave him the right to bear himself cheerfully and modestly when other people despaired and lost their heads4444 ,a year after the writing of the literary memoirs above quoted1 ,turgenev happened to be present at the execution of the notorious murderer1 ,tropman4 ,his impressions are superbly rendered in a long article called ,tropman's ,execution4 ,the description produces a soul-shaking effect upon the reader2 for ,i think ,i shall not exaggerate if ,i say that the essay is one of the best1 at least one of the most vigorous of ,turgenev's writings4 ,it is true that ,tolstoy describes scenes of slaughter with no less vigour1 and therefore the reader need not yield too much to the artist's power4 ,yet when ,turgenev relates that1 at the decisive moment1 when the executioners like spiders on a fly threw themselves on ,tropman and bore him to the ground--the earth quietly swam away from under my feet--we are forced to believe him4 ,men respond only faintly to the horrors that take place around them1 except at moments1 when the savage1 crying incongruity and ghastliness of our condition suddenly reveals itself vivid before our eyes1 and we are forced to know what we are4 ,then the ground slides away from under our feet4 ,but not for long4 ,the horror of the sensation of groundlessness quickly brings man to himself4 ,he must forget everything1 he must only get his feet on earth again4 ,in this sense ,turgenev proved himself in as risky a state at sixty as he was when1 as a young man1 he wrote his ,diary of a ,superfluous ,man4 ,the description of ,tropman's execution ends with these words3 ,who can fail to feel that the question of capital punishment is one of the urgent1 immediate problems which modern humanity must settle8 ,i shall be satisfied 444 if my story will provide even a few arguments for those who advocate the abolition1 or at least the suppression of the publicity of capital punishments4 ,again the mountain has brought forth a mouse4 ,after a tragedy1 a farce4 ,philosophy enters into her power1 and the earth returns under one's feet4 ,i emphasise and repeat3 ,turgenev is not alone responsible for his attitude4 ,with his lips speaks the whole of ,european civilisation4 ,on principle all insoluble problems are rejected4 ,during her thousand years of experience1 the old civilisation has acquired the skill which allows her children to derive satisfaction and benefit out of anything1 even the blood of their neighbour4 ,even the greatest horrors1 even crimes are beneficial1 properly construed4 ,turgenev was1 as we know1 a soft1 humane man1 an undoubted idealist4 ,in his youth he had been through the ,hegelian school4 ,and from ,hegel he learned what an enormous value education has1 and how supremely important it is for an educated man to have a complete and finished--most certainly a finished philosophy4 #ah ,to praise oneself is considered improper1 immodest2 to praise one's own sect1 one's own philosophy1 is considered the highest duty4 ,even the best writers have taken at least as much trouble to glorify their philosophy as to found it1 and have always had more success in the former case than in the latter4 ,their ideas1 whether proven or not1 are the dearest possession in life to them1 in sorrow a consolation1 in difficulty a source of counsel4 ,even death is not terrible to ideas2 they will follow man beyond the grave1 they are the only imperishable riches4 ,all this the philosophers repeat1 very eloquently repeat and reiterate concerning their ideas1 not less skilfully than advocates plead their cases on behalf of thieves and swindlers4 ,but nobody has ever yet called a philosopher a hired conscience1 though everybody gives the lawyer this nickname4 ,why this partiality8 #ai ,certain savage tribes believe that their kings need no food1 neither to eat nor to drink4 ,as a matter of fact1 kings eat and drink1 and even relish a good mouthful more than ordinary mortals4 ,so1 having no desire1 even for the sake of form1 to abstain too long1 they not infrequently interrupt the long-drawn-out religious ceremonies of their tribes1 in order to command refreshment for their frail bodies4 ,but none must witness1 or even be aware of this refreshing1 and so while he eats the king is hidden within a purple pall4 ,metaphysicians remind one of these savage kings4 ,they want everyone to believe that empiricism1 which means all reality and substantial existence1 is nothing to them1 they need only pure ideas for their existence4 ,in order to keep up this fiction1 they appear before the world invested in a purple veil of fine words4 ,the crowd knows perfectly well that it is all a take-in1 but since it likes shows and bright colours1 and since also it has no ambition to appear too knowing1 it rarely betrays that it has caught the trick of the comedy4 ,on the contrary1 it loves to pretend to be fooled1 knowing by instinct that actors always do their best when the audience believes implicitly in what happens4 ,only inexperienced youths and children1 unaware of the great importance of the conventional attitude1 now and then cry out in indignation and give the lie to the performance3 like the child in ,andersen's story1 who so unexpectedly and inopportunely broke the general1 deliberate illusion by calling out--,but the king is naked4 ,of course everybody knows without telling that the king is naked3 that the metaphysicians not only are unable to explain anything1 but that hitherto they have not been able to present even a single hypothesis free from contradiction4 ,it is necessary to pretend to believe that kings eat nothing1 that philosophers have divined the secrets of the universe1 that arbitrary theories are more precious than empirical harvests1 and so on4 ,there remains only one difficulty3 grownups may be won over to the conventional lie1 but what about the children8 ,with them the only remedy is the ,pythagorean system of upbringing1 so glorified by ,hegel4 ,children must keep silent and not raise their voice until they realise that some things may not be talked about4 ,this is our method4 ,with us pupils remain silent1 not only for five years1 as the ,pythagoreans recommended1 but for ten or more--until they have learned to speak like their masters4 ,and then they are granted a freedom which is no longer any good to them4 ,perhaps they had wings1 or might have had them1 but they have crawled all their life long in imitation of their masters1 so how can they now dream of flight8 ,to a well-informed man1 who has studied much1 the very thought of the possibility of tearing himself away from the earth1 even for a moment1 is horrifying3 as if he knew beforehand what the result would be4 #bj ,the best1 the most effective way of convincing a reader is to begin one's argument with inoffensive1 commonplace assertions4 ,when suspicion has been sufficiently lulled1 and a certainty has been begot that what follows will be a confirmation of the readers own accepted views--then has the moment arrived to speak one's mind openly1 but still in the same easy tone1 as if there were no break in the flow of truisms4 ,the logical connection is unimportant4 ,consequence of manner and intonation is much more impressive than consequence of ideas4 ,the thing to do is to go on1 in the same suave tone1 from uttering a series of banalities to expressing a new and dangerous thought1 without any break4 ,if you succeed in this1 the business is done4 ,the reader will not forget--the new words will plague and torment him until he has accepted them4 #ba ,the habit of logical thinking kills imagination4 ,man is convinced that the only way to truth is through logic1 and that any departure from this way leads to error and absurdity4 ,the nearer we approach the ultimate questions of existence1 in our departure from logicality1 the more deadly becomes the state of error we fall into4 ,the ,ariadne ball has become all unwound long ago1 and man is at the end of the tether4 ,but he does not know1 he holds the end of the thread firmly1 and marks time with energy on the same spot1 imagining his progress1 and little realising the ridiculous situation into which he has fallen4 ,how should he realise1 considering the innumerable precautions he has taken to prevent himself from losing the logical way8 ,he had better have stayed at home4 ,once he set out1 once he decided to be a ,theseus and kill the ,minotaur1 he should have given himself up1 forfeited the old attachment1 and been ready never to escape from the labyrinth4 ,true1 he would have risked losing ,ariadne3 and this is why long journeys should be undertaken only after family connections have become a burden4 ,such being the case1 a man deliberately cuts the thread which binds him to hearth and home1 so that he may have a legitimate excuse to his conscience for not going back4 ,philosophy must have nothing in common with logic2 philosophy is an art which aims at breaking the logical continuity of argument and bringing man out on the shoreless sea of imagination1 the fantastic tides where everything is equally possible and impossible4 ,certainly it is difficult1 given sedentary habits of life1 to be a good philosopher4 ,the fact that the fate of philosophy has ever lain in the hands of professors can only be explained by the reluctance of the envious gods to give omniscience to mortals4 ,whilst stay-at-home persons are searching for truth1 the apple will stay on the tree4 ,the business must be undertaken by homeless adventurers1 born nomads1 to whom ubi bene ibi patria4 ,it seems to me that but for his family and his domesticity1 ,count ,tolstoy1 who lives to such a ripe old age1 might have told us a great many important and interesting things4 ,or1 perhaps1 had he not married1 like ,nietzsche he would have gone mad4 ,if you turn to the right1 you will marry1 if to the left1 you will be killed4 ,a true philosopher never chooses the middle course2 he needs no riches1 he does not know what to do with money4 ,but whether he turns to the right or to the left1 nothing pleasant awaits him4 #bb ,scratch a ,russian and you will find a ,tartar4 ,culture is an age-long development1 and sudden grafting of it upon a race rarely succeeds4 ,to us in ,russia1 civilisation came suddenly1 whilst we were still savages4 ,at once she took upon herself the responsibilities of a tamer of wild animals1 first working with decoys and baits1 and later1 when she felt her power1 with threats4 ,we quickly submitted4 ,in a short time we were swallowing in enormous doses those poisons which ,europe had been gradually accustoming herself to1 gradually assimilating through centuries4 ,thanks to which1 the transplanting of civilisation into ,russia turns out to be no mild affair4 ,a ,russian had only to catch a whiff of ,european atmosphere1 and his head began to swim4 ,he interpreted in his own way1 savage-like1 whatever he heard of western success4 ,hearing about railways1 agricultural machines1 schools1 municipalities1 his imagination painted miracles3 universal happiness1 boundless freedom1 paradise1 wings1 etc4 ,and the more impossible his dreams1 the more eager he was to believe them real4 ,how disillusioned with ,europe the westerner ,herzen became1 after living for years on end abroad6 ,yet1 with all his acuteness1 it did not occur to him that ,europe was not in the least to blame for his disillusionment4 ,europe had dropped miracles ages ago2 she contented herself with ideals4 ,it is we in ,russia who will go on confusing miracles with ideals1 as if the two were identical1 whereas they have nothing to do with each other4 ,as a matter of fact1 just because ,europe had ceased to believe in miracles1 and realised that all human problems resolve down to mere arrangements here on earth1 ideas and ideals had been invented4 ,but the ,russian bear crept out of his hole and strolled to ,europe for the elixir of life1 the flying carpet1 the seven-leagued shoes1 and so on1 thinking in all his navet that railways and electricity were signs which clearly proved that the old nurse never told a lie in her fairy tales4444 ,all this happened just at the moment when ,europe had finally made away with alchemy and astrology1 and started on the positive researches resulting in chemistry and astronomy4 #bc ,the first assumption of all metaphysics is1 that by dialectic development of any concept a whole system can be evolved4 ,of course the initial concept1 the a priori1 is generally unsound1 so there is no need to mention the deductions4 ,but since it is very difficult in the realm of abstract thought to distinguish a lie from truth1 metaphysical systems often have a very convincing appearance4 ,the chief defect only appears incidentally1 when the taste for dialectic play becomes blunted in man1 as it did in ,turgenev towards the end of his life1 so that he realises the uselessness of philosophical systems4 ,it is related that a famous mathematician1 after hearing a musical symphony to the end1 inquired1 ,what does it prove8 ,of course1 it proves nothing1 except that the mathematician had no taste for music4 ,and to him who has no taste for dialectics1 metaphysics can prove nothing1 either4 ,therefore1 those who are interested in the success of metaphysics must always encourage the opinion that a taste for dialectics is a high distinction in a man1 proving the loftiness of his soul4 #bd ,man is used to having convictions1 so there we are4 ,we can none of us do without our hangers-on1 though we despise them at the bottom of our souls4 #be ,socrates and ,plato tried to determine under the shifting change of appearance the immutable1 unchanging reality4 ,in the ,platonic ideas the attempt was incarnated4 ,the visible reality1 never true to itself1 assuming numberless varying forms1 this is not the genuine reality4 ,that which is real must be constant4 ,hence the ideas of objects are real1 and the objects themselves are fictitious4 ,thus the root of the ,platonic philosophy appears to be a fundamental defect in human reasoning--a defect regarded as the highest merit4 ,it is difficult for the philosopher to get a good grasp of this agitated1 capricious life1 and so he decides that it is not life at all1 but a figment4 ,dialectics is supreme only over general concepts--and the general concepts are promoted to an ideal4 ,since ,plato and ,socrates1 only such philosophers have succeeded largely who have taught that the unchangeable is preferable to the changeable1 the eternal to the temporal4 ,the ordinary individual1 who lives unconsciously1 never reckoning his spiritual credit against his spiritual debit1 naturally regards the philosopher as his legitimate book-keeper1 keeper of the soul's accounts4 ,already in ,greece the ,athenian youth watched with passionate interest the dexterity which ,socrates displayed in his endeavour to restore by means of dialectics the lost ultimate foundations of human conduct4 ,now in book-keeping1 as we are aware1 not a single farthing must disappear untraceably4 ,socrates was trying to come up to expectations4 ,the balance between man's spiritual assets and liabilities was with him ideally established4 ,perhaps in this lies the secret of that strange attraction he exerted even over such volatile and unsteady natures as that of ,alcibiades1 drawing the young men to him so that they were attached to him with all their soul4 ,alcibiades had long since lost all count of his spiritual estate1 and therefore from time to time he had need to recourse to ,socrates1 who by speeches and dissertations could bring order into chaos and harmony into the spiritual confusion of his young friend4 ,alcibiades turned to ,socrates to be relieved4 ,of course1 he sought relief in order that he might begin again his riotous living3 rest is so sweet to a tired man4 ,but to conclude that because ,alcibiades exhausted himself1 and because rest is sweet1 therefore all men must rest1 this is absurd4 ,yet ,socrates dictated this conclusion1 in all his ideas4 ,he wished that all men should rest1 rest through eternity1 that they should see their highest fulfilment in this resting4 ,it is easier to judge of ,socrates since we have ,count ,tolstoy with us4 ,probably the physiognomist ,topir would say of ,tolstoy as he said of ,socrates1 that there are many evil propensities lurking in him4 ,topir is not here to speak1 but ,tolstoy has told us himself how wicked he found his own nature1 how he had to struggle with it4 ,tolstoy is not naturally over-courageous2 by long effort he has trained himself to be bold4 ,how afraid of death he was in his youth ,and how cleverly he could conceal that fear4 ,later on1 in mature age1 it was still the fear of death which inspired him to write his confession4 ,he was conquering that fear1 and with it all other fears4 ,for he felt that1 since fear is very difficult to master in oneself1 man must be a much higher being when he has learned not to be afraid any more4 ,meanwhile1 who knows8 ,perhaps cowardice1 that miserable1 despicable1 much-abused weakness of the underworld1 is not such a vice after all4 ,perhaps it is even a virtue4 ,think of ,dostoevsky and his heroes1 think of ,hamlet4 ,if the underworld man in us were afraid of nothing1 if ,hamlet was naturally a gladiator1 then we should have neither tragic poetry nor philosophy4 ,it is a platitude1 that fear of death has been the inspiration of philosophers4 ,numberless quotations could be drawn from ancient and modern writers1 if they were necessary4 ,maybe the poetic daimon of ,socrates1 which made him wise1 was only fear personified4 ,or perhaps it was his dark dreams4 ,that which troubled him by day did not quit him by night4 ,even after the sentence of death ,socrates dreamed that he ought to engage in the arts1 so in order not to provoke the gods he began to compose verses1 at the age of seventy4 ,tolstoy also at the age of fifty began to perform good deeds1 to which performance he had previously given not the slightest attention4 ,if it were our custom nowadays to express ourselves mythologically1 we should no doubt hear ,tolstoy telling us about his daimon or his dreams4 ,instead he squares his accounts with science and morality1 in place of gods or demons4 ,many a present-day ,alcibiades1 who laves all the week in the muddy waters of life1 comes on ,sundays to cleanse himself in the pure stream of ,tolstoyian ideas4 ,book-keeping is satisfied with this modest success1 and assumes that if it commands universal attention one day in the week1 then obviously it is the sum and essence of life1 beyond which man needs nothing4 ,on the same grounds the keepers of public baths could argue that1 since so many people come to them on ,saturdays1 therefore cleanliness is the highest ambition of man1 and during the week no one should stir at all1 lest he sweat or soil himself4 #bf ,in an old ,french writer1 a contemporary of ,pascal1 ,i came across the following remarkable words3 ,l'homme est si miserable que l'inconstance avec laquelle il abandonne ses desseins est1 en quelque sorte1 sa plus grande vertu2 parce qu'il temoigne par l qu'il y a encore en lui quelque reste de grandeur qui le porte se dgouter de choses qui ne mritent pas son amour et son estime4 ,what a long way modern thought has travelled from even the possibility of such an assumption4 ,to consider inconstancy the finest human virtue6 ,surely in order to get somewhere in life it is necessary to give the whole self1 one's whole energy to the service of some one particular purpose4 ,in order to be a virtuoso1 a master of one's art and one's instrument1 it is necessary with a truly angelic or asinine patience to try over and over again1 dozens1 hundreds1 thousands of times1 different ways of expressing one's ideas or moods1 sparing neither labour1 nor time1 nor health4 ,everything else must take a second place4 ,the first must be occupied by the ,art4 ,goncharov1 in his novel ,obryv1 cleverly relates how a 'cellist struggled all day1 like a fish against the ice1 sawing and sawing away1 so that later on1 in the evening1 he might play super-excellently well4 ,and that is the general idea4 ,objectionable1 tedious1 irritating labour1--this is the condition of genius1 which no doubt explains the reason why men so rarely achieve anything4 ,genius must submit to cultivate an ass within itself--the condition being so humiliating that man will seldom take up the job4 ,the majority prefer talent1 that medium which lies between genius and mediocrity4 ,and many a time1 towards the end of life1 does the genius repent of his choice4 ,it would be better not to startle the world1 but to live at one with it1 says ,ibsen in his last drama4 ,genius is a wretched1 blind maniac1 whose eccentricities are condoned because of what is got from him4 ,and still we all bow to persevering talent1 to the only god in whom we moderns believe1 and the eulogy of inconstancy will awake very little sympathy in our hearts4 ,probably we shall not even regard it seriously4 #bg ,we very often express in a categorical form a judgment of which we do not feel assured1 we even lay stress on its absolute validity4 ,we want to see what opposition it will arouse1 and this can be achieved only by stating our assumption not as a tentative suggestion1 which no one will consider1 but as an irrefutable1 all-important truth4 ,the greater the value an assumption has for us1 the more carefully do we conceal any suggestion of its improbability4 #bh ,literature deals with the most difficult and important problems of existence1 and1 therefore1 littrateurs consider themselves the most important of people4 ,a bank clerk1 who is always handing money out1 might just as well consider himself a millionaire4 ,the high estimate placed upon unexplained1 unsolved questions ought really to discredit writers in our eyes4 ,and yet these literary men are so clever1 so cunning at stating their own case and revealing the high importance of their mission1 that in the long run they convince everybody1 themselves most of all4 ,this last event is surely owing to their own limited intelligence4 ,the ,romans augurs had subtler1 more versatile minds4 ,in order to deceive others1 they had no need to deceive themselves4 ,in their own set they were not afraid to talk about their secrets1 even to make fun of them1 being fully confident that they could easily vindicate themselves before outsiders1 in case of necessity1 and pull a solemn face befitting the occasion4 ,but our writers of to-day1 before they can lay their improbable assertions before the public1 must inevitably try to be convinced in their own minds4 ,otherwise they cannot begin4 #bi ,the writer is writing away1 the reader is reading away--the writer doesn't care what the reader is after1 the reader doesn't care what the writer is about4 ,such a state of things hurt ,schedrin very much4 ,he would have liked it different2 no sooner has the writer said a word1 than the reader at once scales the wall4 ,this was his ideal4 ,but the reader is by no means so naive as all that4 ,he prefers to rest easy1 and insists that the writer shall climb the wall for him4 ,so those authors succeed with the public who write with their heart's blood4 ,conventional tournaments1 even the most brilliant1 do not attract the masses any more than the connoisseurs4 ,people rush to see a fight of gladiators1 where awaits them a scent of real1 hot1 smoking blood1 where they are going to see real1 not pretended victims4 ,thus many writers1 like gladiators1 shed their blood to gratify that modern ,caesar1 the mob4 ,salve1 ,caesar1 morituri te salutant6 #cj ,anton ,tchekhov tells the truth neither out of love or respect for the truth1 nor yet because1 in the ,kantian manner1 a high duty bids him never to tell a lie1 even to escape death4 ,neither has he the impulse which so often pushes young and fiery souls into rashness2 that desire to stand erect1 to keep the head high4 ,on the contrary1 ,tchekhov always walks with a stoop1 his head bent down1 never fixing his eyes on the heavens1 since he will read no signs there4 ,if he tells the truth1 it is because the most reeking lie no longer intoxicates him1 even though he swallow it not in the modest doses that idealism offers1 but in immoderate quantities1 thousand-gallon-barrel gulps4 ,he would taste the bitterness1 but it would not make his head turn1 as it does ,schiller's1 or ,dostoevsky's1 or even ,socrates'1 whose head1 as we know1 could stand any quantity of wine1 but went spinning with the most commonplace lie4 #ca ,noblesse ,oblige4--,the moment of obligation1 compulsion1 duty1 that moment described by ,kant as the essential1 almost the only predicate of moral concepts1 serves chiefly to indicate that ,kant was modest in himself and in his attitude towards all whom he addressed1 perceiving in all men beings subject to the ennobling effect of morality4 ,noblesse oblige is a motto not for the aristocracy1 which recognises in its privileges its own instant duties1 but for the self-made1 wealthy parvenues who pant for an illustrious title4 ,they have been accustomed to telling lies1 to playing poltroon1 swindling1 and meanness1 and the necessity for speaking the truth impartially1 for bravely facing danger1 for freely giving of their fortunes scares them beyond measure4 ,therefore it is necessary that they should repeat it to themselves and to their children1 in whose veins the lying1 sneaking blood still runs1 hourly1 lest they forget3 ,you must not tell lies1 you must be open1 magnanimous4 ,it is silly1 it is incomprehensible--but noblesse oblige4 #cb ,homo homini lupus is one of the most steadfast maxims of eternal morality4 ,in each of our neighbours we fear a wolf4 ,this fellow is evil-minded1 if he is not restrained by law he will ruin us1 so we think every time a man gets out of the rut of sanctified tradition4 ,the fear is just4 ,we are so poor1 so weak1 so easily ruined and destroyed6 ,how can we help being afraid6 ,and yet1 behind danger and menace there is usually hidden something significant1 which merits our close and sympathetic attention4 ,but fear's eyes are big4 ,we see danger1 danger only1 we build up a fabric of morality inside which as in a fortress we sit out of danger all our lives4 ,only poets have undertaken to praise dangerous people--,don ,juans1 ,fausts1 ,tannhasers4 ,but nobody takes the poets seriously4 ,common-sense values a commercial-traveller or a don much more highly than a ,byron1 a ,goethe1 or a ,molire4 #cc ,the possibilities which open out before mankind are sufficiently limited4 ,it is impossible to see everything1 impossible to know everything1 impossible to rise too high above the earth1 impossible to penetrate too deeply down4 ,what has been is hidden away1 what will be we cannot anticipate1 and we know for certain that we shall never grow wings4 ,regularity1 immutably regular succession of phenomena puts a term to our efforts1 drives us into a regular1 narrow1 hard-beaten road of everyday life4 ,but even on this road we may not wander from side to side4 ,we must watch our feet1 consider each step1 since the moment we are off our guard disaster is upon us4 ,another life is conceivable1 however3 life in which the word disaster does not exist1 where responsibility for one's actions1 even if it be not completely abolished1 at least has not such a deadly and accidental weight1 and where1 on the other hand1 there is no regularity1 but rather an infinite number of possibilities4 ,in such a life the sense of fear--most disgraceful to us--disappears4 ,there the virtues are not the same as ours4 ,fearlessness in face of danger1 liberality1 even lavishness are considered virtues with us1 but they are respected without any grounds4 ,socrates was quite right when he argued that not all courage1 but only the courage which measures beforehand the risks and the chances of victory1 is fully justifiable4 ,to the same extent those economical1 careful people who condemn lavishness are in the right4 ,fearlessness and lavishness do not suit mortal men1 rather it becomes them to tremble and to count every penny1 seeing what a state of poverty and impotence they exist in4 ,that is why these two virtues are so rarely met with1 and when they are met1 why they arouse such superstitious reverence in the crowd4 ,this man fears nothing and spares nothing3 he is probably not a man1 but a demi-god1 perhaps even a god4 ,socrates did not believe in gods1 so he wanted to justify virtue by reason4 ,kant also did not believe in ,god1 and therefore he derived his morals from ,law4 ,but if there is ,god1 and all men are the children of ,god1 then we should be afraid of nothing and spare nothing4 ,and then the man who madly dissipates his own life and fortunes1 and the lives and fortunes of others1 is more right than the calculating philosophers who vainly seek to regulate mankind on earth4 #cd ,moral people are the most revengeful of mankind1 they employ their morality as the best and most subtle weapon of vengeance4 ,they are not satisfied with simply despising and condemning their neighbour themselves1 they want the condemnation to be universal and supreme3 that is1 that all men should rise as one against the condemned1 and that even the offender's own conscience shall be against him4 ,then only are they fully satisfied and reassured4 ,nothing on earth but morality could lead to such wonderful results4 #ce ,inveterate wickedness4--,heretics were often most bitterly persecuted for their least digression from accepted belief4 ,it was just their obstinacy in trifles that irritated the righteous to madness4 ,why can they not yield on so trifling a matter8 ,they cannot possibly have serious cause for opposition4 ,they only want to grieve us1 to spite us4 ,so the hatred mounted up1 piles of faggots and torture machines appeared against obdurate wickedness4 #cf ,i do not know where ,i came across the remark1 whether in ,tolstoy or ,turgenev1 that those who have been subjected to trial in the courts of justice always acquire a particularly noble expression of face4 ,although logic does so earnestly recommend caution in the forming of contradictory conclusions1 come what may ,i shall for once risk a deduction3 a noble expression of face is a sign that a man has been under trial--but certainly not a trial for political crime--for theft or bribe-taking4 #cg ,the most important and significant revelations come into the world naked1 without a wordy garment4 ,to find words for them is a delicate1 difficult business1 a whole art4 ,stupidities and banalities1 on the contrary1 appear at once in ready-made apparel1 gaudy even if shabby4 ,so that they are ready straight away to be presented to the public4 #ch ,a strange impatience has taken possession of ,russian writers lately4 ,they are all running a race after the ultimate words4 ,they have no doubt that the ultimate words will be attained4 ,the question is1 who will lay hold of them first4 #ci ,the appearance of ,socrates on the philosophic horizon is hailed by historians as the greatest event4 ,morals were beginning to work loose1 ,athens was threatened with ruin4 ,socrates' mission was to put an end to the violent oscillation in moral judgments which extreme individualism on the one hand and the relativism of the sophists on the other had set up4 ,the great teacher did all he could4 ,he gave up his usual occupations and his family life1 he took no thought for the morrow1 he taught1 taught1 taught--simple people or eminent1 wise or foolish1 ignorant or learned4 ,notwithstanding1 he did not save the country4 ,under ,pericles1 ,athens flourished without wisdom1 or at least independently of ,socratic wisdom4 ,after ,pericles1 in spite of the fact that the ,socratic teaching found such a genius as ,plato to continue it1 ,athens steadily declined1 and ,aristotle is already master to the son of ,philip of ,macedon4 ,whence it is obvious that the wisdom of ,socrates had not saved the country1 and as this had been its chief object1 it had failed in its object1 and therefore was not worthy of the exaggerated respect it received4 ,it is necessary to find some justification for philosophy other than country-saving4 ,this would be the easiest thing in the world4 ,but altogether we must give up the favourite device of the philosophers1 of looking to find in the well-being of society the raison d'tre of philosophy4 ,at the best1 the trick was a risky one4 ,as a rule1 wisdom goes one way1 society the other4 ,they are artificially connected4 ,it is public orators who have trained both the philosophers and the masses to regard as worthy of attention only those considerations which have absolutely everything on their side3 social utility1 morality1 even metaphysical wisdom4444 ,why so much8 ,is it not sufficient if some new project will prove useful8 ,why try to get the sanction of morality and metaphysics8 ,nay1 once the laws of morality are autonomous1 and once ideas are allowed to stand above the empirical needs of mankind1 it is impossible to balance ideas and morality with social requirements1 or even with the salvation of the ,country from ruin4 ,pereat mundus1 fiat philosophia4 ,if ,athens was ruined because of philosophy1 philosophy is not impugned4 ,so the autonomous thinker should hold4 ,but de facto a thinker does not like quarrelling with his country4 #dj ,when a writer has to express an idea whose foundation he has not been able to establish1 and which yet is dear to his heart1 so that he earnestly wishes to secure its general acceptance1 as a rule he interrupts his exposition1 as if to take breath1 and makes a small1 or at times a serious digression1 during which he proves the invalidity of this or that proposition1 often without any reference to his real theme4 ,having triumphantly exposed one or more absurdities1 and thus acquired the aplomb of a solid expert1 he returns to his proper task1 calculating that now he will inspire his reader with greater confidence4 ,his calculation is perfectly justified4 ,the reader is afraid to attack such a skilled dialectician1 and prefers to agree rather than to risk himself in argument4 ,not even the greatest intellects1 particularly in philosophy1 disdain such stratagems4 ,the idealists1 for example1 before expounding their theories1 turn and rend materialism4 ,the materialists1 we remember1 at one time did the same with the idealists1 and achieved a vast success4 #da ,theories of sequence and consequence are binding only upon the disciples1 not upon the masters4 ,fathers of great ideas tend to be very1 careless about their progeny1 giving very little heed to their future career4 ,the offspring of one and the same philosopher frequently bear such small resemblance to one another1 that it is impossible to discern the family connection4 ,conscientious disciples1 wasting away under the arduous effort to discover that which does not exist1 are brought to despair of their task4 ,having got an inkling of the truth concerning their difficulty1 they give up the job for ever1 they cease their attempt at reconciling glaring contradictions4 ,but then they only insist the harder upon the necessity for studying the philosophers1 studying them minutely1 circumstantially1 historically1 philologically even4 ,so the history of philosophy is born1 which now is taking the place of philosophy4 ,certainly the history of philosophy may be an exact science1 since by means of historical research it is often possible to decide what exactly a certain philosopher did mean1 and in what sense he employed his peculiar terms4 ,and seeing that there have been a fair number of philosophers1 the business of clearing them all up is a respectable undertaking1 and deserves the name of a science4 ,for a good translation or a commentary on the chief works of ,kant a man may be given the degree of doctor of philosophy1 and henceforth recognised as one who is initiated in the profundities of the secrets of the universe4 ,then why ever should anybody think out new systems--or even write them8 ,the raptures of creative activity6--empty words1 invented by men who never had an opportunity of judging from their own experience1 but who derive their conclusion syllogistically3 if a creation gives us such delight1 what must the creator himself experience6 ,usually the creator feels only vexations4 ,every creation is created out of the ,void4 ,at the best1 the maker finds himself confronted with a formless1 meaningless1 usually obstinate and stiff matter1 which yields reluctantly to form4 ,and he does not know how to begin4 ,every time a new thought is gendered1 so often must that new thought1 which for the moment seems so brilliant and fascinating1 be thrown aside as worthless4 ,creative activity is a continual progression from failure to failure1 and the condition of the creator is usually one of uncertainty1 mistrust1 and shattered nerves4 ,the more serious and original the task which a man sets himself1 the more tormenting is the self-misgiving4 ,for this reason even men of genius cannot keep up the creative activity to the last4 ,as soon as they have acquired their technique1 they begin to repeat themselves1 well aware that the public willingly endures the monotony of a favourite1 even finds virtue in it4 ,every connoisseur of art is satisfied if he recognises in a new work the accepted manner of the artist4 ,few realise that the acquiring of a manner is the beginning of the end4 ,artists realise well enough1 and would be glad to be rid of their manner1 which seems to them a hackneyed affair4 ,but this requires too great a strain on their powers1 new torments1 doubts1 new groping4 ,he who has once been through the creative raptures is not easily tempted to try again4 ,he prefers to turn out work according to the pattern he has evolved1 calmly and securely1 assured of his results4 ,fortunately no one except himself knows that he is not any longer a creator4 ,what a lot of secrets there are in the world1 and how easy it is to keep one's secret safe from indiscreet glances6 #dc ,a writer works himself up to a pitch of ecstasy1 otherwise he does not take up his pen4 ,but ecstasy is not so easily distinguished from other kinds of excitement4 ,and as a writer is always in haste to write1 he has rarely the patience to wait1 but at the first promptings of animation begins to pour himself forth4 ,so in the name of ecstasy we are offered such quantities of banal1 by no means ecstatic effusions4 ,particularly easy it is to confound with ecstasy that very common sort of spring-time liveliness which in our language is well-named calf-rapture4 ,and calf-rapture is much more acceptable to the public than true inspiration or genuine transport4 ,it is easier1 more familiar4 #dd ,a school axiom3 logical scepticism refutes itself1 since the denial of the possibility of positive knowledge is already an affirmation4 ,but1 in the first place1 scepticism is not bound to be logical1 for it has no desire whatever to gratify that dogma which raises logic to the position of law4 ,secondly1 where is the philosophic theory which1 if carried to its extreme1 would not destroy itself8 ,therefore1 why is more demanded from scepticism than from other systems8 especially from scepticism1 which honestly avows that it cannot give that which all other theories claim to give4 #de ,the ,aristotelian logic1 which forms the chief component in modern logic1 arose1 as we know1 as a result of the permanent controversies which were such sport to the ,greeks4 ,in order to argue1 it is indeed necessary to have a common ground2 in other words1 to agree about the rules of the game4 ,but in our day dialectic tournaments1 like all other bouts of contention1 no longer attract people4 ,thus logic may be relegated to the background4 #df ,in ,gogol's ,portrait1 the artist despairs at the thought that he has sacrificed art for the sake of life4 ,in ,ibsen's drama1 ,when ,we ,dead ,awaken1 there is also an artist1 who has become world-famous1 and who repents that he has sacrificed his life--to art4 ,now1 choose--which of the two ways of repentance do you prefer8 #dg ,man is often quite indifferent to success whilst he has it4 ,but once he loses his power over people1 he begins to fret4 ,and--vice versa4 #dh ,turgenev's ,insarov strikes the imagination of ,elena because he is a man preparing for battle4 ,she prefers him to ,shubin the painter1 or to ,berseniev the savant4 ,since ancient days women have looked with favour on warriors rather than on peaceful men4 ,had ,turgenev invested that idea with less glamour1 he would probably not have become the ideal of the young4 ,who does not get a thrill from ,elena and her elect8 ,who has not felt the fascination of ,turgenev's women6 ,and yet all of them give themselves to the strong male4 ,with such superior people1 as with beasts1 the males fight with each other1 the woman looks on1 and when it is over1 she submits herself the slave of the conqueror4 #di ,a caterpillar is transformed into a chrysalis1 and for a long time lives in a warm1 quiet little world4 ,perhaps if it had human consciousness it would declare that that world was the best1 perhaps the only one possible to live in4 ,but there comes a time when some unknown influence causes the little creature to begin the work of destruction4 ,if other caterpillars could see it how horrified they would be1 revolted to the bottom of their soul by the awful work in which the insurgent is engaged4 ,they would call it immoral1 godless1 they would begin to talk about pessimism1 scepticism1 and so on4 ,to destroy what has cost such labour to construct6 ,why1 what is wrong with this complete1 cosy1 comfortable little world8 ,to keep it intact they call to their aid sacred morality and the idealistic theory of knowledge4 ,nobody cares that the caterpillar has grown wings1 that when it has nibbled its old nest away it will fly out into space--nobody gives a thought to this4 ,wings--that is mysticism2 self-nibbling--this is actuality4 ,those who are engaged in such actuality deserve torture and execution4 ,and there are plenty of prisons and voluntary hangmen on the bright earth4 ,the majority of books are prisons1 and great authors are not bad hangmen4 #ej ,nietzsche and ,dostoevsky seem to be typical inverted simulators1 if one may use the expression4 ,they imitated spiritual sanity1 although they were spiritually insane4 ,they knew their morbidity well enough1 but they exhibited their disease only to that extent where freakishness passes for originality4 ,with the sensitiveness peculiar to all who are in constant danger1 they never went beyond the limits4 ,the axe of the guillotine of public opinion hung over them3 one awkward move1 and the execution automatically takes place4 ,but they knew how to avoid unwarrantable moves4 #ea ,the so-called ultimate questions troubled mankind in the world's dawn as badly as they trouble us now4 ,adam and ,eve wanted to know1 and they plucked the fruit at their risk4 ,cain1 whose sacrifice did not please ,god1 raised his hand against his brother3 and it seemed to him he committed murder in the name of justice1 in vindication of his own injured rights4 ,nobody has ever been able to understand why ,god preferred ,abel's sacrifice to that of ,cain4 ,in our own day ,sallieri repeats ,cain's vengeance and poisons his friend and benefactor ,mozzart1 according to the poem of ,poushkin4 ,all say1 there is no justice on earth2 but there is no justice up above3 this is as clear to me as a simple scale of music4 ,no man on earth can fail to recognise in these words his own tormenting doubts4 ,the outcome is creative tragedy1 which for some mysterious reason has been considered up till now as the highest form of human creation4 ,everything is being unriddled and explained4 ,if we compare our knowledge with that of the ancients1 we appear very wise4 ,but we are no nearer to solving the riddle of eternal justice than ,cain was4 ,progress1 civilisation1 all the conquests of the human mind have brought us nothing new here4 ,like our ancestors1 we stand still with fright and perplexity before ugliness1 disease1 misery1 senility1 death4 ,all that the wise men have been able to do so far is to turn the earthly horrors into problems4 ,we are told that perhaps all that is horrible only appears horrible1 that perhaps at the end of the long journey something new awaits us4 ,perhaps6 ,but the modern educated man1 with the wisdom of all the centuries of mankind at his command1 knows no more about it than the old singer who solved universal problems at his own risk4 ,we1 the children of a moribund civilisation1 we1 old men from our birth1 in this respect are as young as the first man4 #eb ,they say it is impossible to set a bound between the ,i and society4 ,navet6 ,crusoes are to be found not only on desert islands4 ,they are there1 in populous cities4 ,it is true they are not clad in skins1 they have no dark ,fridays in attendance1 and so nobody recognises them4 ,but surely ,friday and a fur jacket do not make a ,crusoe4 ,loneliness1 desertion1 a boundless1 shoreless sea1 on which no sail has risen for tens of years1--do not many of our contemporaries live in such a circumstance8 ,and are they not ,crusoes1 to whom the rest of people have become a vague reminiscence1 barely distinguishable from a dream8 #ec ,to be irremediably unhappy--this is shameful4 ,an irremediably unhappy person is outside the laws of the earth4 ,any connection between him and society is severed finally4 ,and since1 sooner or later1 every individual is doomed to irremediable unhappiness1 the last word1 of philosophy is loneliness4 #ed ,it is better to be an unhappy man1 than a happy pig4 ,the utilitarians hoped by this golden bridge to get over the chasm which separates them from the promised land of the ideal4 ,but psychology stepped in and rudely interrupted3 ,there are no unhappy people1 the unhappy ones are all pigs4 ,dostoevsky's philosopher of the underworld1 ,raskolnikov1 also ,hamlet1 and such-like1 are not simply unhappy men whose fate might be esteemed1 or even preferred before some happy fates2 they are simply unhappy swine4 ,and they themselves are principally aware of it4444 ,he that hath ears to hear1 let him hear4 #ee ,if you want people to envy you your sorrow or your shame1 look as if you were proud of it4 ,if you have only enough of the actor in you1 rest assured1 you will become the hero of the day4 ,since the parable of the ,pharisee and the publican was uttered1 what a lot of people who could not fulfil their sacred duties pretended to be publicans and sinners1 and so aroused sympathy1 even envy4 #ef ,philosophers dearly love to call their utterances truths1 since in that guise they become binding upon us all4 ,but each philosopher invents his own truths4 ,which means that he asks his pupils to deceive themselves in the way he shows1 but that he reserves for himself the option of deceiving himself in his own way4 ,why8 ,why not allow everyone to deceive himself just as he likes8 #eg ,when ,xanthippe poured slops over ,socrates1 as he returned from his philosophical occupations1 tradition says that he observed3 ,after a storm there is always rain4 ,would it not be more worthy 7not of the philosopher1 but of philosophy7 to say3 ,after one's philosophical exercise1 one feels as if one had had ,slops emptied over one's head4 ,and therefore ,xanthippe did but give outward expression to what had taken place in ,socrates' soul4 ,symbols are not always beautiful4 #eh ,from the notes of an underworld man--,i read little1 ,i write little1 and1 it seems to me1 ,i think little4 ,he who is ill-disposed towards me will say that this shows a great defect in my character1 perhaps he will call me lazy1 an ,oblomov1 and will repeat the copy-book maxim that idleness is the mother of all the vices4 ,a friend1 on the other hand1 will say it is only a temporary state1 that perhaps ,i am not quite well--in short1 he will find random excuses for me1 more with the idea of consoling me than of speaking the truth4 ,but for my part1 ,i say let us wait4 ,if it turns out at the end of my life that ,i have 'done' not less than others--why1 then--it will mean that idleness may be a virtue4 #ei ,brne1 a contemporary of ,heine1 was very much offended when his enemies insisted on explaining his misanthropic outpourings as the result of a stomach and liver disease4 ,it seemed to him much nobler and loftier to be indignant and angry because of the triumph of evil on earth1 than because of the disorders of his own physical organs4 ,sentimentality apart--was he right1 and is it really nobler8 #fj ,a real writer disdains to repeat from hearsay events which he has not witnessed4 ,it seems to him tedious and humiliating to tell in his own words1 like a schoolboy1 things which he has fished out of another man's books4 ,but there--how can we expect him to stoop to such insignificance6 #fa ,whilst conscience stands between the educated and the lower classes1 as the only possible mediator1 there can be no hope for mutual understanding4 ,conscience demands sacrifices1 nothing but sacrifices4 ,it says to the educated man3 ,you are happy1 well-off1 learned--the people are poor1 unhappy1 ignorant2 renounce therefore your well-being1 or else soothe your conscience with suave speeches4 ,only he who has nothing to sacrifice1 nothing to lose1 having lost everything1 can hope to approach the people as an equal4 ,this is why ,dostoevsky and ,nietzsche were not afraid to speak in their own name1 and did not feel compelled either to stretch up or to stoop down in order to be on a level with men4 #fb ,not to know what you want is considered a shameful weakness4 ,to confess it is to lose for ever not only the reputation of a writer1 but even of a man4 ,none the less1 conscience demands such a confession4 ,true1 in this case as in most others the demands of conscience are satisfied only when they incur no very dire consequences4 ,leaving aside the fact that people are no longer terrified of the once-so-terrible public opinion 7the public has been tamed1 it listens with reverence to what is told to it1 and never dares judge7--the admission ,i do not know myself what ,i want seems to offer a guarantee of something important4 ,those who know what they want generally want trifles1 and attain to inglorious ends3 riches1 fame1 or at the best1 progress or a philosophy of their own4 ,even now it is sometimes not a sin to laugh at such wonders1 and may-be the time is coming when a rehabilitated ,hamlet will announce1 not with shame but with pride3 ,i don't in the least know what ,i want4 ,and the crowd will applaud him1 for the crowd always applauds heroes and proud men4 #fc ,fear of death is explained conclusively by the desire for self-preservation4 ,but at that rate the fear should disappear in old and sick people1 who ought by nature to look with indifference on death4 ,whereas the horror of death is present in all living things4 ,does not this suggest that there is still some other reason for the dread1 and that even where the pangs of horror cannot save a man from his end1 still it is a necessary and purposeful anguish8 ,the natural-scientific explanation here1 as usual1 stops halfway1 and fails to lead the human mind to the promised goal4 #fd ,moral indignation is only a refined form of ancient vengeance4 ,once anger spoke with daggers1 now words will do4 ,and happy is the man who1 loving and thirsting to chastise his offender1 yet is appeased when the offence is punished4 ,on account of the gratification it offers to the passions1 morality1 which has replaced bloody chastisement1 will not easily' lose its charm4 ,but there are offences1 deep1 unforgettable offences1 inflicted not by people1 but by laws of nature4 ,how are we to settle these8 ,here neither dagger nor indignant word will serve4 ,therefore1 for him who has once run foul of the laws of nature morality sinks1 for ever or for a time1 into subsidiary importance4 #fe ,fatalism frightens people particularly in that form which holds it just to say1 of anything that happens1 or has happened1 or will happen3 be it so6 ,how can one acquiesce in the actuality of life1 when it contains so many horrors8 ,but amor fati does not imply eternal acquiescence in actuality4 ,it is only a truce1 for a more or less lasting period4 ,time is needed in which to estimate the forces and intentions of the enemy4 ,under the mask of friendship the old enmity persists1 and an awful revenge is in preparation4 #ff ,in the ultimate questions of life we are not a bit nearer the truth than our ancestors were4 ,everybody knows it1 and yet so many go on talking about infinity1 without any hope of ever saying anything4 ,it is evident that a result--in the usual acceptance of the word--is not necessary4 ,in the very last resort we trust to instinct1 even in the field of philosophy1 where reason is supposed to reign supreme1 uttering its eternal ,why8 ,why8 laughs at all possible becauses4 ,instinct1 however1 does not mock4 ,it simply ignores the whys1 and leads us by impossible ways to ends that our divine reason would hold absurd1 if it could only see them in time4 ,but reason is a laggard1 without much foresight1 and1 therefore1 when we have run up to an unexpected conclusion1 nothing remains but for reason to accept3 or even to justify1 to exalt the new event4 ,and therefore1--reality is reasonable1 say the philosophers3 reasonable1 not only when they draw their philosophic ,salaries1 as the socialists1 and with them our philosopher ,vladimir ,soloviov1 explain2 but still reasonable even when philosophers have their maintenance taken away from them4 ,nay1 in the latter case1 particularly in the latter case1 in spite of the socialists and ,,vi4 ,soloviov1 reality shows herself most reasonable4 ,a philosopher persecuted1 downtrodden1 hungry1 cold1 receiving no salary1 is nearly always an extreme fatalist--although this1 of course1 by no means hinders him from abusing the existing order4 ,theories of sequence and consequence1 as we already know1 are binding only upon disciples1 whose single virtue lies in their scrupulous1 logical developing of the master's idea4 ,but masters themselves invent ideas1 and1 therefore1 have the right to substitute one for another4 ,the sovereign power which proclaims a law has the same power to abolish it4 ,but the duty of the subordinate consists in the praise1 in the consequential interpretation and the strict observance of the dictates of the higher will4 #fg ,the ,pharisee in the parable fulfilled all that religion demanded of him3 kept his fasts1 paid his tithes1 etc4 ,had he a right to be pleased with his own piety1 and to despise the erring publican8 ,everybody thought so1 including the ,pharisee himself4 ,the judgment of ,christ came as the greatest surprise to him4 ,he had a clear conscience4 ,he did not merely pretend before others to be righteous1 he himself believed in his own righteousness4 ,and suddenly he turns out guilty1 awfully guilty4 ,but if the conscience of a righteous man does not help him to distinguish between good and evil1 how is he to avoid sin8 ,what does ,kant's moral law mean1 that law which was as consoling as the starry sky8 ,kant lived his life in profound peace of soul1 he met his death quietly1 in the consciousness of his own purity4 ,but if ,christ came again1 he might condemn the serene philosopher for his very serenity4 ,for the ,pharisee1 we repeat1 was righteous1 if purity of intentions1 together with a firm readiness to fulfil everything which appears1 to him in the light of duty1 be righteousness in a man4 #fh ,we jeer and laugh at a man not because he is ridiculous1 but because we want to have a laugh out of him4 ,in the same way we are indignant1 not because this or the other act is revolting to us1 but because we want to let off our steam4 ,but it does not follow from this that we ought always to be calm and smooth4 ,woe to him who would try to realise the ideal of justice on earth4 #fi ,we think with peculiar intensity during the hard moments of our life--we write when we have nothing else to do4 ,so that a writer can only communicate something of importance in reproducing the past4 ,when we are driven to think1 we have unfortunately no mind to write1 which accounts for the fact that books are never more than a feeble echo of what a man has gone through4 #gj ,tchekhov has a story called ,misfortune which well illustrates the difficulty a man finds in adapting himself to a new truth1 if this truth threaten the security of his condition4 ,the ,merchant ,avdeyer does not believe that he is condemned1 that he has been brought to trial1 and tried1 and found guilty1 for his irregularities in a public bank4 ,he still thinks the verdict is yet to come--he still waits4 ,in the world of learning something like this is happening4 ,the educated have become so accustomed to think themselves not guilty1 perfectly in the right1 that they do not admit for a moment even now that they are brought to court4 ,when threatening voices reach them1 calling them to give an account of themselves1 they only suspiciously shrug their shoulders4 ,all this will pass away--they think4 ,well1 when at last they are convinced that misfortune has befallen them1 they will probably begin to justify themselves1 like ,avdeyer1 declaring that they cannot even read printed matter sufficiently well4 ,as yet1 they pass for respectable1 wise1 experienced1 omniscient men4 #ga ,if a man had come to ,dostoevsky and said to him1 ,i am hopelessly unhappy1 the great artist in human misery would probably1 at the bottom of his soul1 have laughed at the navet of the poor creature4 ,may one confess such things of oneself8 ,may one go to such lengths of complaint1 and still expect consolation from his neighbour8 ,hopelessness is the most solemn and supreme moment in life4 ,till that point we have been assisted--now we are left to ourselves4 ,previously we had to do with men and human laws--now with eternity1 and with the complete absence of laws4 ,is it not obvious8 #gb ,byelinsky1 in his famous letter1 accuses ,gogol1 among other things1 that in his ,correspondence with ,friends1 he1 ,gogol1 succumbs to the fear of death1 of devils1 and of hell4 ,i find the accusation just3 ,gogol definitely feared death1 demons1 and hell4 ,the point is1 whether it is not right to fear these things1 and whether fearlessness would be a proof of the high development of a man's soul4 ,schopenhauer asserts that death inspired philosophy4 ,all the best poetry1 all the wonderful mythology of the ancients and of modern peoples have for their source the fear of death4 ,only modern science forbids men to fear1 and insists on a tranquil attitude towards death4 ,so we arrive at utilitarianism and the positivist philosophy4 ,if you wish to be rid of both these creeds you must be allowed to think again of death1 and without shame to fear hell and its devils4 ,it may be there is really a certain justification for concealing fears of such kind3 in the ability to conceal one's agitation at moments of great danger there is a true beauty4 ,but to deaden human sensitiveness and to keep the human intelligence within the bounds of perception1 such a task can have charms only for a petty creature4 ,happily1 mankind has no means by which to perform on itself such monstrous castration4 ,persecuted ,eros1 it is true1 has hidden himself from the eyes of his enemies1 but he has never abjured himself2 and even the strictest medieval monks could not completely tear out their hearts from their breasts4 ,similarly with the aspiration towards the infinite3 science persecuted it and put a veto on it4 ,but laboratory workers themselves1 sooner or later1 recover their senses1 and thirstily long to get out of the enclosure of positive knowledge1 with that same thirsty longing that tortured the monks who wanted to get out of the enclosure of monastery walls4 #gc ,if fate--and they say there is such a law--punishes criminals1 it has its penalty also for the lovers of good4 ,the former it throttles1 the latter it spits upon4 ,the former end in bitter torment1 the latter--in ignominy4 #gd ,philosophy has always loved to occupy the position of a servant4 ,in the ,middle ,ages she was the ancilla theologi1 nowadays she waits on science4 ,at the same time she calls herself the science of sciences4 #ge ,i wonder which more effectually makes a man rush forwards without looking back3 the knowledge that behind him hovers the head of ,medusa1 with horrible snakes1 ready to turn him into stone2 or the certainty that in the rear lies the unchangeable order laid down by the law of causality and by modern science4 ,judging from what we see1 judging from the degree of tension which human thought has reached to-day1 it would seem that the head of ,medusa is less terrible than the law of causality4 ,in order to escape the latter1 man will face anything4 ,rather than return to the bosom of scientific cause and effect1 he embraces madness3 not that fine frenzy of madness which spends itself in fiery speeches1 but technical madness1 for which one is stowed away in a lunatic asylum4 #gf ,to experience a feeling of joy or sorrow1 of triumph or despair1 ennui or happiness1 and so on1 without having sufficient cause for such feeling1 is an unfailing sign of mental disease4444 ,one of the modern truths which is seeing its last days4 #gg ,count ,tolstoy's ,german biographer regrets the constant misunderstanding and quarrels which took place between ,tolstoy and ,turgenev4 ,he reminds us of ,goethe and ,schiller1 and thinks that ,russian literature would have gained a great deal if the two remarkable ,russian writers had been more pacific1 had remained on constantly friendly terms with one another1 and bequeathed to posterity a couple of volumes of letters dealing with literary and philosophic subjects4 ,it might have been very nice--but ,i refuse to imagine ,tolstoy and ,turgenev keeping up a long1 peaceful correspondence1 particularly on high subjects4 ,nearly every one of ,turgenev's opinions drove ,tolstoy to madness1 or was capable of so driving him4 ,dostoevsky's dislike of ,turgenev was even stronger than ,tolstoy's2 he wrote of him very spitefully and offensively1 libelling him rather than drawing a caricature4 ,evidently ,dostoevsky1 like ,tolstoy1 detested the ,european in their confrere4 ,but here he was mistaken1 in spite of his psychological acuteness4 ,to ,dostoevsky1 it was enough that ,turgenev wore ,european clothes and tried to appear like a westerner4 ,he himself did the opposite3 he tried to get rid of every trace of ,europeanism from himself1 apparently without great success1 since he failed to make clear to himself wherein lay the strength of ,europe1 and where her sting4 ,nevertheless1 the late ,mikhailovsky is not wrong in calling ,dostoevsky a seeker of buried treasure4 ,surely1 in the second half of his literary activity ,dostoevsky no longer sought for the real fruits of life4 ,there awoke in him the ,russian1 the elemental man1 with a thirst for the miraculous4 ,compared with what he wanted1 the fruits of ,european civilisation seemed to him trivial1 flat1 insipid4 ,the age-long civilisation of his neighbours told him that there never had been a miracle1 and never would be4 ,but all his being1 not yet broken-in by civilisation1 craved for the stupendous unknown4 ,therefore1 the apparently-satisfied progressivist enraged him4 ,tolstoy once said of ,turgenev3 ,i hate his democratic backside4 ,dostoevsky might have repeated these words4444 ,and now1 for the gratification of the ,german critic1 please reconcile the ,russian writers and make them talk serenely on high-flown matters6 ,dostoevsky was within a hair's-breath of a quarrel with ,tolstoy1 with whom1 not long before death interrupted him1 he began a long controversy concerning ,anna ,karenina4 ,even ,tolstoy seemed to him too compliant1 too accommodating4 #gh ,we rarely make a display of that which is dear to us1 near and dear and necessary4 ,on the other hand1 we readily exhibit that which is of no importance to us--there is nothing else to be done with it4 ,a man takes his mistress to the theatre and sticks her in full view of everybody2 he prefers to remain at home with the woman he loves1 or to go about with her quietly1 unnoticed4 ,so with our ,virtues4 ,every time we notice in ourselves some quality we do not prize we haste to make a show of it1 thinking perhaps that someone would be glad of it4 ,if it wins us approval1 we are pleased--so there is some gain4 ,to an actor1 a writer1 or an orator1 his own antics1 without which he can have no success with the public1 are often disgusting4 ,and yet his knack of making-such antics he considers a talent1 a divine gift1 and he would rather die than that it should be lost to the public4 ,talent1 on the whole1 is accounted a divine gift1 only because it is always on show1 because it serves the public in some way or other4 ,all our judgments are permeated through and through with utilitarianism1 and were we to attempt to purify them from this adulteration what would remain of modern philosophy8 ,that is why youngish1 inexperienced writers usually believe in harmonia praestabilitata1 even though they have never heard of ,leibnitz4 ,they persuade themselves that there is no breach between egoistic and idealistic aspirations2 that1 for instance1 thirst for fame and desire to serve mankind are one and the same thing4 ,such a persuasion is usually very tenacious of life1 and lasts long in men of vigorous and courageous mind4 ,it seems to me that ,poushkin would not have lost it1 even had he lived to a prolonged old age4 ,it was also part of ,turgenev's belief--if a man of his spiritual fibre could have any belief4 ,tolstoy now believed1 and now disbelieved1 according to the work he had in hand4 ,when he had other people's ideas to destroy he doubted the identity of egoistic and idealist aspirations2 when he had his own to defend1 he believed in it4 ,which is a line of conduct worthy of attention1 and supremely worthy of imitation2 for human truths are proper exclusively for ancillary purposes4444 #gi ,man is such a conservative creature that any change1 even a change for the better1 scares him1 he prefers the bad old way to the new good one4 ,a man who has been all his life a confirmed materialist would not consent to believe that the soul was immortal1 not if it were proved to him more geometrico1 and not if he were a constitutional coward1 fearing death like ,shakespeare's ,falstaff4 ,then we must take human conceit into account4 ,men do not like to admit themselves wrong4 ,it is absurd1 but it is so4 ,men1 trivial1 wretched creatures1 proved by history and by every common event to be bunglers1 yet must needs consider themselves infallible1 omniscient4 ,what for8 ,why not admit their ignorance flatly and frankly8 ,true1 it is easier said than done4 ,but why should slavish intellect1 in spite of our desire to be straightforward1 deck us out with would-be truths1 of which we cannot divest ourselves even when we know their flimsiness4 ,socrates wanted to think that he knew nothing--but he could not bring it off4 ,he most absorbedly believed in his own knowledge2 nothing could be truth1 except his teaching2 he accepted the decree of the oracle1 and sincerely esteemed himself the wisest of men4 ,and so it will be1 as long as philosophers feel it their duty to teach and to save their neighbours4 ,if a man wants to help people1 he is bound to become a liar4 ,we should undertake doubt seriously1 not in order to return at length to established beliefs1 for that would be a vicious circle4 ,experience shows us that such a process1 certainly in the development of ultimate questions1 only leads from error to error2 we should doubt so that doubt becomes a continuous creative force1 inspiring the very essence of our life4 ,for established knowledge argues in us a condition of imperfect receptivity4 ,the weak1 flabby spirit cannot bear quick1 ceaseless change4 ,it must look round1 it must have time to gather its wits1 and so it must undergo the same experience time after time4 ,it needs the support and the security of habit1 ,but the well-grown soul despises your crutches4 ,he is tired of crawling on his own cabbage patch1 he tears himself away from his own native soil1 and takes himself off into the far distances1 braving the infinitude of space4 ,surely everybody knows we are not to live in the world for ever4 ,but cowardice prevents one straightforward admitting of it1 we keep it close till there is an occasion to air it as a truism4 ,only when misfortune1 disease1 old age come upon us1 then the dread fear of departure walks with us like our own skeleton4 ,we cannot dismiss him4 ,at length1 involuntarily1 we begin to examine our gruesome companion with curiosity4 ,and then1 strangely enough1 we observe that he not only tortures us1 but1 keeping pace with us1 he has begun to gnaw through all the threads that bind us to the old existence4 ,at moments it seems as if1 a few more threads gone1 nothing1 nothing will remain to hold us back1 the eternal dream of crawling man will be fulfilled1 we shall be released from the bonds1 we shall betake ourselves in liberty to regions far from this damned vale of earth4444 #hj ,moralists are abused because they offer us moral consolations4 ,this is not quite fair4 ,moralists would joyfully substitute palpable blessings for their abstract gifts1 if they could4 ,when he was young1 ,tolstoy wanted to make men happy2 when he was old1 and knew he could not make them happy1 he began to preach renunciation1 resignation1 and so forth4 ,and how angry he got when people wouldn't have his teaching6 ,but if1 instead of foisting his doctrines off on us as the solution of the ultimate problems1 and as optimism1 he had only spoken of the impossibility of finding satisfactory answers1 and have offered himself as a pessimist1 he would probably have obtained a much more willing hearing4 ,now he is annoying1 because1 finding himself unable to relieve his neighbours1 he turns to them and insists that they shall consider themselves relieved by him1 nay1 even made happy by him4 ,to which many will not agree3 for why should they voluntarily renounce their rights8 ,since although1 ,god knows1 the right of quarrelling with one's fate1 and cursing it1 is not a very grand right1 still1 it is a right 444 #ha ,ivanov1 in ,tchekhov's drama of that name1 compares himself to an overstrained labourer4 ,the labourer dies1 so that all that remains to ,ivanov is to die4 ,but logic1 as you know1 recommends great caution in coming to conclusions by analogy4 ,behold ,tchekhov himself1 who1 as far as we can judge1 had endured in his own soul all the tragedy1 just as ,ivanov had1 did not die or think of dying1 or even turn out a wasted man4 ,he is doing something1 he struggles1 he seeks1 his work seems important and considerable to us1 just like other human works4 ,ivanov shot himself because the drama must end1 while ,tchekhov had not yet finished his own struggle4 ,our aesthetics demand that the drama must have a climax and a finale3 though we have abandoned the ,aristotelian unities4 ,given a little more time1 however1 dramatic writers will have got rid of this restriction also4 ,they will frankly confess that they do not know how1 or with what event to end their dramas4 ,stories have already learnt to dispense with an ending4 #hb ,more of the same4--,ivanov says3 ,now1 where is my salvation8 ,in what8 ,if an intelligent1 educated1 healthy man for no discoverable reason sets up a ,lazarus lament and starts to roll down an inclined plane1 then he is rolling without resisting1 and there is no salvation for him4 ,one way out would be to accept the inclined plane and the gathering impetus as normal4 ,even further1 one might find in the rolling descent a proof of one's spiritual superiority to other men4 ,of course in such a case one should go apart from the rest1 not court young girls or fraternise with those who are living the ordinary life1 but be alone4 ,love is nonsense1 caresses maudlin1 work is meaningless1 and song and fiery speeches are banal1 played-out1 continued ,ivanov4 ,to young ,sasha these words are horrible1--but ,ivanov will be responsible for them4 ,he is already responsible for them4 ,that he is tottering is nothing3 it is still full early for him to shoot himself4 ,he will live whilst his creator1 ,tchekhov1 lives4 ,and we shall listen to the shaky1 vacillating philosophy4 ,we are so sick of symmetry and harmony and finality1 sick as we are of bourgeois self-complacency4 #hc ,it will be seen from the above that already in ,ivanov1 one of his early works1 ,tchekhov has assumed the rle of advocatus diaboli4 ,wherever ,ivanov appears he brings ruin and destruction4 ,it is true1 ,tchekhov hesitates to take his side openly1 and evidently does not know what to do with his hero1 so that in the end he shakes him off1 so to speak1 he washes his hands of him in the accepted fashion3 ,ivanov shoots himself in the sight of everybody1 has not even time to go discreetly into a corner4 ,the only justification of ,ivanov is that caricature of honesty1 ,doctor ,lvov4 ,lvov is not a living figure--that is obvious4 ,but this is why he is remarkable4 ,it is remarkable that ,tchekhov should deem it necessary to resurrect the forgotten ,starodoum1 that utterer of truisms in ,fon-,visin's comedy2 and to resurrect him no longer that people may bow their heads before the incarnation of virtue1 but so that they shall jeer at him4 ,look at ,doctor ,lvov6 ,is he not ,starodoum alive again8 ,he is honesty personified4 ,from force of old habit1 honesty sticks his chest out1 and speaks in a loud voice1 with imperious tone1 and yet not one of this old loyal subjects gives a brass farthing for him4 ,they don't even trouble to gibe at him1 but spit on him and shove him through the door1 as a disgusting and impudent toady4 ,poor honesty6 ,what has he sunk to6 ,evidently virtues1 like everything else1 should not live too long on earth4 ,tchekhov's ,uncle ,vanya is waiting to throw himself on the neck of his friend and rival1 the doctor1 throw himself on his neck and sob there like a little child1 ,but he finds that the doctor himself has an unquenchable thirst for consolation and encouragement1 whilst poor ,sonia can bear her maiden sorrows no longer4 ,they all go wandering round with big1 lost eyes1 looking for someone to relieve them from part of their woes1 at least4 ,and lo1 everybody is in the same street as themselves4 ,all are over-heavy-laden1 not one can carry his own burden1 let alone give a lift to another's4 ,the last consolation is taken away4 ,it is no use complaining3 there is no sympathetic response4 ,on all faces the same expression of hopelessness and despair4 ,each must bear his cross in silence4 ,none may weep nor utter pitiful cries--it would be uncalled-for and indecent4 ,when ,uncle ,vanya1 who has not realised at once the extremity of his situation1 begins to cry out3 ,my life's a waste6 nobody wants to listen to him4 ,waste1 waste6 ,everybody knows it's a waste6 ,shut your mouth1 howling won't help you3 neither will pistol-shots solve anything4 ,everyone of us might start your cry--but we don't1 neither do we shout3 --,you think ,i'll weep2 ,no1 ,i'll not weep3 ,i have full cause of weeping1 ,but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws1 ,or ere ,i'll weep2 ,o ,fool1 ,i shall go mad4 ,gradually there settles down a dreadful1 eternal silence of the cemetery4 ,all go mad1 without words1 they realise what is happening within them1 and make up their minds for the last shift3 to hide their grief for ever from men1 and to speak in commonplace1 trivial words which will be accepted as sensible1 serious1 and even lofty expressions4 ,no longer will anyone cry3 ,life is a waste1 and intrude his feelings on his neighbours4 ,everybody knows that it is shameful for one's life to be a waste1 and that this shame should be hidden from every eye4 ,the last law on earth is--loneliness4 ,rsigne-toi1 mon cur1 dors ton sommeil de brute6 #he ,groundless assumptions4--,based on nothing1 because they seem to derive from common assumption of the reasonableness of human existence1 which assumption surely is the child of our desires1 and probably a bastard at that44444 ,in his ,miserly ,knight ,poushkin represented a miser as a romantic figure4 ,gogol1 with his ,plyushkin1 creates on the contrary a repulsive figure of a miser4 ,gogol was nearer to reality4 ,a miser is ugly1 whatever view you take of him--inward or outward4 ,yet ,gogol ought not to teach people to preserve in their age the ideals of their youth4 ,once old age is upon us--it must not be improved upon1 much less apologised for4 ,it must be accepted1 and its essence brought to light4 ,plyushkin1 the vulgar1 dirty maniac is disgusting--but who knows8 perhaps he is fulfilling the serious mission of his own being4 ,he is possessed by one desire--to everything else1 to all happenings in the outer world he is indifferent4 ,it is the same to him whether he is hungry or full1 warm or cold1 clean or dirty4 ,practically no event can distract his attention from his single purpose4 ,he is disinterestedly mean1 if one may say so4 ,he has no need for his riches4 ,he lets them rot in a disgusting heap1 and does not dream1 like ,poushkin's knight1 of palaces and power1 or of sportive nymphs4 ,upon what end is he concentrated8 ,no one has the time to think it out4 ,at the sight of ,plyushkin everyone recalls the damage the miser has done4 ,everyone of course is right3 ,plyushkins1 who heap up fortunes to let them rot1 are very harmful4 ,the social judgment is nearly always to the point4 ,but not quite always4 ,it won't hurt morals and social considerations if at times they have to hold their tongue--and at such times we might succeed in guessing the riddle of meanness1 sordidness1 old age4 #hf ,we have sufficient grounds for taking life mistrustfully3 it has defrauded us so often of our cherished expectations4 ,but we have still stronger grounds for mistrusting reason3 since if life deceived us1 it was only because futile reason let herself be deceived4 ,perhaps reason herself invented the deception1 and then to serve her own ambitious ends1 threw the blame on life1 so that life shall appear sick-headed4 ,but if we have to choose between life and reason1 we choose life1 and then we no longer need try to foresee and to explain1 we can wait1 and accept all that is unalterable as part of the game4 ,and thus ,nietzsche1 having realised that all his hopes had gradually crumbled1 and that he could never get back to his former strength1 but must grow worse and worse every day1 wrote in a private letter of ,may #bh1 #ahhc3 ,ich will es so schwer haben1 wie nur irgend ein ,mensch es hat2 erst writer diesem ,drucke gewinne ich das gute ,gewissen dafr1 etwas zu besitzen1 das wenige ,menschen haben und gehabt haben3 ,flgel1 um im ,gleichnisse zu reden4 ,in these few simple words lies the key to the philosophy of ,nietzsche4 #hg ,so long as ,apollo calls him not to the sacred offering1 of all the trifling children of men the most trifling perhaps is the poet4 ,put ,poushkin's expression into plain language1 and you will get a page on neuropathology4 ,all neurasthenic individuals sink from a state of extreme excitation to one of complete prostration4 ,poets too3 and they are proud of it4 #hh ,shy people usually receive their impressions post-dated4 ,during those moments when an event is taking place before their eyes1 they can see nothing1 only later on1 having evoked from their memory a fragment of what happened1 they make for themselves an impression of the whole scene4 ,and then1 retrospectively arise in their soul feelings of pity1 offence1 surprise1 so vivid1 as if they were the flames of the instant moment1 not rekindlings from the past4 ,thus shy people always think a great deal1 and are always too late for their work4 ,it is never too late for thought4 ,timid before others1 they reach great heights of daring when alone4 ,they are bad speakers--but often excellent writers4 ,their life is insignificant and tedious1 they are not noticed1--until they become famous4 ,and by the time fame comes1 they do not need popular attention any more4 #hi ,if ,tchekhov's ,layevsky1 in ,the ,duel1 had been a writer with a literary talent1 people would have said of him that he was original1 and that he was engaged in the study of the mysticism of sex1 like ,gabriele ,d',annunzio for example2 whereas1 as he stands1 he is only banal4 ,his idleness is a reproach to him3 people would prefer that at least he should copy out extracts from documents4 #ij ,from observations on children4--,egoism in a man strikes us unpleasantly because it betrays our poverty4 ,i cannot dole out my abundance to my neighbour1 for if ,i do ,i myself shall be left with little4 ,we should like to be able to scatter riches with a royal hand2 and1 therefore1 when we see someone else clutching his rags with the phrase1 property is sacred1 we are hurt4 ,what is sacred comes from the gods1 and the gods have plenty of everything1 they do not count and skimp1 like mortals4 #ia ,we see a man repent for his actions1 and conclude that such actions should be avoided3 an instance of false1 but apparently irreproachable reasoning4 ,time passes1 and we see the same man repenting again of the self-same acts4 ,if we love logic1 this will confirm us in our first conclusion4 ,but if we do not care for logic1 we shall say3 man is under an equal necessity to commit these acts1 and to repent of them4 ,sometimes1 however1 the first conclusion is corrected differently4 ,having decided that repentance proves that a certain course of action should be avoided1 man avoids it all his life2 only to realise in the end1 suddenly1 with extraordinary clarity1 how bitter is his regret that he has not trodden the forbidden course4 ,but by this time a new conclusion is already useless4 ,life is over1 and the newly-enlightened mind no longer knows how to rid itself of the ,superfluous light4 #ib ,a version of one of the scenes of ,tolstoy's ,power of ,darkness reminds us exactly of a one-act piece of ,maeterlinck4 ,there can be no question of imitation4 ,when the ,power of ,darkness was written nobody had heard of ,maeterlinck4 ,tolstoy evidently wanted to try a new method of creating1 and to get rid of his own manner1 which he had evolved through tens of years of dogged labour4 ,but the risk was too great4 ,he preferred to cure himself of his doubts by the common expedient1 manual toil and an outdoor life4 ,so he took up the plough4 #ic ,every woodcock praises its own fen2 ,lermontov saw the sign of spiritual pre-eminence in dazzling white linen1 and therefore his heroes always dressed with taste4 ,dostoevsky1 on the other hand1 despised show3 ,dmitri ,karamazov wears dirty linen--and this is assigned to him as a merit1 or almost a merit4 #id ,while he was yet young1 when he wrote his story1 ,enough1 ,turgenev saw that something terrible hung over his life4 ,he saw1 but did not get frightened1 although he understood that in time he ought to become frightened1 because life without a continual inner disturbance would have no meaning for him4 #ie ,napoleon is reputed to have had a profound insight into the human soul2 ,shakespeare also4 ,and their vision has nothing in common4 #if ,what we call imagination1 which we value so highly in great poets--is1 essentially1 unbridled1 loose1 or if you will1 even perverted mentality4 ,in ordinary mortals we call it vice2 but to the poets everything is forgiven on account of the benefit and pleasure we derive from their works4 ,in spite of our high-flown theories we have always been extremely practical1 great utilitarians4 ,two-and-a-half-thousand years went by before ,tolstoy got up1 and1 in his turn1 offered the poets their choice3 either to be virtuous1 or to stop creating and forfeit the fame of teachers4 ,if ,tolstoy did not make a laughing-stock of himself1 he has to thank his grey hairs and the respect which was felt for his past4 ,anyhow1 nobody took him seriously4 ,far from it2 for never yet did poets feel so free from the shackles of morality as they do now4 ,if ,schiller were writing his dramas and philosophic essays to-day1 he would scarcely find a reader4 ,in ,tolstoy himself it is not so much his virtues as his vices which we find interesting4 ,we begin to understand his works1 not so much in the light of his striving after ideals1 but from the standpoint of that incongruity which existed between the ideas he artificially imposed upon himself1 and the demands of his own non-virtu ous soul1 which struggled ever for liberty4 ,nicolenka ,irtenyev1 in ,childhood1 and ,youth1 would sit for hours on the terrace1 turning over in his mind his elder brother ,volodya's love-making with the chambermaids4 ,but1 although he desired it more than anything on earth he could never bring himself to be like ,volodya4 ,the maid said to the elder brother1 ,why doesn't ,nicolai ,fetrovitch ever come here and have a lark8 ,she did not know that ,nicolai ,petrovitch was sitting at that moment under the stairs1 ready to give anything on earth to take the place of the scamp ,volodya4 ,everything on earth is twice repeated4 ,tolstoy gives a psychological explanation of his little hero's conduct4 ,i was timid by nature1 ,nicolenka tells us1 but my shyness was increased by the conviction of my ugliness4 ,ugliness1 the consciousness of one's ugliness1 leads to shyness6 ,what good can there be in virtue which has such a suspicious origin8 ,and how can the morality of ,tolstoy's heroes be trusted i ,consciousness of one's ugliness begets shyness1 shyness drives the passions inwards and allows them no natural outlet4 ,little by little there develops a monstrous discrepancy between the imagination and its desires1 on the one hand1 and the power to satisfy these desires1 on the other4 ,permanent hunger1 and a contracted alimentary canal1 which does not pass the food through4 ,hence the hatred of the imagination1 with its unrealised and unrealisable cravings4444 ,in our day no one has scourged love so cruelly as ,tolstoy in ,power of ,darkness4 ,but the feats of the village ,don ,juan need not necessarily end in tragedy4 ,more than anything on earth1 however1 ,tolstoy hates the ,don ,juans1 the handsome1 brave1 successful1 the self-confident1 who spontaneously act upon suggestion1 the conquerors of women1 who stretch out their hands to living statues cold as stone4 ,as far as ever he can he has his revenge on them in his writing4 #ig ,in the drama of the future the whole presentation will be different4 ,first of all1 the difficulties of the dnouement will be set aside4 ,the new hero has a past-reminiscent--but no present2 neither wife1 nor sweetheart1 nor friends1 nor occupation4 ,he is alone1 he communes only with himself or with imaginary listeners4 ,he lives a life apart4 ,so that the stage will represent either a desert island or a room in a large densely-populated city1 where among millions of inhabitants one can live alone as on a desert island4 ,the hero must not return to people and to social ideals4 ,he must go forward to loneliness1 to absolute loneliness4 ,even now nobody1 looking at ,gogol's ,plyushkin1 will feel any more the slightest response to the pathetic appeal for men to preserve the ideals of youth on into old age4 ,modern youths go to see ,plyushkin1 not for the sake of laughing at him or of benefiting from the warning which his terrible miserly figure offers them1 but in order to see if there may not be some few little pearls there where they could be least expected1 in the midst of his heap of dirt4 444 ,lycurgus succeeded in fixing the ,spartans like cement for some centuries--but after that came the thaw1 and all their hardness melted4 ,the last remains of the petrified ,doric art are now removed to museums4444 ,is something happening----8 #ih ,if ,i sow not in the spring1 in autumn ,i shall eat no bread4 ,every day brings troubles and worries enough for poor1 weak man4 ,he had to forget his work for a moment1 and now he is lost3 he will die of hunger or cold4 ,in order merely to preserve our existence we have to strain mind and body to the utmost3 nay more1 we have to think of the surrounding world exclusively with a view to gaining a livelihood from it4 ,there is no time to think about truth6 ,this is why positivism was invented1 with its theory of natural development4 ,really1 everything we see is mysterious and incomprehensible4 ,a tiny midge and a huge elephant1 a caressing breeze and a blizzard1 a young tree and a rocky mountain--what are all these8 ,what are they1 why are they8 we incessantly ask ourselves1 but we may not speak out4 ,for philosophy is ever pushed aside to make room for the daily needs4 ,only those think who are unable to trouble about self-preservation1 or who will not trouble1 or who are too careless3 that is1 sick1 desperate1 or lazy people4 ,these return to the riddle which workaday men1 confirmed in the certainty that they are right1 have construed into naturalness4 #ii ,kant1 and after him ,schopenhauer1 was exceedingly fond of the epithet disinterested1 and used it on every occasion when the supply of laudatory terms he had at his disposal was exhausted4 ,disinterested thinking1 which does not pursue any practical aim1 is1 according to ,schopenhauer1 the highest ideal towards which man can strive4 ,this truth he considered universal1 an a priori4 ,but had he chanced to be brought amongst ,russian peasants he would have had to change his opinion4 ,with them thoughts about destiny and the why and wherefore of the universe and infinity and so on1 would by no means be considered disinterested1 particularly if the man who devoted himself to such thoughts were at the same time to announce1 as becomes a philosopher1 that he claimed complete freedom from physical labour4 ,there the philosopher1 were he even ,plato1 would be stigmatised with the disgraceful nickname1 ,idle-jack4 ,there the highest activity is interested activity1 directed towards strictly practical purposes2 and if the peasants could speak learnedly1 they would certainly call the principle upon which their judgment is founded an a priori4 ,tolstoy1 who draws his wisdom from the folk-sources1 attacks the learned for the very fact that they do not want to work1 but are disinterestedly occupied in the search for truth4 #ajj ,it is clear to any impartial observer that practically every man changes his opinion ten times a day4 ,much has been said on this subject1 it has served for innumerable satires and humorous sketches4 ,nobody has ever doubted that it was a vice to be unstable is one's opinions4 ,three-fourths of our education goes to teaching us most carefully to conceal within ourselves the changeableness of our moods and judgments4 ,a man who cannot keep his word is the last of men3 never to be trusted4 ,likewise1 a man with no firm convictions3 it is impossible to work together with him4 ,morality1 here as always making towards utilitarian ends1 issues the eternal principle3 thou shalt remain true to thy convictions4 ,in cultured circles this commandment is considered so unimpeachable that men are terrified even to appear inconstant in their own eyes4 ,they become petrified in their beliefs1 and no greater shame can happen to them than that they should be forced to admit that they have altered in their convictions4 ,when a straightforward man like ,montaigne plainly speaks of the inconstancy of his mind and his views1 he is regarded as a libeller of himself4 ,one need neither see1 nor hear1 nor understand what is taking place around one3 once your mind is made up1 you have lost your right to grow1 you must remain a stock1 a statue1 the qualities and defects of which are known to everybody4 #aja ,every philosophic world-conception starts from some or other solution of the general problem of human existence1 and proceeds from this to direct the course of human life in some particular direction or other4 ,we have neither the power nor the data for the solution of general problems1 and consequently all our moral deductions are arbitrary1 they only witness to our prejudices if we are naturally timid1 or to our propensities and tastes if we are self-confident4 ,but to keep up prejudices is a miserable1 unworthy business3 nobody will dispute that4 ,therefore let us cease to grieve about our differences in opinion1 let us wish that in the future there should be many more differences1 and much less unanimity4 ,there is no arbitrary truth3 it remains to suppose that truth lies in changeable human tastes and desires4 ,in so far as our common social existence demands it--let us try to come to an understanding1 to agree3 but not one jot more4 ,any agreement which does not arise out of common necessity will be a crime against the ,holy ,spirit4 #ajb ,tchekhov was very good at expounding a system of philosophy--even several systems4 ,we have examples in more than one of his stories1 particularly in ,the ,duel1 where ,fon-,koren speaks ex cathedra4 ,but ,tchekhov had no use for such systems1 save for purely literary purposes4 ,when you write a story1 and your hero must speak clearly and consistently1 a system has its value4 ,but when you are left to yourself1 can you seriously trouble your soul about philosophy8 ,even a ,german cannot1 it seems1 go so far in his idealism4 ,vladimir ,semionovitch1 the young author in ,tchekhov's ,nice ,people1 sincerely and deeply believes in his own ideas1 but even of him1 notwithstanding his blatantly comical limitations1 we cannot say more than that his ideas were constant little views or pictures to him1 which had gradually become a second natural setting to everything he saw4 ,certainly he did not live by ideas4 ,tchekhov is right when he says that the singing of ,gaudeamus igitur and the writing of a humanitarian appeal were equally important to ,vladimir ,semionovitch4 ,as soon as ,vladimir's sister begins to think for herself1 her brother's highest ideas1 which she has formerly revered1 become banal and objectionable to her4 ,her brother cannot understand her1 neither her hostility to progress and humanitarianism1 nor to the university spree and ,gaudeamus igitur4 ,but ,tchekhov does understand4 ,only1 let us admit1 the word understand does not carry its ordinary meaning here4 ,so long as the child was fed on its mother's milk1 everything seemed to it smooth and easy4 ,but when it had to give up milk and take to vodka1--and this is the inevitable law of human development--the childish suckling dreams receded into the realm of the irretrievable past4 #ajc ,the summit of human existence1 say the philosophers1 is spiritual serenity1 aequanimitas3 ,but in that case the animals should be our ideal1 for in the matter of imperturbability they leave nothing to be desired4 ,look at a grazing sheep1 or a cow4 ,they do not look before and after1 and sigh for what is not4 ,given a good pasture1 the present suffices them perfectly4 #ajd ,a hungry man was given a piece of bread1 and a kind word4 ,the kindness seemed more to him than the bread4 ,but had he been given only the kind word and no bread1 he would perhaps have hated nice phrases4 ,therefore1 caution is always to be recommended in the drawing of conclusions3 and in none more than in the conclusion that truth is more urgently required than a consoling lie4 ,the connections of isolated phenomena can very rarely be discerned4 ,as a rule1 several causes at once produce one effect4 ,owing to our propensity for idealising1 we always make prominent that cause which seems to us loftiest4 #aje ,a strange anomaly6 we see thousands of human beings perish around us1 yet we walk warily lest we crush a worm4 ,the sense of compassion is strong in us1 but it is adapted to the conditions of our existence4 ,it can relieve an odd case here and there--and it raises a terrific outcry over a trifling injustice4 ,yet ,schopenhauer wanted to make compassion the metaphysical basis of morality4 #ajf ,to discard logic as an instrument1 a means or aid for acquiring knowledge1 would be extravagant4 ,why should we8 ,for the sake of consequentialism8 i4e4 for logic's very self8 ,but logic1 as an aim in itself1 or even as the only means to knowledge1 is a different matter4 ,against this one must fight even if he has against him all the authorities of thought--beginning with ,aristotle4 #ajg ,when the yellowing corn-fields sway and are moved1 and the fresh forest utters sound to the breeze 444 then ,i see happiness on earth1 and ,god in heaven4 ,it may be so1 to the poet2 but it may be quite different4 ,sometimes the corn-field waves1 the woods make noise in the wind1 the stream whispers its best tales3 and still man cannot perceive happiness1 nor forget the lesson taught in childhood1 that the blue heavens are only an optical illusion4 ,but if the sky and the boundless fields do not convince1 is it possible that the arguments of ,kant and the commentations of his dozens of talentless followers can do anything8 #ajh ,the greatest temptation4--,in ,dostoevsky's ,grand ,inquisitor lurks a dreadful idea4 ,who can be sure1 he says--metaphorically1 of course--that when the crucified ,christ uttered ,his cry3 ,lord1 why hast thou forsaken me8 ,he did not call to mind the temptation of ,satan1 who for one word had offered ,him dominion over the world8 ,and1 if ,jesus recollected this offer1 how can we be sure that ,he did not repent not having taken it8444 ,one had better not be told about such temptations4 #aji ,from the ,future ,opinions concerning contemporary ,europe4--,europe of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries presented a strange picture4 ,after ,luther1 ,christianity degenerated into morality1 and all the threads connecting man with ,god were cut4 ,together with the rationalisation of religion1 all life took on a fiat1 rational character4 ,knights were replaced by a standing army1 recruited on the principle of compulsory military service for all1 and existing chiefly for the purpose of parades and official needs4 ,alchemy1 which had been trying to find the philosopher's stone1 was replaced by chemistry1 which tried to discover the best means for cheap preparation of cheap commodities4 ,astrology1 which had sought in the stars the destinies of men1 was replaced by astronomy1 which foretold the eclipses of the sun and the appearing of comets4 ,even the dress of the people became strangely colourless2 not only men1 but women also wore uniform1 monochromatic clothes4 ,most remarkable of all1 that epoch did not notice its own insignificance1 but was even proud of itself4 ,it seemed to the man of that day that never before had the common treasury of spiritual riches been so well replenished4 ,we1 of course1 may smile at their navet1 but if one of their own number had allowed himself to express an opinion disdainful of the bases of the contemporary culture he would have been declared immoral1 or put away in a mad-house3 a terrible punishment1 very common in that coarse period1 though now it is very difficult even to imagine what such a proceeding implied4 ,but in those days1 to be known as immoral1 or to find oneself in a mad-house1 was worse than to die4 ,one of the famous poets of the nineteenth century1 ,alexander ,poushkin1 said3 ',god forbid that ,i should go mad4 ,rather let me be a starving beggar4' ,in those times people1 on the whole1 were compelled to tell lies and play the hypocrite1 so that not infrequently the brightest minds1 who saw through the shams of their epoch1 yet pretended to believe in science and morality1 only in order to escape the persecution of public opinion4 #aaj ,writers of tragedies on ,shakespeare's model4--,to obtain a spark1 one must strike with all one's might with an iron upon a stone4 ,whereupon there is a loud noise1 which many are inclined to believe more important than the little spark4 ,similarly1 writers having shouted very loudly1 are deeply assured that they have fulfilled their sacred mission1 and are amazed that all do not share their raptures1 that some even stop their ears and run away4 #aaa ,metamorphoses4--,sense and folly are not at all native qualities in a man4 ,in a crisis1 a stupid man becomes clever4 ,we need not go far for an example4 ,what a gaping simpleton ,dostoevsky looks in his ,injured and ,insulted1 not to mention ,poor ,folk4 ,but in ,letters from the ,underworld and the rest of his books he is the shrewdest and cleverest of writers4 ,the same may be said of ,nietzsche1 ,tolstoy1 or ,shakespeare4 ,in his ,birth of ,tragedy ,nietzsche seems just like the ordinary honest1 rather simple1 blue-eyed provincial ,german student1 and in ,zarathustra he reminds one of ,machiavelli4 ,poor ,shakespeare got himself into a row for his ,brutus--but no man could deny the great mind in ,hamlet4 ,the best instance of all1 however1 is ,tolstoy4 ,right up to to-day1 whenever he likes he can be cleverer than the cleverest4 ,yet at times he is a schoolboy4 ,this is the most interesting and enviable trait in him4 #aab ,in ,troilus and ,cressida ,thersites says3 ,shall the elephant ,ajax carry it thus8 ,he beats me1 and ,i rail at him3 ,o worthy satisfaction6 would it were otherwise2 that ,i could beat him1 whilst he railed at me4 ,dostoevsky might have said the same of his opponents4 ,he pursued them with stings1 sarcasm1 abuse1 and they drove him to a white heat by their quiet assurance and composure4444 ,the present-day admirers of ,dostoevsky quietly believe in the teachings of their master4 ,does it not mean that de facto they have betrayed him and gone over to the side of his enemies4 #aac ,the opinion has gained ground that ,turgenev's ideal women--,natalie1 ,elena1 ,marianna--are created in the image and likeness of ,poushkin's ,tatyana4 ,the critics have been misled by external appearances4 ,to ,poushkin his ,tatyana appears as a vestal guarding the sacred flame of high morality--because such a job is not fitting for a male4 ,the ,pretender in ,boris ,godunov says to the old monk ,pimen1 who preaches meekness and submission3 ,but you fought under the walls of ,kazan1 etc4 ,that is a man's work4 ,but in the hours of peace and leisure the fighter needs his own hearth-side1 he must feel assured that at home his rights are safely guarded4 ,this is the point of ,tatyana's last words3 ,i belong to another1 and shall remain forever true to him4 ,but in ,turgenev woman appears as the judge and the reward1 sometimes even the inspirer of victorious man4 ,there is a great difference4 #aad ,from a ,german ,introduction to ,philosophy4--,we shall maintain the opinion that metaphysics1 as the crown of the particular sciences1 is possible and desirable1 and that to it falls the task intermediate between theory and practice1 experiment and anticipation1 mind and feeling1 the task of weighing probabilities1 balancing arguments1 and reconciling difficulties4 ,thus metaphysics is a weighing of probabilities4 ,ergo--further than probable conclusions it cannot go4 ,thus why do metaphysicians pretend to universal and obligatory1 established and eternal judgments8 ,they go beyond themselves4 ,in the domain of metaphysics there cannot and must not be any established beliefs4 ,the word established loses all its sense in the connection4 ,it is reasonable to speak of eternal hesitation and temporality of thought4 #aae ,from another ,introduction to ,philosophy1 also ,german4 ,compared with the delusion of the materialists 444 the wretchedest worshipper of idols seems to us a being capable of apprehending to a certain degree the great meaning and essence of things1 ,perhaps this thought strayed in accidentally among the huge herd of the other thoughts of the professor1 so little does it resemble the rest4 ,but even so1 it loses none of its interest4 ,if the materialists here spoken of1 those of the nineteenth century1 ,buchner1 ,vogt1 ,moleschot1 all of them men who stood on the pinnacle of natural science1 were capable of proving in the realm of philosophy more uninformed than the nakedest savage1 then it follows1 not only that science has nothing in common with philosophy1 but that the two are even hostile4 ,therefore we ought to go to the savages1 not to civilise them1 but even to learn philosophy from them4 ,a ,papuan or a ,tierra del ,fuegan delivering a lecture in philosophy to the professors of the ,berlin ,university--,friedrich ,paulsen1 for example--is a curious sight4 ,i say to ,friedrich ,paulsen1 and not to ,buchner or ,moleschot1 because ,paulsen is also an educated person1 and therefore his philosophic sensibility may have suffered from contact with science1 even if not so badly as that of the materialists4 ,he needs the assistance of a red-skinned master4 ,why have ,german professors so little daring or enterprise8 ,why should not ,paulsen1 on his own initiative1 go to ,patagonia to perfect himself in philosophy8--or at least send his pupils there1 and preach broadcast the new pilgrimage4 ,and now lo and behold he has hatched an original and fertile idea1 so he will stick in a corner with it1 so that even if you wanted you could not get a good look at it4 ,the idea is important and weighty3 our philosophers would lose nothing by sitting at the feet of the savages4 #aaf ,from a ,history of ,ethics4--,doubts concerning the existence or the possibility of discovering a moral norm have1 of course 7,i underline it71 proved a stimulus to a new speculative establishing of ethics1 just as the denial of the possibility of knowledge led to the discovery of the condition of knowledge4 ,with this proposition the author does not play hide-and-seek1 as ,paulsen with his4 ,he places it in a conspicuous position1 in a conspicuous section of his book1 and accompanies it with the trumpeting herald of course4 ,but only one thing is clear3 namely1 that the majority share the opinion of ,professor ,yodl1 to whom the quoted words belong4 ,so that the first assumption of ethics has as its foundation the consensus sapientium4 ,it is enough4 #aag ,the normative theory1 which has taken such hold in ,germany and ,russia1 bears the stamp of that free and easy self-assurance which characterises the state of contentment1 and which does not desire1 even for the sake of theoretical perfection1 to take into consideration the divided state of soul which usually accompanies discontent4 ,windelband 7,praeludien1 p4 #cac7 is evidence of this4 ,he exposes himself with the naive frankness almost of an irrational creature1 and is not only unashamed1 but even proud of his part4 ,philosophic research1 he says1 is possible only to those who are convinced that the norm of the universal imperative is supreme above individual activities1 and that such a norm is discoverable4 ,not every witness will give evidence so honestly4 ,it amounts to this3 that philosophic research is not a search after truth1 but a conspiracy amongst people who dethrone truth and exalt instead the all-binding norm4 ,the task is truly ethical3 morality always was and always will be utilitarian and bullying4 ,its active principle is3 ,he who is not with us1 is against us4 #aah ,if1 besides the reality which is evident to us1 we were susceptible to another form of reality1 chaotic1 lawless1 then this latter could not be the subject of thought4 7,riehl--,philosophie der ,gegenwart47 ,this is one of the a priori of critical philosophy--one of the unproved first assumptions1 evidently4 ,it is only an expression in other words of ,windelband's assertion quoted above1 concerning the ethical basis of the law of causation4 ,thus1 the a priori of contemporary thought convince us more and more that ,nietzsche's instinct was not at fault4 ,the root of all our philosophies lies1 not in our objective observations1 but in the demands of our own heart1 in the subjective1 moral will1 and therefore science cannot be uprooted except we first destroy morality4 #aai ,one of the lofty truisms--,the philosopher conquers passion by perceiving it1 the artist by bodying it forth4 ,in ,german it sounds still more lofty3 but does not for that reason approach any nearer to the truth4 ,der ,philosoph berwindet die ,leidenschaft1 indem er sie begreift--der ,knstler1 indem er sie darstellt4 7,windelband1 ,praeludien1 p4 #aih47 #abj ,the ,germans always try to get at ,allgemeingltigkeit4 ,well1 if the problem of knowledge is to fathom all the depths of actual life1 then experience1 in so far as it repeats itself1 is uninteresting1 or at least has a limit of interest4 ,it is necessary1 however1 to know what nobody yet knows1 and therefore we must walk1 not on the common road of ,allgemeingltigkeit1 but on new tracks1 which have never yet seen human feet4 ,thus morality1 which lays down definite rules and thereby guards life for a time from any surprise1 exists only by convention1 and in the end collapses before the non-moral surging-up of individual human aspirations4 ,laws--all of them--have only a regulating value1 and are necessary only to those who want rest and security4 ,but the first and essential condition of life is lawlessness4 ,laws are a refreshing sleep--lawlessness is creative activity4 #aba ,a ,a4--,they say that logic does not need this postulate1 and could easily develop it by deduction4 ,i think not4 ,on the contrary1 in my opinion1 logic could not exist without this premiss4 ,meanwhile it has a purely empirical origin4 ,in the realm of fact1 ,a is always more or less equal to ,a4 ,but it might be otherwise4 ,the universe might be so constituted as to admit of the most fantastic metamorphoses4 ,that which now equals ,a would successively equal ,b and then ,c1 and so on4 ,at present a stone remains long enough a stone1 a plant a plant1 an animal an animal4 ,but it might be that a stone changed into a plant before our eyes1 and the plant into an animal4 ,that there is nothing unthinkable in such a supposition is proved by the theory of evolution4 ,this theory only puts centuries in place of seconds4 ,so that1 in spite of the risk to which ,i expose myself from the admirers of the famous ,epicurean system1 ,i am compelled to repeat once more that anything you please may come from anything you please1 that ,a may not equal ,a1 and that consequently logic is dependent1 for its soundness1 on the empirically-derived law of the unchangeableness of the external world4 ,admit the possibility of supernatural interference--and logic will lose that certitude and inevitability of its conclusions which at present is so attractive to us4 #abb ,the effort to understand people1 life1 the universe prevents us from getting to know them at all4 ,since to know and to understand are two concepts which are not only non-identical1 but just the opposite of one another in meaning2 in spite of their being in constant use as synonyms4 ,we think we have understood a phenomenon if we have included it in a list of others1 previously known to us4 ,and1 since all our mental aspiration reduces itself to understanding the universe1 we refuse to know a great deal which will not adapt itself to the plane surface of the contemporary world-conceptions4 ,for instance the ,leibnitz question1 put by ,kant into the basis of the critique of reason3 ,how can we know a thing outside us1 if it does not enter into us8 ,it is non-understandable2 that is1 it does not agree with our notion of understanding4 ,hence it follows that it must be squeezed out of the field of view--which is exactly what ,kant attempted to do4 ,to us it seems1 on the contrary1 that in the interests of knowing we should sacrifice1 and gladly1 understanding1 since understanding in any case is a secondary affair4-,zu fragmentarisch ist ,welt und ,leben6444 ,,part ,,ii ,nur fr ,schwindelfreie4 7,from ,alpine ,recollections47 #a ,light reveals to us beauty--but also ugliness4 ,throw vitriol in the face of a beautiful woman1 and the beauty is gone1 no power on earth will enable us to look upon her with the same rapture as before4 ,could even the sincerest1 deepest love endure the change8 ,true1 the idealists will hasten to say that love overcomes all things4 ,but idealism needs be prompt1 for if she leaves us one single moment in which to see1 we shall see such things as are not easily explained away4 ,that is why idealists stick so tight so logic4 ,in the twinkling of an eye logic will convey us to the remotest conclusions and forecasts4 ,reality could never overtake her4 ,love is eternal1 and consequently a disfigured face will seem as lovely to us as a fresh one4 ,this is1 of course1 a lie1 but it helps to preserve old tastes and obscures danger4 ,real danger1 however1 was never dispelled by words4 ,in spite of ,schiller and eternal love1 in the long run vitriol triumphs1 and the agreeable young man is forced to abandon his beloved and acknowledge himself a fraud4 ,light1 the source of his life and hope1 has now destroyed hope and life for him4 ,he will not return to idealism1 and he will hate logic3 light1 that seemed to him so beautiful1 will have become hideous4 ,he will turn to darkness1 where logic and its binding conclusions have no power1 but where the fancy is free for all her vagaries4 ,without light we should never have known that vitriol ruins beauty4 ,no science1 nor any art can give us what darkness gives4 ,it is true1 in our young days when all was new1 light brought us great happiness and joy4 ,let us1 therefore1 remember it with gratitude1 as a benefactor we no longer need4 ,do after all let us dispense with gratitude1 for it belongs to the calculating1 bourgeois virtues4 ,do ut des4 ,let us forget light1 and gratitude1 and the qualms of self-important idealism1 let us go bravely to meet the coming night4 ,she promises us great power over reality4 ,is it worth while to give up our old tastes and lofty convictions8 ,love and light have not availed against vitriol4 ,what a horror would have seized us at the thought1 once upon a time6 ,that short phrase can annul all ,schiller4 ,we have shut our eyes and stopped our ears1 we have built huge philosophic systems to shield us from this tiny thought4 ,and now--now it seems we have no more feeling for ,schiller and the great systems1 we have no pity on our past beliefs4 ,we now are seeking for words with which to sing the praises of our former enemy4 ,night1 the dark1 deaf1 impenetrable night1 peopled with horrors--does she not now loom before us1 infinitely beautiful8 ,does she not draw us with her still1 mysterious1 fathomless beauty1 far more powerfully than noisy1 narrow day8 ,it seems as if1 in a short while1 man will feel that the same incomprehensible1 cherishing power which threw us out into the universe and set us1 like plants1 to reach to the light1 is now gradually transferring us to a new direction1 where a new life awaits us with all its stores4 ,fata volentem ducunt1 nolentem trahunt4 ,and perhaps the time is near when the impassioned poet1 casting a last look to his past1 will boldly and gladly cry3 ,hide thyself1 sun6 ,o darkness1 be welcome6 #b ,psychology at last leads us to conclude that the most generous human impulses spring from a root of egoism4 ,tolstoy's love to one's neighbour1 for example1 proves to be a branch of the old self-love4 ,the same may be said of ,kant's idealism1 and even of ,plato's4 ,though they glorify the service of the idea1 in practice they succeed in getting out of the vicious circle of egoism no better than the ordinary mortal1 who is neither a genius nor a flower of culture4 ,in my eyes this is almost an absolute truth4 7,it is never wrong to add the retractive almost2 truth is too much inclined to exaggerate its own importance1 and one must guard oneself against its despotic authority47 ,thus--all men are egoists4 ,hence follows a great deal4 ,i even think this proposition might provide better grounds for metaphysical conclusions than the doubtful capacity for compassion and love for one's neighbour which has been so tempting to dogma4 ,for some reason men have imagined that love for oneself is more natural and comprehensible than love for another4 ,why8 ,love for others is only a little-rarer1 less widely diffused than love to oneself4 ,but then hippopotami and rhinoceros1 even in their own tropical regions1 are less frequent than horses and mules4 ,does it follow that they are less natural and transcendental8 ,positivism is not incumbent upon blood-thirsty savages4 ,nay1 as we know1 many of them are less positive-minded than our learned men4 ,for instance1 a future life is to them such an infallible reality that they even enter into contracts1 part of which is to be fulfilled in the next world4 ,a ,german metaphysician won't go as far as that4 ,hence it follows that the way to know the other world is not by any means through love1 sympathy1 and self-denial1 as ,schopenhauer taught4 ,on the contrary1 it appears as if love for others were only an impediment to metaphysical flights4 ,love and sympathy chain the eye to the misery of this earth1 where such a wide field for active charity opens out4 ,the materialists were mostly very good men--a fact which bothered the historians of philosophy4 ,they preached ,matter1 believed in nothing1 and were ready to perform all kinds of sacrifices for their neighbours4 ,how is this8 ,it is a case of clearest logical consequence3 man loves his neighbour1 he sees that heaven is indifferent to misery1 therefore he takes upon himself the rle of ,providence4 ,were he indifferent to the sufferings of others1 he would easily become an idealist and leave his neighbours to their fate4 ,love and compassion kill belief1 and make a man a positivist and a materialist in his philosophical outlook4 ,if he feels the misery of others1 he leaves off meditating and wants to act4 ,man only thinks properly when he realises he has nothing to do1 his hands are tied4 ,that is why any profound thought must arise from despair4 ,optimism1 on the other hand1 the readiness to jump hastily from one conclusion to another1 may be regarded as an inevitable sign of narrow self-sufficiency1 which dreads doubt and is consequently always superficial4 ,if a man offers you a solution of eternal questions1 it shows he has not even begun to think about them4 ,he has only acted4 ,perhaps it is not necessary to think--who can say how we ought or ought not to live8 ,and how could we be brought to live as we ought1 when our own nature is and always will be an incalculable mystery4 ,there is no mistake about it1 nobody wants to think1 ,i do not speak here of logical thinking4 ,that1 like any other natural function1 gives man great pleasure4 ,for this reason philosophical systems1 however complicated1 arouse real and permanent interest in the public provided they only require from man the logical exercise of the mind1 and nothing else4 ,but to think---really to think--surely this means a relinquishing of logic4 ,it means living a new life4 ,it means a permanent sacrifice of the dearest habits1 tastes1 attachments1 without even the assurance that the sacrifice will bring any compensation4 ,artists and philosophers like to imagine the thinker with a stern face1 a profound look which penetrates into the unseen1 and a noble bearing--an eagle preparing for flight4 ,not at all4 ,a thinking man is one who has lost his balance1 in the vulgar1 not in the tragic sense4 ,hands raking the air1 feet flying1 face scared and bewildered1 he is a caricature of helplessness and pitiable perplexity4 ,look at the aged ,turgenev1 his ,poems in ,prose and his letter to ,tolstoy4 ,maupassant thus tells of his meeting with ,turgenev3 ,there entered a giant with a silvery head4 ,quite so6 ,the majestic patriarch and master1 of course6 ,the myth of giants with silver locks is firmly established in the heart of man4 ,then suddenly enters ,turgenev in his ,prose ,poems--pale1 pitiful1 fluttering like a bird that has been winged4 ,turgenev1 who has taught us everything--how can he be so fluttered and bewildered8 ,how could he write his letter to ,tolstoy8 ,did he not know that ,tolstoy was finished1 the source of his creative activity dried up1 that he must seek other activities4 ,of course he knew--and still he wrote that letter4 ,but it was not for ,tolstoy1 nor even for ,russian literature1 which1 of course1 is not kept going by the death-bed letters and covenants of its giants4 ,in the dreadful moments of the end1 ,turgenev1 in spite of his noble size and silver locks1 did not know what to say or where to look for support and consolation4 ,so he turned to literature1 to which he had given his life4444 ,he yearned that she1 whom he had served so long and loyally1 should just once help him1 save him from the horrible and thrice senseless nightmare4 ,he stretched out his withered1 numbing hands to the printed sheets which still preserve the traces of the ,soul of a living1 suffering man4 ,he addressed his late enemy ,tolstoy with the most flattering name3 ,great writer of the ,russian land2 recollected that he was his contemporary1 that he himself was a great writer of the ,russian land4 ,but this he did not express aloud4 ,he only said1 ,i can no longer---- ,he praised a strict school of literary and general education4 ,to the last he tried to preserve his bearing of a giant with silvery locks4 ,and we were gratified4 ,the same persons who are indignant at ,gogol's correspondence1 quote ,turgenev's letter with reverence4 ,the attitude is everything4 ,turgenev knew how to pose passably well1 and this is ascribed to him as his greatest merit4 ,mundus vult decipi1 ergo decipiatur4 ,but ,gogol and ,turgenev felt substantially the same4 ,had ,turgenev burnt his own manuscripts and talked of himself instead of ,tolstoy1 before death1 he would have been accounted mad4 ,moralists would have reproached him for his display of extreme egoism4444 ,and ,philosophy8 ,philosophy seems to be getting rid of certain prejudices4 ,at the moment when men are least likely to play the hypocrite and lie to themselves ,turgenev and ,gogol placed their personal fate higher than the destinies of ,russian literature4 ,does not this betray a secret to us8 ,ought we not to see in absolute egoism an inalienable and great1 yes1 very great quality of human nature8 ,psychology1 ignoring the threats of morality1 has led us to a new knowledge4 ,yet still1 in spite of the instances we have given1 the mass of people will1 as usual1 see nothing but malice in every attempt to reveal the human impulses that underlie lofty motives4 ,to be merely men seems humiliating to men4 ,so now malice will also be detected in my interpretation of ,turgenev's letter1 no matter what assurance ,i offer to the contrary4 #c ,on ,method4--,a certain naturalist made the following experiment3 ,a glass jar was divided into two halves by a perfectly transparent glass partition4 ,on the one side of the partition he placed a pike1 on the other a number of small fishes such as form the prey of the pike4 ,the pike did not notice the partition1 and hurled itself on its prey1 with1 of course1 the result only of a bruised nose4 ,the same happened many times1 and always the same result4 ,at last1 seeing all its efforts ended so painfully1 the pike abandoned the hunt1 so that in a few days1 when the partition had been removed it continued to swim about among the small fry without daring to attack them4444 ,does not the same happen with us8 ,perhaps the limits between this world and the other world are also essentially of an experimental origin1 neither rooted in the nature of things1 as was thought before ,kant1 or in the nature of our reason1 as was thought after ,kant4 ,perhaps indeed a partition does exist1 and make vain all attempts to cross over44 ,but perhaps there comes a moment when the partition is removed4 ,in our minds1 however1 the conviction is firmly rooted that it is impossible to pass certain limits1 and painful to try3 a conviction founded on experience4 ,but in this case we should recall the old scepticism of ,hume1 which idealist philosophy has regarded as mere subtle mind-play1 valueless after ,kant's critique4 ,the most lasting and varied experience cannot lead to any binding and universal conclusion4 ,nay1 all our a priori1 which are so useful for a certain time1 become sooner or later extremely harmful4 ,a philosopher should not be afraid of scepticism1 but should go on bruising his jaw4 ,perhaps the failure of metaphysics lies in the caution and timidity of metaphysicians1 who seem ostensibly so brave4 ,they have sought for rest--which they describe as the highest boon4 ,whereas they should have valued more than anything restlessness1 aimlessness1 even purposelessness4 ,how can you tell when the partition will be removed8 ,perhaps at the very moment when man ceased his painful pursuit1 settled all his questions and rested on his laurels1 inert1 he could with one strong push have swept through the pernicious fence which separated him from the unknowable4 ,there is no need for man to move according to a carefully-considered plan4 ,this is a purely aesthetic demand which need not bind us4 ,let man senselessly and deliriously knock his head against the wall--if the wall go down at last1 will he value his triumph any the less8 ,unfortunately for us the illusion has been established in us that plan and purpose are the best guarantee of success4 ,what a delusion it is6 ,the opposite is true4 ,the best of all that genius has revealed to us has been revealed as the result of fantastic1 erratic1 apparently ridiculous and useless1 but relentlessly stubborn seeking4 ,columbus1 tired of sitting on the same spot1 sailed west to look for ,india4 ,and genius1 in spite of vulgar conception1 is a condition of chaos and unutterable restlessness4 ,not for nothing has genius been counted kin to madness4 ,genius flings itself hither and thither because it has not the ,sitzfleisch necessary for industrious success in mediocrity4 ,we may be sure that earth has seen much more genius than history has recorded2 since genius is acknowledged only when it has been serviceable4 ,when the tossing-about has led to no useful issue--which is the case in the majority of instances--it arouses only a feeling of disgust and abomination in all witnesses4 ,he can't rest and he can't let others rest4 ,if ,lermontov and ,dostoevsky had lived in times when there was no demand for books1 nobody would have noticed them4 ,lermontov's early death would have passed unregretted4 ,perhaps some settled and virtuous citizen would have remarked1 weary of the young man's eternal and dangerous freaks3 ,for a dog a dog's death4 ,the same of ,gogol1 ,tolstoy1 ,poushkin4 ,now they are praised because they left interesting books4444 ,and so we need pay no attention to the cry about the futility and worthlessness of scepticism1 even scepticism pure and unadulterated1 scepticism which has no ulterior motive of clearing the way for a new creed4 ,to knock one's head against the wall out of hatred for the wall3 to beat against established and obstructive ideas1 because one detests them3 is it not an attractive proposition8 ,and then1 to see ahead uncertainly and limitless possibilities1 instead of up-to-date ideals1 is not this too fascinating8 ,the highest good is rest6 ,i shall not argue3 de gustibus aut nihil aut bene4444 ,by the way1 isn't it a superb principle8 ,and this superb principle has been arrived at perfectly by chance1 unfortunately not by me1 but by one of the comical characters in ,tchekhov's ,seagull4 ,he mixed up two ,latin proverbs1 and the result was a splendid maxim which1 in order to become an a priori1 awaits only universal acceptance4 #d ,metaphysicians praise the transcendental1 and carefully avoid it4 ,nietzsche hated metaphysics1 he praised the earth--bleib nur der ,erde treu1 ,o meine ,bruder--and always lived in the realm of the transcendental4 ,of course the metaphysicians behave better3 this is indisputable4 ,he who would be a teacher must proclaim the metaphysical point of view1 and he may become a hero without ever smelling powder4 ,in these anxious days1 when positivism seems to fall short1 one cannot do better than turn to metaphysics4 ,then the young man need not any more envy ,alexander the ,macedonian4 ,with the assistance of a few books not only earthly states are conquered1 but the whole mysterious universe4 ,metaphysics is the great art of swerving round dangerous experience4 ,so metaphysicians should be called the positivists par excellence4 ,they do not despise all experience1 as they assert1 but only the dangerous experiences4 ,they adapt the safest of all methods of selfdefence1 what the ,english call protective mimicry4 ,let us repeat to all students--professors know it already3 he who would be a sincere metaphysician must avoid risky experience4 ,schiller once asked3 ,how can tragedy give delight8 ,the answer--to put it in our own words--was3 ,if we are to obtain delight from tragedy1 it must be seen only upon the stage4--,in order to love the transcendental it also should be known only from the stage1 or from books of the philosophers4 ,this is called idealism1 the nicest word ever invented by philosophising men4 #e ,poetae nascuntur4--,wonderful is man4 ,knowing nothing about it1 he asserts the existence of an objective impossibility4 ,even a little while ago1 before the invention of the telephone and telegraph1 men would have declared it impossible for ,europe to converse with ,america4 ,now it is possible4 ,we cannot produce poets1 therefore we say they are born4 ,certainly we cannot make a child a poet by forcing him to study literary models1 from the most ancient to the most modern4 ,neither will anybody hear us in ,america no matter how loud we shout here4 ,to make a poet of a man1 he must not be developed along ordinary lines4 ,perhaps books should be kept from him4 ,perhaps it is necessary to perform some apparently dangerous operation on him3 fracture his skull or throw him out of a fourth-storey window4 ,i will refrain from recommending these methods as a substitute for paedagogy4 ,but that is not the point4 ,look at the great men1 and the poets4 ,except ,john ,stuart ,mill and a couple of other positivist thinkers1 who had learned fathers and virtuous mothers1 none of the great men can boast of1 or better1 complain of1 a proper upbringing4 ,in their lives nearly always the decisive part was played by accident1 accident which reason would dub meaninglessness1 if reason ever dared raise its voice against obvious success4 ,something like a broken skull or a fall from the fourth floor--not metaphorically1 but often absolutely literally--has proved the commencement1 usually concealed but occasionally avowed1 of the activity of genius4 ,but we repeat automatically3 poetae nascuntur1 and are deeply convinced that this extraordinary truth is so lofty it needs no verification4 #f ,until ,apollo calls him to the sacrifice1 ignobly the poet is plunged in the cares of this shoddy world2 silent is his lyre1 cold sleeps his soul1 of all the petty children of earth most petty it seems is he4 ,pisaryev1 the critic1 was exasperated by these verses4 ,presumably1 if they had not belonged to ,poushkin1 all the critics along with ,pisaryev would have condemned them and their author to oblivion4 ,suspicious verse6 ,before ,apollo calls to him--the poet is the most insignificant of mortals6 ,in his free hours1 the ordinary man finds some more or less distinguished distraction fox himself3 he hunts1 attends exhibitions of pictures1 or the theatre1 and finally rests in the bosom of his family4 ,but the poet is incapable of normal existence4 ,immediately he has finished with ,apollo1 forgetting all about altars and sacrifices1 he proceeds to occupy himself with unworthy objects4 ,or he abandons himself to the dolce far niente1 the customary pastime of all favourites of the ,muses4 ,let us here remark that not only all poets1 but all writers and artists in general are inclined to lead bad lives4 ,think what ,tolstoy tells us1 in ,confession and elsewhere1 of the best representatives of literature in the fifties4 ,on the whole it is just as ,poushkin says in his verses4 ,whilst he is engaged in composition1 an author is a creature of some consequence3 apart from this1 he is nothing4 ,why are ,apollo and the ,muses so remiss8 ,why do they draw to themselves wayward or vicious votaries1 instead of rewarding virtue8 ,we dare not suspect the gods1 even the dethroned1 of bad intentions4 ,apollo loved virtuous persons--and yet virtuous persons are evidently mediocre and unfit for the sacred offices4 ,if any man is overcome with a great desire to serve the god of song1 let him get rid of his virtues at once4 ,curious that this truth is so completely unknown to men4 ,they think that through virtue they can truly deserve the favour and choice of ,apollo4 ,and since industry is the first virtue1 they peg away1 morning1 noon1 and night4 ,of course1 the more they work the less they do4 ,which really puzzles and annoys them4 ,they even fling aside the sacred arts1 and all the labours of a devotee2 they give themselves up to idleness and other bad habits4 ,and sometimes it so happens1 that just as a man decides that it is all no good1 the ,muses suddenly visit him4 ,so it was with ,dostoevsky and others2 ,schiller alone managed to get round ,apollo4 ,but perhaps it was only his biographers he got round4 ,germans are so trustful1 so easy to deceive4 ,the biographers saw nothing unusual in ,schiller's habit of keeping his feet in cold water whilst he worked4 ,no doubt they felt that if the divine poet had lived in the ,sahara1 where water is precious as gold1 and the inspired cannot take a footbath every day1 then the speeches of the ,marquis of ,pola would have lacked half their nobleness1 at least4 ,and apparently ,schiller was not so wonderfully chaste1 if he needed such artificial resources in the composition of his fine speeches4 ,in a word1 we must believe ,poushkin4 ,a poet is1 on the one hand1 among the elect2 on the other hand1 he is one of the most insignificant of mortals4 ,hence we can draw a very consoling conclusion3 the most insignificant of men are not altogether so worthless as we imagine4 ,they may not be fit to occupy government positions or professorial chairs1 but they are often extremely at home on ,parnassus and such high places4 ,apollo rewards vice1 and virtue1 as everybody knows1 is so satisfied with herself she needs no reward4 ,then why do the pessimists lament8 ,leibnitz was quite right3 we live in the best possible of worlds4 ,i would even suggest that we leave out the modification possible4 #g ,it is ,das ,ewig ,weibliche1 with ,russian writers4 ,poushkin and ,lermontov loved women and were not afraid of them2 ,poushkin1 who trusted his own nature1 was often in love1 and always sang his love of the moment4 ,when infatuated with a bacchante1 he glorified bacchantes4 ,when he married1 he warbled of a modest1 nun-like beauty1 his wife4 ,a synthesising mind would probably not know what to do with all ,poushkin's sorts of love4 ,nor is ,lermontov any better4 ,he abused women1 but1 as ,byelinsky observed after meeting him1 he loved women more than anything in the world4 ,and again1 not women of one mould only3 any and all attractive females3 the wild ,bella1 the lovely ,mary1 ,thamar2 one and all1 no matter of what race or condition4 ,every time ,lermontov is in love1 he assures us his love is so deep and ardent and even moral1 that we cannot judge him without conpunction4 ,vladimir ,soloviov alone was not afraid to condemn him4 ,he brought ,poushkin as well as ,lermontov to account for their moral irregularities1 and he even went so far as to say that it was not he himself who judged them1 but ,fate1 in whose service he acted as public denouncer4 ,lermontov and ,poushkin1 both dying young1 had deserved death for their frivolities4 ,but there was nobody else besides ,vladimir ,soloviov to darken the memories of the two poets4 ,it is true ,tolstoy cannot forgive ,poushkin's dissolute life1 but he does not apply to ,fate for a verdict4 ,according to ,tolstoy morality can cope even with a ,titan like ,poushkin4 ,in ,tolstoy's view morality grows stronger the harder the job it has to tackle4 ,it pardons the weak offenders without waste of words1 but it never forgives pride and self-confidence4 ,if ,tolstoy's edicts had been executed1 all memorials to ,poushkin would have disappeared2 chiefly because of the poet's addiction to the eternal female4 ,in such a case ,tolstoy is implacable4 ,he admits the the kind of love whose object is the establishing of a family1 but no more4 ,don ,juan is a hateful transgressor4 ,think of ,levin1 and his attitude to prostitutes4 ,he is exasperated1 indignant1 even forgets the need for compassion1 and calls them beasts4 ,in the eternal female ,tolstoy sees temptation1 seduction1 sin1 great danger4 ,therefore it is necessary to keep quite away from the danger4 ,but surely danger is the dragon which guards every treasure on earth4 ,and again1 no matter what his precautions1 a man will meet his fate sooner or later1 and come into conflict with the dragon4 ,surely this is an axiom4 ,poushkin and ,lermontov loved danger1 and therefore sought women4 ,they paid a heavy price1 but while they lived they lived freely and lightly4 ,if they had cared to peep in the book of destinies1 they might have averted or avoided their sad end4 ,but they preferred to trust their star--lucky or unlucky4 ,tolstoy was the first among us--we cannot speak of ,gogol--who began to fear life4 ,he was the first to start open moralising4 ,in so far as public opinion and personal dignity demand it1 he did go to meet his dangers3 but not a step further4 ,so he avoided women1 art1 and philosophy4 ,love per se1 that is1 love which does not lead to a family1 like wisdom per se1 which is wisdom that has no utilitarian motive1 and like art for art's sake1 seemed to him the worst of temptations1 leading to the destruction of the soul4 ,when he plunged too deep in thinking1 he was seized with panic4 ,it seemed to me ,i was going mad1 so ,i went away to the ,bashkirs for koumiss4 ,such confessions are common in his works4 ,and surely there is no other way with temptations1 than to cut short1 at once1 before it is too late4 ,tolstoy preserved himself on account of his inborn instinct for departing betimes from a dangerous situation4 ,save for this cautious prompting he would probably have ended like ,lermontov or ,poushkin4 ,true1 he might have gone deeper into nature1 and revealed us rare secrets1 instead of preaching at us abstinence1 humility1 simplicity and so on4 ,but such luck fell to the fate of ,dostoevsky4 ,dostoevsky had very muddled relations with morality4 ,he was too racked by disease and circumstance to get much profit out of the rules of morality4 ,the hygiene of the soul1 like that of the body1 is beneficial only to healthy men4 ,to the sick it is simply harmful4 ,the more ,dostoevsky engaged himself with high morality1 the more inextricably entangled he became4 ,he wanted to respect the personality in a woman1 and only the personality1 and so he came to the point where he could not look on any woman1 however ugly1 with indifference4 ,the elder ,karamazov and his affair with ,elizabeth ,smerdyascha 7,stinking ,lizzie7--in what other imagination could such a union have been contemplated8 ,dostoevsky1 of course1 reprimands ,karamazov1 and thanks to the standards of modern criticism1 such a reprimand is accounted sufficient to exonerate our author4 ,but there are other standards4 ,if a writer sets out to tell you that no drab could be so loathsome that her ugliness would make you forget she was woman2 and if for illustration of this novel idea we are told the history of ,fiodov ,karamazov with the deformed1 repulsive idiot1 ,stinking ,lizzie2 then1 in face of such imaginative art it is surely out of place to preserve the usual confidence in that writer4 ,we do not speak of the interest and appreciation of ,dostoevsky's tastes and ideas4 ,not for one moment will ,i assert that those who with ,poushkin and ,lermontov can see the ,eternal ,female only in young and charming women1 have any advantage over ,dostoevsky4 ,of course1 we are not forbidden to live according to our tastes1 and we may1 like ,tolstoy1 call certain women beasts4 ,but who has given us the right to assert that we are higher or better than ,dostoevsky8 ,judging objectively1 all the points go to show that ,dostoevsky is better--at any rate he saw further1 deeper4 ,he could find an original interest1 he could discover das ewig ,weibliche where we should see nothing of attraction at all1 where ,goethe would avert his face4 ,stinking ,lizzie is not a beast1 as ,levin would say1 but a woman who is able1 if even for a moment1 to arouse a feeling of love in a man4 ,and we thought she was worse than nothing1 since she roused in us only disgust4 ,dostoevsky made a discovery1 we with our refined feelings missed it4 ,his distorted1 abnormal sense showed a greater sensitiveness1 in which our high morality was deficient4444 ,and the road to the great truth this time1 as ever1 is through deformity4 ,idealists will not agree4 ,they are quite justly afraid that one may not reach the truth1 but may get stuck in the mud4 ,idealists are careful men1 and not nearly so stupid as their ideals would lead us to suppose4 #h ,new ideas1 even our own1 do not quickly conquer our sympathies4 ,we must first get accustomed to them4 #i ,a point of view4--,every writer1 thinker--even every educated person thinks it necessary to have a permanent point of view4 ,he climbs up some elevation and never climbs down again all his days4 ,whatever he sees from this point of view1 he believes to be reality1 truth1 justice1 good--and what he does not see he excludes from existence4 ,man is not much to blame for this4 ,surely there is no very great joy in moving from point of view to point of view1 shifting one's camp from peak to peak4 ,we have no wings1 and a winged thought is only a nice metaphor--unless1 of course1 it refers to logical thinking4 ,there to be sure great volatility is usual1 a lightness which comes from perfect navet1 if not ignorance4 ,he who really wishes to know something1 and not merely to have a philosophy1 does not rely on logic and is not allured by reason4 ,he must clamber from summit to summit1 and1 if necessary1 hibernate in the dales4 ,for a wide horizon leads to illusions1 and in order to familiarise oneself with any object1 it is essential to go close up to it1 touch it1 feel it1 examine it from top to bottom and on every side4 ,one must be ready1 should this be impossible otherwise1 to sacrifice the customary position of the body3 to wriggle1 to lie flat1 to stand on one's head1 in a word1 to assume the most unnatural of attitudes4 ,can there be any question of a permanent point of view8 ,the more mobility and elasticity a man has1 the less he values the ordinary equilibrium of his body2 the oftener he changes his outlook1 the more he will take in4 ,if1 on the other hand1 he imagines that from this or the other pinnacle he has the most comfortable survey of the world and life1 leave him alone2 he will never know anything4 ,nay1 he does not want to know1 he cares more about his personal convenience than about the quality of his work4 ,no doubt he will attain to fame and success1 and thus brilliantly justify his point of view4 #aj ,fame4--,a thread from everyone1 and the naked will have a shirt4 ,there is no beggar but has his thread of cotton1 and he will not grudge it to a naked man--no1 nor even to a fully dressed one2 but will bestow it on the first comer4 ,the poor1 who want to forget their poverty1 are very ready with their threads4 ,moreover1 they prefer to give them to the rich1 rather than to a fellow-tramp4 ,to load the rich with benefits1 must not one be very rich indeed8 ,that is why fame is so easily got4 ,an ambitious person asks admiration and respect from the crowd1 and is rarely denied4 ,the mob feel that their throats are their own1 and their arms are strong4 ,why not vociferate and clap1 seeing that you can turn the head not only of a beggar like yourself1 but of a future hero1 ,god knows how almighty a person4 ,the humiliated citizen who has hitherto been hauled off to the police station if he shouted1 suddenly feels that his throat has acquired a new value4 ,never before has anyone given a rap for his worthless opinion1 and now seven cities are ready to quarrel for it1 as for the right to claim ,homer4 ,the citizen is delighted1 he shouts at the top of his voice1 and is ready to throw all his possessions after his shouts4 ,so the hero is satisfied4 ,the greater the shout1 the deeper his belief in himself and his mission4 ,what will a hero not believe6 ,for he forgets so soon the elements of which his fame and riches are made4 ,heroes usually are convinced that they set out on their noble career1 not to beg shouts from beggars1 but to heap blessings on mankind4 ,if they could only call to mind with what beating hearts they awaited their first applause1 their first alms1 how timidly they curried favour with ragged beggars1 perhaps they would speak less assuredly of their own merits4 ,but our memory is fully acquainted with ,herbert ,spencer and his law of adaptability1 and thus many a worthy man goes gaily on in full belief in his own stupendous virtue4 #aa ,in defence of righteousness4--,inexperienced and ingenuous people see in righteousness merely a burden which lofty people have assumed out of respect for law or for some other high and inexplicable reason4 ,but a righteous man has not only duties but rights4 ,true1 sometimes1 when the law is against him1 he has to compromise4 ,yet how rarely does the law desert him6 ,no cruelty matters in him1 so long as he does not infringe the statutes4 ,nay1 he will ascribe his cruelty as a merit to himself1 since he acts out of no personal considerations1 but in the name of sacred justice4 ,no matter what he may do1 once he is sanctioned he sees in his actions only merit1 merit1 merit4 ,modesty forbids him to say too much--but if he were to let go1 what a luxurious panegyric he might deliver to himself6 ,remembering his works1 he praises himself at all times2 not aloud1 but inwardly4 ,the nature of virtue demands it3 man must rejoice in his morality and ever keep it in mind4 ,and after that1 people declare that it is hard to be righteous4 ,whatever the other virtues may be1 certainly righteousness has its selfish side4 ,as a rule it is decidedly worth while to make considerable sacrifices in order later on to enjoy in calm confidence all that surety and those rights bestowed on a man by morality and public approval4 ,look at a ,german who has paid his contribution to a society for the assistance of the indigent4 ,not one stray farthing will he give1 not to a poor wretch who is starving before his eyes4 ,and in this he feels right4 ,this is righteousness out and out3 pay your tax and enjoy the privileges of a high-principled man4 ,so righteousness is much in vogue with cultured1 commercial nations4 ,russians have not quite got there4 ,they are afraid of the exactions of righteousness1 not guessing the enormous advantages derived4 ,a ,russian has a permanent relationship with his conscience1 which costs him far more than the most moral ,german1 or even ,englishman1 has to pay for his righteousness4 #ab ,the best way of getting rid of tedious1 played-out truths is to stop paying them the tribute of respect and to treat them with a touch of easy familiarity and derision4 ,to put into brackets1 as ,dostoevsky did1 such words as good1 self-sacrifice1 progress1 and so on1 will alone achieve you much more than many brilliant arguments would do4 ,whilst you still contest a certain truth1 you still believe in it1 and this even the least penetrating individual will perceive4 ,but if you favour it with no serious attention1 and only throw out a scornful remark now and then1 the result is different4 ,it is evident you have ceased to be afraid of the old truth1 you no longer respect it4 ,and this sets people thinking4 #ac ,four walls4--,arm-chair philosophy is being condemned--rightly4 ,an arm-chair thinker is busy deciding on everything that is taking place in the world3 the state of the world market1 the existence of a world-soul1 wireless telegraphy and the life after death1 the cave dweller and the perfectibility of man1 and so on and so on4 ,his chief business is so to select his statements that there shall be no internal contradiction2 and this will give an appearance of truth4 ,such work1 which is quite amusing and even interesting1 leads at last to very poor results4 ,surely verisimilitudes of truth are not truth3 nor have necessarily anything in common with truth4 ,again1 a man who undertakes to talk of everything probably knows nothing4 ,thus a swan can fly1 and walk1 and swim4 ,but it flies indifferently1 walks badly1 and swims poorly4 ,an arm-chair philosopher1 enclosed by four walls1 sees nothing but those four walls1 and yet of these precisely he does not choose to speak4 ,if by accident he suddenly realised them and spoke of them his philosophy might acquire an enormous value4 ,this may happen when a study is converted into a prison3 the same four walls1 but impossible not to think of them6 ,whatever the prisoner turns his mind to--,homer1 the ,greek-,persian wars1 the future world-peace1 the bygone geological cataclysms--still the four walls enclose it all4 ,the calm of the study supplanted by the pathos of imprisonment4 ,the prisoner has no more contact with the world1 and no less4 ,but now he no longer slumbers and has grayish dreams called world-conceptions4 ,he is wide awake and strenuously living4 ,his philosophy is worth hearing4 ,but man is not distinguished for his powers of discrimination4 ,he sees solitude and four walls1 and says3 a study4 ,he dreams of the market-place1 where there is noise and jostling1 physical bustle1 and decides that there alone life is to be met4 ,he is wrong as usual4 ,in the market-place1 among the crowd1 do not men sleep their deadest sleep8 ,and is not the keenest spiritual activity taking place in seclusion8 #ad ,the ,spartans made their helots drunk as an example and warning to their noble youths4 ,a good method1 no doubt1 but what are we of the twentieth century to do8 ,whom shall we make drunk8 ,we have no slaves1 so we have instituted a higher literature4 ,novels and stories describe drunken1 dissolute men1 and paint them in such horrid colours that every reader feels all his desire for vice depart from him4 ,unfortunately only our ,russians are either too conscientious or not sufficiently rectilinear in their minds4 ,instead of showing the drunken helot as an object of repugnance1 as the ,spartans did1 they try to describe vice truthfully4 ,realism has taken hold4 ,indeed1 why make a fuss8 ,what does it matter if the writer's description is a little more or less ugly than the event8 ,was justice invented that everything1 even evil1 should be kept intact8 ,surely evil must be simply rooted out1 banned1 placed outside the pale4 ,the ,spartans did not stand on ceremony with living men1 and yet our novelists are afraid of being unjust to imaginary drunken helots4 ,and1 so to speak1 out of humane feeling too4444 ,how naive one must be to accept such a justification6 ,yet everybody accepts it4 ,tolstoy alone1 towards the end1 guessed that humanitarianism is only a pretext in this case1 and that we ,russians have described vice not only for the purpose of scaring our readers4 ,in modern masters the word vice arouses not disgust1 but insatiable curiosity4 ,perhaps the wicked thing has been persecuted in vain1 like so many other good things4 ,perhaps it should have been studied1 perhaps it held mysteries4444 ,on the strength of this perhaps morality was gradually abandoned1 and ,tolstoy remained almost alone in his indignation4 ,realism reigns1 and a drunken helot arouses envy in timid readers who do not know where to put their trust1 whether in the traditional rules or in the appeal of the master4 ,a drunken helot an ideal6 ,what have we come to8 ,were it not better to have stuck to ,lycurgus8 ,have we not paid too dearly for our progress8 ,many people think we have paid too dearly--not to mention ,tolstoy1 who is now no longer taken quite seriously1 though still accounted a great man4 ,any mediocre journalist enjoys greater influence than this master-writer of the ,russian land4 ,it is inevitable4 ,tolstoy insists on thinking about things which are nobody's concern4 ,he has long since abandoned this world--and does he continue to exist in any other8 ,difficult question6 ,tolstoy writes books and letters1 therefore he exists4 ,this inference1 once so convincing1 now has hardly any effect on us3 particularly if we take into account what it is that ,tolstoy writes4 ,in several of his last letters he expresses opinions which surely have no meaning for an ordinary man4 ,they can be summed up in a few words4 ,tolstoy professes an extreme egoism1 sollipsism1 solus-ipse-ism4 ,that is1 in his old age1 after infinite attempts to love his neighbour1 he comes to the conclusion that not only is it impossible to love one's neighbour1 but that there is no neighbour1 that in all the world ,tolstoy alone exists1 that there is even no world1 but only ,tolstoy3 a view so obviously absurd1 that it is not worth refuting4 ,by the way1 there is also no possibility of refuting it1 unless you admit that logical inferences are non-binding4 ,sollipsism dogged ,tolstoy already in early youth1 but at that time he did not know what to do with the impertinent1 oppressive idea1 so he ignored it4 ,finally1 he came to it4 ,the older a man becomes1 the more he learns how to make use of impertinent ideas4 ,fairly recently ,tolstoy could pronounce such a dictum3 ,christ taught men not to do stupid things4 ,who but ,tolstoy could have ventured on such an interpretation of the gospels8 ,why have we all held--all of us but ,tolstoy--that these words contained the greatest blasphemy on ,christ and ,his teaching8 ,but it was ,tolstoy's last desperate attempt to save himself from sollipsism1 without at the same time flying in the face of logic3 even ,christ appeared among men only to teach them common sense4 ,whence follows that mad thoughts may be rejected with an easy conscience1 and the advantage1 as usual1 remains with the wholesome1 reasonable1 sensible thoughts4 ,there is room for good and for reason4 ,good is self-understood2 it need not be explained4 ,if only good existed in the world1 there would exist no questions1 neither simple nor ultimate4 ,this is why youth never questions4 ,what indeed should it question3 the song of the nightingale1 the morning of ,may1 happy laughter1 all the predicates of youth8 ,do these need interpretation8 ,on the contrary1 any explanation is reduced to these ,the proper questions arise only on contact with evil4 ,a hawk struck a nightingale1 flowers withered1 ,boreas froze laughing youth--and in terror our questions arose4 ,that is evil4 ,the ancients were right4 ,not in vain is our earth called a vale of tears and sorrow4 ,and once questions are started1 it is impossible and unseemly to hurry the answers1 still less anticipate the questions4 ,the nightingale is dead and will sing no longer1 the listener is frozen to death and can hear no more songs4 ,the situation is so palpably absurd that only with the intention of getting rid of the question at any cost will one strive for a sensible answer4 ,the answer must be absurd--if you don't want it1 don't question4 ,but if you must question1 then be ready beforehand to reconcile yourself with something like sollipsism or modern realism4 ,thought is in a dilemma1 and dare not take the leap to get out4 ,we laugh at philosophy1 and1 as long as possible1 avoid evil4 ,but nearly all men feel the intolerable cramp of such a situation1 and each at his risk ventures to swim to shore on some more or less witty theory4 ,a few courageous ones speak the truth--but they are neither understood nor respected4 ,when a man's words show the depth of the pain through which he has passed1 he is not1 indeed1 condemned1 but the world begins to talk of his tragic state of soul1 and to take on a mournful look fitting to the occasion4 ,others more scrupulous feel that phrases and mournful looks are unfitting1 yet they cannot dwell at length on the tragedies of outsiders1 so they take on an exaggeratedly stern bearing1 as if to say1 ,we feel deeply1 but we do not wish to show our feeling4 ,they really feel nothing1 only want to make others believe how sensitive and modest they are4 ,at times this leads to curious results1 even in writers of the first order of renown4 ,thus ,anatole ,france1 the inventor of that most charming smile which is intended to convince men that he feels everything and understands everything1 but does not cry out1 because that would not be fitting1 in one of his novels takes upon himself the noble rle of advocate of the victims of a crime1 against the criminal4 ,our time1 he says1 out of pity to the criminal forgets the sufferings of his victim4 ,this1 ,i repeat1 is one of the most curious misrepresentations of modern endeavour4 ,it is true we in ,russia talk a good deal about compassion1 particularly to criminals1 and ,anatole ,france is by no means the only man who thinks that our distinguishing characteristic is extreme sensitiveness and tender-heartedness4 ,but as a matter of fact the modern man who thinks for himself is not drawn to the criminal by a sense of compassion1 which would incontestably be better applied to the victim1 but by curiosity1 or if you like1 inquisitiveness4 ,for thousands of years man has sought to solve the great mystery of life through a ,god-conception--with theodicy and metaphysical theories as a result1 both of which deny the possibility of a mystery4 ,theodicy has long ago wearied us4 ,the mechanistic theories1 which contend that there is nothing special in life1 that its appearance and disappearance depend on the same laws as those of the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter1 these look more plausible at first sight1 but people do not take to them4 ,and no theory can survive men's reluctance to believe in it4 ,in a word1 good has not justified the expectations placed on it4 ,reason has done no better4 ,so overwrought mankind has turned from its old idols and enthroned madness and evil4 ,the smiling ,anatole argues1 and proves--proves excellently4 ,but who does not know what his proofs amount to8--and who wants them8 ,it may be our children will take fright at the task we have undertaken1 will call us squandering parents1 and will set themselves again to heaping up treasures1 spiritual and material4 ,again they will believe in ideals1 progress1 and such like4 ,for my own part1 ,i have hardly any doubt of it4 ,sollipsism and the cult of groundlessness are not lasting1 and1 most of all1 they are not to be handed down4 ,the final triumph1 in life as in old comedies1 rests with goodness and common sense4 ,history has known many epochs like ours1 and gone through with them4 ,degeneration follows on the heels of immoderate curiosity1 and sweeps away all refined and exaggerately well-informed individuals4 ,men of genius have no posterity--or their children are idiots4 ,not for nothing is nature so majestically serene3 she has hidden her secrets well enough4 ,which is not surprising1 considering how unscrupulous she is4 ,no despot1 not the greatest villain on earth1 has ever wielded power with the cruelty and heartlessness of nature4 ,the least violation of her laws--and the severest punishment follows4 ,disease1 deformity1 madness1 death --what has not our common mother contrived to keep us in subjection8 ,true1 certain optimists think that nature does not punish us1 but educates us4 ,so ,tolstoy sees it4 ,death and sufferings1 like animated scarecrows1 boo at man and drive him into the one way of life open to him3 for life is subject to its own law of reason4 ,not a bad method of upbringing4 ,exactly like using wolves and bears4 ,unfortunate man1 bolting from one booing monster1 is not always able in time to dodge into the one correct way1 and dashes straight into the maw of another beast of prey4 ,then what8 ,and this often happens4 ,without disparagement of the optimists1 we may say that sooner or later it happens to every man4 ,after which no more running4 ,you won't tear yourself out of the claws of madness or disease4 ,only one thing is left3 in spite of traditions1 theodicy1 wiseacres1 and most of all in spite of oneself1 to go on praising mother nature and her great goodness4 ,let future generations reject us1 let history stigmatise our names1 as the names of traitors to the human cause--still we will compose hymns to deformity1 destruction1 madness1 chaos1 darkness4 ,and after that--let the grass grow4 #ae ,astrology and alchemy lived their day and died a natural death4 ,but they left a posterity--chemistry inventing dyes1 and astronomy accumulating formulae4 ,so it is4 ,geniuses beget idiots3 especially when the mothers are very virtuous1 as in this case1 when their virtue is extraordinary4 ,for the mothers are public utility and morality4 ,the alchemists wasted their time seeking the philosopher's stone2 the astrologers1 swindled people telling fortunes by the stars4 ,wedded to utility these two fathers have begotten the chemists and astronomers4 444 ,nobody will dispute the genealogy4 ,perhaps even none will dispute that1 from idiotic children one may1 with a measure of probability1 infer genius in the parents4 ,there are certain indications that this is so--though of course one may not go beyond supposition4 ,but supposition is enough4 ,there are more arguments in store4 ,for instance--our day is so convinced of the absolute nonsense and uselessness of alchemy and astrology that no one dreams of verifying the conviction4 ,we know there were many charlatans and liars amongst alchemists and astrologers4 ,but what does this prove8 ,in every department there are the same mediocre creatures who speculate on human credulity4 ,however positive our science of medicine is1 there are many fraudulent doctors who rob their patients4 ,the alchemists and astrologers were1 in all probability1 the most remarkable men of their time4 ,i will go further3 in spite of dye-stuffs and formulae1 even in our nineteenth century1 which was so famous for its inventions and discoveries1 the most eminent1 talented men still sought the philosopher's stone and forecast the destinies of man4 ,and those among them who were possessed of a poetic gift won universal attention4 ,in the old days1 consensu sapientium1 a poet was allowed all kinds of liberties3 he might speak of fate1 miracles1 spirits1 the life beyond--indeed of anything1 provided he was interesting4 ,that was enough4 ,the nineteenth century paid its tribute to restlessness4 ,never were there so many disturbing1 throbbing writers as during the epoch of telephones and telegraphs4 ,it was held indecent to speak in plain language of the vexed and troubled aspirations of the human spirit4 ,those guilty of the indecency were even dosed with bromides and treated with shower-baths and concentrated foods4 ,but all this is external1 it belongs to a history of fashions and cannot interest us here4 ,the point is that alchemy and astrology did not die1 they only shammed death and left the stage for a time4 ,now1 apparently1 they are tired of seclusion and are coming forward again1 having pushed their unsuccessful children into the background4 ,well1 so be it4 ,a la bonne heure6444 #af ,man comes to the pass where all experience seems exhausted4 ,wherever he go1 whatever he see1 all is old and wearyingly familiar4 ,most people explain this by saying that they really know everything1 and that from what they have experienced they can infer all experience4 ,this phase of the exhaustion of life usually comes to a man between thirty-five and forty--the best period1 according to ,karamzin4 ,not seeing anything new1 the individual assumes he is completely matured and has the right to judge of everything4 ,knowing what has been he can forecast what will be4 ,but ,karamzin was mistaken about the best period1 and the mature people are mistaken about the nothing new can happen4 ,the fact of spiritual stagnation should not be made the ground for judging all life's possibilities from known possibilities4 ,on the contrary1 such stagnation should prove that however rich and multifarious the past may have been1 it has not exhausted a tittle of the whole possibilities4 ,from that which has been it is impossible to infer what will be4 ,moreover1 it is unnecessary--except1 perhaps1 to give us a sense of our full maturity and let us enjoy all the charms of the best period of life1 so eloquently described by ,karamzin4 ,the temptation is not overwhelming4 ,so that1 if man is under the necessity of enduring a period of arrest and stagnation1 and until such time as life re-starts is doomed to meditation1 would it not be better to use this meditating interregnum for a directly opposite purpose from the one indicated3 that is to say1 for the purpose of finding in our past signs which tell us that the future has every right to be anything whatsoever1 like or utterly unlike the past4 ,such signs1 given a good will to find them1 may be seen in plenty4 ,at times one comes to the conclusion that the natural connection of phenomena1 as hitherto observed1 is not at all inevitable for the future1 and that miracles which so far have seemed impossible1 may come to seem possible1 even natural1 far more natural than that loathsome law of sequence1 the law of the regularity of phenomena4 ,we are bored stiff with regularity and sequence--confess it1 you also1 you men of science4 ,at the mere thought that1 however we may think1 we can get no further than the acknowledgment of the old regularity1 an invincible disgust to any kind of mental work overcomes us4 ,to discover another law--still another--when already we have far more than we can do with6 ,surely if there is any will-to-think left in us1 it is established in the supposition that the mind cannot and must not have any bounds1 any limits2 and that the theory of knowledge1 which is based on the history of knowledge and on a few very doubtful assumptions1 is only a piece of property belonging to a certain caste1 and has nothing to do with us others--und die ,natur zuletzt sich doch ergrnde4 ,what a mad impatience seizes us at times when we realise that we shall never fathom the great mystery6 ,every individual in the world must have felt at one time the mad desire to unriddle the universe4 ,even the stodgy philosophers who invented the theory of knowledge have at times made surreptitious sorties1 hoping to open a path to the unknown1 in spite of their own fat1 senseless books that demonstrate the advantages of scientific knowledge4 ,man either lives in continuous experience1 or he frees himself from conclusions imposed by limited experience4 ,all the rest is the devil4 ,from the devil come the blandishments with which ,karamzin charmed himself and his readers4444 ,or is it the contrary8 ,who will answer6 ,once again1 as usual1 at the end of a pathetic speech one is left with a conjecture4 ,let every man please himself4 ,but what about those who would like to live according to ,karamzin1 but cannot8 ,i cannot speak for them4 ,schiller recommended hope4 ,will it do8 ,to be frank1 hardly4 ,he who has once lost his peace of mind will never find it again4 #ag ,ever since ,kant succeeded in convincing the learned that the world of phenomena is quite other than the world of true reality1 and that even our own existence is not our real existence1 but only the visible manifestation of a mysterious1 unknown substance 7substantia7--philosophy has been stuck in a new rut1 and cannot move a single millimetre out of the track laid out by the great ,knigsbergian4 ,backward or forward it can go1 but necessarily in the ,kantian rut4 ,for how can you get out of the counterposing of the phenomenon against the thing-in-itself8 ,this proposition1 this counterposing seems inalterable1 so there is nothing left but to stick your head in the heavy draught-collar of the theory of knowledge4 ,which most philosophers do1 even with a glad smile1 which inevitably rouses a suspicion that they have got what they wanted1 and their metaphysical need was nothing more than a need for a harness4 ,otherwise they would have kicked at the sight of the collar4 ,surely the contraposition between the world of phenomena and the thing-in-itself is an invention of the reasoning mind1 as is the theory of knowledge deduced from this contraposing4 ,therefore the freedom-loving spirit could reject it in the very beginning--and basta6 ,with the devil one must be very cautious4 ,we know quite well that if he only gets hold of the tip of your ear he will carry off your whole body4 ,so it is with ,reason4 ,grant it one single assumption1 admit but one proposition--and finita la commedia4 ,you are in the toils4 ,metaphysics cannot exist side-by-side with reason4 ,everything metaphysical is absurd1 everything reasonable is--positive4 ,so we come upon a dilemma4 ,the fundamental predicate of metaphysics is absurdity3 and yet surely many positive assertions can lay legitimate claim to that self-same1 highly-respectable predicate4 ,what then8 ,is there means of distinguishing a metaphysical absurdity from a perfectly ordinary one8 ,may one have recourse to criteria8 ,will not the very criterion prove a pitfall wherein cunning reason will catch the poor man who was rushing out to freedom8 ,there can be no two answers to this question4 ,all services rendered by reason must be paid for sooner or later at the exorbitant price of self-renunciation4 ,whether you accept the assistance in the noble form of the theory of knowledge1 or merely as a humble criterion1 at last you will be driven forth into the streets of positivism4 ,this happens all the time to young1 inexperienced minds4 ,they break the bridle and dash forward into space1 to find themselves rushing into the same old ,rome1 whither1 as we know1 all roads lead3 or1 to use more lofty language1 rushing into the stable whither also all roads lead4 ,the only way to guard against positivism--granting1 of course1 that positivism no longer attracts your sympathies--is to cease to fear any absurdities1 whether rational or metaphysical1 and systematically to reject all the services of reason4 ,such behaviour has been known in philosophy2 and ,i make bold to recommend it4 ,credo1 quia absurdum comes from the ,middle ,ages4 ,modern instances are ,nietzsche and ,schopenhauer4 ,both present noble examples of indifference to logic and common-sense3 particularly ,schopenhauer1 who1 a ,kantian1 even in the name of ,kant made such daring sallies against reason1 driving her into confusion and shame4 ,that astounding ,kantian even went so far1 in the master's name still1 as to attempt the overthrow of the space and time notions4 ,he admitted clairvoyance--and to this day the learned are bothered whether to class that admission among the metaphysical or the ordinary absurdities4 ,really1 ,i can't advise them4 ,a very clever man insists on an enormous absurdity1 so ,i am satisfied4 ,schopenhauer's whole campaign against intellect is very comforting4 ,it is evident that1 though he set out from the ,kantian stable1 he soon got sick of hauling along down the cart-ruts1 and having broken the shafts1 he trotted jauntily into a jungle of irreconcilable contradictions1 without reflecting in the least where he was making for4 ,the primate of will over reason2 and music as the expression of our deepest essence2 are not these assertions sufficient to show us how dexterously he wriggled out from the harness of synthetic judgments a priori which ,kant had placed upon every thinker4 ,there is indeed much more music than logic in the philosophy of ,schopenhauer2 ,not for nothing is he excluded from the universities4 ,but of course one may speak of him in the open2 not of his ideas1 naturally1 but of his music4 ,the ,european market is glutted with ideas4 ,how neat and nicely-finished and logically well-turned-out those ideas are4 ,schopenhauer had no such goods4 ,but what lively and splendid contradictions he boldly spreads on his stall1 often even without suspicion that he ought to hide them from the police4 ,schopenhauer cries and laughs and gets furious or glad1 without ever realising that this is forbidden to a philosopher4 ,do not speak1 but sing1 said ,zarathustra1 and ,schopenhauer ready fulfilled the command in great measure4 ,philosophy may be music--though it doesn't follow that music may be called philosophy4 ,when a man has done his work1 and gives himself up to looking and listening and pleasantly accepting everything1 hiding nothing from himself1 then he begins to philosophise4 ,what good are abstract formulae to him8 ,why should he ask himself1 before he begins to think3 ,what can ,i think about1 what are the limits of thought8 ,he will think1 and those who like can do the summing up and the building of theories of knowledge4 ,what is the earthly use of talking about beauty8 ,beautiful things must be created4 ,not one single aesthetic theory has so far been able to guess what direction the artists' mind will next take1 or what are the limits to his creative activity4 ,the same with the theory of knowledge4 ,it may arrest the work of a man of learning1 if he be himself afraid that he is going too far1 but it is powerless to pre-determine human thought4 ,even ,kant's counterposing of things-in-themselves to the world of phenomena cannot finally clip the wings of human curiosity4 ,there will come a time when this unshakeable foundation of positivism will be shaken4 ,all gnosiological disputes as to what thought can or cannot achieve will seem to our posterity just as amusing as the disputes of the schoolmen seem to us4 ,why did they argue about the nature of truth1 when they might have gone out and looked for truth itself8 the future historians will ask4 ,let us have an answer ready for them4 ,our contemporaries do not want to go out and seek1 so they make a great deal of talk about a theory of knowledge4 ,trust not thyself1 young dreamer4--,however sincerely you may long for truth1 whatever sufferings and horrors you may have surpassed1 do not believe your own self1 young dreamer4 ,what you are looking for1 you won't find4 ,at the utmost1 if you have a gift for writing you will bring out a nice original book4 ,even--do not be offended--you may be satisfied with such a result4 ,in ,nietzsche's letters relating to the year #ahhh1 the year when ,brandes discovered him1 you will find a sad confirmation of the above4 ,had not ,nietzsche struggled1 sought1 suffered8--and behold1 towards the end of his life1 when it would have seemed that all mundane rewards had become trivial to him1 he threw himself with rapture on the tidings of first fame1 and rushed to share his joy with all his friends1 far and near4 ,he does not tire of telling in dozens of letters and in varying forms the story of how ,brandes first began his lectures on him1 ,nietzsche1 how the audience consisted of three hundred people1 and he even quotes ,brandes' placard announcement in the original ,danish4 ,fame just threw him a smile1 and forgotten are all the horrible experiences of former days4 ,the loneliness1 the desertedness1 the cave in the mountain1 the man into whose mouth the serpent climbed--all forgotten1 every thought turned to the ordinary1 easily-comprehensible good4 ,such is man4 ,mit gier'ger ,hand nach ,schtzen grbt ,und froh ist wenn er ,regenwrmer findet4 #ai ,when a man is young he writes because it seems to him he has discovered a new almighty truth which he must make haste to impart to forlorn mankind4 ,later1 becoming more modest1 he begins to doubt his truths3 and then he writes to convince himself4 ,a few more years go by1 and he knows he was mistaken all round1 so there is no need to convince himself4 ,nevertheless he continues to write1 because he is not fit for any other work1 and to be accounted a superfluous man is so horrible4 #bj ,a very original man is often a banal writer1 and vice versa4 ,we tend so often to write not about what is going on in us1 but of our pia desideria4 ,thus restless1 sleepless men sing the glory of sleep and rest1 which have long been sung to death4 ,and those who sleep ten hours on end and are always up to the mark must perforce dream about adventures and storms and dangers1 and even extol everything problematical4 #ba ,when one reads the books of long-dead men1 a strange sensation comes over one4 ,these men who lived two hundred1 three hundred1 three thousand years ago are so far off now from this writing which they have left on earth4 ,yet we look for eternal truths in their works4 #bb ,the truth which ,i have the right to announce so solemnly to-day1 even to the first among men1 will probably be a stale old lie on my lips to-morrow4 ,so ,i will deprive myself of the right of calling such a truth my own4 ,probably ,i shall deprive no one but myself3 others will go on loving and praising the self-same truth1 living with it4 #bc ,a writer who cannot lie with inspiration--and that is a great art1 which few may accomplish--loves to make an exhibition of honesty and frankness4 ,nothing else is left him to do4 #bd ,the source of originality4--,a man who has lost all hope of rooting out of himself a certain radical defect of character1 or even of hiding the flaw from others1 turns round and tries to find in his defect a pertain merit4 ,if he succeeds in convincing his acquaintances1 he achieves a double gain3 first1 he quiets his conscience1 and then he acquires a reputation for being original4 #be ,men begin to strive towards great ends when they feel they cannot cope with the little tasks of life4 ,they often have their measure of success4 #bf ,a belch interrupts the loftiest meditation4 ,you may draw a conclusion if you like3 if you don't like1 you needn't4 #bg ,a woman of conviction4--,we forgive a man his convictions1 however unwillingly4 ,it goes without saying that we balk at any individual who believes in his own infallibility1 but one must reconcile oneself with necessity4 ,it is ugly and preposterous to have corns on one's hands1 but still1 they can't be avoided in this unparadisal earth of sweat and labour4 ,but why see an ideal in callosities8 ,in practical life1 particularly in the social political life to which we are doomed1 convictions are a necessity4 ,unity is strength1 and unity is possible only among people who think alike4 ,again1 a deep conviction is in itself a strong force1 far more powerful than the most logical argumentation4 ,sometimes one has only to pronounce in a full1 round1 vibrating chest voice1 such as is peculiar to people of conviction1 some trifling sentence1 and an audience hitherto unconvinced is carried away4 ,truth is often dumb1 particularly a new truth1 which is most shy of people1 and which has a feeble1 hoarse voice4 ,but in certain situations that which will influence the crowd is more important than that which is genuine truth4 ,convictions are necessary to a public man2 but he who is too clever to believe in himself entirely1 and is not enough of an actor to look as if he believed1 he had best give up public work altogether4 ,at the same time he will realise that lack of convictions is not profitable1 and will look with more indulgence on such as are bound to keep themselves well supplied4 ,yet all the more will he dislike those men who without any necessity disfigure themselves with the coarse tattoo marks4 ,and particularly he will object to such women4 ,what can be more intolerable than a woman of conviction4 ,she lives in a family1 without having to grind for her daily bread--why disfigure herself8 ,why wilfully rub her hands into corns1 when she might keep them clean and pretty6 ,women1 moreover1 usually pick up their convictions ready-made from the man who interests them most at the moment4 ,and never do they do this so vigorously as when the man himself seems incapable of paving the way to his ideas6 ,they are full of feeling for him2 they rush to the last extremities of resource4 ,will not their feeble little fists help him8 ,it may be touching1 but in the end it is intolerable4 ,so it is much pleasanter to meet a woman who believes in her husband and does not consider it necessary to help him4 ,she can then dispense with convictions4 #bh ,emancipation of women4--,the one and only way of mastering an enemy is to learn the use of his weapons4 ,starting from this1 modern woman1 weary of being the slave of man1 tries to learn all his tricks4 ,hard is slavery1 wonderful is freedom6 ,slavery at last is so unendurable that a human being will sacrifice1 everything for freedom4 ,of what use are his virtues to a prisoner languishing in prison8 ,he has one aim1 one object--to get out of prison1 and he values only such qualities in himself as will assist his escape4 ,if it is necessary to break an iron grating by physical force1 then strong muscles will seem to the prisoner the most desirable of all things4 ,if cunning will help him1 cunning is the finest thing on earth4 ,something the same happens with woman4 ,she became convinced that man owed his priority chiefly to education and a trained mind1 so she threw herself on books and universities4 ,learning that promises freedom is light1 everything else darkness4 ,of course1 it is a delusion1 but you could never convince her of it1 for that would mean the collapse of her best hopes of freedom4 ,so that in the end woman will be as well-informed as man1 she will furnish herself with broad views and unshakeable convictions1 with a philosophy also--and in the end she may even learn to think logically4 ,then1 probably1 the many misunderstandings between the sexes will cease4 ,but heavens1 how tedious it will be6 ,men will argue1 women will argue1 children will probably be born fully instructed1 understanding everything4 ,with what pain will the men of the future view our women1 capricious1 frivolous1 uninformed creatures1 understanding nothing and desiring to understand nothing4 ,a whole half of the human race neither would nor could have any understanding6 ,but the hope lies there4 ,maybe we can do without understanding4 ,perhaps a logical mind is not an attribute1 but a curse4 ,in the struggle for existence1 however1 and the survival of the fittest1 not a few of the best human qualities have perished4 ,obviously woman's illogicality is also destined to disappear4 ,it is a thousand pities4 #bi ,all kinds of literature are good1 except the tedious1 said ,voltaire4 ,we may enlarge the idea4 ,all men and all activities are good1 except the tedious4 ,whatever your failings and your vices1 if you are only amusing or interesting all is forgiven you4 ,accordingly1 frankness and naturalness are quite rightly considered doubtful virtues4 ,if people say that frankness and naturalness are virtues1 always take it cum grano salis4 ,sometimes it is permissible and even opportune to fire off truth of all sorts4 ,sometimes one may stretch oneself like a log across the road4 ,but ,god forbid that such sincere practices should be raised into a principle4 ,to out with the truth at all times1 always to reveal oneself entirely1 besides being impossible to accomplish1 never having been accomplished even in the confessions of the greatest men1 is moreover a far more risky business than it seems4 ,i can confidently assert that if any man tried to tell the whole truth about himself1 not metaphorically1 for every metaphor is a covering ornament1 but in plain bare words1 that man would ruin himself for ever1 for he would lose all interest in the eyes of his neighbours1 and even in his own eyes4 ,each of us bears in his soul a heavy wound1 and knows it1 yet carries himself1 must carry himself as if he were aware of nothing1 while all around keep up the pretence4 ,remember ,lermontov3 ,look6 around you1 playfully ,the crowd moves on the usual road4 ,scarce a mark of trouble on the festive faces1 ,not one indecent tear6 ,and yet is barely one amongst them ,but is crushed by heavy torture1 ,or has gathered the wrinkles of young age ,save from crime or loss4 ,these words are horribly true--and the really horrible should be concealed1 it frightens one off4 ,i admit1 ,byron and ,lermontov could make it alluring4 ,but all that is alluring depends on vagueness1 remoteness4 ,any monster may be beautiful in the distance4 ,and no man can be interesting unless he keep a certain distance between himself and people4 ,women do not understand this4 ,if they like a man1 they try to come utterly near to him1 and are surprised that he does not meet their frankness with frankness1 and admit them to his holy of holies4 ,but in the innermost sanctuary the only beauty is inaccessibility4 ,as a rule it is not a sanctuary but a lair where the wounded beast in man has run to lick his wounds4 ,and shall this be done in public8 ,people generally1 and women particularly1 ought to be given something positive4 ,in books one may still sing the praise of wounds1 hopelessness1 and despair--whatever you like1 for books are still literature1 a conventionality4 ,but to strip one's anguish in the open market1 to confess an incurable disease to others1 this is to kill one's soul1 not to relieve it4 ,all1 even the best men1 have some aversion for you4 ,perhaps in the interest of order and decorum they will grant you a not-too-important place in their philosophy of life4 ,for in a philosophy of life1 as in a cemetery1 a place is prepared for each and all1 and everyone is welcome4 ,there also are enclosures where rubbish is dumped to rot4 ,but for those who have as yet no desire to be fitted into a world-philosophy1 ,i would advise them to keep their tongue between their teeth1 or like ,nietzsche and ,dostoevsky1 take to literature4 ,to a writer1 in books and only in books1 all is permitted provided he has talent4 ,but in actual living even a writer must not let loose too much1 lest people should guess that in his books he is telling the truth4 #cj ,poushkin asserts that the poet himself can and must be the judge of his own work4 ,are you content1 exacting artist8 ,content1 then let the mob revile4 ,it is needless to argue against this1 for how could you prove that the supreme verdict belongs not to the poet himself1 but to public opinion8 ,nor1 for that matter1 can we prove ,poushkin right4 ,we must agree or disagree1 as we like4 ,but we cannot reject the evidence4 ,whether you like it or not1 ,poushkin was evidently satisfied with his own work1 and did not need his reader's sanction4 ,happy man6 ,and it seems to me he owed his happiness exclusively to his inability to pass beyond certain limits4 ,i doubt-if all poets would agree to repeat ,poushkin's verse quoted above4 ,i decidedly refuse to believe that ,shakespeare1 for instance1 after finishing ,hamlet or ,king ,lear could have said to himself3 ,i1 who judge my work more strictly than any other can judge1 am satisfied4 ,i do not think he can even have thought for a moment of the merits of his works1 ,hamlet or ,king ,lear4 ,to ,shakespeare1 after ,hamlet1 the word satisfied must have lost all its meaning1 and if he used it1 it was only by force of habit1 as we sometimes call to a dead person4 ,his own works must have seemed to him imperfect1 mean1 pitiful1 like the sob of a child or the moaning of a sick man4 ,he gave them to the theatre1 and most probably was surprised that they had any success4 ,perhaps he was glad that his tears were of some use1 if only for amusing and instructing people4 ,and probably in this sense the verdict of the crowd was dearer to him than his own verdict4 ,he could not help accusing his own offspring--thank heaven1 other people acquitted it4 ,true1 they acquitted it because they did not understand1 or understood imperfectly1 but this did not matter4 ,use every man after his desert1 and who should 'scape a whipping8 asked ,hamlet4 ,shakespeare knew that a strict tribunal would reject his works3 for they contain so many terrible questions1 and not one perfect answer4 ,could anyone be satisfied at that rate8 ,perhaps with ,comedy of ,errors1 ,twelfth ,night1 or even ,richard ,,iii4--but after ,hamlet a man may find rest only in his grave4 ,to speak the whole truth1 ,i doubt if ,poushkin himself maintained the view we have quoted till the end of his days1 or even if he spoke all he felt when he wrote the poem in #ahcj4 ,possibly he felt how little a poet can be satisfied with his work1 but pride prevented his admitting it1 and he tried to console himself with his superiority over the crowd4 ,which is undeniably a right thing to do4 ,insults--and ,poushkin had to endure many--are answered with contempt2 and woe to the poor wretch who feels impelled to justify his contempt by his own merits1 according to the stern voice of conscience4 ,such niceness is dangerous and unnecessary4 ,if a man would preserve his strength and his confidence he must give up magnanimity1 he must learn to despise people1 and even if he cannot despise them he must have the air of one who would not give a pin's head for anybody4 ,he must appear always content4 444 ,poushkin was a clever man and a deep nature4 #ca ,metaphysics against their will4--,it often occurs to us that evil is not altogether so1 unnecessary1 after all4 ,diseases1 humiliations1 miseries1 deformity1 failure1 and all the rest of those plants which flourish with such truly tropical luxuriance on our planet1 are probably essential to man4 ,poets sing plentifully of sorrow4 ,nous sommes les apprentis1 la douleur est notre matre1 said de ,musset4 ,on this subject everybody can bring forth a quotation1 not only from the philosophers1 who are a cold1 heartless tribe1 but from tender1 gentle1 or sentimental poets4 ,doubtless one knows many instances where suffering has profited a man4 ,true also1 one knows many cases of the direct opposite4 ,and these are all cases of profound1 earnest1 outrageous1 incredibly outrageous suffering4 ,look at ,tchekhov's men and women--plainly drawn from life1 or at any rate1 exceedingly life-' like4 ,uncle ,vanya1 an old man of fifty1 cries beside himself all over the stage1 ,my life is done for1 my life is done for1 and senselessly shoots at a harmless professor4 ,the hero in ,a ,tedious ,story was a quiet1 happy man engaged in work of real importance1 when suddenly a horrible disease stole upon him1 not killing him1 but taking him between its loathsome jaws4 ,but what for8 ,then ,tchekhov's girls and women6 ,they are mostly young1 innocent1 fascinating4 ,and always there lies in wait for them round every corner a meaningless1 rude1 ugly misery which murders even the most modest hopes4 ,they sob bitterly1 but fate takes no notice4 ,how explain such horrors8 ,tchekhov is silent4 ,he does not weep himself--he left off long ago1 and besides it is a humiliating thing for a grown-up person to do4 ,setting one's teeth1 it is necessary either to keep silent or--to explain4 ,well1 metaphysics under takes the explanation4 ,where common sense stops1 metaphysics must take another stride4 ,we have seen1 it says1 many instances where at first glance suffering seemed absurd and needless1 but where later on a profound significance was revealed4 ,thus it may be that what we cannot explain may find its explanation in time4 ',life is lost1' cries ,uncle ,vanya1 ',life is done for1' repeat the voices of girls innocently perishing--yet nothing is lost4 ,the very horror which a drowning man experiences goes to show that the drowning is nothing final4 ,it is only the beginning of greater events4 ,the less a man has fulfilled in experience1 the more in him remains of unsatisfied passion and desire1 the greater are the grounds for thinking that his essence cannot be destroyed1 but must manifest itself somehow or other in the universe4 ,voluntary asceticism and self-denial1 such common human phenomena1 help to solve the riddle4 ,nobody compels a man1 he imposes suffering and abstinence on himself4 ,it is an incomprehensible instinct1 but still an instinct which1 rooted in the depths of our nature1 prompts us to a decision repugnant to reason3 renounce life1 save yourself4 ,the majority of men do not hear or do not heed the prompting4 ,and then nature1 which cannot rely on our sensibility1 has recourse to violence4 ,she shows glimpses of ,paradise to us in our youth1 awakens hopes and impossible desires1 and at the moment of our supreme expectation she shows us the hollowness of our hope4 ,nearly every life can be summed up in a few words3 man was shown heaven--and thrown into the mud4 ,we are all ascetics--voluntary or involuntary4 ,here on earth dreams and hopes are only awakened1 not fulfilled4 ,and he who has endured most suffering1 most privation1 will awaken in the afterwards most keenly alive4 ,such long speeches metaphysics whispers to us4 ,and we repeat them1 often leaving out the it may be4 ,sometimes we believe them1 and forge our philosophies from them4 ,even we go so far as to assert that had we the power we would change nothing1 absolutely nothing in the world4 ,and yet1 if by some miracle such power came into our hands1 how triumphantly we would send to the devil all philosophies and lofty world-conceptions1 all ideals and metaphysics1 and plainly and simply1 without reflection1 abolish sufferings1 deformities1 failures1 all those things to which we attach such a high educational value1 abolish them from the face of the earth4 ,we are fed up1 oh1 how fed up we are with carrying on our studies4 ,but it can't be helped4 ,faute de mieux1 let us keep on inventing systems1 thinking them out4 ,but let us agree not to be cross with those who don't want to have anything to do with our systems4 ,really1 they have a perfect right4 #cb ,old age must be respected--so all say1 even the old4 ,and the young willingly meet the demand4 ,but in such spontaneous1 even often emphatic respect1 is there not something insulting to old age4 ,every young man1 by his voluntary deference1 seems to say3 ,and still the rising star shines brighter than the setting4 ,and the old1 accepting the respect1 are well aware that they can count on nothing more4 ,the young are attentive and respectful to the old only upon the express condition that the latter shall behave like old people1 and stand aside from life4 ,let a real man try to follow ,faust's example1 and what a shindy there will be6 ,the old1 being as a rule helpless1 are compelled to bow to public opinion and behave as if their only interests were the interests of righteousness1 good name1 and such-like ,platonic attributes4 ,only a few go against the convention1 and these are monsters and degenerates4 ,we do not wish old men to have desires1 so that life is arranged as if old men desired nothing4 ,this1 of course1 is no great matter3 even the young are compelled to be satisfied with less than nothing1 in our system4 ,we are not out to meddle with human rights4 ,our point is that science and philosophy take enforced appearances for reality4 ,grey hair is supposed to be a sure sign of victory over the passions4 ,hence1 seeing that we must all come to grey hairs1 therefore the ultimate business of man is to overcome the passions4444 ,on this granite foundation whole systems of philosophy are built4 ,it is not worth while quarrelling with a custom--let us continue to pay respect to old age4 ,but let us look in other directions for philosophic bases4 ,it is time to open a free road to the passions even in the province of metaphysics4 #cc ,dostoevsky--advocatus diaboli4--,dostoevsky1 like ,nietzsche1 disliked ,protestantism1 and tried every means of degrading it in the eyes of the world4 ,as normally he was not over scrupulous1 it is probable he never took the trouble to acquaint himself with ,luther's teaching4 ,his flair did not deceive him3 the ,protestant religion and morality was most unsuitable to him and his kind4 ,but does this mean that it was to be calumniated1 and judged1 as ,dostoevsky judged it1 merely by the etymological meaning of a word8 ,protestant--a protester1 one who only protests and has no positive content4 ,a child's text-book of history will show the absurdity of the definition4 ,protestantism is1 on the whole1 the most positive1 assertive creed of all the ,christian religions4 ,it certainly protested against ,catholicism1 but against the destructive tendencies in the latter1 and in the name of positive ideals4 ,catholicism relied too much on its power and its spell1 and most of all on the infallibility of its dogmas to which it offered millions of victims4 ,to maim and mutilate a man ad majorem gloriam ,dei was considered a perfectly proper thing in the ,middle ,ages1 the period of bloom for ,catholicism4 ,at the risk of appearing paradoxical1 ,i venture to assert that ideas have been invented only for the purpose of giving the right to mutilate people4 ,the ,middle ,ages nourished a mysterious1 incomprehensible hatred for everything normal1 self-satisfied1 complete4 ,a young1 healthy1 handsome man1 at peace with himself1 aroused suspicion and hostility in a believing ,catholic4 ,his very appearance offended religion and confuted dogma4 ,it was not necessary to examine him4 ,even though he went to church1 and gave no sign of doubt1 either in deed or word1 yet he must be a heretic1 to be converted at all cost4 ,and we know the ,catholic cost3 privation1 asceticism1 mortification of the flesh4 ,the most normal person1 kept on a monastic regime1 will lose his spiritual balance1 and all those virtues which belong to a healthy spirit and a healthy body4 ,this was all ,catholicism needed4 ,it tried to obtain from people the extreme endeavour of their whole being4 ,ordinary1 natural love1 which found its satisfaction--this was sinful4 ,monks and priests were condemned to celibacy--hence monstrous and abnormal passions developed4 ,poverty was preached1 and the most unheard-of greed appeared in the world1 the more secret the stronger it became4 ,humility was essential--and out of bare-footed monks sprang despots who had no limits to their ambitions4 ,luther was the last man to understand the meaning and value of the tasks which ,catholicism had set itself4 ,what he saw in ,rome was not the accidental outcome of this or the other historical circumstance1 but a result of the age-long effort of generations that had striven to attribute to life as alarming and dangerous a nature as possible4 ,the sincere1 direct1 rustic ,german monk was too simple-minded to make out what was going on in ,rome4 ,he thought there existed one truth1 and that the essence of ,catholicism lay in what seemed to him an exemplary1 virtuous life4 ,he went direct to his aim8 ,what meaning can monasticism have8 ,why deprive a priest of family happiness8 ,how accept the licentiousness of the pope's capital8 ,the common sense of the normal ,german revolted against the absurdity of such a state of things--and ,luther neither could nor would see any good where common sense was utterly forgotten4 ,the violent oscillation of life resulting from the continuous quick passage from asceticism and blind faith to unbelief and freedom of the passions aroused a mystic horror in the honest monk and released the enormous powers in him necessary to start the great struggle4 ,how could he help protesting8 ,and who was the denier1 ,luther1 or the ,rome which passed on from the keeping of the ,divine ,word to the arbitrary ordaining of all the mysteries of life8 ,luther might have forgiven the monks had they confined themselves to sophistries4 ,but mediaeval monks had nothing in common with our philosophers4 ,they did not look for world-conceptions in books1 and logical tournaments amused them only moderately4 ,they threw themselves into the deeps of life1 they experimented on themselves and their neighbours4 ,they passed from mortification to licentious bacchanalia4 ,they feared nothing1 spared nothing4 ,in a word1 the ,rome against which ,luther arose had undertaken to build ,babylon again1 not with stones1 but with human souls4 ,luther1 horrified1 withdrew1 and with him half ,europe was withdrawn4 ,that is his positive merit4 ,and ,dostoevsky attacked ,lutheranism1 and pitied the old ,catholicism and the breathless heights to which its spiritual children had risen4 ,wholesome morality and its support is not enough for ,dostoevsky4 ,all this is not positive1 it is only protest4 ,whether ,i am believed or not1 ,i will repeat that ,vladimir ,soloviov1 who held that ,dostoevsky was a prophet1 is wrong1 and that ,n4 ,k4 ,mikhailovsky1 who calls him a cruel talent and a grubber after buried treasure1 is right4 ,dostoevsky grubs after buried treasure--no doubt about that4 ,and1 therefore1 it would be more becoming in the younger generation that still marches under the flag of pious idealism if1 instead of choosing him as a spiritual leader1 they avoided the old sorcerer1 in whom only those gifted with great shortsightedness or lack of experience in life could fail to see the dangerous man4 #cd ,it is boring and difficult to convince people1 and after all1 not necessary4 ,it would be much better if every individual kept his own opinions4 ,unfortunately1 it cannot be4 ,whether you like it or not1 you have to admit the law of gravitation4 ,some people find it necessary to admit the origin of man from the monkey4 ,in the empirical realm1 however humiliating it may be1 there are certain real1 binding1 universal truths against which no rebellion will avail4 ,with what pleasure would we declare to a representative of science that fire does not burn1 that rattlesnakes are not poisonous1 that a fall from a high tower is perfectly agreeable1 etc41 etc41 supposing he were obliged to prove to us the contrary4 ,unluckily the scientific person is free from the burden of proof3 nature proves1 and thoroughly4 ,if nature1 like metaphysics1 set out to compel us through syllogisms or sermons to believe in her1 how little she would get out of us4 ,she is much more sagacious4 ,morality and logic she has left to ,hegel and ,spinoza1 for herself she has taken a cudgel4 ,now then1 try to argue against this6 ,you will give in against your will4 ,the cleverest of all the metaphysicians1 ,catholic inquisitors1 imitated nature4 ,they rarely tried the word1 and trusted to the fire of faggots rather than of the heart4 ,had they only had more power1 it would not be possible to find two people in the whole world disbelieving in the infallibility of the ,pope4 ,metaphysical ideas1 dreamily expecting to conquer the world by reasoned exposition1 will never attain dominion4 ,if they are bent on success1 let them try more effective methods of convincing4 #ce ,evolution4--,in recent years we see more and more change in the philosophies of writers and even of non-literary people4 ,the old men are beside themselves--such shiftiness seems indecent4 ,after all1 convictions are not gloves4 ,but the young carelessly pass on from one idea to another4 ,irresolute men are somewhat timid1 and although they abandon their former convictions they do not declare the change openly4 ,others1 however1 plainly announce1 as if it were nothing1 how far they now are from the beliefs they held six months ago4 ,one even publishes whole volumes relating how he passed on from one philosophy to another1 and then to a third4 ,people see nothing alarming in that kind of evolution4 ,they believe it is in the ordering of things4 ,but not so at all6 ,the readiness to leave off one set of convictions in order to assume another set shows complete indifference to convictions altogether4 ,not for nothing do the old sound the alarm4 ,but to us who have fought so long against all kinds of constancy1 the levity of the young is a pleasant sight4 ,they will don materialism1 positivism1 ,kantianism1 spiritualism1 and so on1 one after the other1 till they realise that all theories1 ideas and ideals are as of little consequence as the hoop-skirts and crinolines of our grandmothers4 ,then they will begin to live without ideals and pre-arranged purposes1 without foresight1 relying on chance and their own ready wit4 ,this way1 too1 must be tried4 ,perhaps we shall do better by it4444 ,anyhow1 it will be more fun4 #cf ,strength of will4--,weakness and paralysis of the will1 a very dangerous disease in our times1 and in most other times1 consists not in the absolute loss of desire1 such as takes place in the very old1 but in the loss of the capacity to translate desire into deed4 ,a diseased will is often met in violently passionate men1 so that the proverb--,say ,i will not1 not ,i cannot--does not always hold good4 ,man often would1 but cannot4 ,and then the force of desire instead of moving to outward creation1 works inwardly4 ,this is justly considered the most dangerous effect of the weakening of the will4 ,for inward working is destructive working4 ,man does not only1 to put it scientifically1 fail to adapt nature to his needs1 but he loses his own power of adaptability to outward circumstances4 ,the most ordinary doctor1 or even anybody1 decides that he has before him a pathological case which must be treated with care4 ,the patient is of the same opinion1 whilst he still hopes4 ,but when the treatment has had no results1 the doctor draws back and speaks of the inadequacy of his science4 ,then what is the patient to retire upon8 ,it is disgusting to speak of an incurable disease4 ,so he begins to think1 think1 think--all the time about things of which nobody thinks4 ,he is gradually forgotten1 and gradually he forgets everything--but first of all1 that widespread truth which asserts that no judgments are valid save those that are accepted and universal4 ,not that he disputes the truth3 he forgets it1 and there is none to remind him4 ,to him all his judgments seem valid and important4 ,of course he cannot advance the principle3 let all men turn from the external world into themselves4 ,but why advance a principle at all8 ,one can simply say3 ,i am indifferent to the destinies of the external world4 ,i do not want to move mountains or turn rivers aside or rearrange the map of ,europe4 ,i don't even want to go to the tobacconist to buy cigarettes4 ,i don't want to do anything4 ,i want to think that my inaction is the most important thing on earth1 that any disease is better than health1 and so on and so on without end4 ,to what thought's will not a man abandoned by medicine and doctors sink down6 ,his judgments are not binding on us1 that is as clear as day4 ,but are they uninteresting8 ,and is that paralysis1 that weakness of will1 a disease only8 #cg ,death and metaphysics4--,a superficial observer knows that the best things in life are hard to attain4 ,some psychologists even consider that the chief beauty of the highest things consists in their unattainability4 ,this is surely not true--yet there is a grain in it4 ,the roads to good things are dangerous to travel4 ,is it because nature is so much poorer than we imagine1 so she must lock up her blessings1 or is there some greater meaning in it1 that we have not guessed8 ,for the fact is1 the more alluring an end we have in view1 the more risks and horrors we must undertake to get there4 ,may we not also make a contrary suggestion3 that behind every danger something good is hidden1 and that therefore danger serves as an indication1 a mark to guide us onwards1 not as a warning1 as we are taught to believe4 ,to decide this would be to decide that behind death1 the greatest of dangers1 must lie the most promising things4 ,it is as well not to speculate further4 ,we had best stop lest we quarrel even with metaphysics4 ,traditional metaphysics has always been able to illumine our temporal existence with the reflected beams of eternity4 ,let us follow the example4 ,let us make no attempt to know the absolute4 ,if you have discovered a comforting hypothesis1 even in the upper transcendental air1 drag it quickly to earth where labouring men forever await even an imaginary relief from their lot4 ,we must make use of everything1 even of death1 to serve the ends of this life of ours4 #ch ,the future4--,a clever1 reasonable boy1 accustomed to trust his common sense1 read in a book for children a description of a shipwreck which occurred just as the passengers were eating their sweets at dessert4 ,he was astonished to learn that everyone1 women and children as well1 who could give no assistance-whatever in saving the ship1 left their dessert and rushed on deck with wailing and tears4 ,why wail1 why rush about1 why be stupidly agitated8 ,the crew knew their business and would do all that could be done4 ,if you are going to perish1 perish you will1 no matter how you scream4 ,it seemed to the boy that if he had been on the ship he would just have gone on eating his sweets to the last moment4 ,justice should be done to this judicious and irreproachable opinion4 ,there remained only a few minutes to live--would it not have been better to enjoy them8 ,the logic is perfect1 worthy of ,aristotle4 ,and it was found impossible to prove to the boy that he would have left his sweets1 even his favourite sweets1 under the same circumstances1 and rushed1 and screamed with the rest4 ,hence a moral--do not decide about the future4 ,to-day common sense is uppermost1 and sweets are your highest law4 ,but to-morrow you will get rid of normality and sense1 you will link on with nonsense and absurdity1 and probably you will even get a taste for bitters4 ,what do you think8 #ci ,a priori synthetic judgments4--,kant1 as we know1 found in mathematics and the natural sciences a priori synthetic judgments4 ,was he right or wrong8 ,are the judgments he indicated a priori or a posteriori8 ,anyhow1 one thing is certain3 they are not accepted as absolutely1 but only as relatively indisputable4 ,in metaphysics1 where the only curious and important truths are hidden1 the case is different4 ,kant was compelled to admit that just where metaphysics begin the capacity of our human reason to judge a priori ends4 ,but since we cannot dispense with metaphysical judgments1 he proposed to substitute for them postulates4 ,at the same time he admitted the optimistic presupposition that in the domain of the transcendental we shall find all that we miss in the world of phenomena4 ,so that1 because he could not invent a truly scientific metaphysics1 he contrived to present us with a non-scientific sort4 ,which is to say1 after many round-about journeys he brings his readers along the opposite way right back to the very spot from which he led them off4 ,surely non-scientific metaphysics existed before ,kant3 the mediaeval philosophers had plenty of phantasies and speculations1 all supported by moral proofs4 ,if ,kant wanted to reform metaphysics1 he should have got rid of its favourite method of obtaining truths through inferential conclusions4 ,men are greedy1 they want to learn much1 and get their knowledge cheap4 ,so they think that every truth they have paid for with experience and loss of energy entitles them to a few more truths gratis3 or1 in philosophic language1 a priori1 by deduction4 ,they are not ashamed to speculate with a gift that has been given them4 ,instead of looking1 listening1 touching1 seeking1 they want to infer and conclude4 ,certainly if they could wring any secret out of nature1 no matter by what means1 cunning1 impudence1 fraud1 we would forgive them--conquerors are not judged4 ,but nothing comes of their conclusions save metaphysical systems and empty prattle4 ,it is surely time to give up conclusions1 and get truth a posteriori1 as did ,shakspeare1 ,goethe1 ,dostoevsky2 that is1 every time you want to know anything1 go and look and find out4 ,and if one is lazy1 or horrified at a new experiment1 let him train himself to look on ultimate questions with indifference1 as the positivists do4 ,but moral1 ontological and such like arguments6--really1 it is disgusting to talk about them4 ,every new experiment is interesting2 but our conclusions1 i4e41 synthetic judgments a priori1 are mostly pompous lies1 not worth the scrap of paper on which they are recorded4 #dj ,general rules4--,people go to philosophers for general principles4 ,and since philosophers are human1 they are kept busy supplying the market with general principles4 ,but what sense is there in them8 ,none at all4 ,nature demands individual creative activity from us4 ,men won't understand this1 so they wait forever for the ultimate truths from philosophy1 which they will never get4 ,why should not every grown-up person be a creator1 live in his own way at his own risk and have his own experience8 ,children and raw youths must go in leading strings4 ,but adult people who want to feel the reins should be despised4 ,they are cowards1 and slothful3 afraid to try1 they eternally go to the wise for advice4 ,and the wise do not hesitate to take the responsibility for the lives of others4 ,they invent general rules1 as if they had access to the sources of knowledge4 ,what foolery6 ,the wise are no wiser than the stupid--they have only more conceit and effrontery4 ,every intelligent man laughs in his soul at bookish views4 ,and are not books the work of the wise8 ,they are often extremely interesting--but only in so far as they do not contain general rules4 ,woe to him1 who would build up his life according to ,hegel1 ,schopenhauer1 ,tolstoy1 ,schiller1 or ,dostoevsky4 ,he must read them1 but he must have sense1 a mind of his own to live with4 ,those who have tried to live according to theories from books have found this out4 ,at the best1 their efforts produced banality4 ,there is no alternative4 ,whether man likes or not he will at last have to realise that cliches are worthless1 and that he must live from himself4 ,there are no all-binding1 universal judgments--let us manage with non-binding1 non-universal ones4 ,only professors will suffer for it4444 #da ,metaphysical consolations4--,metaphysics mercilessly persecutes all eudaemonistic doctrines1 seeing in them a sort of laesio majestatis of human dignity4 ,our dignity forbids us to place human happiness in the highest goal4 ,suppose it is so8 ,but why then invent consolations1 even metaphysical ones8 ,why give to such a pure ideal concept as metaphysics such a coarse sensual partner as consolation8--sensual in the ,kantian meaning of the word4 ,metaphysics had much better associate herself with proud disconsolation4 ,consolation brings calm and ease1 even quiet gratification to the soul4 ,but surely1 if metaphysics condescend to accept any assistance whatever1 she must scorn all earthly gratifications1 leave them to wingless positivism and materialism4 ,what are joys and pains to metaphysics8--she is one thing1 they another4 ,yet all of a sudden metaphysicians begin to shout about consolations4 ,evidently there is a misunderstanding here1 and a big one4 ,the more you pierce to the ultimate ends of the infinite metaphysical problems1 the more finite they reveal themselves4 ,metaphysicians only look out for some new boon--,i nearly said pleasure4 ,voltaire said that if there was no ,god1 then ,he should be invented4 ,we explain these words by the great ,frenchman's extreme positivism4 ,but the form only is positive1 the content is purely metaphysical4 ,all that a metaphysician wants to do is to convince himself that ,god exists4 ,no matter whether he is mistaken or not1 he has found a consolation4 ,it is impossible for him to see that his belief in a certain fact does not make that fact veritable4 ,the whole question is whether there does exist a supreme1 conscious ,first ,cause1 or whether we are slaves to the laws of dead necessity4 ,but what does the metaphysician care about this real question6 ,having declared himself the avowed enemy of eudaemonism1 he next seeks consolation1 nothing but consolation4 ,to doubt his right to be consoled drives him to fury and madness4 ,he is prepared to support his convictions by every means--ranging from righteous indignation to fists4 ,it is obviously futile to try to enlighten such a creature4 ,once a man cares nothing for ,god1 and seeks only to make the best of his life1 you will not tear away his attention from the immediate moment4 ,but perhaps there is a ,god1 and neither ,voltaire nor the metaphysicians have any need to invent ,him4 ,the metaphysicians never saw that an avowed disbelief in ,god does not prove the non-existence of ,god1 but just the opposite2 it is a surer sign of faith than ever belief is4 ,unfortunate metaphysicians6 ,they might have found their greatest consolation here1 and fists and moral indignation and other forms of chastisement to which they have been driven might have been spared us4 #db ,practical advice4--,people who read much must always keep it in mind that life is one thing1 literature another4 ,not that authors invariably lie4 ,i declare that there are writers who rarely and most reluctantly lie4 ,but one must know how to read1 and that isn't easy4 ,out of a hundred book-readers ninety-nine have no idea what they are reading about4 ,it is a common belief1 for example1 that any writer who sings of suffering must be ready at all times to open his arms to the weary and heavy-laden4 ,this is what his readers feel when they read his books4 ,then when they approach him with their woes1 and find that he runs away without looking back at them1 they are filled with indignation and talk of the discrepancy between word and deed4 ,whereas the fact is1 the singer has more than enough woes of his own1 and he sings them because he can't get rid of them4 ,l'uccello canto1 nella gabbia1 non di gioia ma di rabbia1 says the ,italian proverb3 ,the bird sings in the cage1 not from joy but from rage4 ,it is impossible to love sufferers1 particularly hopeless sufferers1 and whoever says otherwise is a deliberate liar4 ,come unto ,me all ye that labour and are heavy laden1 and ,i will give you rest4 ,but you remember what the ,jews said about ,him3 ,he speaks as one having authority6 ,and if ,jesus had been unable1 or had not possessed the right1 to answer this sceptical taunt1 ,he would have had to renounce ,his words4 ,we common mortals have neither divine powers nor divine rights1 we can only love our neighbours whilst they still have hope1 and any pretence of going beyond this is empty swagger4 ,ask him who sings of suffering for nothing but his songs4 ,rather think of alleviating his burden than of requiring alleviation from him4 ,surely not for ever should we ask any poet to sob and look upon tears4 ,i will end with another ,italian saying3 ,non e un si triste cane che non meni la coda4 444 ,no dog so wretched but he wags his tail sometimes4 #dc ,if a patient fulfils all the orders of a sensible doctor1 we say he behaves wisely4 ,if he wantonly neglects his treatment1 we say he acts stupidly4 ,if a healthy person wished to inoculate himself with some dangerous disease--say phthisis--we should say he was mad1 and forcibly restrain him4 ,to such an extent are we convinced that disease is evil1 health good4 ,well--on what is our conviction based8 ,at a glance the question seems absurd4 ,but then at a glance people would absolutely refuse to doubt the fixity of the earth1 at a glance an ordinary person would giggle if he was shown the problem of the relation between the real world and the ideal4 ,who knows what would seem amenable to discussion to the ordinary person8 ,the philosopher has no right to appeal to the ordinary person4 ,the philosopher must doubt and doubt and doubt1 and question when nobody questions1 and risk making a laughing-stock of himself4 ,if common sense were enough to settle all problems1 we should have known everything long age4 ,so that--why do we value health more than sickness8 ,or even further--which is better1 health or sickness4 ,if we will drop the utilitarian point of view--and all are agreed that this has no place in philosophy--then we shall see at once that we have no grounds whatever for preferring health and sickness4 ,we have invented neither the one nor the other4 ,we found them both in the world along with us4 ,why then do we1 who know so little about it1 take upon ourselves to judge which are nature's successes1 which her failures8 ,health is agreeable--sickness disagreeable4 ,but this consideration is unworthy of a philosopher3 otherwise why be a philosopher1 why distinguish oneself from the herd8 ,the philosopher invented morality1 which has at its disposal various pure ideas that have no relation to empirical life4 ,then let us go further4 ,reason should have a supply of pure ideas also4 ,let ,reason judge in her own independent way1 without conforming to conventional ideas4 ,when she has no other resort1 let her proceed by the method of negation3 everything that common sense asserts1 ,i1 ,reason1 declare to be false4 ,so--common sense ,says sickness is bad1 reason therefore asserts that sickness is the highest boon4 ,such ,reason we should call autonomous1 law-unto-itself4 ,like a real monarch1 it is guided only by its own will4 ,let all considerations point in favour of health1 ,reason must remain inexorable and keep her stand till we are all brought to obedience4 ,she must praise suffering1 deformity1 failure1 hopelessness4 ,at every step she must fight common-sense and utilitarianism1 until mankind is brought under4 ,is she afraid of rebellion8 ,must she in the last issue1 like morality1 adapt herself to the inclinations of the mob8 #dd ,experience and ,science4--,as we are well aware1 science does not1 nay cannot1 admit experience in all its extent4 ,she throws overboard an enormous quantity of individual facts1 regarding them as the ballast of our human vessel4 ,she takes note only of such phenomena as alternate constantly and with a certain regularity4 ,best of all she likes those phenomena which can be artificially provoked1 when1 so to speak1 experiment is possible4 ,she explains the rotation of the earth and succession of the seasons since a regular recurrence is observable1 and she demonstrates thunder and lightning with a spark from an electric machine4 ,in a word1 in so far as a regular alternation of phenomena is observable1 so far extends the realm of science4 ,but what about those individual phenomena which do not recur1 and which cannot be artificially provoked8 ,if all men were blind1 and one for a moment recovered his sight and opened his eyes on ,god's world1 science would reject his evidence4 ,yet the evidence of one seeing man is worth that of a million blind4 ,sudden enlightenments are possible in our life--even if they endure only for a few seconds4 ,must they be passed over in silence because they are not normal and cannot be provoked8--or treated poetically1 as beautiful fictions8 ,science insists on it4 ,she declares that no judgments are true except such as can be verified by all and everyone4 ,she exceeds her bounds4 ,experience is wider than scientific experiment1 and individual phenomena mean much more to us than the constantly recurrent4 ,science is useful--but she need not pretend to truth4 ,she cannot know what truth is1 she can only accumulate universal laws4 ,whereas there are1 and always have been1 non-scientific ways of searching for truth1 ways which lead1 if not to the innermost secrets1 yet to the threshold4 ,these roads1 however1 we have let fall into ruin whilst we followed our modern methodologies1 so now we dare not even think of them4 ,what gives us the right to assert that astrologers1 alchemists1 diviners1 and sorcerers who passed the long nights alone with their thoughts1 wasted their time in vain8 ,as for the philosopher's stone1 that was merely a plausible excuse invented to satisfy the uninitiated4 ,could an alchemist dare to confess openly that all his efforts were towards no useful or utilitarian end8 ,he had to guard against importunate curiosity and impertinent authority in outsiders4 ,so he lied1 now frightening1 now alluring the mob through its cupidity4 ,but certainly he had his own important work to do3 and it had only one fault1 that it was purely personal to him4 ,and about personal matters it is considered correct to keep silent4444 ,astonishing fact6 ,as a rule a man hesitates over trifles4 ,but it does sometimes occur that a moment arrives when he is filled with unheard-of courage and resolution in his judgments4 ,he is ready to stand up for his opinions against all the world1 dead or living4 ,whence such sudden surety1 what does it mean8 ,rationally we can discover no foundation for it4 ,if a lover has got into his head that his beloved is the fairest woman on earth1 worth the whole of life to him2 if one who has been insulted feels that his offender is the basest wretch1 deserving torture and death2 if a would-be ,columbus persuades himself that ,america is the only goal for his ambition--who will convince such men that their opinions1 shared by none but themselves1 are false or unjustifiable8 ,and for whose sake will they renounce their tenets8 ,for the sake of objective truth8 that is1 for the pleasure of the assurance that all men after them will repeat their judgment for truth8 ,they don't care4 ,let ,don ,quixote run broadcast with drawn sword1 proving the beauty of ,dulcinea or the impending horror of windmills4 ,as a matter of fact1 he and the ,german philosophers with him have a vague idea1 a kind of presentiment1 that their giants are but mill-sails1 and that their ideal on the whole is but a common girl driving swine to pasture4 ,to defy such deadly doubt they take to the sword or to argument1 and do not rest until they have succeeded in stopping the mouth of everybody4 ,when from all lips they hear the praise of ,dulcinea they say3 yes1 she is beautiful1 and she never drove pigs4 ,when the world beholds their windmilling exploits with amazement they are filled with triumph2 sheep are not sheep1 mills are not mills1 as you might imagine2 they are knights and cyclops4 ,this is called a proven1 all-binding1 universal truth4 ,the support of the mob is a necessary condition of the existence of modern philosophy and its knights of the woful countenance4 ,scientific philosophy wearies for a new ,cervantes who will put a stop to its paving the way to truth by dint of argument4 ,all opinions have a right to exist1 and if we speak of privilege1 then preference should be given to such as are most run down to-day2 namely1 to such opinions as cannot be verified and which are1 for that self-same reason1 universal4 ,once1 long ago man invented speech in order to express his real relation to the universe4 ,so he may be heard1 even though the relation he wishes to express be unique1 not to verified by any other individual4 ,to attempt to verify it by observations and experiments is strictly forbidden4 ,if the habit of objective verification has destroyed your native receptivity to such an extent that your eyes and ears are gone1 and you must rely only on the evidence of instruments or objects not subject to your will1 then1 of course1 nothing is left you but to stick to the belief that science is perfect knowledge4 ,but if your eyes live and your ear is sensitive--throw away instruments and apparatuses1 forget methodology and scientific ,don-,quixotism1 and try to trust yourself4 ,what harm is there in not having universal judgments or truths8 ,how will it hurt you to see sheep as sheep8 ,it is a step forward4 ,you will learn not to see with everybody's eyes1 but to see as none other sees4 ,you will learn not to meditate1 but to conjure up and call forth with words alien to all but yourself an unknown beauty and an unheard-of power4 ,not for nothing1 ,i repeat1 did astrologers and alchemists scorn the experimental method--which1 by the way1 far from being anything new or particularly modern1 is as old as the hills4 ,animals experiment1 though they do not compose treatises on inductive logic or pride themselves on their reasoning powers4 ,a cow who has burnt her mouth in her trough will come up cautiously next time to feed4 ,every experimenter is the same--only he systematises4 ,but animals can often trust to instinct when experience is lacking4 ,and have we humans got sufficient experience8 ,can experience give us what we want most8 ,if so1 let science and craftsmanship serve our everyday need1 let even philosophy1 also eager to serve1 go on finding universal truths4 ,but beyond craft1 science1 and philosophy there is another region of knowledge4 ,through all the ages men1 each one at his own risk1 have sought to penetrate into this region4 ,shall we1 men of the twentieth century1 voluntarily renounce our supreme powers and rights1 and because public opinion demands it1 occupy ourselves exclusively with discovering useful information8 ,or1 in order not to appear mean or poverty-stricken in our own eyes1 shall we accept in place of the philosopher's stone our modern metaphysics1 which muffles her dread of actuality in postulates1 absolutes1 and such-like apparently transcendental paraphernalia8 #de ,the ,russian ,spirit4--,it will easily be admitted that the distinguishing qualities of ,russian literature1 and of ,russian art in general1 are simplicity1 truthfulness1 and complete lack of rhetorical ornament4 ,whether it be to our credit or to our discredit is not for me to judge1 but one thing seems certain3 that our simplicity and truthfulness are due to our relatively scanty culture4 ,whilst ,european thinkers have for centuries been beating their brains over insoluble problems1 we have only just begun to try our powers4 ,we have no failures behind us4 ,the fathers of the profoundest ,russian writers were either landowners1 dividing their time between extravagant amusement and ,state service1 or peasants whose drudgery left them no time for idle curiosity4 ,such being the case1 how can we know whether human knowledge has any limits8 ,and if we don't know1 it seems to us it is only because we haven't tried to find out4 ,other people's experience is not ours4 ,we are not bound by their conclusions4 ,indeed1 what do we know of the experience of others1 save what we gather1 very vaguely and fragmentarily and unreliably1 from books8 ,it is natural for us to believe the best1 till the contrary is proved to us4 ,any attempt to deprive us of our belief meets with the most energetic resistance4 ,the most sceptical ,russian hides a hope at the bottom of his soul4 ,hence our fearlessness of the truth1 realistic truth which so stunned ,european critics4 ,realism was invented in the ,west1 established there as a theory4 ,but in the ,west1 to counteract it1 were invented numberless other palliating theories whose business it was to soften down the disconsolate conclusions of ,realism4 ,there in ,europe they have the l'tre suprme1 the deus sive natura1 ,hegel's absolute1 ,kant's postulates1 ,english utilitarianism1 progress1 humanitarianism1 hundreds of philosophic and sociological theories in which even extreme realists can so cleverly dish up what they call life1 that life1 or realism1 ceases to be life or reality altogether4 ,the ,westerner is self-reliant4 ,he knows that if he doesn't help himself nobody will help him4 ,so he directs all his thoughts to making the best of his opportunities4 ,a limited time is granted him4 ,if he can't get to the end of his song within the time-limit1 the song must remain unsung4 ,fate will not give him one minute's grace for the unbeaten bars4 ,therefore as an experienced musician he adapts himself superbly4 ,not a second is wasted4 ,the tempo must not drag for an instant1 or he is lost4 ,the tempo is everything1 and it exacts facility and quickness of movement4 ,during a few short beats the artist must produce many notes1 and produce them so as to leave the impression that he was not hurried1 that he had all the time in the world at his disposal4 ,moreover1 each note must be complete1 accomplished1 have its fulness and its value4 ,native talent alone will not suffice for this4 ,experience is necessary1 tradition1 training1 and inherited instinct4 ,carpe diem--the ,european has been living up to the motto for two thousand years4 ,but if we ,russians are convinced of anything1 it is that we have time enough and to spare4 ,to count days1 much less hours and minutes--find me the ,russian who could demean himself to such a bourgeois occupation4 ,we look round1 we stretch ourselves1 we rub our eyes1 we want first of all to decide what we shall do1 and how we shall do it1 before we can begin to live in earnest4 ,we don't choose to decide anyhow1 nor at second-hand1 from fragments of other people's information4 ,it must be from our own experience1 with our own brains1 that we judge4 ,we admit no traditions4 ,in no literature has there been such a-determined struggle with tradition as in ours4 ,we have wanted to re-examine everything1 re-state everything4 ,i won't deny that our courage is drawn from our quite uncultured confidence in our own powers4 ,byelinsky1 a half-baked undergraduate1 deriving his knowledge of ,european philosophy at third hand1 began a quarrel with the universe over the long-forgotten victims of ,philip ,,ii4 and the ,inquisition4 ,in that quarrel is the sense and essence of all creative ,russian literature4 ,dostoevsky1 towards his end1 raised the same storm and the same question over the little tear of an unfortunate child4 ,a ,russian believes he can do anything1 hence he is afraid of nothing4 ,he paints life in the gloomiest colours--and were you to ask him3 ,how can you accept such a life8 how can you reconcile yourself with such horrors of reality as have been described by all your writers1 from ,poushkin to ,tchekhov8 he would answer in the words of ,dmitri ,karamazov3 ,i do not accept life4 ,this answer seems at first sight absurd4 ,since life is here1 impossible not to accept it4 ,but there is a sub-meaning in the reply1 a lingering belief in the possibility of a final triumph over evil4 ,in the strength of this belief the ,russian goes forth to meet his enemy--he does not hide from him4 ,our sectarians immolate themselves4 ,tolstoyans and votaries of the various sects that crop up so plentifully in ,russia go in among the people1 they go1 ,god knows to what lengths1 destroying their own lives and the lives of others4 ,writers do not lag behind sectarians4 ,they1 too1 refuse to be prudent1 to count the cost or the hours4 ,minutes1 seconds1 time-beats1 all this is so insignificant as to be invisible to the naked eye4 ,we wish to draw with a generous hand from fathomless eternity1 and all that is limited we leave to ,european bourgeoisie4 ,with few exceptions ,russian writers really despise the pettiness of the ,west4 ,even those who have admired ,europe most have done so because they failed most completely to understand her4 ,they did not want to understand her4 ,that is why we have always taken over ,european ideas in such fantastic forms4 ,take the sixties for example4 ,with its loud ideas of sobriety and modest outlook1 it was a most drunken period4 ,those who awaited the ,new ,messiah and the ,second ,advent read ,darwin and dissected frogs4 ,it is the same to-day4 ,we allow ourselves the greatest luxury that man can dream of--sincerity1 truthfulness--as if we were spiritual ,croesuses1 as if we had plenty of everything1 could afford to let everything be seen1 ashamed of nothing4 ,but even ,croesuses1 the greatest sovereigns of the world1 did not consider they had the right to tell the truth at all times4 ,even kings have to pretend--think of diplomacy4 ,whereas1 we think we may speak the truth1 and the truth only1 that any lie which obscures our true substance is a crime2 since our true substance is the world's finest treasure1 its finest reality4444 ,tell this to a ,european1 and it will seem a joke to him1 even if he can grasp it at all4 ,a ,european uses all his powers of intellect and talent1 all his knowledge and his art for the purpose of concealing his real self and all that really affects him3--for that the natural is ugly and repulsive1 no one in ,europe will dispute for a moment4 ,not only the fine arts1 but science and philosophy in ,europe tell lies instinctively1 by lying they justify their existence4 ,first and last1 a ,european student presents you with a finished theory4 ,well1 and what does all the finish and the completeness signify8 ,it merely means that none of our western neighbours will end his speech before the last reassuring word is said2 he will never let nature have the last word2 so he rounds off his synthesis4 ,with him1 ornament and rhetoric is a sine qua non of creative utterance1 the only remedy against all ills4 ,in philosophy reigns theodicy1 in science1 the law of sequence4 ,even ,kant could not avoid declamation1 even with him the last word is moral necessity4 ,thus there lies before us the choice between the artistic and accomplished lie of old1 cultured ,europe1 a lie which is the outcome of a thousand years of hard and bitter effort1 and the artless1 sincere simplicity of young1 uncultured ,russia4 ,they are nearer the end1 we are nearer the beginning4 ,and which is nearer the truth8 ,and can there be a question of voluntary1 free choice8 ,probably neither the old age of ,europe nor the youth of ,russia can give us the truth we seek4 ,but does such a thing as ultimate truth exist8 ,is not the very conception of truth1 the very assumption of the possibility of truth1 merely an outcome of our limited experience1 a fruit of limitation8 ,we decide a priori that one thing must be possible1 another impossible1 and from our arbitrary assumptions we proceed to deduce the body of truth4 ,each one judges in his own way1 according to his powers and the conditions of his existence4 ,the timid1 scared man worries after order1 that will give him a day of peace and quiet1 youth dreams of beauty and brilliance1 old age doesn't want to think of anything1 having lost the faculty for hope4 ,and so it goes on1 ad infinitum4 ,and this is called truth1 truths6 ,every man thinks that his own experience covers the whole range of life4 ,and1 therefore1 the only men who turn out to be at all in the right are empiricists and positivists4 ,there can be no question of truth once we tear ourselves away from the actual conditions of life4 ,our confident truthfulness1 like ,european rhetoric1 turns out to be beyond truth and falsehood4 ,the young ,east and the old ,west alike suffer from the restrictions imposed by truth--but the former ignores the restrictions1 whilst the latter adapts itself to them4 ,after all1 it comes to pretty much the same in the end4 ,is not clever rhetoric as delightful as truthfulness8 ,each is equally life4 ,only we find unendurable a rhetoric which poses as truth1 and a truthfulness which would appear cultured4 ,such a masquerade would try to make us believe that truth1 which is only limitedness1 has a real objective existence4 ,which is offensive4 ,until the contrary is proved1 we need to think that only one assertion has or can have any objective reality3 that nothing on earth is impossible4 ,every time somebody wants to force us to admit that there are other1 more limited and limiting truths1 we must resist with every means we can lay hands on4 ,we do not hesitate even to make use of morality and logic1 both of which we have abused so often4 ,but why not use them6 ,when a man is at his last resources1 he does not care what weapons he picks up4 #df ,nur fr ,schwindelfreie4--,to be proper1 ,i ought to finish with a moral4 ,i ought to say to the reader that in spite of all ,i have said1 or perhaps because of all ,i have said--for in conclusions1 as you are aware1 in spite of is always interchangeable with because of1 particularly if the conclusion be drawn from many scattered data--well then1 because of all ,i have said1 hope is not lost4 ,every destruction leads to construction1 sweet rest follows labour1 dawn follows the darkest hour1 and so on and so on and so on--all the banalities with which a writer reconciles his reader4 ,but it is never too late for reconciliation1 and it is often too early4 ,so why not postpone the moral for a few years--even a few dozen years1 ,god granting us the length of life8 ,why make the inevitable conclusion at the end of every book8 ,i am almost certain that sooner or later ,i can promise the reader all his heart desires4 ,but not yet4 ,he may1 of course1 dispense with my consolations4 ,what do promises matter1 anyhow8 especially when neither reader nor writer can fulfil them4 ,but if there is no escape1 if a writer is finally obliged to admit in everybody's hearing that the secret desires of poor mankind may yet be realised1 let us at least give the wretched writer a respite1 let him postpone his confession till old age--usque ad infinitum1444 ,meanwhile our motto ,nur fr ,schwindelfreie4 ,there are in the ,alps narrow1 precipitous paths where only mountaineers may go1 who feel no giddiness4 ,giddy-free6 ,only for the giddy-free1 it says on the notice-board4 ,he who is subject to giddiness takes a broad1 safe road1 or sits away below and admires the snowy summits4 ,is it inevitably necessary to mount up8 ,beyond the snow-line are no fat pastures nor goldfields4 ,they say that up there is to be found the clue to the eternal mystery--but they say so many things4 ,we can't believe everything4 ,he who is tired of the valleys1 loves climbing1 and is not afraid to look down a precipice1 and1 most of all1 has nothing left in life but the metaphysical craving1 he will certainly climb to the summits without asking what awaits him there4 ,he does not fear1 he longs for giddiness4 ,but he will hardly call people after him3 he doesn't want just anybody for a companion4 ,in such a case companions are not wanted at all1 much less those tender-footed ones who are used to every convenience1 roads1 street lamps1 guide-posts1 careful maps which mark every change in the road ahead4 ,they will not help1 only hinder4 ,they will prove superfluous1 heavy ballast1 which may not be thrown overboard4 ,fuss over them1 console them1 promise them6 ,who would be bothered8 ,is it not better to go one's way alone1 and not only to refrain from enticing others to follow1 but frighten them off as much as possible1 exaggerate every danger and difficulty8 ,in order that conscience may not prick too hard--we who love high altitudes love a quiet conscience--let us find a justification for their inactivity4 ,let us tell them they are the best1 the worthiest of people1 really the salt of the earth4 ,let us pay them every possible mark of respect4 ,but since they are subject to giddiness1 they had better stay down4 ,the upper ,alpine ways1 as any guide will tell you1 are nur fr ,schwindelfreie4