,,essays ,,and ,,soliloquies ,,borzoi ,,translations ,,spring #aibe ,,from ,,the ,,spanish ,,figures ,,of ,,the ,,passion ,,of ,,our ,,lord ,,by ,,gabriel ,,miro ,translated by ,c4 ,j4 ,hogarth ,,from ,,the ,,french ,,the ,,modern ,,english ,,novel ,,by ,,abel ,,chevalley ,translated by ,ben ,ray ,redman ,,from ,,the ,,german ,,death ,,in ,,venice ,,by ,,thomas ,,mann ,translated by ,kenneth ,burke ,,from ,,the ,,russian ,,the ,,clock ,,by ,,aleksei ,,remizov ,translated by ,john ,cournos ,,tales ,,of ,,the ,,wilderness ,,by ,,boris ,,pilniak ,translated by ,f4 ,o',dempsey ,,from ,,the ,,norwegian ,,segelfoss ,,town ,,by ,,knut ,,hamsun ,translated by ,j4 ,s4 ,scott ,,from ,,the ,,polish ,,the ,,peasants ,,by ,,ladislas ,,reymont ,translated by ,michael ,h4 ,dziewicki ,illustration ,,miguel ,,de ,,unamuno ,,essays ,,and ,,soliloquies ,,translated ,,from ,,the ,,spanish ,,with ,,an ,,introductory ,,essay ,,by ,j4 ,e4 ,,crawford ,,flitch ,illustration ,,new ,,york ,,alfred ,a ,,knopf #aibe ,,copyright1 #aibd1 ,,by ,,alfred ,a4 ,,knopf1 ,,inc4 ,,set ,,up1 ,,electrotyped1 ,,printed ,,and ,,bound ,,by ,,the ,,vail-,,ballou ,,press1 ,,binghamton1 ,n4 ,y4 ,,esparto ,,paper ,,manufactured ,,in ,,scotland ,,and ,,furnished ,,by ,w4,f4 ,,etherington ,,co41 ,,new ,,york4 ,,manufactured ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,erratum ,the two paragraphs on pages #ajj-aja beginning3 ,in 8,the ,tragic ,sense of ,life0 ,unamuno says and3 ,readers of ,don ,quixote will recall are a continuation of the footnote on page #ii4 ,,author',s ,,preface ,i am writing these lines1 to-day the #fth of ,june1 #aibd1 in this island of ,fuerteventura1 an island that is propitious to calm thinking and to a laying bare of the soul1 even as this parched land is bare1 bare even to the bone4 ,here ,i have been confined now for nearly three months1 no reason for my confinement having been given other than the arbitrary mandate of the military power that is de-civilizing and debasing my native country4 ,hither came my friend ,mr4 ,j4 ,e4 ,crawford ,flitch to bear me company4 ,he was entrusted by ,mr4 ,alfred ,a4 ,knopf with the task of making an anthology or florilegium of my shorter articles and extracts from my more extensive writings which should present a conspectus of my whole literary work4 ,it is he1 my friend and translator1 who is responsible for the selection of the pieces which form this anthology4 ,i am in principle an enemy of all such selections or anthologies of an author's works1 and the more so when the author's influence is due primarily not so much to his ideas as to the passionate tone and gesture with which he expresses them1 to his style4 ,this work of selection appears to me to be as difficult as would be that of abridging a sonata or a picture4 ,and what appears to me almost impossible is that the author himself should make the selection4 ,it is not possible for us to see ourselves from the outside1 to become part of our public4 ,in any case1 a work like this is a kind of index or catalogue1 and its chief utility is to incite in the public a desire to get to know the author better4 ,it is1 to put it bluntly1 in the nature of an advertisement4 ,collections of selected writings are most valuable when the chief importance of an author lies in his ideology1 which may or may not be welded into a system2 they are less valuable when he is distinguished not so much by his ideas as by the warm images which incarnate them4 ,it is relatively easy to give a summary of an author when we are asked3 8,what does he say80 but not so easy when the question to be answered is3 8,how does he say it80 ,that is to say1 it is possible to abridge a philosophic system1 but not a poem4 ,in the poem1 that which we call the argument is the most external element of its form1 and its essence1 the essence of the poem1 is the rhythm1 the aroma of the words1 the style4 ,rhythm may give birth to argument or subject1 but subject does not always give birth to rhythm4 ,in selecting these pieces--torsos1 arms and heads of statuary--my friend the translator has been guided by an artistic rather than by a philosophical or ideological criterion1 and for this ,i am grateful to him4 ,and when ,i say that ,i am grateful to him1 ,i mean that in this way he has best served the public that seeks to know me--me1 the man1 and not a system1 for ,i have no system4 ,like ,walt ,whitman ,i would say of each one of my works3 8,this is not a book1 it is a man40 ,it is comparatively easy1 for example1 to synthetize the philosophical system of ,descartes1 or that of ,kant1 or that of ,hegel1 or that of ,comte1 or1 still more so1 that of ,spencer2 but it is not easy to synthetize ,goethe or ,nietzsche1 in both of whom is a latent philosophy4 ,and still less so to synthetize ,dante1 ,milton1 ,cervantes1 ,shakespeare4 ,and it has not been the object of my translator to present a summary of an ideology but to give an impression of a spirit4 ,to elucidate this point still further would lead us into an intricate examination of the relations which subsist between a man and his work1 and to inquire whether the man makes the work or the work makes the man or whether each makes the other at the same time4 ,the man makes himself in making his work and the work makes itself in making the man4 ,the ,creation makes ,god the ,creator1 and ,god the ,creator makes the ,creation1 the ,universe4 99 99 99 99 99 ,strictly speaking1 is not every translation in effect a new and original work8 ,in being turned into ,english1 however faithful the translator may be1 shall ,i not say something different from what ,i have said in ,spanish8 ,does a song say the same when played on the violin1 the flute1 the harp1 the bassoon8 ,is a sonata the same when played on the piano and the organ8 ,i know that when ,i have read my writings translated into another language ,i have been aware of echoes and reverberations which lay sleeping in the depths of my spirit1 ,i have glimpsed horizons which the firm and severe contours of my native tongue did not permit me to see4 ,and ,i have sometimes thought of making a new work based upon a retranslation of the translation4 ,among these essays is one upon the religion of ,quixotism4 ,hitherto ,i have been meditating and perhaps dogmatizing upon this religion--now ,i am living it4 ,for it is here1 where the waves murmur tidings of my native shores1 the mountainous coast of the wild ,bay of ,biscay1 it is here that ,i have felt most deeply all the melancholy grandeur of the ridiculous passion of the ,knight of the impossible ,chimera4 ,while the cowardly comic-opera tyrants who have banished me here are dishonouring our ,spain1 her whom they call their mother1 ,i am exalting and eternalizing her1 and ,i call her my daughter4 ,there is a famous ,spanish couplet which says that there is no handful of earth without a ,spanish grave-- ,no hay un puado de tierra ,sin una tumba espaola1 and it would seem that these unhappy rulers wish to extend the national graveyard4 ,and ,i propose that there shall be no corner of heaven without a nest of ,spanish thought4 ,nests of ,spanish thought are the pieces which compose this book4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and now ,i return to contemplate the sea1 to feed my spirit upon it1 to watch its white-crested waves which are born and die and succeed one another like the generations of men and of men's works in the sea of history4 ,i return to contemplate the all-consoling sea which smiles1 with its superhuman smile1 upon our tragic human frailties4 ,greeting6 my readers of the ,english-speaking world4 ,and when1 having read this book1 you wish me farewell1 may you carry with you something of the quixotesque passion which ,i have put into my work and which is the life of my life4 ,,miguel ,,de ,,unamuno4 ,fuerteventura1 ,june #f1 #aibd4 ,,contents ,author's ,preface xii ,introduction #c ,the ,spirit of ,castile #cj ,spanish ,individualism #ch ,some ,arbitrary ,reflections upon ,europeanization #eb ,the ,spanish ,christ #gf ,the ,sepulchre of ,don ,quixote #hb ,the ,helmet of ,mambrino #ii ,don ,quixote's ,niece #ajh ,the ,religion of ,quixotism #aac ,large and ,small ,towns #abe ,to ,my ,readers #acc ,soliloquies #adb ,my ,religion #aed ,solitude #afc ,intellectuality and ,spirituality #agj ,the ,materialism of the ,masses #aij ,the ,man of ,flesh and ,bone #aie ,the ,problem of ,immortality #bje ,creative ,faith #bag ,the ,song of the ,eternal ,waters #bbf ,the ,tower of ,monterrey #bcc ,appendix #bda ,bibliography #bdc ,,essays ,,and ,,soliloquies ,,introduction ,no writer ever stood less in need of an introduction than ,miguel de ,unamuno1 for probably none ever revealed himself so naturally and so nakedly in his writings4 ,the identity between the author and the man is absolute4 ,he has a way of putting the whole of himself into all that he writes so that to read him is not merely to learn his views as a philosopher or a publicist1 but to know his loves and hates1 his hopes and despairs1 as a man of flesh and bone4 ,his method of communicating his message is not to address an audience from the elevation of the pulpit or the platform1 but to accost the individual face to face1 to grasp him warmly by the hand1 to look him full in the eyes and tell him what is in his heart4 ,the task of the introducer therefore may be restricted to prefixing to the intimacy so immediately established between reader and author some few notes relative to the latter's history and the background against which he presents himself4 ,the determining events in his outward biography are soon told4 ,miguel de ,unamuno y ,jugo was born in ,bilbao on ,september #bi1 #ahfd4 ,although he comes of pure ,basque stock1 ,unamuno's mother-tongue was ,castilian1 a fact which precludes the supposition that the idiosyncrasies of his style are to be attributed to an early familiarity with the ,basque speech4 ,his father1 who had spent most of his life in ,mexico1 died in #ahgj4 ,four years later ,bilbao was besieged and bombarded by the ,carlist troops1 the first shell falling only a few houses away from that in which his family was living4 ,the events of the siege naturally made a lively impression upon the mind of the ten-year-old boy4 ,at the first sound of the horns blown to give warning of the renewal of the bombardment1 the family took shelter with the neighbours in the cellars1 from which the youngsters sallied forth to collect the still burning fragments of the shells4 ,the schools were closed and the whole town became an extended playground1 offering to the idle schoolboys the novel liberty of clambering about roofless churches and conducting miniature bombardments of ruined houses with projectiles gathered from the debris4 ,this exciting holiday was terminated by the entry of the liberating troops on ,may #b1 #ahgd4 ,these personal experiences of ,spain's last civil war provided ,unamuno with a background for his first novel1 ,paz en la ,guerra4 ,the religious atmosphere of ,unamuno's home was that of a ,catholicism whose traditions of simple and heart-felt piety bore a certain affinity to those of ,anglo-,saxon ,quakerism4 ,the youthful ,miguel was a member of the guild or ,congregacin of ,san ,luis ,gonzaga and on the feast of ,corpus ,christi used to walk in procession through the streets with lighted candle in his hand and the medal of the order suspended upon his breast4 ,about the age of fourteen he passed through that phase of spiritual ferment which usually characterizes the entrance of the soul into puberty1 a period of vague aspirations towards sanctity mingled with the romanticism engendered in a lively imagination by the reading of ,ossian4 ,this religious ,schwrmerei1 however1 was tempered by the course of philosophy prescribed by his study for his baccalaureate4 ,introduced through the reading of the ,catalan philosopher ,balmes to the works of ,descartes1 ,kant and ,hegel1 he at once plunged into the vertigo of metaphysics and proceeded to elaborate and transcribe into a twopenny note-book a philosophical system of his own1 8very symmetrical and bristling with formulas40 ,in #ahhj ,unamuno went to ,madrid to continue his studies4 ,passionately attached to his native ,bilbao and the wild mountain country in which all his youthful summers had been passed1 ,unamuno has related how he entered ,madrid with tears in his eyes4 ,his spirit never became acclimated to the atmosphere of the capital and the years which he spent there were rendered unhappy by his sense of isolation and home-sickness1 preoccupations with ill health1 intellectual strain and acute spiritual crises4 ,having taken his doctor's degree in philosophy and letters1 he presented himself as a candidate for a professorship1 first in psychology1 logic and ethics1 and then in metaphysics2 but no doubt owing to a certain uncompromising independence of mind and contempt of the conventional curriculum1 he failed to obtain the suffrages of the examiners4 ,after two further unsuccessful attempts to obtain a chair in ,latin1 he was finally appointed to a professorship in ,greek by a board presided over by the famous scholar ,menendez y ,pelayo4 ,after returning to ,bilbao1 where he married1 he took up his residence in ,salamanca in #ahia4 ,there he conducted two courses of lectures1 one on ,greek literature1 the other on the evolution of the ,castilian language1 and nine years later1 in #aijj1 he was appointed to the ,rectorship of the ,university4 ,unamuno has always been possessed of a formidable capacity for work4 ,his scholastic activities1 his administrative duties as head of the ,university1 his participation in municipal affairs1 absorbed only a portion of his energies4 ,an omnivorous reader1 he is familiar not only with the cultures of the ancient world but with all the modern literatures of ,europe and ,america1 most of which his extensive knowledge of languages has enabled him to read in the original4 ,but the fertility of his mind and spirit manifested itself above all in a continual stream of creative work1 taking the manifold forms of essays1 poetry1 novels1 criticism and philosophy4 ,his career as a publicist coincided with the period following ,spain's disastrous war with the ,united ,states1 during which the fortunes of his country appeared to be at their lowest ebb4 ,unamuno at once took a foremost place in that group of writers and public men1 known as 8the generation of '#ih10 who were preoccupied with the problem of national regeneration4 ,whereas the majority of the regenerationists1 however1 pointed to 8modernization0 and 8,europeanization0 as the only possible path leading to material and cultural progress1 ,unamuno advocated a return to the eternal tradition of ,spain and held that a spiritual renaissance was the necessary pre-condition of her restoration as a world-power4 ,it was impossible for a man with so deep and intimate a love for his country to confine himself to the publication of general encyclicals from a professorial and not to step down into the stormy arena of practical politics4 ,without identifying himself with any one of the official political parties1 ,unamuno conducted a personal and independent campaign by means of newspaper articles and public addresses1 frankly and fearlessly denouncing abuses and corruption wherever he discerned them1 whether displayed in the acts of rulers or inherent in the governmental system of the country4 ,such outspoken criticism from one who held his appointment from the state savoured too much1 to the government of the day1 of insubordination and was reproved accordingly by his removal from the office of ,rector of the ,university of ,salamanca4 ,some time afterward1 in virtue of two articles which he published in a ,valencia newspaper1 the ex-,rector was deemed to have contravened the law of lse-majest1 for which offence he was formally condemned by the courts to a period of sixteen years' imprisonment4 ,the sentence1 which was of course never intended to be carried out1 was subsequently annulled by the royal grant of pardon4 ,the coup d'tat of ,september1 #aibc1 by which ,general ,primo de ,rivera suspended the constitution and established the ,military ,directory1 naturally aroused ,unamuno's vehement protestation4 ,liberty of speech1 however1 formed no part of the program of the new rgime and the ,dictator1 dispensing with the customary civil processes of writ1 trial and judgment1 replied by an arbitrary decree of deportation4 ,on ,feb4 #ba1 #aibd1 ,unamuno received notice to prepare to proceed within twenty-four hours under escort to ,fuerteventura1 the most remote and barren of the ,canary ,islands4 ,it is possible that the authorities might have been willing to connive at the flight of their captive to the ,portuguese frontier1 distant only some eighty miles from ,salamanca2 but ,unamuno refused to relieve them from any of the embarrassment which the consequences of their action might entail4 ,he packed up the few necessaries for his journey1 put a couple of books in his pocket--the ,greek ,new ,testament and ,leopardi's poems--and awaited the arrival of the escort4 ,the news of the banishment of one of ,spain's foremost writers and patriots was received with a spontaneous outburst of denunciation both at home and abroad4 ,numerous councils of universities and learned societies in ,europe and ,america passed resolutions of protest2 the newspaper press of almost every country published articles by representative literary men condemning the action of the government and testifying to the universality of the esteem which ,unamuno had won in the international republic of letters4 ,the ,directory was compelled to recognize that the sole result of its act of petty tyranny had been to raise the prestige of its victim and damage its own4 ,a project for the rescue of the exile was secretly organized in ,france1 but its fruition was forestalled by the publication of a decree of amnesty in ,july1 #aibd4 ,unamuno embarked on the sailing-ship which had been dispatched for his deliverance and on arriving at ,madeira took ship to ,cherbourg4 ,although free to return to ,spain1 he felt that under the present rgime his liberty of action would be too much circumscribed and therefore preferred to take up his residence temporarily in ,paris4 ,i think that it was in the year #aiab when travelling in ,spain that ,i chanced to buy a book entitled ,mi ,religin y ,otros ,ensayos by ,miguel de ,unamuno4 ,both the book and its author were then unkown to me4 ,before ,i had read many pages ,i knew that ,i was listening to a voice that spoke with that accent of sincerity and intimacy which gives the assurance of immediate contact with a living man1 a man of flesh and bone1 a man who had suffered1 despaired1 hoped and struggled with an intensity that burned in every word4 ,next year was published ,del ,sentimiento ,trgico de la ,vida1 that passionate record of the adventures of the spirit that takes its place with the self-revelations of ,st4 ,augustine1 ,pascal1 ,amiel and ,kierkegaard4 ,i resolved that if ,i could accomplish it this voice should be heard in the countries that speak the ,english tongue4 ,the ,war intervened1 and it was not until #aibj that ,i found myself in ,salamanca with the typewritten sheets of the translation of 8,the ,tragic ,sense of ,life0 ready to be submitted to the author for revision4 ,i well remember how1 on the afternoon after my arrival1 ,i was sitting in a caf on the ,plaza ,mayor when the door opened and my eyes fell upon the arresting figure of a man half-way through the fifties1 clad in a double-breasted blue-serge jacket with a rim of white collar falling over a kind of clerical waistcoat that was void of the usual triangular opening for the display of shirt and necktie1 his head crowned by a round parsonical black hat4 ,there was an almost aggressive announcement of bluff health and energy in the erect carriage of the body1 the alert set of the head on squared shoulders1 the thick brush-like crop of iron-grey hair1 the crisp curl of the close-trimmed beard that emphasized rather than masked the firm lines of the jaw1 the keen glance behind gold-rimmed spectacles of eyes that gleamed bright and brown like the eyes of a bird of prey4 ,it would have been difficult for one to whom he was a stranger to have guessed his vocation from his appearance4 ,certainly never was philosopher less sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought4 ,the tan that bronzed a skin glowing with the flush of health seemed to tell of a life that was spent in the air of the mountains rather than in the study4 ,it could scarcely be doubted that the figure standing there in the doorway was that of a man of action and a fighter4 ,during the course of the next two months ,i had ample opportunity to observe the daily routine of ,unamuno's life at ,salamanca4 ,an early riser1 he may be seen in the streets before nine o'clock on his way to the lecture-room4 ,after the midday comida1 at which he usually abstains from both wine and meat1 he is accustomed to take his coffee at the ,circulo ,salmantino with a group of friends whose thought and convictions are as widely varying as their occupations--university professors1 students1 doctors1 magistrates1 writers1 poets and men of business4 ,the quite unacademic conversation ranges over the whole gamut of human interests4 ,while the talk is flowing freely or the argument being waged1 ,unamuno--who1 by the way1 is a non-smoker--may sometimes be seen folding square sheets of paper with deft fingers into complicated geometrical patterns which presently grow into astonishingly realistic shapes of animals4 ,before the party breaks up1 his table is not infrequently covered with a menagerie of pigs1 jumping frogs1 vultures and other wildfowl1 to the no small delight of the street urchins whose noses are flattened against the other side of the wide plate-glass window4 ,this arte salmatino1 as its inventor calls it1 presents baffling constructional problems1 the solutions of which are sometimes thought out upon abstract geometrical principles in the sleepless watches of the night4 ,when most of the members of the tertulia have withdrawn either to take their afternoon siesta or resume their avocations1 ,unamuno sets out for a long walk into the country1 accompanied in winter by the few who are willing to brave the icy winds that sweep over the treeless tableland from the snow-clad summits of the sierras4 ,during the walk the conversation is continued without intermission1 the party halting to form a circle round the speaker whenever a point arises that demands special emphasis or elucidation4 ,as these points arise at frequent intervals1 a spectacle that must often arrest the wondering gaze of the peasant hurrying on his mule along the high road to ,salamanca on wintry afternoons1 is that of a group of individuals muffled in greatcoats and waterproofs1 with collars raised and hat-brims pulled down in a vain endeavour to protect tingling ears from the lashing flaws of rain and sleet1 gathered round a robust1 coatless figure1 with double-breasted blue jacket thrown open to the blast1 whose concentration upon the subject-matter of his discourse renders him apparently oblivious of the inclemency of the elements and the physical discomfort of his auditors4 ,the point having been elucidated1 the party struggles on again in the teeth of the gale1 some of its weaker members perhaps hoping that no fresh dialectical crisis will arise until further exercise has restored the benumbed circulation4 ,on days of storm or heavy rain1 when faint-hearted disciples shrink from the exposure of the open country1 the afternoon diversion takes the form of a promenade beneath the arcades of the ,plaza ,mayor1 perhaps the finest square of its kind in ,spain1 into which towards evening most of the population of the city seems to empty itself4 ,the crowd surges round in two opposing streams1 for a time-honoured custom demands that the men shall proceed in one direction and the women in another4 ,unamuno diversifies the monotony of this promenade by a curious amusement4 ,having abstracted the crumb from his luncheon roll and kneaded it up into a kind of snowball1 he manufactures therefrom a supply of pellets1 and these1 during the course of his walk1 he propels by means of a dexterous flick of the middle finger with deadly accuracy at selected members of the crowd4 ,whether the principle of selection is based upon friendly interest or personal dislike1 or whether indeed there is any principle at all1 is a question that must be left undetermined4 ,about dusk he returns home and withdraws to his study1 a spacious1 lofty square room1 the plain workshop of the intellectual worker1 furnished only with a large writing-table1 a few simple chairs1 and crowded bookshelves which not only surround the walls but occupy most of the floor-space4 ,a brazier underneath the table emits from its white ashes a faint warmth scarcely perceptible to ordinary senses4 ,having refreshed himself with a drink of cold water1 ,unamuno takes up the work in hand and writes until the hour arrives for the evening meal with his family4 ,the theatre does not attract him--,i only saw him present once when ,ibsen was being played--and it is very seldom that a social function keeps him from going to bed betimes4 ,profound as is his attachment to the city which has been his home for over thirty years1 ,unamuno always welcomes an opportunity to escape from streets and squares into the open country and the mountains4 ,his knowledge of the ,peninsula1 as his books of travel testify1 is both wide and intimate4 ,his visits to the more distant provinces are of course reserved for the vacations1 but during term-time his week-ends and the holidays occurring on the seasonal feasts are often spent in the regions of the ,sierra de ,gredos and the ,pea de ,francia4 ,during these excursions he touches life at a multiplicity of centres and penetrates into all the various social strata4 ,at every stage of the journey--at the railway stations1 in the train1 at the local club1 in the inn1 in the village shop or the peasant's cottage--he is usually to be seen at the centre of a group of men1 discussing local affairs and politics1 inquiring into the technique of trades1 saturating himself in the atmosphere of popular thought and belief4 ,his knowledge and love of ,spain are thus fed by a familiarity with the inner life of the people1 the intra-historical life1 as he calls it1 the life that flows by unobserved for the most part by politicians and publicists and never agitates the surface of history4 ,a minor outcome of this contact with the people1 and with the charros or peasants of the province of ,salamanca in particular1 has been the enrichment of his vocabulary by many of those pungent1 expressive and sometimes beautiful words and locutions which have long since disappeared from literary ,spanish but still abound in peasant speech4 ,this racy idiom of the soil often gives a peculiar tang to ,unamuno's writing4 ,when accused by the literary critic1 as not infrequently happens1 of sprinkling his prose with words unearthed from the dusty works of some sixteenth or seventeenth-century author1 he will reply that the so-called archaisms1 though possibly unfamiliar in literary coteries1 still enjoy a vigorous life in the speech of the people4 ,it will no doubt have been already gathered that ,unamuno1 like all good ,spaniards1 delights in talk4 ,indeed1 some of those who have observed how considerable a part of his leisure is spent in general conversation may have wondered how and when he finds time for the production of the large volume of his writing4 ,the answer is that much of his thought is generated and shaped into form in the act of talking4 ,he has a disrelish1 amounting almost to a prejudice1 for writing that has not the vibration and elasticity of living speech1 the prose of men who are usually found to be non-talkers4 8,ideas come with talking10 ,i have heard him say4 8,one must speak1 one must have to put one's thought into words1 one must hear how the words sound spoken4 ,writing for oneself is not enough40 ,it is in the conversational encounter1 in the face-to-face conflict of disputants1 in the exertion to convince an opponent1 to unravel a difficulty1 to press home a personal conviction1 that his mind is strung to its highest tension1 seizes upon the aptest and keenest words with an instinctive sense of their effective values and wields them like sharp and flashing weapons4 ,returning to his study after a discussion at the ,circulo ,salmantino or an afternoon's discourse on the wind-swept heights above the ,tormes1 he transcribes with the speed of dictation the substance of his argument or homily in phrases still vibrating with the passion of the spoken word4 ,hence his prose retains in a degree exceptional even in ,spanish literature the qualities of animated talk--rapid1 emphatic1 exclamatory1 elliptical1 disjointed1 charged with intonation and gesture4 ,and this written talk1 it must be noted1 never develops into written oratory1 for it is addressed in the first instance not to the general public but to the personal interlocutor2 it is the continuation or recapitulation of talk with a friend1 or the reply to the confessions of a correspondent1 or sometimes the communing of the writer with alter ego4 ,there are times when the channel of written speech seems to afford too narrow an outlet for the flood of passion storming through it4 ,unamuno seems to be impatient of the mutism of the printed page1 as if1 like the written score of music1 it were incomplete lacking embodiment in sound4 ,the written symbols are an inadequate substitute for the bodily presence1 incapable of conveying the conviction1 the force1 the sense of mass1 which only the living organism with all its full-charged vitality can impart4 ,it might even be conjectured that for ,unamuno writing is after all only a pis-aller--he would prefer to talk1 or rather he would prefer to dispense with words altogether and impose himself in some transcendental act of communion4 ,of one of ,goya's pictures1 the tumultuous ,third of ,may in the ,prado1 the ,italian critic ,de ,amicis says3 8,it is the last point which painting can reach before being transmuted into action2 having passed this point1 one throws away the brush and seizes the dagger40 ,a similar sense of an intolerable straining of the medium is sometimes felt in reading ,unamuno4 ,the texture of language is stretched to the breaking-point2 words are contorted in an endeavour to force them beyond the limits of their capacity2 grammar and syntax collapse before the rush of passionate utterance4 ,it is the pressure and drive of a whole personality that seeks to translate itself into words and finds in the end that it is untranslatable4 ,the impulse towards action and the exertion of personal influence which forms one of the dominant features of ,unamuno's character1 finds a considerable part of its expression in his participation in the public affairs of his country4 ,he has little patience with the view that the scholar or professor ought to stand aside from the larger issues of the day in order to devote all his energies to perfecting himself as a machine for grinding out erudition and culture4 ,indeed1 he considers that politics are themselves an invaluable instrument of culture1 in that for large masses of the people they provide the principal1 perhaps the only avenue of approach to a consideration of general ideas4 ,devoting himself in his political activities primarily to the exposition of these general ideas1 the basic principles of citizenship1 ,unamuno has always evinced a whole-hearted contempt for that preoccupation with political machinery and an intrigue which tends to make the professional politician1 particularly perhaps in ,spain1 little more than an electioneerer4 ,unamuno is among the prophets rather than the politicians1 and his followers form not a party but a band of disciples4 8,all round the ring10 he said to me once1 8sit the spectators4 ,they applaud or hiss4 ,but down in the arena1 there ,i fight alone1 face to face with the bull40 ,to the suggestion sometimes expressed by his well-wishers that he should withdraw from the arena in order to devote himself more exclusively to poetry and philosophy1 ,unamuno would reply that this poetry and philosophy are simply the outcome of his intense1 energetic and passionate living4 ,if he had never known the dangers1 the ardours1 the hopes and despairs of battle1 his poetry might have withered for lack of roots4 ,primum vivere1 deinde philosopari--the philosopher must first live before he can philosophize4 ,and the end of life1 ,unamuno has said1 is living1 not understanding4 ,nothing is more repugnant to his spirit than the conception of sthetics embodied in the catch-phrase1 8art for art's sake40 ,the idea that letters can be separated from life and literature produced in vacuo is inconceivable to one whose impulse to write springs directly from his zeal to affect and mould life4 ,unamuno provides yet another corroboration of ,tchekov's maxim that all great writers have axes to grind4 ,if the object of ,unamuno's political opponents in banishing him from the society of his fellows to the ocean-girt desert of ,fuerteventura was to reduce his spirit to submission1 they little knew the man they had to deal with4 ,he has never overprized the amenities of civilization and it is probable that he would have felt much more in exile if he had been condemned to live in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of ,tenerife or ,las ,palmas4 ,the ,canaries have been identified with the ,fortunate ,isles of the ancient world1 and ,unamuno remarked humorously that ,fuerteventura was indeed fortunate among islands in being one where there were no hotels de luxe1 no bull-fights1 no cinemas1 no football1 no boy-scouts4 ,but apart from its lack of the more futile expedients for killing time1 there is something in the spirit and even in the structure of this stern and naked island that was in harmony with ,unamuno's temperament4 ,it is1 as he phrased it1 not merely desnudo but descarnado1 not merely without vesture but without flesh4 ,like a bleached skeleton in the sun1 it reveals every articulation of its structure4 ,in its landscape everything fugitive gives place to what is enduring and elemental2 it bears the impress of eternity rather than of time4 ,living in this austere but serene ambience1 between the mountains and the sea1 ,unamuno found a refreshment of mental and spiritual energy1 the activity of his inner life was perhaps never more intense and what he wrote during his four months' exile was quarried from those deeper strata of his spirit where thought and passion lie embedded in a single matrix4 ,in ,puerto de ,cabras1 the cluster of low whitewashed houses that forms the principal port of the island1 time flowed in a tranquil stream that was scarcely agitated by the weekly arrival of the steamer bringing the mail1 provisions1 water1 and out-of-date newspapers from ,las ,palmas4 ,for the safer custody of the exile1 fifty guardias civiles had been drafted to the island and stationed in couples at various points round the coast4 ,every letter which he wrote or received was first opened and censored by police officials4 ,in other respects his liberty of movement within the island was not interfered with and he was free to visit the distant villages that are sparsely scattered like oases in the midst of the stone-strewn wilderness of extinct volcanoes4 ,unamuno occupied a room overlooking the sea in the principal fonda of the port4 ,he usually rose before the bell of the little church on the other side of the wide cobbled street had rung for six o'clock ,mass1 and spent the morning working in his bedroom or composing a sonnet as he paced up and down the flat roof1 bare-headed and stripped to the waist1 in the sun4 ,after a frugal lunch--the diet of ,fuerteventura is of a ,spartan simplicity6--he took a siesta during the heat of the afternoon and afterward strolled along the rock-bound shore or the carretera that leads into the interior of the island4 ,although the action can scarcely have come within the compass of their duties1 it was not surprising to see the lounging soldiers spring to salute when their prisoner1 with his native air of authority and command1 passed before the barracks-gate4 ,when the brief twilight fell and the camels1 returning from browsing on the scanty scrub1 padded with muffled footfall through the darkening street1 ,unamuno joined the circle of village notables who were wont to assemble nightly on a row of chairs ranged on the pavement in front of the general store4 ,then1 until the tardy supper hour arrived1 a flow of philosophy1 philology1 paradox1 travel-lore and political wisdom fell upon the astonished ears of the shopkeepers and petty officials of the port4 ,fortunate islanders6 ,perhaps there is no more distinguishing mark of greatness of character than that patience and inner quietude which springs from assurance of the ultimate efficacy of the force latent within the soul4 ,no term had been fixed to ,unamuno's banishment2 it might have been his fate1 for all he knew1 to have passed the best of his remaining years in the island wilderness of ,fuerteventura4 ,but so far from chafing at his enforced isolation and inaction1 he seemed to be sustained by the consciousness that it was beyond the power of circumstances to prevent the work to which he had set his hand from accomplishing itself4 ,whatever might happen to the sower1 the seed that had been scattered would go on bearing fruit4 ,in the plans which his friends had made for his escape he took an uneager and slightly amused interest4 ,a point was fixed not far from the port where it was arranged that between the hours of ten and twelve at night the exile should await a boat that was to carry him to a sailing-vessel lying somewhere off the coast4 ,owing to unforeseen delays1 the vessel did not finally arrive until after the decree of banishment had been rescinded1 and consequently many nights were spent in frustrated watching beneath the shadow of a ruined tower standing on a rocky ledge by the shore4 ,these summer nights were breathlessly still1 the bright globe of the moon rose up out of the sea into a clear sky thickly silvered with stars1 the unrippled surface of the water stretched between the arms of the bay like a sheet of metal4 ,in the distance the green harbour-light at the end of the stone jetty gleamed malignly4 ,the only sound was the gurgling of the water in the hollows of the rocks4 ,the far horizon was void of any vestige of a sail4 ,twelve o'clock came and the fruitless vigil was broken off4 ,not wholly fruitless1 perhaps1 for during these tranquil hours of waiting ,unamuno kept a vigil of the spirit1 the fruit of which will doubtless appear when the poems of his exile are made known to the world4 99 99 99 99 99 ,of the two elements which appear to be combined in every philosophy1 the impersonal1 scientific investigation of the nature of reality and the personal affective reaction to the scheme of things thus envisaged1 it is with the latter that ,unamuno's interest is overwhelmingly concerned4 ,it may be that it is not so much this attitude that singularizes him as his candid avowal of it4 ,at any rate1 he himself appears to believe that the impersonal methods of philosophy merely provide a conceptional framework for the personal ,weltanschauung of the philosopher4 ,and the core of this inward affective problem must always be1 for the human philosopher1 the relation of man to the universe4 ,it is this point where philosophy and religion meet in considering the problem of human destiny1 that forms the burning focus of the main energies of ,unamuno's thought and passion4 ,what distinguishes ,unamuno from most other thinkers--and perhaps one should say 8feelers0 rather than thinkers--is the intensity of his realization and awareness of his own personality1 of his own unique individual being1 and the passion with which he desires the indefinite persistence of this being4 ,this is the main ground for the charge of egoism and egocentrism that has often been levelled against him4 ,but so far from driving him to a narrow self-centred individualism1 this passion is the source from which springs a generous sympathy with all humanity4 ,he rightly insists upon the fact that the problem of personal immortality involves that of the future of the whole human species4 ,his passionate concern for his own destiny1 his own salvation1 ,unamuno transfers to all his brothers in humanity4 ,the salvation of man1 the central problem of all religion1 is the axis about which his thought and emotion revolve4 ,but it is salvation in what he understands to be the ,catholic rather than the ,protestant sense1 salvation not so much from sin as from death1 from annihilation4 ,to a man of the modern world1 endowed with any special degree of sensitiveness to his own personality1 this problem tends to become increasingly acute4 ,the importance of man's place in the universe is seen to diminish in direct ratio to his knowledge with regard to it4 ,in the searchlight of science1 the planet upon which he lives shrinks to infinitesimal proportions in relation to the incommensurable cosmic scheme2 man takes his place no longer as the lord of creation but as an apparently meaningless by-product of the play of irresponsible and unconscious forces4 ,this strange efflorescence of human consciousness in an obscure corner of the universe would appear to be a transitory phenomenon1 resting upon an unstable equilibrium of natural forces and destined to vanish completely when the inevitable working of these same forces shall have dissipated the conditions under which life is able to sustain itself on this planet4 ,this sense of the doom of annihilation impending over humanity is like a cloud looming upon the horizon of ,unamuno's consciousness and throwing a menacing shadow upon the whole terrestrial scene4 ,it is the basis of his tragic sense of life4 ,it projects upon the screen of his mind that vision which so often seems to occupy it1 the vision of a world finally ordered and catalogued by human science1 of a civilization perfected after ons of agonized human effort1 existing without any human or other consciousness left to appropriate it4 ,it may be said that in the contemplation of this vision the only rational attitude for the human spirit to adopt is that of resignation to mortality4 ,but this counsel can only be given by those who are affectively insensitive1 and in ,unamuno the will to live and to survive are too imperious to submit to it unprotestingly4 ,the note of passionate protest rings in his writings4 ,he inscribes upon his page the challenge of ,snancour's ,obermann3 8,l'homme est prissable4 ,il se peut2 mais prissons en rsistant1 et1 si le nant nous est reserv1 ne faisons pas que ce soit une justice40 ,life refuses to abdicate to reason2 between the rationalistic and vitalistic attitude to existence there is an impassable gulf4 ,his own personal solution is found in the inspiration and energy which he draws from this position of uncertainty and conflict4 8,i will not make peace between my heart and my head10 he cries2 8rather let the one affirm what the other denies and the one deny what the other affirms1 and ,i shall live by this contradiction40 ,his 8,tragic ,sense of ,life10 which is the record of the encounter of his spirit with the problems centring round the salvation of man from death and annihilation1 issues in the assertion that all virtue is based upon 8uncertainty1 doubt1 perpetual wrestling with the mystery of our final destiny1 mental despair1 and the lack of any solid and stable dogmatic foundation40 ,convert ,obermann's sentence from its negative to a positive form--8if it is nothingness that awaits us1 let us so act that it shall be an injustice0--and you get 8the firmest basis of action for the man who cannot or will not be a dogmatist40 ,a solution1 perhaps1 but a desperate one4 ,unamuno's concern is not only with the salvation of man from nothingness after death but also from the next-to-nothingness during life into which he is plunged by the processes of an inhumane civilization4 ,he is never weary of affirming that man is an end in himself1 not a means4 ,he protests passionately against the sacrifice of the individual concrete man upon the altar of the abstract idea1 whether the abstraction be that of the state1 of society1 of progress1 of posterity1 or of humanity itself4 8,they tell me that ,i am here to realize ,i know not what social end2 but ,i feel that ,i1 like each one of my fellows1 am here to realize myself1 to live40 ,this individualism1 it must be noted1 has nothing in common with the anarchist's undiscriminating revolt against society4 ,nobody realizes more fully than this champion of individualism that man is a social being1 and that he can exist and grow to his full stature only in society4 ,but the point which he is insistent in emphasizing and which so many social theorists appear to forget is that society exists for man1 not man for society4 8,the weak point in our socialism10 he says1 8is its confused notion of the supreme end of the individual life40 ,he is led to question the value of our modern civilization--that civilization which ,spain is told by her would-be reformers that she ought to assimilate--because it has arrived at a point at which it suppresses rather than expands1 enslaves rather than liberates1 the life of the individual4 ,man becomes exhausted with tending the machinery of progress4 ,it is this distrust of the tendencies of modern ,western civilization that causes ,unamuno to turn to the ancient1 and--as he is willing to consider--,african1 tradition of his own country4 ,no native reformer or foreign critic can have said harder things of his compatriots than ,unamuno4 ,his essays reverberate with the sound of the lash with which he chastises the besetting sins of the ,spaniards of to-day1 their servitude to the spirit of routine1 their intellectual and spiritual inertia1 their paralysing mutual suspicion and envy1 their renunciation of the life of adventure and danger4 ,but ,unamuno distinguishes between the ,spain of the passing generations and the ,spain of the eternal tradition1 between the agitations that give a changing form to the surface and the life that sleeps and dreams in the depths of subconsciousness4 ,this dreaming1 undying1 subliminal ,spain is the ,spain of his love and of his faith4 ,he appeals from ,spaniards to ,spain4 ,he seeks to awaken this inner ,spain to full consciousness of itself4 ,and when it awakens it is possible that this ,spain may be unable to find its expression in the terms of our current civilization4 ,the culture in which the intellect and ideals of the advance-guard of the so-called ,kulturvlker naturally clothe themselves1 becomes an alien and ill-fitting garment when forced upon the ,iberian spirit4 ,and perhaps the secret of this difference lies in the greater importance in the ,spanish social structure of the part played by the concrete individual relatively to the instruments of culture4 8,other peoples10 ,unamuno says1 8have left institutions1 books--we have left souls40 ,his message to ,spain might perhaps be resumed in ,whitman's words3 8,produce great ,persons3 the rest follows40 ,a cardinal tenet of ,unamuno's creed is the superlative value of the individual soul4 ,it is precious because it is unique and irreplaceable3 8,there cannot be any other ,i40 ,in the whole world there is only one ,juan ,lpez or ,john ,smith2 the particular ingredients1 good1 bad or indifferent1 that have combined to form this unique individuality can never again reunite in precisely the same proportions to form another identical combination4 ,this theory1 or rather this sense1 of the uniqueness of personality may serve as the basis for an ethic4 8,our greatest endeavour must be to make ourselves irreplaceable2 to make the theoretical fact--that each one of us is unique and irreplaceable--a practical truth40 ,the whole duty of man is to discover himself1 to discover his own reality1 to discover what is unique in himself1 to bring it to the light1 not to shrink from exposing it1 to express it in action and to impose it upon the world4 ,the courage of self-affirmation is the virtue which ,unamuno exhorts his fellow-countrymen to achieve4 ,he presents a symbol of it in his vision of the ,tower of ,monterrey that lifts itself into the wintry air above the brown roofs of his beloved ,salamanca1 definite in its clean-cut contours1 sure in its poise and self-containment1 serenely affirming its uniqueness and indestructibility4 ,it says itself1 and to say himself is the utmost that a man can say4 ,but society1 which is the necessary medium through which the individual must express himself1 is a resistant medium4 ,it seeks to impose conformity upon the individual4 ,it resents the exceptional1 the idiosyncratic4 ,and the social canons that circumscribe the expression of the individual's liberty of thought and conduct operate perhaps nowhere more oppressively than in ,spain4 ,they derive their sanction largely from a sentiment by no means peculiar to ,spain though perhaps peculiarly rampant there1 the sentiment of envy1 the sense of bitterness and hostility that is evoked by any salient excellence4 ,and the chief weapon which envy uses with which to assail the uniqueness of the individual is ridicule4 ,the special form1 therefore1 of the courage of self-affirmation that is demanded of the heroic individual is the courage to confront ridicule4 ,this courage finds its exemplary exponent in the figure of ,don ,quixote1 whom ,unamuno takes as the supreme symbol of the warfare of the individual soul4 ,his 8,commentary upon the ,life of ,don ,quixote and ,panza0 is a clarion-call to his countrymen to emulate the quixotic qualities of courage and faith--faith1 even though it be in illusion--the quixotic tenacity of conviction1 and the quixotic contempt of the standards of worldly prudence and of the authority of common sense and the cold1 mocking reason4 ,it must be claimed for ,unamuno that he is1 in the truest sense of the word1 a great humanist4 ,he himself distinguishes between the true humanism1 which he calls the humanism of man1 and the humanism which is concerned rather with 8the things of man0--in other words1 with culture as it is generally understood4 ,towards the latter his attitude is tinctured with suspicion4 ,for him there is an element of the inhumane in the cult of knowledge for the sake of knowledge and in the cult of science as a mere cataloguing of existence4 ,culture must have reference to character and perhaps its definition as 8the best that is known and has been thought in the world0 he would feel to be incomplete without the addition of 8the best that has been felt and done40 ,but mere knowledge and classification of the movements of the human mind or the achievements of human energy do not necessarily of themselves touch the heart to finer issues4 ,the most urgent need1 at any rate as he sees it in his own country1 is not so much for quickened intelligence as for reawakened capacity for feeling and enthusiasm4 ,by itself sceptical enlightenment tends to paralyse action and the soil of a chilly intellectualism is not the most fertile for the burgeoning of that seed of faith from which all fruitful human endeavour must ultimately spring4 ,unamuno seeks to generate warmth of feeling as the necessary condition of high achievement4 8,warmth1 warmth1 more warmth10 he cries1 8for we die of cold and not of darkness4 ,it is not the night but the frost that kills40 ,culture1 therefore1 as he understands and counsels it1 is not a dry light but an ardent flame and its purpose is to kindle 8the most intense inner life1 the life of intensest battle1 of intensest disquietude1 of intensest despair40 ,unamuno has always protested passionately against any attempt to affix a label to him4 ,if a definition of himself is demanded of him1 he replies that he is 8a man of contradiction and strife40 ,the contradictions of which he is the synthesis are those of the ,catholic and the agnostic1 the mystic and the realist1 the vitalist and the rationalist1 the contemplative and the man of action1 the contradictions inherent in the man who finds consolation in despair and peace in conflict4 ,but if he himself is not to be circumscribed within the narrow limits of a definition1 perhaps the scope of his aim and achievement may be most succinctly resumed in that description which ,giordano ,bruno gave of himself1 dormitantium animarum excubitor--an awakener of sleeping souls4 ,,the ,,spirit ,,of ,,castile ,from whatever point you penetrate into the ,spanish peninsula1 you will find yourself confronted almost at once by a region of hills2 you will then enter into a labyrinth of valleys1 gorges and ravines2 and finally1 after a longer or shorter ascent1 you will emerge upon the central tableland1 barred by the naked sierras whose wide and deep valleys form the mighty cradles of mighty rivers4 ,across this tableland stretches ,castile1 the land of castles4 ,like all great expanses of earth1 this tableland receives and irradiates heat more quickly than the sea and the coast-lands which the sea refreshes and tempers4 ,hence1 when the sun scorches it1 an extreme of heat1 and as soon as the sun forsakes it1 an extreme of cold2 burning days of summer followed by cool fresh nights during which the lungs gratefully inhale the breeze from the land2 freezing winter nights following hard upon days which the bright cold sun in its brief diurnal course has failed to warm4 ,winters long and hard and summers short and fiery have given birth to the saying1 8nueve meses de invierno y tres de infierno0--nine months of winter and three months of hell4 ,in the autumn1 however1 there is a serene and placid breathing-space4 ,the sierras1 shutting out the winds from the sea1 help to make the winter colder and the summer hotter2 but while they impede the passage of the gentle low-trailing clouds they form no barrier to the violent cyclones which burst among their valleys4 ,thus long droughts are succeeded by torrential deluges4 ,in this severe climate of opposing extremes1 in which the transition from heat to cold and from drought to flood is so violent1 man has invented the cloak with which to isolate himself from his environment1 a personal ambience1 constant in the midst of external changes1 a defence at once against both heat and cold4 ,the great storms of rain and snow bursting upon these sierras and drained thence by the swollen rivers have in the course of centuries scoured the soil of the tableland1 and the succeeding droughts have prevented the retention of the rain-washed soil in a network of fresh and robust vegetation4 ,thus it is that the view presents a wide and desolate expanse of burning country1 without foliage and without water1 a country in which a deluge of light throws dense shadows upon a dazzling surface1 extinguishing all intermediate tones4 ,the landscape is seen cut out in hard outline1 almost without atmosphere1 through a thin and transparent air4 ,you may sometimes range over leagues and leagues of desert country without descrying anything save the illimitable plain with its patches of green corn or yellow stubble1 here a sparsely extended array of oaks1 marching in solemn and monotonous procession1 clothed in their austere and perennial green1 there a group of mournful pines1 holding aloft their uniform crests4 ,now and again1 fringing a bright river or half-dry stream1 a few poplars1 seeming intensely and vividly alive in the midst of the infinite solitude4 ,as a rule these poplars announce the presence of man3 yonder on the plain lies some village1 scorched by the sun1 blasted by the frost1 built of sun-baked bricks very often1 its belfry silhouetted against the blue of the sky4 ,often the spinal ridge of the sierra can be seen in the distance1 but if you approach it you must not look to find rounded bossy mountains1 fresh with verdure and clothed with woods1 with the yellow of the gorse and the carmine of the heather flecking the bracken4 ,here is nothing but a framework of bony fleshless rock1 bristling with crags1 sharp-cut hummocks nakedly displaying drought-cracked strata1 covered at most with a scanty scrub1 where flourish only the hardy thistle and the naked scented broom1 the poor genestra contenta dei deserti of ,leopardi's poem4 ,down in the plain the highway with its festoon of trees loses itself in the greyness of the earth1 which kindles into an intense warm red when the sun sinks to rest4 ,the setting of the sun in these immense solitudes is full of beauty4 ,the sun dilates as it touches the horizon as if greedy to enjoy still more of the earth and in sinking it sheds its light upon it like blood and fills the sky with a dust of gold4 ,the infinite dome of the sky grows paler and paler1 then swiftly darkens1 and the fleeting twilight is followed by the profundity of a night tremulous with stars4 ,here are no northern twilights1 long1 soft and languorous4 ,broad is ,castile6 ,and beautiful with a sad quiet beauty this sea of stone beneath its expanse of sky4 ,it is a landscape uniform and monotonous in its contrasts of light and shade1 in its sharply juxtaposed and unmodulated colours4 ,it presents the appearance of an immense floor of mosaic1 without variety of design1 above which is spread out a sky of intensest blue4 ,it is lacking in gentle transitions and its only harmonic continuity is that of the immense plain and the massed blue which overspreads and illumines it4 ,it is a landscape that awakens no voluptuous sensations of joie de vivre1 that inspires no longings for ease and idleness4 ,here are no lush green meadows inviting indolent repose1 no dells that beckon like nests4 ,its contemplation does not call forth the sleeping animal in us1 the animal that delights to drowse in a leafy paradise1 brooding over the remembered satisfactions of those appetites which have been kneaded into the flesh since the earliest dawn of life4 ,nature does not here recreate the spirit4 ,rather it detaches us from the low earth and enfolds us in the pure naked unvarying sky4 ,here there is no communion with nature1 no absorption in her exuberant splendours4 ,this infinite landscape is1 if it may be so said1 nonotheistic rather than pantheistic4 ,man is not lost in it so much as diminished by it1 and in its immense drought he is made aware of the aridity of his own soul4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the population of the ,castilian country-side is concentrated for the most part in hamlets1 villages or towns1 in groups of clustered dwelling-houses1 separated from one another by immense and naked solitudes4 ,the villages are compact and sharply delimited1 not melting away into the plain in a surrounding fringe of isolated homesteads1 the intervening country being entirely unpopulated4 ,the houses seem to crowd together round the church as if for warmth or for defence against the rigour of nature1 as if the inhabitants sought a second cloak in which to isolate themselves from the cruelty of the climate and the melancholy of the landscape4 ,thus it is that very often the villagers have to journey considerable distances on mule-back in order to reach the fields where they work1 one here1 another there1 in isolation1 and it is already dark before they return to their homes to stretch themselves on the hard kitchen settles and sleep the comforting sleep of toil4 ,a notable sight it is to see them at nightfall1 mounted on their mules1 their figures silhouetted against the pale sky1 their sad1 slow1 monotonous songs dying away on the sharp night air into the infinity of the furrowed plain4 ,while the men labour in the sweat of their brow on the hard land1 the womenfolk perform their tasks at home1 filling the sunny arcades in front of the houses with a murmur of voices4 ,in the long winter evenings it is usual for masters and serving-folk to assemble together1 while the latter dance to the accompaniment of the sharp dry tap of the tambourine or sometimes to an old ballad measure4 ,go into one of these villages or drowsing cities of the plain1 where life flows slowly and calmly in a monotonous procession of hours1 and there you will find the living souls beneath whose transitory existence lies the eternal essence out of which is woven the inner history of ,castile4 ,within these towns and villages lives a breed of men of a dry1 hard and sinewy constitution1 burned by the sun and inured by the cold1 a sober1 frugal breed1 the product of a long process of natural selection by searching winter frosts and intermittent periods of scarcity1 tempered to withstand the inclemency of the skies and the asperities of penury4 ,the peasant who gave you a grave 8,good day0 as he passed by on his mule1 huddled in his cloak1 will receive you without overmuch courtesy1 with a kind of restrained sobriety4 ,he is collected in his movements1 circumspect and deliberate in his conversation1 with a gravity which gives him the air of a dethroned king4 ,such at any rate he appears when he is not cunningly ironical4 ,this sly biting irony--socarronera1 a racy word full of racy character--is the classical form of ,castilian humour1 a quiet and circumspect humour1 sententious and phlegmatic1 the humour of ,sanson ,carrasco in ,don ,quixote and of ,quevedo1 he who wrote the discourses of ,marcus ,brutus4 ,his slowness is matched by his tenacity1 qualities that have an intimate association4 ,his reaction-interval1 as the psycho-physiologists would express it1 is long2 it takes him a considerable time to realize an impression or an idea1 but once he has grasped it he does not readily relinquish it1 does not in fact relinquish it until another has impinged upon it and driven it out4 ,the slowness and tenacity of his impressions would appear to be due to the lack of an environing and unifying nimbus1 blending them into a conjunctive whole2 they do not merge into one another by subtle gradations1 but each one disappears completely before the next takes its place4 ,they seem to follow one another like the succession of uniform and monotonous tones in the landscape of his country1 sharp edge against sharp edge4 ,go with him into his house4 ,on the front wall the violent contrast of strident blue paint against a snow-white background exposed to the full blaze of the sun is almost painful to the eye4 ,sit down to table with him and partake of his simple dinner1 prepared without much culinary art1 accompanied only by keen and fiery condiments1 a meal that is at once both frugal and violent1 providing the palate with sharp-edged sensations4 ,after the dinner1 if the day chances to be a holiday1 you will witness a dance1 a dance slow and uniform1 danced to the monotonous beat of drum or tambourine1 a series of stabbing sounds that strike upon the ear like blows4 ,and you will hear songs1 wailing and monotonous1 full of long-drawn-out notes1 songs of the steppes1 with the rhythm of the dragging labour of the plough in them4 ,they testify to an ear that is incapable of appreciating the finer gradations of cadences and semi-tones4 ,if you are in a town and there are any pictures there of the old traditional school of ,castile1 go to see them--for in the great days of its expansion this race created a school of realistic painting1 of a rude1 vigorous1 simplified realism1 very limited in range of tone1 which has the effect of a violent douche upon the vision4 ,perhaps you will come across some canvas of ,ribera or ,zurbaran--your eye is held by the bony form of some austere hermit1 whose sinewy muscles are presented in high light against strong shadows1 a canvas meagre in tones and gradations1 in which every object stands out sharp-edged4 ,not infrequently the figures fail to form a single whole with the background1 which is a mere accessory of insignificant decorative value4 ,velazquez1 who of all ,castilian painters possesses most of the racial character1 was a painter of men1 of whole men1 men all of one piece1 rude and emphatic1 men who fill the whole canvas4 ,you will find no landscape-painters1 you will discover no sense of tone1 of suave transition1 no unifying1 enveloping atmosphere1 which blends everything into a single harmonious whole4 ,the unity springs from the more or less architectonic disposition of the several parts4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in this country of climatic extremes1 without any softness or mildness1 of a landscape uniform in its contrasts1 the spirit likewise is dry and sharp-edged1 with but a meagre ambience of ideas4 ,it generalises upon raw facts1 seen in a discrete series1 as in a kaleidoscope1 not upon a synthesis or analysis of facts seen in a continuous series1 in a living stream2 it sees them sharp-edged like figures in the ,castilian landscape and it takes them as they appear1 in their own dress1 without reconstructing them4 ,and it has given birth to a harsh popular realism and to a dry formal idealism1 marching alongside one another1 in an association like that of ,don ,quixote and ,sancho ,panza1 but never combining4 ,the ,castilian spirit is either ironic or tragic1 sometimes both at once1 but it never arrives at a fusion of the irony and the austere tragedy of the human drama4 ,,spanish ,,individualism ,in few books have ,i found so much food for reflection upon our ,spain and us ,spaniards as in ,martin ,a4 ,s4 ,hume's 8,the ,spanish ,people3 ,their ,origin1 ,growth and ,influence40 ,it is written by one who knows and esteems us4 ,it impresses us at a first glance as an excellent compendium of the history of ,spain1 but on closer examination it is found to be also an excellent psychological study of the ,spanish people4 ,in the tenth chapter there is to be noted a very happy and graphic phrase--8the introspective individuality of ,spaniards40 ,and it is indeed true that we are much given to this direct contemplation of ourselves1 a practice which is certainly not the best method of getting to know ourselves1 of fulfilling the precept 8,know thyself0 in its collective and social sense4 ,introspection is very deceptive and when carried to an extreme produces an actual vacuity of consciousness1 like that into which the ,yogi falls through perpetual contemplation of his own navel4 ,for a state of consciousness which consisted purely and simply of consciousness contemplating itself would not be a state of consciousness at all1 being void of all content4 ,this supposed reflection of the soul upon its own self is an absurdity4 ,to think that one thinks without thinking of anything concrete is mere negation4 ,we learn to know ourselves in the same way that we learn to know others1 by observing our actions1 and the only difference is that1 as we are always with ourselves and scarcely anything that we consciously do escapes us1 we have more data for knowing ourselves than we have for knowing others4 ,but even so1 we seldom know all that we are capable of until we put ourselves to it1 and often we surprise ourselves by achieving something which we did not expect of ourselves4 ,hence the utility of a people knowing its own history in order that it may know itself4 ,and ,hume studies us in our history4 ,in one of his books the ,american humorist1 ,oliver ,wendell ,holmes1 speaks of the three ,johns3 the ,john as he himself thinks he is1 the ,john as others think he is1 and the ,john as he is in reality4 ,and as for every individual1 so for every people there are three ,johns4 ,there is the ,spanish people as we ,spaniards believe it to be1 there is the ,spanish people as foreigners believe it to be1 and there is the ,spanish people as it really is4 ,it is difficult to say which of the first two approximates most nearly to the last2 but it is certainly right that we should compare them together and see ourselves both from within and from without4 ,however much we may lament the injustice or the superficiality of the judgments that our foreign visitors pronounce upon us1 it is possible that we are no less unjust or superficial in our own judgment of ourselves4 ,havelock ,ellis1 in a book published not long ago1 8,the ,soul of ,spain10 spoke of the unity of our race4 ,spaniards have generally regarded this view as absurd1 but it may very well be that the differences that separate the inhabitants of the various provinces of ,spain are no greater than those which exist between the inhabitants of the different districts of other nations which we suppose to be more unified than ourselves1 and that our lack of solidarity1 our separatist instinct1 our kabylism1 as it is called1 proceeds from other causes than from differences of race4 ,little notice need be taken of certain ethnological assertions1 not so much based upon scientific investigation as inspired by sentiments which1 whether creditable or not1 furnish no basis for arriving at the truth4 ,thus1 if a writer asserts that the ,catalans are ,aryans and all other ,spaniards ,semites1 it is obvious that he is using the terms ,aryan and ,semite without a proper understanding of them2 and as the distinction between ,catalans and other ,spaniards is one of philology rather than ethnology1 it would be interesting to know what language the ancestors of the present ,catalans spoke before ,latin penetrated into ,catalua1 for the supposition that they are descended from ,greek colonists is too nonsensical to be taken seriously4 99 99 99 99 99 ,before proceeding further in this review of ,hume's study of the psychology of the ,spanish people1 ,i should like to indicate a distinction which ,i am in the habit of making between individuality and personality1 a distinction which appears to me to be of great importance4 ,all my readers know what is meant by 8individual0 or 8indivisible10 a unity that is distinct from other unities and not divisible into unities analogous to it2 and also what is meant by a person4 ,the notion of person refers rather to the spiritual content1 and that of individual to the containing limit4 ,great individuality1 that which separates an individual strongly and emphatically from other analogous individuals1 may have very little that is peculiar and personal to itself4 ,it might even be said that individuality and personality are in a certain sense opposed to one another1 although in another wider and more exact sense it may be said that they afford one another mutual support4 ,strong individuality is scarcely possible without a respectable dose of personality1 neither is a strong and rich personality possible without a considerable degree of individuality to hold its various elements together2 but the vigour of a vigorous individuality may very easily contain only the minimum of personality and the richness of a rich personality may be contained within the minimum of individuality4 ,i will endeavour1 as is my wont1 to make my meaning clearer by means of metaphors4 ,in gases1 according to the physicists1 the molecules are in a certain state of disassociation1 moving rectilinearly in all directions--it is this which produces the phenomena of expansion--a state that is chaotic but not in reality very complex2 and it is a well-known fact that very complex bodies are not as a rule found in a gaseous state1 but only those that are simplest and least complicated4 ,in solids1 on the other hand1 the molecules are ordered according to relatively fixed orbits and trajectories--especially in the case of crystals2 and their individuality is maintained by a principle of intense cohesion1 their surfaces being in direct contact with their environment1 capable of affecting it and being affected by it4 ,a middle term is presented by liquids4 ,and thus we may compare certain strongly individualized natures with gases enclosed in a bottle or shell with rigid sides1 while there are others1 with flexible contours1 in a free give-and-take contact with their environment1 which possess great internal complexity--in other words1 a high degree of personality4 ,or we may compare the former with crustaceans1 enclosed in hard shells which give them rigid and permanent forms1 and the latter with vertebrates1 which1 since they carry their skeleton within themselves1 are capable of considerable external modification4 ,individuality refers rather to our external limits1 it exhibits our finiteness2 personality refers principally to our internal limits1 or rather to our inward unlimitedness1 it exhibits our infinitude4 ,all this is somewhat tenuous and perhaps fails to meet the demands of strict psychology1 but it is enough if it has helped to make my meaning clearer4 ,my idea is that the ,spaniard possesses1 as a general rule1 more individuality than personality2 that the vigour with which he affirms himself before others and the energy with which he creates dogmas and locks himself up in them1 do not correspond with any richness of inward spiritual content1 which in his case rarely errs on the side of complexity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in his preface ,hume states that the ,spaniards spring from an ,afro-,semitic race1 that 8the keynote of this primitive racial character is overwhelming individuality10 and that to this root-cause is to be attributed all that we have accomplished in the world1 our transient imperial greatness and our permanent tenacity4 ,this feeling of individuality lies deep down in the root of the race and cunning politicians have turned it to the advantage of their ambitions4 ,in speaking of the ,arab domination he says that 8the ,berber1 like his far-away relative the ,iberian1 was a man of strong individuality1 with an obstinate reluctance to obey another unless he spoke in the name of a supernatural entity40 ,at the conclusion of the ninth chapter in which he treats of our epoch of greatness in the middle of the #afth century1 he writes the following notable lines3 8,each unlettered boor and swaggering soldier felt in an undefined way that he was a creature apart by reason of his faith2 that ,spaniards and the ,spaniards' king had a higher mission than was accorded to other men2 and that from among the eight million ,spaniards alive the particular ,juan or ,pedro in question stood out individually1 in the sight of ,god and men1 as pre-eminently the most zealous and orthodox of them all4 ,to this had the policy of ,fernando and ,isabel brought the mass of the ,spanish people40 ,and in corroboration of this he draws a striking portrait of ,philip ,,ii1 the idol of our traditionalists3 8,intense individuality in him1 as in so many of his countrymen1 was merged in the idea of personal distinction in the eyes of ,god by self-sacrifice4444 ,at heart he was kindly1 a good father and husband1 an indulgent and considerate master1 having no love for cruelty itself4 ,and yet lying1 dishonesty1 cruelty1 the infliction of suffering and death upon hosts of helpless ones1 and the secret murder of those who stood in his path1 were not wrong for him1 because1 in his moral obliquity he thought that the ends justified the means1 and that all was lawful in the linked causes of ,god and ,spain40 8,he was blind and oblivious to all but the blood-boltered ,christ1 before whom he writhed in a maniacal agony of devotion1 sure in his dark soul1 as were so many of his countrymen1 that the divine finger pointed from glory alone upon him as the one chosen man who was to enforce upon earth the rule of the ,most ,high1 with--as a necessary consequence--,philip of ,spain as his viceregent40 ,i know that many who look upon this portrait will come forward with the familiar objection that this ,philip ,,ii is the ,devil of the ,south of the ,protestant legend1 and will advance the counter-legend--equally legendary--which is being built up out of a mass of minute data by historians who combine the method of ,dr4 ,dryasdust with the spirit of rabid partisanship4 ,what interests me in ,hume's description is his statement that every ,spaniard regards himself as an individual apart1 specially and personally chosen by ,god4 ,this recalls ,pascal's claim that ,jesus ,christ in dying shed a drop of blood for him1 ,blaise ,pascal1 who was destined to live in ,france in the middle of the #agth century4 ,there is a certain characteristic common to all those whom we call geniuses or great men and other heroes4 ,each of them has a consciousness of being a man apart1 chosen very expressly by ,god for the performance of a certain work4 ,in this respect we ,spaniards are inclined to think ourselves geniuses1 or rather we have a very robust conception of the ,divinity--we think of ,him not as the frigid and exalted ,god of the ,french ,deism of the #ahth century1 nor yet as the good-natured and easy-going ,god of good people that ,branger depicts1 but rather as a ,god whose attention and care extends to the very last ant1 regarded as a separate individual1 as well as to the very greatest and most splendid of suns4 ,in actual fact all these claims to singularity and to being one apart from the rest may become reprehensible1 but it is at least understandable that an orator1 for example1 or a writer1 or a singer1 should regard himself as the best orator1 the best writer1 or the best singer4 ,what is not understandable is that a man who is neither orator1 writer1 painter1 sculptor1 musician1 nor man of business1 that a man who does nothing at all1 should expect by the mere fact of his presence to be reputed a man of extraordinary merit and exceptional talent4 ,and nevertheless here in ,spain--,i do not know how it may be elsewhere--there are many examples of this curious phenomenon4 ,i know of the man who is ready to admit that others may be handsomer1 smarter1 stronger1 healthier1 wiser1 more intelligent1 more generous1 than he1 that in each and all of their endowments they have the advantage over him2 but nevertheless he1 ,juan ,lopez1 the individual in question1 is superior to everyone else just because he is ,juan ,lopez1 because there is no other ,juan ,lopez exactly like him and because it is impossible that all the qualities1 good1 bad and indifferent1 that make him him1 ,juan ,lopez1 should ever be assembled together again4 ,he is a unique individual1 he cannot be substituted by anyone else--and he is in a measure right in thinking so4 ,he can say with ,obermann3 8,in the universe ,i am nothing2 for myself ,i am everything40 ,this violent individualism1 combined with very meagre personalism1 with a great lack of personality1 is a factor that explains a great deal of our history4 ,it explains that intense thirst for individual immortality which consumes the ,spaniard1 a thirst that lies hidden beneath what is called our cult of death4 ,homage to this cult of death is rendered no less by the most furious lovers of life1 by those in whom the joy of living is unable to extinguish the hunger for survival4 ,it appears to me a very great error to assert that the ,spaniard does not love life because he finds life hard4 ,on the contrary1 it is because his life is hard that he has not arrived at the tdium vit1 the ,weltschmerz of the satiated1 and that he has always aimed at prolonging it indefinitely beyond death4 ,in the third part of the 8,ethics0 of ,spinoza1 a ,jew of ,spanish origin--or ,portuguese1 which amounts to the same thing--there are four admirable propositions1 the sixth1 seventh1 eighth and ninth1 in which he lays it down that everything1 in so far as it is in itself1 endeavours to persist in its own being2 that the endeavour wherewith a thing endeavours to persist in its being is nothing else than the actual essence of that thing 7conatus1 quo unaquque res in suo esse perseverare conatur1 nihil est prter ipsius rei actualem essentiam72 that this effort or endeavour involves no finite time but an indefinite time1 and that the spirit endeavours to persist in its being for an indefinite period and is conscious of this its endeavour4 ,it is not possible to express with more precision the longing for immortality that consumes the soul4 ,this strong individualism1 the individualism of an individual who endeavours to persist1 has led the ,spaniard to follow always the path of conduct and will1 and this is the reason of ,schopenhauer's admiration of ,spaniards1 whom he deemed to be one of the peoples most fully possessed of will--or rather of wilfulness--most tenacious of life4 ,our indifference to life is only on the surface and really conceals a most dogged attachment to it4 ,and this practical tendency is manifest in our thought1 which ever since ,seneca has inclined to what is called moralism and has evinced but little interest in pure metaphysical and speculative contemplation1 in viewing the world as a spectator4 ,it is this imperious individualism that has led us to the dogmatism that corrodes us4 ,spain is the country of those who are more papistical than the ,pope1 as the saying is4 ,spain is the chosen and most propitious soil for what is called integrism1 which is the triumph of the maximum of individuality compatible with the minimum of personality4 ,spain was1 in short1 and in more than one respect continues to be1 the land of the ,inquisition4 ,of the ,inquisition and inquisitorialism1 ,hume writes very aptly4 8,innate cruelty1 individual pride1 a vivid imagination long fed with extravagant fables1 religious and secular1 and lust for unearned wealth1 all combined under the eager blessings of the ,queen ,isabel and the ,church to make the ,spaniards1 as a race1 relentless persecutors of those who dared to think differently from themselves40 ,beneath the manifest and not inconsiderable exaggeration1 there is here a large basis of truth4 ,spaniards could do no wrong 8because they were working for and with the cause of ,god40 8,the bureaucratic unity of the ,romans was no longer possible in the time of ,fernando and ,isabel1 for out of the reconquest had grown separate nations2 but at least the various peoples1 the autonomous dominions1 the semi-independent towns1 might be held together by the strong bond of religious unity2 and with this object the ,inquisition was established1 as a governmental system1 to be developed later into a political engine4444 ,thus it is that ,spain appears for the first time in the concert of modern ,european nations a power whose very existence in a concrete form depends upon its rigid doctrinal ,catholicism40 ,this last assertion appears to me so doubtful and ,i am so far from believing it to be just that ,i shall have to devote a special study to its refutation4 99 99 99 99 99 ,this ,spanish individualism has undoubtedly been the cause of another characteristic feature of our history1 a feature to which ,hume pays very particular attention4 ,it is known as cantonalism or kabylism4 ,i refer of course to our tendency to disruption1 to separate into tribes4 ,hume alludes to it at the beginning of his history in the following notable lines3 8,in any case1 what is known of their physique seems to negative the supposition that they the ,iberians were of ,indo-,european or ,aryan origin2 and to find their counterpart at the present time1 it is only necessary to seek the ,kabyl tribes of the ,atlas1 the original inhabitants of the ,african coast opposite ,spain1 who were driven back into the mountains by successive waves of invasion4 ,not alone in physique do these tribes resemble what the early ,iberian must have been1 but in the more unchanging peculiarities of character and institutions the likeness is easily traceable to the ,spaniard of to-day4 ,the organization of the ,iberians1 like that of the ,atlas peoples1 was clannish and tribal1 and their chief characteristic was their indomitable local independence4 ,warlike and brave1 sober and light-hearted1 the ,kabyl tribesman has for thousands of years stubbornly resisted all attempts to weld him into a nation or subject him to a uniform dominion1 while the ,iberian1 starting probably from the same stock1 was blended with ,aryan races possessing other qualities1 and was submitted for six centuries to the unifying organization of the greatest governing race the world ever saw--the ,romans2 yet1 withal1 even at the present day1 the main characteristics of the ,spanish nation1 like that of the ,kabyl tribes1 is lack of solidarity40 ,this fundamental idea appears all through ,hume's book like a refrain or leitmotiv4 99 99 99 99 99 ,out of all this1 two questions now emerge3 the first1 what is the origin of this individualism8 and the second1 what is its cure8--the one ethnological1 the other therapeutical4 ,as ,i indicated at the beginning1 in quoting the opinion of ,havelock ,ellis1 ,i am not at all disposed to believe that kabylism or cantonalism1 the separatist tendency1 proceeds from differences of race4 ,if ,catalua or the ,basque provinces could be forthwith removed and isolated in the middle of the ,atlantic1 we should very soon see them torn by internal dissensions1 by separatist tendencies1 and conflicts for supremacy would arise between the various dialects of the ,catalan and ,basque languages4 ,in the ,basque provinces such internal dissensions are beginning to be patent even to the least acute observer4 ,there is one capital sin that is very peculiarly ,spanish1 and that sin is envy4 ,it is a result of our peculiar individualism1 and it is one of the causes of kabylism4 ,envy has crippled and still cripples not a few of the best minds of ,spain1 minds that are in other respects vigorous and exuberant4 ,we are all familiar with the famous simile of the greasy pole4 ,deep down in our racial character there is a certain sediment of spiritual avarice1 of lack of generosity of soul1 a certain propensity to consider ourselves rich only in so far as others are poor1 and this sediment requires to be purged away4 ,spanish kabylism and individualism both appear to me to be effects of one and the same cause1 the cause that also produced picarism4 ,in his book entitled ,hampa1 ,salillas showed very clearly how the poverty of the soil1 its failure to serve as a basis for the support of the people1 was responsible for the seasonal migration of flocks and herds together with the vagabond life that resulted therefrom4 ,it appears to me more concrete and more historical to say that it obliged the ,iberians to be herdsmen4 ,hume expresses it exactly when he says that the pure ,spaniard has always been 8an agriculturist by necessity and a shepherd by choice1 ,the spectators1 so far from encouraging or applauding the competitors1 are said to pull them back and generally hinder them from securing the prize4 when he was not a soldier40 ,i believe that a consideration of this pastoral character of our people would help to explain a great deal of our history and to modify accepted verdicts4 ,at bottom the expulsion of the ,moriscos1 an industrious people of agriculturists and gardeners1 appears to me to have been due to the traditional hatred which those whom ,i will call ,abelites1 the spiritual descendants of ,abel1 the keeper of flocks1 bore towards the descendants of ,cain1 the tiller of the ground1 who killed his brother4 ,for the ,hebrew legend of ,cain and ,abel presents one of the most profound intuitions of the beginnings of human history4 ,and what is the cure for this individualism8 ,the first thing is to see whether it is an evil1 and if it appears to be one1 to see if it may not be converted into a good1 for it is evident that vices and virtues proceed from the same stock and a single passion may be turned either to good or to evil4 ,the exigences of life in past ages made our remote ancestors herdsmen2 being herdsmen1 they acquired all the qualities that pastoral life tends to develop--they were idlers1 they were wanderers1 and they were disunited4 ,the lapse of time1 civilized and urban life1 the necessities imposed by industrial and commercial competition--progress1 in short--will modify this basal character4 ,can this process be accelerated1 and by what means8--,but that is another question4 ,,some ,,arbitrary ,,reflections ,,upon ,,europeanization ,it is a not unprofitable task to examine the national consciousness by examining ourselves and to ask ourselves as ,spaniards what there is of intrinsic and permanent worth in most of these schemes for our national regeneration which almost all of us are discussing nowadays1 some more insistently than others4 ,all those things which are being demanded and which almost all of us have demanded on behalf of our people1 with a greater or less degree of comprehension of what these demands mean1 may be summed up in two terms--,european and modern4 8,we must be modern10 8we must be ,european10 8we must modernize ourselves10 8we must go with the century10 8we must ,europeanize ourselves0--such are the watchwords of the hour4 ,the term ,european expresses a vague idea1 very vague1 excessively vague2 but much vaguer is the idea that is expressed by the term modern4 ,if we combine the two together it would seem that they ought to limit one another and result in something concrete1 and that the expression 8modern ,european0 ought to be clearer than either of its two component terms2 but perhaps it is really vaguer still4 ,it will be apparent that ,i am proceeding by way of what some would call arbitrary statement1 without documentation1 without verification1 independent of modern ,european logic and disdainful of its methods4 ,perhaps4 ,i seek no other method than the method of passion2 and when ,i am moved with disgust1 with repugnance1 with pity or with contempt1 ,i let the mouth speak from the fullness of the heart and the words come forth as they will4 ,we ,spaniards1 so they say1 are arbitrary charlatans1 we fill up the broken links of logic with rhetoric1 we subtilize skilfully but uselessly1 we lack the sense of consecutiveness and induction1 we have scholastic minds1 we are casuists 444 etc41 etc4 ,i have heard similar things said of ,st4 ,augustine1 the great ,african1 the fiery soul that overflowed in waves of rhetoric1 in phraseological contortions1 in antitheses1 in paradoxes and conceits4 ,st4 ,augustine was at once a gongorist and a conceptist4 ,which leads me to believe that ,gongorism and conceptism are the natural forms of passion and vehemence4 ,the great ,african1 the great ancient ,african6 ,here you have an expression1 8ancient ,african10 which can be opposed to that of 8modern ,european10 and which is at least of equal value4 ,st4 ,augustine was ,african and he was of the ancient world2 so also was ,tertullian4 ,and why should we not say3 8,we must ,africanize ourselves ancientwise0 or 8,we must ancientize ourselves ,africanwise08 ,luis de ,gongora 7#aefa-afbg7 elaborated an affected and euphuistic style of composition4 ,conception is the name given to the employment of conceptos1 a characteristic ,spanish form of conceits4 ,it is exemplified in the writings of ,quevedo 7#aehj-afde7 and its subtleties were reduced to an exact code by ,baltasar ,gracin in his ,agudeza y arte de ingenio 7#afdb74 ,turning my glance inwards upon myself after the lapse of years1 after having wandered among the various fields of modern ,european culture1 ,i ask myself1 face to face with my conscience3 ,am ,i ,european8 am ,i modern8 ,and my conscience replies3 ,no1 you are not ,european1 not what is called ,european2 no1 you are not modern1 not what is called modern4 ,and ,i ask myself again3 ,is the fact that you feel that you are neither ,european nor modern due to the fact that you are a ,spaniard8 ,are we ,spaniards1 at heart1 irreducible to ,europeanization and modernization8 ,and if that be the case1 is there no salvation for us8 ,is there no other life than modern and ,european life8 ,is there no other culture--or whatever you like to call it8 ,first of all1 so far as ,i myself am concerned1 ,i must confess that the more ,i reflect upon it1 the more ,i become aware of the inner repugnance that my spirit feels for all those that are considered to be the guiding principles of the modern ,european spirit1 for the scientific orthodoxy of to-day1 for its methods1 for its tendencies4 ,there are two things that are often talked about--science and life4 ,and ,i must confess that both the one and the other are antipathetic to me4 ,it is unnecessary to define science1 or ,science1 if you like1 with the capital letter1 this thing which is now being so widely popularized1 the purpose of which is to give us a more logical and exact idea of the ,universe4 ,when ,i used to be something of a ,spencerian ,i believed myself to be enamoured of science2 but afterwards ,i discovered that this was a mistake4 ,it was a mistake like the mistake of those who think that they are happy when they are not4 7,it is evident that ,i reject1 arbitrarily of course1 the idea that being happy consists in thinking that one is happy47 ,no1 ,i was never enamoured of science1 ,i always sought for something behind it4 ,and when1 endeavouring to get beyond its fatidical relativity1 ,i was led to the ignorabimus position1 ,i realized that science had always irked me4 ,and what are you going to put in its place8 ,i shall be asked4 ,i might say ignorance1 but that is not certain4 ,i might say1 with the ,preacher1 the son of ,david1 king of ,jerusalem1 that he who increases knowledge increases sorrow and that the same end awaits the wise man and the fool2 but no1 it is not that4 ,i don't need to invent a word1 however1 to express what it is that ,i oppose to science1 for the word exists1 and it is sabidura--the sagesse of the ,french1 the wisdom of the ,english1 the ,german ,weisheit or ,klugheit4 ,but is it opposed to science8 ,i shall be asked4 ,and ,i1 following my arbitrary method1 guided by the passion of my spirit1 by my innate aversions and my innate attractions1 reply3 ,yes1 they are opposed2 science robs men of wisdom and usually converts them into phantom beings loaded up with facts4 ,the other thing that is being incessantly talked about to-day is life1 and to this it is easy to find an opposite4 ,the opposite to life is death4 ,and this second opposition helps me to explain the first4 ,wisdom is to science what death is to life1 or1 if you prefer it1 wisdom is to death what science is to life4 ,the object of science is life1 and the object of wisdom is death4 ,science says3 8,we must live10 and seeks the means of prolonging1 increasing1 facilitating and amplifying life1 of making it tolerable and acceptable2 wisdom says3 8,we must die10 and seeks how to make us die well4 ,homo liber de nulla re minus quam de morte cogitat1 et eius sapientia non mortis1 sed vita meditatio est--so ,spinoza announces in ,proposition ,,lxvii of the fourth part of his 8,ethics03 ,the free man thinks of nothing less than of death1 and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life4 ,in this case1 this wisdom1 this sapientia1 is no longer wisdom1 but science4 ,and it is also necessary to inquire what kind of man is meant by this 8free man40 ,the man free from the supreme anguish1 free from the eternal heartache1 free from the gaze of the ,sphinx1 that is to say1 the man who is not a man1 the ideal of the modern ,european4 ,and here we have another concept which is as little sympathetic to me as those of life and science1 the concept of liberty4 ,there is no other true liberty than the liberty of death4 ,and what is at the bottom of all this8 ,what are they seeking and pursuing1 those who grasp at science and life and liberty1 turning their backs1 whether they are aware of it or not1 upon wisdom and death8 ,what they are seeking is happiness4 ,i believe--perhaps this belief of mine is also arbitrary--,i believe that here we touch the bottom of our inquiry4 ,the so-called modern ,european comes to the world to seek happiness for himself and for others1 and believes that man ought to succeed in being happy4 ,and this is a supposition to which ,i am unable to conform4 ,and now1 as ,i am confessing myself1 ,i am going to put before you an arbitrary dilemma--arbitrary1 because ,i cannot prove it to you logically1 because it is imposed upon me by the feeling of my heart1 not by the reasoning of my head3 either happiness or love4 ,if you want the one1 you must renounce the other4 ,love kills happiness1 happiness kills love4 ,and here it would be very apposite to adduce all that our mystics1 our admirable mystics1 our only classic philosophers1 the creators of our ,spanish wisdom1 not our ,spanish science--perhaps the terms 8science0 and 8,spanish0 are1 happily1 mutually repellent--have felt1 felt rather than thought1 about love and happiness--the muero porque no muero and the dolor sabroso and all the rest that emanates from the same depths of feeling4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and what relation does all this bear to the spiritual problem of ,spain8 ,is it anything more than a purely and exclusively personal1 that is to say arbitrary1 position8 ,is it as a ,spaniard that ,i feel all this8 ,is it suggested to me by the ,spanish soul8 ,it has been said that with the ,catholic ,kings and the beginnings of national unity the course of our history was turned into another channel4 ,it is certain that since then1 with the discovery of ,america and our intermeddling in ,european affairs1 we have been drawn into the current of other peoples4 ,spain entered into the strong current of the ,renaissance and our medival soul began to be obliterated4 ,and the ,renaissance was in its essence just this3 science1 above all in the form of humanities1 and life4 ,and thought dwelt less upon death and the mystical wisdom gradually disappeared4 ,it has frequently been said that the ,spaniard is too much preoccupied with death2 and we have been told1 in a variety of ways and especially by those who deal in platitudes1 that the preoccupation with death prevents us from living like moderns and like ,europeans4 ,the blame even for our death-rate and for our squalor and for our lack of health has been thrown upon our so-called cult of death4 ,and it seems to me1 on the other hand1 that we think too little about death1 or rather that we only half think about it4 ,and we half think and half meditate about death because we pretend to be ,european and modern without ceasing to be ,spaniards1 and that is impossible4 ,and we have made an infamous commixture of our classic wisdom and exotic science1 of our innate deep feeling for death and a borrowed solicitude for life4 ,and we have thought we were keenly interested in progress whereas in fact we trouble very little about it4 8,you deceive yourself10 a foreign friend of mine once said to me1 thinking that although ,i was a ,spaniard ,i was also ,european and modern1 8you deceive yourself--,spaniards in general are incapable of civilization and refractory to it40 ,and ,i left him cold with stupor when ,i replied3 8,and is that a fault80 ,the man looked at me as one looks at someone who has suddenly gone mad2 it must have seemed to him as if ,i had denied a postulate of geometry4 ,he began to reason with me and ,i said3 8,no1 don't attempt to give me reasons4 ,i think ,i may say without boasting1 and yet without the hypocrisy of modesty1 that ,i know all the reasons you can bring forward on this point4 ,it is not a question of reasons but of feelings40 ,he insisted1 attempting to talk to me about feeling1 and ,i added3 8,no1 my friend1 no1 you know all about logic1 but it is not logic1 but passion1 that governs feelings40 ,and ,i left him and went away to read the confessions of the great ,african of the ancient world4 ,is it not perhaps true that we ,spaniards are1 in effect1 spiritually refractory to what is called modern ,european culture8 ,and if this be so1 ought we to be distressed about it8 ,is it not possible to live and to die1 above all to die well1 without this fortunate culture8 ,and by this ,i don't mean that we are engulfed in inaction1 in ignorance and in barbarism--no1 not that4 ,there are means of augmenting the spirit1 of exalting it1 of enlarging it1 of ennobling it1 of making it more divine1 without having recourse to this same culture4 ,we can1 ,i believe1 cultivate our wisdom without accepting science except as a means to this end1 taking due precautions against its corrupting the spirit4 ,just as love of death and the feeling that it is the principle of our true life ought not to lead us to a violent renunciation of life1 to suicide--for life is a preparation for death1 and the better the preparation1 the better the thing prepared for--so neither ought love of wisdom to lead us to a renunciation of science1 for that would be equivalent to mental suicide1 but to an acceptance of science as a preparation1 and as nothing more than a preparation1 for wisdom4 ,for my part ,i can say that if ,i had never made excursions into the fields of some of the modern ,european sciences1 ,i should never have taken the delight that ,i have taken in our ancient ,african wisdom1 in our popular wisdom1 in what scandalizes all the ,pharisees and ,sadducees of intellectualism1 that horrible intellectualism that poisons the soul4 ,it is hearing hymns in praise of them that has made me view science and life with distrust1 perhaps with horror1 and love the wisdom of death1 the meditation which1 according to ,spinoza1 the free man1 that is1 the happy man1 does not meditate4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a few days ago ,i read an article by my friend and fellow-,basque1 ,po ,baroja1 entitled 8,the ,sad ,country10 in which he says that ,spain is a sad country1 just as ,france is a beautiful country4 ,he opposes smiling ,france1 with its level fertile soil1 with its mild climate1 with its bright transparent rivers that slide smoothly along flush with their banks1 to our peninsula1 full of stones1 burnt by the sun and frozen with the winter frost4 ,he observes that in ,france the products of the spirit cannot compare with the products of agriculture and industry2 that the dramas of ,racine are not fashioned so finely as the wines of ,bordeaux2 that the pictures of ,delacroix are not so good as the oysters of ,arcachon2 and that1 on the other hand1 our great men1 ,cervantes1 ,velazquez1 ,el ,greco1 ,goya1 are the equals or more than the equals of the great men of any other country2 while our actual life is not equal to1 not the life of ,morocco1 but the life of ,portugal4 ,and ,i say3 ,is it not worth while to undergo the hardship of renouncing this pleasant life of ,france in order to breathe the spirit that can produce a ,cervantes1 a ,velazquez1 an ,el ,greco1 a ,goya8 ,are not these perhaps incompatible with the wine of ,bordeaux and the oysters of ,arcachon8 ,i believe--arbitrarily of course--that it is so1 that they are incompatible1 and ,i take my stand with ,don ,quixote1 with ,velazquez1 with ,el ,greco1 with ,goya1 and against the wine of ,bordeaux and the oysters of ,arcachon1 against ,racine and ,delacroix4 ,passion and sensuality are incompatible2 passion is arbitrary1 logic is sensual4 ,for logic is nothing but a form of sensuality4 8,all our material and intellectual products are hard1 rugged and disagreeable10 ,baroja continues4 8,the wine is thick1 the meat bad1 the papers boring and the literature sad4 ,i don't know what it is that makes our literature so disagreeable40 ,here ,i must pause4 ,i am not sensible of this identification of the sad with the disagreeable2 and ,i will even say--although there may be some simple enough to take this to be a paradox--that for me the disagreeable is that which is called gay4 ,i shall never forget the highly disagreeable effect1 the deep disgust1 which the strident hilarity of the ,parisian boulevard produced upon me seventeen years ago1 and the feeling of disquiet and uneasiness that came over me there4 ,all that world of youth1 dancing1 jesting1 playing1 drinking1 making love1 seemed to me to be composed of puppets endowed with sense2 they seemed to lack consciousness1 to be appearances merely4 ,i felt alone1 utterly alone among them1 and this feeling of loneliness pained me4 ,i could not bring myself to accept the idea that these roisterers1 these devotees of the joie de vivre1 were beings like myself1 my fellows1 or even the idea that they were living creatures dowered with consciousness4 ,here you have an instance of the way in which gaiety jarred upon me1 was disagreeable to me4 ,and on the other hand1 when ,i am in the midst of heart-sick multitudes crying to heaven for mercy1 chanting a ,de profundis or a ,miserere1 ,i cannot help feeling myself among brothers1 united to them by love4 ,later on1 ,baroja says3 8,for me1 one of the saddest things about ,spain is that we ,spaniards cannot be frivolous or jovial40 ,and for me it would be one of the saddest things for ,spain if we ,spaniards could become frivolous and jovial4 ,in that case we should cease to be ,spaniards1 yet without even becoming ,europeans4 ,in that case we should have to renounce our true consolation and our true glory1 which consists precisely in this inability to be either frivolous or jovial4 ,in that case we might be able to repeat in chorus all the unsubstantialities of the popular scientific handbooks1 but we should be incapacitated for entering into the kingdom of wisdom4 ,in that case we might perhaps have better and finer wines1 purer oil1 better oysters2 but we should have to renounce the possibility of a new ,don ,quixote1 or a new ,velazquez1 and1 above all1 the possibility of a new ,st4 ,john of the ,cross1 a new ,fray ,diego de ,estella1 a new ,st4 ,teresa de ,jess--whether orthodox or heterodox1 it matters not which4 ,and ,baroja concludes3 8,a sad country in which everywhere all people live their lives thinking of nothing less than of life40 ,and this arbitrariness provokes my arbitrariness and ,i exclaim3 ,unhappy those modern ,european countries in which people live their lives thinking of nothing more than of life4 ,unhappy those countries in which men do not continually think of death and in which the guiding principle of life is not the thought that we shall all one day have to lose it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,here ,i must halt a moment--if it is possible to speak of halts in a course such as my thought is taking here--and explain1 if it is possible to explain it1 what this arbitrariness really is4 ,foreigners1 the ,french in particular1 take from us precisely that which is least ours1 that which least clashes with their spirit1 and1 naturally enough1 that which best accommodates itself to the idea that they have formed of us1 an idea that is always and necessarily superficial4 ,and we1 poor fools1 yield to this delusive adulation and hope for this external applause1 the applause of those who really don't hear us1 and even when they do hear us don't understand us4 ,i don't really know what they want in taking from us just what they do take1 just that which confirms the popular notion they have of us4 ,if ,i were in their place1 what ,i should take from ,spain and make known to my fellow-countrymen would be what was most wounding to their convictions1 what amazed them most1 what was most repellent to their spirit1 what was most different from them4 ,but after all what they do is natural1 for people want to be told just that which they already think1 that which confirms them in their preconceived ideas1 their prejudices and their superstitions3 men want to be deceived4 ,and so it is here4 ,in face of this attitude of theirs1 what must be our attitude8 ,in face of this process that tends to decharacterize us1 to rob us of that which makes us what we are1 what course of action is the best for us to adopt8 ,admonished by those voices that say3 8,if you want to be like us and save yourselves1 take this10 what must we do8 ,but this question of attempting to ,spaniardize ,europe1 the only means whereby we may ,europeanize ourselves1 so far as it is fitting that we should be ,europeanized1 or rather1 whereby we may digest those elements in the ,european spirit which we can convert into our spirit--this question must be left for separate treatment4 ,all this will appear arbitrary--it is arbitrary4 ,how can ,i help it8 8,enough10 some logical modern ,european reader will say2 8now ,i've caught you4 ,you yourself admit that your assertions have no foundation1 that they are arbitrary1 that they cannot be proved1 and such assertions ought not to be taken seriously40 ,and ,i will say to this poor logical modern and ,european reader1 who may be assumed to be in love with science and life1 that the fact that an assertion is arbitrary and cannot be proved by logical reasons1 does not mean either that it is without foundation or1 still less1 that it is false4 ,and above all it does not mean that such an assertion may not excite and animate the spirit1 may not strengthen its inner life1 that inner life which is a very different thing from the life that the logical and scientificist reader is in love with4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i broke off this essay at this point two days ago1 with the intention of continuing it1 of resuming the broken thread1 as occasion offered1 and now to-day1 the #acth of ,may1 ,i have just read a phrase that alters the course of my discourse4 ,something of the kind happens to rivers when a rock deflects their course and causes them to disembogue many leagues away from where they would otherwise have disembogued1 perhaps into another sea altogether4 ,it is curious what happens to our ideas4 ,we have often in our mind a crowd of ideas that vegetate in the darkness1 withered1 incomplete1 unacquainted with one another and avoiding one another4 ,for in the darkness1 ideas1 like men1 are afraid of one another4 ,and they remain obscured1 disassociated1 avoiding contact4 ,but suddenly a new and luminous idea enters the mind1 emitting light and illuminating the dark corner1 and as soon as the other ideas see it and see their own faces1 they recognize one another1 they arise and gather round the new arrival1 they embrace and form a fraternity and recover their full life4 ,so it has happened with me to-day when a number of half-alive and shadowy ideas that have been lying isolated in a corner of my mind have been joined by this new idea that ,i have just read in a ,madrid newspaper1 ,la ,correspondencia de ,espaa1 of yesterday's date1 the #abth of ,may4 ,in an article that it publishes1 entitled 8,current ,events--,cnovas10 the author says3 8,sagasta understood ,spaniards1 but not ,spain4 ,cnovas never knew of what stuff his fellow-countrymen were made40 ,the moment that ,i read this1 ,i realized1 as if by a sudden illumination1 the difference that there is between the soul of ,spain and the aggregate of the souls of all us ,spaniards who are living to-day1 the actual synthesis of these same souls4 ,and ,i remembered that at the time of the last ,carlist civil war1 when ,i was a boy1 ,i heard someone in my native town say3 8,even though all we men of ,bilbao were to become ,carlists1 ,bilbao would remain liberal40 ,a paradox--that is to say1 a profound arbitrary truth1 a truth of passion1 a truth of the heart1 and one that ,i shall never forget4 8,sagasta understood ,spaniards1 but not ,spain40 ,and all our commonplace rulers1 those who let themselves drift with the stream and enjoy long years of office1 all our commonplace writers1 those who write books that are just long tirades1 books that sell1 all our commonplace artists and all our commonplace thinkers1 understand their fellow-countrymen1 but not their country4 ,not only our own souls1 the souls of us who are living to-day1 are alive and operative in the soul of ,spain1 but in addition to these1 the souls of all our forefathers4 ,our own souls1 those of the living1 are those that are least alive in it1 for our soul does not enter into the soul of our country until it is no longer a detached entity1 until after our temporal death4 ,what is the use of our wanting to make our thought modern and ,european when our language is neither ,european nor modern8 ,while we are endeavouring to make it say one thing1 it is endeavouring to make us say something different1 and thus we don't say the thought that we pretend we are saying1 but we say the thought that we don't wish to say4 ,we endeavour--that is to say1 many of us endeavour--to deform our spirit conformably with an external standard1 and we succeed neither in making ourselves like those whom we pretend to copy nor in being ourselves4 ,whence results a horrible spiritual half-breed1 a kind of barren hybrid4 ,and the most curious thing about it all is this--something that will be understood one day1 if the day ever comes when anyone will occupy himself in investigating the spiritual condition of ,spain at the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries--the most curious and surprising thing is that those who are held to be most ,spanish1 most true-blooded and of the old stock1 most authentically ,spanish1 are those who are the most ,europeanizing1 the most exotic1 those whose soul contains the most alien strains2 and on the other hand those whom many simple-minded folk regard as exotic spirits1 anglicized1 gallicized1 ,germanized1 ,norwegianized1 are the ones whose roots intermingle most closely with the roots of those who created the ,spanish soul4 ,i have observed how frequently a skin-deep classicism1 a classicism of external grammatical and rhetorical forms1 goes hand in hand with a complete alienation from the national soul1 and vice versa4 ,i have known a portentous fool1 once an esteemed author1 who used to read our mystics in order to learn from them how to write good ,castilian and upon whom the ardent soul of these most genuinely ,spanish spirits made no impression whatever2 and on the other hand ,i know a man who1 although he has never read them nor concerned himself in any way to preserve their literary tradition or their religious orthodoxy1 in breathing the national spiritual atmosphere has breathed the air of that mysticism that is inherent in this atmosphere4 ,what is the origin of this confusion8 ,i cannot tell1 but ,i presume that it must originate in the same cause that makes ,spaniards insist on calling him a wise man who has least wisdom in him and demanding logic from a man who is passionate and arbitrary4 8,people want and demand things10 so a friend of mine says to me when ,i talk to him about these matters1 8that is to say1 concrete ideas1 utilizable facts1 scientific theories1 information1 rational explanations1 and it is no use going to them with feelings and dreams40 ,usually my first thought on hearing this is1 8,unfortunate people60 but immediately afterwards ,i pull myself up and say3 8,they are partly right2 it is right that they should demand that2 but why must so many of them reject the other8 and above all why should they not demand from each one just that which he has and which he can give80 ,and1 to apply this to our own people1 why must we persist in distorting our inner nature and rejecting what it gives us in order to try to force it to give us something else8 ,our defects1 or what others call our defects1 are usually the root of our excellencies2 the qualities that are censured as our vices are the foundation of our virtues4 ,it is not a universal sthetic1 applicable to all peoples alike1 a pure sthetic--for ,i doubt whether such an sthetic exists or even can exist--that has condemned our conceptism and gongorism1 for example1 and that has decreed that our genuine and natural instinct for emphasis is in bad taste4 ,it is not a universal sthetic1 valid for all peoples alike1 but the sthetic of other peoples1 or rather of one other people1 the ,french1 that has imposed this canon upon so many of us4 ,the literary and artistic vices of this terribly logical1 desperately geometrical1 ,cartesian people are certainly not those of conceptism or gongorism1 and this people has succeeded in great measure in teaching us its virtues and in teaching us its vices4 ,there is nothing more intolerable than gallicized ,spanish literature2 nothing more false1 more futile1 more displeasing1 than ,spanish writers who have formed themselves by imitating ,french literature4 ,emphasis8 ,but what if emphasis is natural to us8 ,what if emphatic expression is the spontaneous expression of our nature8 ,what if emphasis is the form of passion1 just as what is called naturalness is the expression of sensuality and of good sense8 ,what ,i am sure of is that when a man is really irritated or really enthusiastic1 he does not express himself in concise1 clear1 logical1 transparent phrases1 but he breaks out into emphatic exclamations1 into redundant dithyrambs4 ,what ,i know1 and what everybody knows1 is that in love-letters1 if the love be real love1 tragic love1 love that cannot be happy1 everything is poured forth in a flood of burning commonplaces4 ,i have often thought that gongorism and conceptism are1 in a certain mode1 expressions of passion4 ,i affirm it of conceptism1 arbitrarily1 of course4 ,almost all the great men of passion that ,i am acquainted with in the history of human thought1 including the great ,african of whom ,i have already spoken1 have been conceptists1 have poured forth their longings1 their aspirations1 in antitheses1 in paradoxes1 in phrases that at first sight seem to be merely ingenious4 ,perhaps this is owing to the fact that passion is the enemy of logic1 in which it sees a tyrant1 for passion desires that what it desires should exist1 and does not desire what must exist1 and conceptism in its essence is a violation of logic for the sake of logic itself4 ,he plays with concepts and does violence to ideas who is impeded by concepts and ideas1 for he is unable to make them comply with the demands of his passion4 ,i need the immortality of my soul1 the indefinite persistence of my individual consciousness--,i need it4 ,without it1 without faith in it1 ,i cannot live1 and doubt1 the inability to believe that ,i shall attain it1 torments me4 ,and since ,i need it1 my passion leads me to affirm it1 and to affirm it arbitrarily1 and when ,i attempt to make others believe1 to make myself believe1 ,i do violence to logic and make use of arguments which are called ingenious and paradoxical by those unfortunate people who have no passion and who contemplate their ultimate dissolution with resignation4 ,the man of passion1 the arbitrary man1 is the only real rebel1 and nothing makes a more grotesque impression upon me than when ,i come across those--usually gallicized--individuals who proclaim themselves emancipated from all tyrannies1 lovers of liberty1 esprits forts1 anarchists sometimes1 frequently atheists1 but who nevertheless are the faithful devotees of logic and of the code of good taste4 ,yes1 emphasis1 turgidity1 conceptism1 paradoxism1 these are the language passion speaks1 and1 on the other hand1 there is nothing less natural1 for us ,spaniards at any rate1 than that which the ,french call naturel and which is usually the refined product of an exquisite and artificial elaboration4 ,some ,frenchman has said that ,french literature is that which gives the most eloquent expression to the great commonplaces of humanity2 but ,i would say that it is in this literature1 which has done and still does so much harm in ,spain1 that all middling ideas and middling feelings find their most adequate form and expression1 and that it is hostile to extreme ideas and extreme feelings4 ,observe that the ,french spirit has produced no great mystic1 no really great pure mystic4 ,observe that upon ,pascal1 although he was somewhat arbitrary and passionate1 geometry made a profound impression4 ,and consider the fact that ,pascal is one of the ,french spirits that we are best able to appropriate4 ,it is to this most profound and tortured spirit that we owe two great and profound instances1 among others1 of tormentingly arbitrary utterance3 that of the pari or wager1 and that of il faut s'abtir1 8we must become as fools0--in order to believe1 beginning with acting as if we did believe4 ,but ,i don't know of any great mystic1 any really pure mystic1 who was a ,frenchman4 ,and here ,i should like to say something about the gentle1 tranquil1 sensual and logical ,st4 ,francis of ,sales1 so full of common sense and of a spiritual via media1 but ,i must leave it for some other time4 ,and it is the sthetic of this people1 so opposed to our own1 in spite of all that nonsense about the ,latin sisterhood--,i don't know whether they are ,latin1 ,i don't know whether we are1 and as regards myself personally1 ,i believe that there is nothing ,latin about me--it is the sthetic of this people that is deforming the fruit of our spirit as it is expressed in many of our spiritual creators4 ,latins4 ,latins8 ,and why1 if we are really ,berbers1 must we not feel and assert that we are ,berbers1 and why must not the poetry in which we endeavour to give expression to our sorrows and our consolations conform to the ,berber sthetic8 ,the only way of entering into vital relations with another is the aggressive way2 only those succeed in mutually penetrating one another1 in forming a spiritual brotherhood1 who strive to subjugate one another spiritually1 whether in the case of individuals or of peoples4 ,it is only when ,i strive to put my spirit into the spirit of my neighbour that ,i receive my neighbour's spirit in mine4 ,the apostle is blessed in receiving in himself the souls of those whom he converts2 in this consists the nobility of proselytizing4 ,no1 none of this laissez-faire and laissez-aller--don't let us shrug our shoulders at the ideas1 still less at the feelings1 of others1 but rather try to wound them4 ,it is thus and only thus that they will wound ours and keep them awake within us4 ,for my part ,i know that those to whom ,i owe most are those who have acted as if they rejected1 who have wished to reject1 what ,i offered to them4 ,the deep moral life is a life of aggression and mutual penetration4 ,everyone must endeavour to make others in his own image and likeness1 as ,god is said to have made us in ,his image and likeness4 ,the condemnation of him who tries to mould himself upon another lies in the fact that he will cease to be himself without succeeding in being the other whom he takes as his model1 and so he will be nobody4 ,unquestionably there is something1 there are many things1 in modern ,european culture and in the modern ,european spirit that it behoves us to receive into ourselves in order that we may convert them into our flesh1 just as we receive the flesh of various kinds of animals into our body and convert it into our flesh4 ,with the brains of oxen ,i nourish my brain1 with the ribs of hogs ,i make my heart beat1 with fish and birds ,i feed my body so that my spirit can plunge into the deeps and swim in them and ascend to the heights and fly there4 ,and must we not eat the modern ,european spirit8 ,yes1 but we first kill these oxen1 hogs1 fishes and birds1 upon which we nourish ourselves1 imposing our will upon them1 and we must deal with this spirit in the same way before eating it4 ,i am profoundly convinced1 arbitrarily of course--the more profoundly1 the more arbitrarily1 as is always the case when truths of faith are concerned--,i am profoundly convinced that the real and deep ,europeanization of ,spain1 that is to say1 our digestion of that part of the ,european spirit which it is possible to convert into our spirit1 will not begin until we strive to impose ourselves upon the ,european spiritual order1 to make the ,europeans swallow our spirit1 that which is genuinely ours1 in exchange for theirs1 until we strive to ,spaniardize ,europe4 ,and to-day--,i say it with shame and sorrow--when a ,spaniard seeks to enter into the ,european world1 that is to say1 in the case of men of letters1 when he wishes to be translated1 all that he is concerned about is to deform himself1 to de-,spaniardize himself1 to leave the translator nothing to do but to translate the letter1 the external language4 ,and thus it is that one hears remarks like that which a ,frenchman made to me the other day1 when1 speaking of the translation of a contemporary ,spanish novel1 he stated that it was better in ,french than in ,spanish4 ,to this ,i replied that it had been translated back into its original language4 ,each human faculty has its method1 that is to say1 its procedure1 its mode of action4 ,that which we call logic is the method of reason1 the way of discovering conclusions satisfactory to reason4 ,in this way science is made4 ,but when it is a question neither of addressing nor satisfying reason1 there is no need of logic4 ,and for my part1 ,i rarely1 very rarely1 address myself to the reason of those who hear or read me1 and when ,i do so1 it is not ,i myself who speak or write1 but rather an artificial self--and because artificial1 therefore detachable--which those who hear or read me impose upon me4 ,it has been said that the heart has its logic1 but it is dangerous to call the method of the heart logic2 it would be better to call it cardiac4 ,and there is also the method of passion1 which is arbitrariness and which must not be confounded with caprice1 as often happens4 ,it is one thing to be capricious and another very different thing to be arbitrary4 ,arbitrariness1 the brusque affirmation of a thing because ,i wish it to be so1 because ,i need it to be so1 the creation of our vital truth--truth being that which makes us live--is the method of passion4 ,passion affirms and the proof of its affirmation is founded upon the energy with which it is affirmed4 ,it needs no other proofs4 ,when some poor intellectual1 some modern ,european1 opposes ratiocinations and arguments to any of my affirmations1 ,i say to myself3 reasons1 reasons1 and nothing more than reasons6 ,although he deserved to have been a ,spaniard for writing them1 it was not a ,spaniard but an ,englishman who wrote these lines3 ,for nothing worthy proving can be proven ,nor yet disproven2 wherefore thou be wise1 ,cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt1 ,and cling to ,faith beyond the forms of ,faith4 ,it was ,lord ,tennyson who wrote these pregnant lines1 and in the same poem1 8,the ,ancient ,sage10 he tells us that 8knowledge is the swallow on the lake that stirs and sees the surface-shadow there1 but never yet hath dipt into the abysm40 ,let1 then1 my last words here1 while ,i am preparing to consider how it is possible to ,spaniardize ,europe1 be that nothing worthy proving can be proven nor yet disproven4 ,,the ,,spanish ,,christ ,he was a foreigner1 a ,south ,american1 and he came from ,paris4 8,but these ,christs6--,good ,god60 he said to me1 as we stood before one of the bloodiest of those that are to be found in our cathedrals1 8this thing repels1 revolts----0 8,it revolts him who knows nothing of the cult of suffering10 ,i said4 ,and he replied3 8,but suffering is not blood4 ,there is bloodless suffering1 serene suffering40 444 ,and we began to talk about it4 ,i confessed to him that ,i have the soul of my people1 and that ,i like these livid ,christs1 emaciated1 purple1 bloody1 these ,christs that someone has called ferocious4 ,lacking in art8 ,barbarous8 ,i don't know4 ,and ,i like these harsh ,marias ,dolorosas1 rigid with grief4 ,the ,spanish ,christ--so ,guerra ,junqueiro has often said to me--was born in ,tangiers4 ,perhaps4 ,perhaps ,he is an ,african ,christ4 ,would ,he be more ,christ if ,he were an ,attic or a ,parisian or an ,english ,christ8 ,for the other ,christ1 the ,galilean1 the historical1 we must bid farewell to4 ,and as for history as applied to ,christianity4444 ,this history is the history of the last twenty centuries1 and here1 in ,spain1 history is ,spanish4 ,he was born then1 perhaps1 in ,tangiers4 ,not very far from ,tangiers was born ,st4 ,augustine4 ,bloodless1 serene1 purified suffering4444 ,yes1 yes1 8stylistic0--or shall we say1 artistic8--suffering4 ,the cry of suffering breathed into a flute and become a dirge4 ,very good4 ,all that the ,laocon inspired in ,lessing was just that4 ,very good4 ,but it is the same with this kind of suffering as with irony4 ,usually ironists are people who are never angry4 ,he who is angry is insulting4 ,the ironist forgives everything and says that it is because he understands everything4 ,and what if it is because he understands nothing8 ,i don't know4 ,this harsh1 raw manner of ours--,i said to my friend1 the ,south ,american--not everyone can bear it4 ,it has been said that hate is rife in ,spain4 ,perhaps4 ,perhaps we begin by hating ourselves4 ,you will find many here1 a great many1 who dislike themselves4 ,we follow the precept of 8love thy neighbour as thyself10 and since1 in spite of inevitable egoism1 we do not love ourselves1 so neither do we love our neighbours4 ,the ascetic and the egoist are made in the same way4 ,not that the ascetic is not an egoist2 egoistic he may indeed be1 and with a vengeance4 ,but even when an egoist1 he does not know how to love himself4 ,when you see a bull-fight1 ,i continued1 you will understand these ,christs4 ,the poor bull is also a kind of irrational ,christ1 a propitiatory victim1 whose blood cleanses us from not a few of the sins of barbarism4 ,and leads us1 nevertheless1 to others4 ,but is it not true that forgiveness leads us--unhappy humans6--to sin again8 ,my friend saw a bull-fight in ,madrid and wrote to me as follows2 8,you are right4 ,the ,spanish people likes violent spectacles1 which beget the emotion of tragedy1 or rather of ferocity4 ,i had no difficulty in understanding this at the bull-fight last ,sunday4 ,i understood it also when ,i conversed with various people1 and in particular with literary people1 who tear one another to pieces with unparalleled ferocity4 ,poor ,christ1 pierced and bathed with blood6 ,there is no hope that ,his wounds will ever heal in these ,spanish cathedrals or that the grimace of ,his frenzied pain will ever relax--for here there is no knowledge of the return of ,jesus to heaven1 after ,his martyrdom40 ,perhaps--who knows8--our heaven is martyrdom itself4 ,not a few foreigners who have learnt to know us have been struck with this ferocity with which1 here in ,spain1 men of letters destroy one another4 ,yes1 here all men1 but particularly artists and writers1 destroy one another with the ferocity of bull-fighters--or it may be with the ,christian ferocity of our ,tangerine ,christianity4 ,and ,i1 who do not like bull-fights and never go to see them1 ,i1 who do not like flaying my fellow writers 7for the office of executioner dirties the hands71 ,i like these ,tangerine ,christs1 purple1 livid1 blood-stained and blood-drained4 ,yes1 ,i like these bleeding and exsanguious ,christs4 ,and the smell of tragedy6 ,above all1 the smell of tragedy6 99 99 99 99 99 ,you should read the great ,sarmiento's comparison between bull-fights and tragedy1 in his account of his journey in ,spain about the middle of the last century4 ,in the bull-fight there is none of the insupportable unities of the pseudo-classical tragedy1 and there is1 moreover1 real dying4 ,real dying1 and1 above all1 real killing4 ,the bull is killed just as an infidel dog was killed by a good ,spanish ,christian in the good old days--really killed4 ,for many people1 perhaps for my friend the ,american1 all this creates an atmosphere difficult to breathe1 an acrid atmosphere4 ,but if you take away the taste1 other atmospheres too become insipid4 ,it is like the austere beauty of our bleak upland deserts4 ,he who tempers his soul1 or distempers it--,i know not which--in the contemplation of these blood-stained and blood-drained ,christs1 never accustoms himself afterwards to others4 ,and this hate1 this same hate that circulates everywhere here1 like a subterranean stream of lava1 this same hate 444 ,it has its source in what is deepest in ourselves2 we hate ourselves and not one another only1 but each one his own self4 8,but you people have no real love of life1 although you are tenacious of it10 another foreigner said to me once1 a ,frenchman1 as one who makes a discovery4 ,and ,i replied3 8,perhaps60 ,he exclaimed again3 8,but this is a veritable cult of death60 ,and ,i answered3 8,of death1 no--of immortality60 ,the fear that if we die1 we die utterly and altogether1 makes us cling to life1 and the hope of living another life makes us hate this one4 ,la joie de vivre4 ,it has been translated la alegra de vivir4 ,but it is only a translation4 ,this alegra de vivir--let them say what they like--is a gallicism4 ,it is not an authentic ,spanish phrase4 ,i do not remember to have met with it in any of our classics4 ,for man's greatest crime is that of having been born4#a ,indeed it is6 ,and this same literary ferocity with which our men of letters bite and tear and flay and quarter one another is not without its sharp voluptuousness for the spectator4 ,and it is in this strife that our masterminds are tempered4 ,many of their ripest have been produced in the atmosphere of defamatory coteries4 ,and they carry with them1 naturally enough1 the acrid flavour of their origin4 ,they smell of hate4 ,and the public1 scenting hate1 becomes excited and applauds4 ,applauds as it does at the bull-fight when it smells blood4 ,blood of the body or blood of the soul1 what is there else8 ,is this cultured8 is this civilized8 is this ,european8 ,i don't know4 ,but it is ,spanish4 ,ought we to be ashamed of it8 ,why8 ,better to probe into it1 scrutinize it1 stir up the depths of it1 make ourselves fully conscious of this hatred of our own selves4 ,the evil lies in our being unconscious of it1 for once it is revealed to us for what it is1 a hatred and abhorrence of our own selves1 it is already in the way of becoming ennobling and strengthening and redeeming4 ,do you not remember that terrible paradox of the ,gospels about having to hate father and mother and wife and children in order to take up the cross1 the blood-stained cross1 and follow the ,redeemer8 ,hatred of ourselves1 when it is unconscious1 obscure1 purely instinctive1 almost animal1 engenders egoism2 but when it becomes conscious1 clear1 rational1 it is able to engender heroism4 ,and there is a rational hatred1 yes1 there is4 ,yes1 there is a triumphant1 heavenly1 glorious ,christ1 ,he of the ,transfiguration1 ,he of the ,ascension1 ,he who sits at the right hand of the ,father2 but ,he is for when we shall have triumphed1 for when we shall have been transfigured1 for when we shall have ascended4 ,but for here and now1 in this bull-ring of the world1 in this life which is nothing but tragic bull-fighting1 the other ,christ1 the livid1 the purple1 the bleeding and exsanguious4 ,,the ,,sepulchre ,,of ,,don ,,quixote ,you ask me1 my friend1 if ,i know of any way of loosing a delirium1 a vertigo1 any kind of madness1 upon these poor ordered and tranquil multitudes who are born1 eat1 sleep1 reproduce themselves and die4 ,is there no means1 you ask me1 of reproducing the epidemic of the ,flagellants or of the ,tarantists8 ,and you talk of the millennium4 ,like you1 ,i often feel a nostalgia for the ,middle ,ages2 like you1 ,i should like to live in the throes of the millennium4 ,if we could make people believe that on a given day1 say the #bnd of ,may1 #aijh1--the centenary of our shout of independence--,spain would come to an end for ever1 that on that day we should be scattered like sheep1 then ,i believe that the #crd of ,may1 #aijh1 would be the greatest day of our history1 the dawn of a new life4 ,but now it's all hopeless1 utterly hopeless4 ,nothing whatever matters to anybody4 ,and if any isolated individual attempts to agitate any problem or question1 he is supposed to be prompted either by self-interest or by a thirst for notoriety and a passion for singularizing himself4 ,not even madness is understood here to-day4 ,even of the madman they say that there is method and reason in his madness4 ,the wretched multitude takes for granted the reason of unreason4 ,if our ,lord ,don ,quixote were to rise again and return to this ,spain of his1 they would go about looking for some ulterior purpose in his noble extravagances4 ,if any one denounces an abuse1 attacks injustice1 fustigates orthodox platitudes1 the slavish crowd asks3 ,what is his object in that8 ,what is he aiming at8 ,sometimes they believe and say that he does it in the hope of being paid to keep quiet2 sometimes that he is actuated by base and despicable passions of vengeance and envy2 sometimes that his motive is vainglory1 that he only wants to make a stir in order to get himself talked about2 sometimes that he does it for the sake of killing time1 for amusement1 for sport4 ,pity that there are so few who go in for this kind of sport6 ,mark this well6--,when confronted by any act of generosity1 of heroism1 of madness1 all these stupid bachelors1 curates and barbers of to-day think only of asking3 ,why does he do it8 ,and as soon as they think they have discovered the reason of the action1 whether their supposition is correct or not1 they exclaim3 ,bah6 he has done it for the sake of this or for the sake of that4 ,as soon as they know the raison d'tre of a thing1 that thing has lost all its value for them4 ,such are the uses of logic1 filthy logic4 ,to understand is to forgive1 it has been said4 ,and these mean souls need to understand in order to forgive their being humiliated1 to forgive the indirect reproach of deeds and words that show up their own meanness4 ,when it has occurred to them to ask themselves1 stupidly enough1 why ,god made the world1 they have answered3 ,for ,his own glory6 ,and the fools are as pompously satisfied with the answer as if they knew what is meant by the glory of ,god4 ,things are made first1 their wherefore comes afterwards4 ,give me any new idea about anything and it will tell me its wherefore afterwards4 ,whenever ,i put forward some project1 something which it appears to me ought to be done1 there is always somebody who is sure to ask me3 ,and afterwards8 ,to such a question the only possible reply is another question4 ,to the 8,and afterwards80 one can only ripost by an 8,and before80 ,there is no future1 there is never any future4 ,this thing that is called the future is one of the greatest of deceptions4 ,the real future is to-day4 ,what is going to happen to us to-morrow8 ,there is no to-morrow4 ,what is happening to us to-day8 ,that is the only question4 ,and so far as to-day is concerned1 all these petty souls are quite content because to-day they exist4 ,existing suffices them4 ,existence1 sheer1 naked existence1 fills their whole soul4 ,they don't feel that there is something more than existing4 ,but do they exist8 ,do they really exist8 ,i believe not4 ,for if they existed1 if they really existed1 they would suffer because they existed1 existing would not content them4 ,if they really and truly existed in time and in space they would suffer because they did not exist in eternity and in infinity4 ,and this suffering1 this passion1 which is nothing other than the passion of ,god in us1 of ,god who in us suffers at feeling ,himself imprisoned in our finitude and our temporality1 this divine suffering would cause them to break all those paltry logical chains with which they seek to bind their paltry memories to their paltry hopes1 the illusion of their past to the illusion of their future4 8,why does he do it80 ,did ,sancho1 perchance1 never inquire why ,don ,quixote did the things that he did8 ,and to return to your question1 to your preoccupation3 ,with what collective madness could we inoculate these tranquil multitudes8 ,with what delirium8 ,you yourself have hinted at a solution in one of those letters in which you bombard me with questions4 8,do you not believe10 you asked me1 8that it might be possible to start some new crusade80 ,yes1 ,i believe that it is possible to start the holy crusade for the redemption of the sepulchre of ,don ,quixote from the dominion of the bachelors1 curates1 barbers1 dukes and canons who have taken possession of it4 ,i believe that it is possible to start the holy crusade for the redemption of the sepulchre of the ,knight of ,folly from the dominion of the mandarins of ,reason4 ,they will defend their usurpation1 naturally1 and will endeavour to prove with many and elaborate reasons that the guard and custody of the sepulchre belongs to them4 ,they guard it in order that the ,knight shall not rise again4 ,these reasons must be answered with insults1 with stone-throwings1 with shouts of passion1 with lance-thrusts4 ,these people are not to be reasoned with4 ,if you try to reason against their reasons1 you are lost4 ,if they ask you1 as they usually do1 by what right you claim the sepulchre1 answer nothing4 ,they will find out afterwards4 ,afterwards 444 perhaps when both they and you no longer exist1 at any rate not in this world of appearances4 ,and this holy crusade has one great advantage over those other holy crusades which spread the dawn of a new life upon this old world4 ,those other ardent crusaders knew where the sepulchre of ,christ was1 where it was said that it was2 but our new crusaders will not know where the sepulchre of ,don ,quixote is to be found4 ,it must be sought for in the act of fighting to redeem it4 ,your quixotesque madness has led you more than once to speak to me of quixotism as of a new religion4 ,and ,i must tell you that this new religion which you propose1 if it should ever come to materialize1 would have two notable characteristics4 ,first1 that we are not sure whether its founder1 its prophet1 ,don ,quixote--not ,cervantes1 of course--was a real man1 a man of flesh and bone2 indeed1 we rather suspect that he was a pure fiction4 ,and second1 that this prophet was a ridiculous prophet2 the butt and laughing-stock of the world4 ,it is courage that we need most of all--courage to face ridicule4 ,ridicule is the weapon wielded by all the miserable bachelors1 barbers1 curates1 canons and dukes who guard the hidden sepulchre of the ,knight of ,folly4 ,the ,knight who made all the world laugh but never made a joke himself4 ,he had too great a soul to make jokes4 ,he was laughed at for his seriousness4 ,begin then1 my friend1 to play ,peter the ,hermit and call the people to join you1 to join us1 and let us all go to redeem this sepulchre which lies we know not where4 ,the crusade itself will reveal the holy place to us4 ,you will see that as soon as the sacred squadron begins to march1 a new star will appear in the sky1 a bright and sounding star1 which will sing a new song in the long night that encompasses us1 and the star will begin to move when the squadron of the crusaders begins to march1 and when they have conquered in their crusade1 or when they have all succumbed--which is perhaps the only way of truly conquering--the star will fall from the sky1 and the place where it falls will be the place of the sepulchre4 ,the sepulchre will be where the squadron dies4 ,and where the sepulchre is1 there is the cradle1 there is the birth-place4 ,and from there the bright and sounding star will mount again heavenwards4444 ,question me no more1 dear friend4 ,when you force me to speak of these things1 you force me to bring to light from the depths of my heart1 sick with the atmosphere of conventionality that harasses and oppresses me on all sides1 sick with the slime of the slough of falsehood in which we are mired1 sick with scrabbling cowardice which shows itself on every hand1 you force me to bring to light from the depths of my sick heart visions without reason1 concepts without logic1 things of which ,i know not the meaning and whose meaning ,i do not wish to try to fathom4 ,what do you mean by that8 you ask me yet again4 ,and ,i reply3 ,perhaps ,i don't even know myself4 ,no1 my friend1 no4 ,the meaning of many of these utterances of my spirit ,i do not know myself1 or rather it is not ,i who know them4 ,there is someone within me who dictates them to me1 who speaks them to me4 ,i obey him and ,i never penetrate within to behold his face or to ask his name4 ,only ,i know that if ,i beheld his face and if he told me his name1 ,i should die that he might live4 ,i am ashamed of having sometimes created fictitious beings1 the personages of my novels1 in order that ,i might put into their mouths that which ,i dare not put into my own and make them say in jest what ,i feel in deadly earnest4 ,you know me1 and you know how far ,i am from intentionally going in search of paradoxes1 extravagances1 and mannerisms--whatever some dull fools may think4 ,you and ,i1 my good friend1 my only absolute friend1 have often debated between ourselves as to what madness really is1 and we have commented upon that saying of ,ibsen's ,brand1 the spiritual son of ,kierkegaard1 to the effect that the man who is mad is the man who is alone4 ,and we have agreed that madness ceases to be madness when it becomes collective1 when it is the madness of a whole people1 of the whole human race perhaps4 ,in so far as a hallucination becomes collective1 becomes popular1 becomes social1 it ceases to be a hallucination and becomes a reality1 something that is external to each one of those who share it4 ,and you and ,i are agreed that the multitudes1 the people1 our ,spanish people1 must be inoculated with some madness or other1 the madness of some one of its members who is mad--but really mad1 not mad only in jest4 ,mad1 and not foolish4 ,you and ,i1 my good friend1 have been scandalized at that which they call here fanaticism and which--to our shame be it said--is not fanaticism at all4 ,no1 nothing is fanaticism that is regulated and restrained and directed by bachelors1 curates1 barbers1 canons and dukes2 nothing is fanaticism that carries a banner inscribed with logical formulas1 nothing that has a program1 nothing that holds out for to-morrow merely a proposition that an orator can develop methodically in a speech4 ,once--do you remember8--we saw a group of eight or ten youths and one of them said3 8,let's do something rash60 and the others followed him4 ,and you and ,i long for the people to get together and shout3 8,let's do something rash60 and begin to march4 ,and if any bachelor1 any barber1 any curate1 any canon or any duke should stop them and say3 8,my children1 that's right6 ,i see that you are bursting with heroism and righteous indignation4 ,i also will go with you4 ,but before we all go1 and ,i along with you1 to do this rash deed1 don't you think that we ought to agree as to the rashness that we are going to commit80--if any of these mandarins should stop them and say that1 then they ought to knock him down on the spot and walk over him1 trampling on him1 and that would be a beginning of the heroic rashness4 ,don't you think1 my friend1 that there are many lonely souls amongst us whose heart craves for some rashness1 something to set it aflame8 ,go then and see if you can't gather them together and form them into a squadron and start us on the march--for ,i will go with them and march behind you--to redeem the sepulchre of ,don ,quixote1 which lies1 thank ,god1 we know not where4 ,the bright and sounding star will tell us4 ,but--you say in your hours of depression1 when your spirit fails you--may it not be that when we think we are marching forward into new countries1 we are really all the time revolving round the same spot8 ,in that case the star will rest quietly over our heads and the sepulchre will be within us4 ,and then the star will fall1 but it will fall in order that it may bury itself in our souls4 ,and our souls will be turned to light1 and when they are all fused together in the bright and sounding star1 the star will mount upwards1 brighter still1 and it will change into a sun1 a sun of eternal melody1 to lighten the sky of our redeemed country4 ,forward then6 ,and take care that no bachelors1 barbers1 curates1 canons or dukes disguised as ,sancho ,panzas join the sacred squadron of crusaders4 ,no matter if they ask you for islands2 what you have got to do is to throw them out directly they ask to be informed of the itinerary of the march1 directly they begin to talk about a program1 directly they whisper to you and ask you1 maliciously1 to tell them the whereabouts of the sepulchre4 ,follow the star6 ,and do like the ,knight--redress the wrong that lies in front of you4 ,do now what is to be done now2 do here what is to be done here4 ,begin the march6 ,where are we going8 ,the star answers3 ,to the sepulchre6 ,what are we going to do on the way1 as we march8 ,what8 ,fight6 ,fight1 and how8 ,how8 ,if you come across a man who is telling lies1 shout out ,liar6 in his face1 and forward6 ,if you come across a man who is stealing1 shout out ,thief6 and forward6 ,if you come across a man who is talking fool-talk to a crowd listening with gaping mouths1 shout out ,idiots6 and forward6 ,always forward6 8,and is this the way10 a would-be crusader asks me1 8that you propose to abolish lying and thieving and foolishness from the world80 ,why not8 ,the most pusillanimous of all pusillanimities1 the most detestable and pestilent sophistry of cowardice1 is that of saying that it is no use denouncing a thief because others will go on stealing1 that nothing is gained by calling a fool a fool to his face1 for this will not lessen the sum of foolishness in the world4 ,yes1 it has got to be repeated a thousand and one times--if you can finish once1 only once1 utterly and for ever1 with only one liar1 then you will have finished with lying for good and all4 ,march then6 ,and throw out of the sacred squadron all those who begin to pay too much attention to the step that has to be kept on the march1 to its time and rhythm4 ,above all1 out with those who are always talking about rhythm4 ,they will turn your squadron into a quadrille and the march into a dance4 ,out with them6 ,let them go and sing to the flesh somewhere else4 ,those who would seek to turn your marching squadron into a quadrille call themselves and call one another poets4 ,they are not4 ,they are anything else you like4 ,they only go to the sepulchre out of curiosity1 to see what it is like1 to get a new sensation1 and to amuse themselves on the way4 ,out with them6 ,they it is whose ,bohemian tolerance contributes to the maintenance of cowardice and falsehood and all the other ignominies that overwhelm us4 ,when they preach liberty1 the only liberty they are thinking about is that of making free with their neighbour's wife4 ,they are compact of sensuality1 and they have a sensual attitude even to the great ideas that they are enamoured of4 ,they are incapable of marrying themselves to any great and pure idea and begetting a family upon it2 they only intoxicate themselves with ideas4 ,they make mistresses of them1 and sometimes tire of them after a single night4 ,out with them6 ,if when on the march anyone wants to pluck a flower that smiles by the roadside1 let him pluck it1 but in passing1 without stopping1 and let him follow the squadron1 whose leader must not take his eyes off the bright and sounding star4 ,and if he fastens the flower to his breastplate1 not to look at himself but for others to look at1 out with him6 ,let him go off1 with his flower in his buttonhole1 and dance somewhere else4 ,listen1 my friend4 ,if you wish to fulfil your mission and serve your country1 you must needs make yourself hateful to all those sensible young men who see the world only through the eyes of the woman they love4 ,or worse still3 your words must be strident and bitter in their ears4 ,the squadron must halt only at night1 at the edge of the wood or in the shadow of the mountain4 ,the crusaders will pitch their tents1 they will wash their feet1 they will sup on what their wives have prepared for them1 and afterwards they will beget sons on them1 they will give them a kiss1 and then they will fall asleep and the following day they will continue their march4 ,and when any one of them dies1 they will leave him by the roadside1 shrouded in his armour1 to the mercy of the ravens4 ,let the dead bury their dead4 ,if during the march anyone essays to play the fife or the pipe or the flute or the guitar or whatever it may be1 break his instrument and throw him out of the ranks1 for he hinders the others from hearing the song of the star4 ,and1 what is more1 he himself does not hear it4 ,and he who does not hear the celestial song must not go in quest of the sepulchre of the ,knight4 ,they will talk to you1 these poet-dancers4 ,pay no heed to them4 ,he who begins to play his ,pan-pipes beneath the sky of heaven and does not hear the music of the spheres1 does not deserve to hear it4 ,he does not know the abyss-deep depths of the poetry of fanaticism1 he does not know the infinite poetry of empty temples1 without lights1 without ornament1 without images1 without pomps1 without incense1 without anything of what is called art4 ,throw all these ,pan-pipe dancers out of the squadron4 ,throw them out before they leave you for a mess of pottage4 ,they are the cynical philosophers1 the tolerant ,bohemians1 the good fellows who understand everything and forgive everything4 ,and he who understands everything understands nothing and he who forgives everything forgives nothing4 ,they have no scruples about selling themselves4 ,as they live in two worlds at the same time1 they are able to preserve their liberty in the other world and sell themselves as slaves in this4 ,they serve art and at the same time they are the servants of ,lpez or ,prez or ,rodriguez4 ,it has been said that hunger and love are the two mainsprings of human life4 ,of this low human life1 of the life of earth4 ,the dancers dance only because of hunger or because of love2 hunger of the flesh1 love also of the flesh4 ,throw them out of the squadron and let them dance their fill in yonder meadow1 while one plays the pipe1 another claps his hands to the music1 and another sings in praise of his pottage or of his mistress's thighs4 ,and there let them invent new dancesteps1 new pirouettes1 new figures of a rigadoon4 ,and if anyone shall come to you and say that he knows how to construct bridges and that perhaps a time will come when you will wish to avail yourself of his science in order to cross over a river1 out with him6 ,out with the engineer6 ,rivers will be crossed by wading or swimming them1 even if half the crusaders drown themselves4 ,let the engineer go off and build bridges somewhere else1 where they are badly wanted4 ,for those who go in quest of the sepulchre1 faith is bridge enough4 99 99 99 99 99 ,my friend1 if you want to fulfil your task duly1 distrust art1 distrust science1 or at any rate distrust that which is called art and science and which is nothing but a wretched mockery of true art and true science4 ,let your faith suffice you4 ,your faith will be your art1 your faith will be your science4 ,more than once1 when ,i observed what pains you take in composing your letters1 ,i have doubted whether you would be able to accomplish your work4 ,they are full of erasures1 emendations1 corrections1 ,pan-pipings4 ,they don't jet forth violently1 driving out the plug4 ,occasionally your letters degenerate into literature1 into that filthy literature which is the natural ally of all slaveries and of all ignominies4 ,slavedrivers know well enough that when the slave is singing a hymn to liberty1 he is consoling himself for his slavery and not thinking about breaking his chain4 ,but at other times ,i regain my faith and hope in you when ,i feel beneath the hurrying1 spontaneous1 cacophonous words the voice trembling with the fever that consumes you4 ,there are times when your speech may be said to belong to no determinate language4 ,let everyone translate it into his own4 ,aim at living in a continual vertigo of passion1 be the passion that dominates you what it may4 ,only men of passion achieve works that really live and bear fruit4 ,when you hear it said of someone that his works are impeccable1 in whichever sense that stupid word is employed1 fly from him--above all if he is an artist4 ,just as the man who is most a fool is he who has never done or said a foolish thing1 so the artist who is least a poet1 most anti-poetic--and among artists anti-poetic natures are common--is the impeccable artist1 the artist whom the ,pan-pipe dancers decorate with the pasteboard laurel crown of impeccability4 ,you are consumed1 my friend1 with a perpetual fever1 with a thirst for unfathomable1 shoreless oceans1 with a hunger for universes1 with a home-sickness for eternity4 ,reason is suffering to you4 ,and you don't know what you want4 ,and now1 now you want to go to the sepulchre of the ,knight of ,folly and there dissolve yourself in tears1 consume yourself in fever1 die of your thirst for oceans1 of your hunger for universes1 of your home-sickness for eternity4 ,begin to march1 alone4 ,all the other lonely souls will march by your side1 even though you don't see them4 ,each one will think that he marches alone1 but together you will form a sacred battalion1 the battalion of the holy and unending crusade4 ,you don't yet understand1 my good friend1 how all lonely souls1 without knowing one another1 without beholding one another's face1 without knowing one another's names1 journey together and lend one another mutual support4 ,the others1 those who are not lonely1 talk about one another1 offer one another their hands1 congratulate one another1 belaud and denigrate one another1 chatter among themselves--and each one goes his own way4 ,and they all fly from the sepulchre4 ,you don't belong to the coterie but to the battalion of free crusaders4 ,why do you hover round the walls of the coterie to hear what they are cackling about inside8 ,no1 my friend1 no6 ,when you pass close to a coterie1 stop your ears1 fling your word and go straight on1 on to the sepulchre4 ,and let the word that you fling vibrate with all your thirst1 with all your hunger1 with all your home-sickness1 with all your love4 ,i remember that unhappy letter that you wrote me when you were on the point of succumbing1 of yielding1 of joining the confraternity4 ,i saw then how much your solitude weighed upon you1 that solitude which must be your consolation and your strength4 ,you had arrived at the most terrible and desolating state of all2 you had approached the brink of the precipice of your perdition2 you had come to doubt your solitude1 you had come to believe that you were surrounded by companions4 8,may not this notion that ,i am alone10 you said1 8be mere cavilling1 the fruit of pride1 of petulance1 perhaps of madness8 ,for when ,i am tranquil1 ,i see myself companioned1 ,i feel my hand warmly clasped1 ,i hear voices of encouragement1 words of sympathy1 ,i receive all kinds of proofs that ,i am not alone--far from it40 ,and ,i saw you deceived and lost1 ,i saw you flying from the sepulchre4 ,no1 you are not deceived in the accesses of your fever1 in the agonies of your thirst1 in the anguish of your hunger2 you are alone1 eternally alone4 ,not only are the bites that you feel really bites1 but those that seem like kisses are bites too4 ,those who applaud you are hissing you1 they want to stop you marching to the sepulchre when they shout 8,forward60 ,stop your ears4 ,and1 above all1 beware of a terrible temptation--however much you may try to shake it off1 it will return to you with the pertinacity of a fly--beware of the temptation to concern yourself with how you appear to others4 ,think only of how you appear to ,god1 think only of the idea that ,god has of you4 ,you are alone1 much more alone than you imagine1 and yet1 even so1 you have not arrived at absolute1 utter1 real solitude4 ,absolute1 utter1 real solitude consists in not being even with yourself4 ,and you will not be really1 utterly1 absolutely alone until you have emptied yourself of yourself1 by the side of the sepulchre4 ,holy ,solitude6 99 99 99 99 99 ,all this ,i said to my friend1 and he answered me1 in a long letter1 full of furious dismay1 in these words3 8,all that you say is good1 very good4 ,but don't you think that instead of going in quest of the sepulchre of ,don ,quixote and redeeming it from the bachelors1 curates1 barbers1 canons and dukes1 we ought to go in quest of the sepulchre of ,god and rescue it from the atheists and deists who occupy it1 and there1 giving voice to our supreme despair and dissolving our heart in tears1 wait for ,god to rise again and save us from nothingness80 ,,the ,,helmet ,,of ,,mambrino 8,pray1 good gentlemen10 said the barber1#b 8let us have your opinion in this matter4 ,i suppose you will grant this same helmet to be a basin80 8,he that dares grant any such thing10 said ,don ,quixote1 8must know that he lies plainly1 if he is a knight2 but1 if a squire1 he lies abominably40 ,that's right1 my lord ,don ,quixote1 that's right4 ,it is courage1 it is the barefaced courage that is ready to affirm a thing aloud and before all the world and to defend the affirmation of it to the death1 it is courage that creates all truths4 ,things are so much the truer the more they are believed1 and it is not intelligence but will that imposes them upon the world4 8,now ,i swear before you all10 said ,don ,quixote1 8by the order of knighthood which ,i profess1 that that is the same individual helmet which ,i won from him1 without the least addition or diminution40 ,to which ,sancho added1 in timid support of his master3 8,that ,i will swear1 for since my lord won it1 he never fought but once in it1 and that was the battle wherein he freed those ungracious galley-slaves1 who by the same token would have knocked out his brains with a shower of stones1 had not this same honest basin-helmet saved his skull40 ,in 8,the ,tragic ,sense of ,life0 ,unamuno says3 8,i wrote my ,vida de ,don ,quixote y ,sancho in opposition to the ,cervantists and erudite persons1 in order to make a living work of what was and still is for the majority a dead letter4 ,what does it matter to me what ,cervantes intended or did not intend to put into it and what he actually did put into it8 ,what is living in it is what ,i myself discover in it1 whether ,cervantes put it there or not1 what ,i myself put into and under and over it1 and what we all put into it4 ,i wanted to track down our philosophy in it40 ,readers of ,don ,quixote will recall the encounter between the ,knight of ,la ,mancha and the barber who had clapped his brass basin on his head to keep his hat from being spoiled by the rain4 ,having routed his enemy1 the ,knight seized the basin1 which he asserted to be the golden helmet of ,mambrino1 a famous ,saracen 7see ,orlando ,furioso1 ,canto ,i74 ,when afterwards the barber met ,don ,quixote at an inn and claimed his basin1 the dispute as to whether it was really a basin or a helmet was referred to the rest of the company1 some of whom sided with the ,knight and others with the barber4 ,basin-helmet8 ,basin-helmet1 ,sancho8 ,we must not do you the injustice to suppose that your calling it a basin-helmet was one of your sly jokes--no1 it marks the progress of your faith4 ,you were unable to pass from what your eyes assured you of1 showing you the object in dispute in the likeness of a basin1 to what faith in your master assured you1 showing it to you in the likeness of a helmet1 without catching at this compromise of a basin-helmet4 ,in this respect there are many ,sanchos like you and you have invented this notion that virtue consists in the via media4 ,no1 friend ,sancho1 no1 there is no basin-helmet that is worth a straw4 ,it is a helmet or it is a basin according to him who uses it1 or rather it is basin and helmet at the same time for it serves both turns4 ,without the least addition or diminution it can and ought to be both helmet and basin1 all of it helmet and all of it basin2 but what it can never be nor ought to be1 however much be added to it or taken away from it1 is basin-helmet4 ,the barber to whom the basin belonged found the other barber1 ,master ,nicolas1 and ,don ,fernando and the curate and ,cardenio and the judge more emphatic1 for to the amazement of all the others who were present they insisted that it was a helmet4 ,one of the four pursuivants1 regarding this as a laborious joke1 became annoyed and treated those who said it was a helmet as if they were drunk4 ,don ,quixote called him a liar and hurled himself upon him2 both sides prepared for battle and fell to blows4 ,then it was that ,don ,quixote1 thinking that he was certainly involved in the disorder and confusion of ,king ,agramant's camp1 lifted up his voice and quieted the tumult4 ,what6 it surprises you that the question as to whether the basin was a basin or a helmet should have given rise to a general dispute8 ,other and more involved disputes have broken out in the world with regard to other basins and those not belonging to ,mambrino4 ,as to whether bread is bread and wine wine and the like4 ,human sheep flock round ,knights of the ,faith and maintain for various reasons or for no reason at all1 that the basin is a helmet1 as the ,knights assert1 and they are surprisingly rewarded for so maintaining it1 and the strange thing is that most of those who contend that it is a helmet really believe it to be a basin4 ,the heroism of ,don ,quixote communicated itself to his mockers1 who became quixotized in spite of themselves1 and ,don ,fernando made one of the pursuivants measure his length on the ground because he had dared to maintain that the basin was not a helmet but a basin4 ,heroical ,don ,fernando6 ,thus we see ,don ,quixote's mockers mocked by him1 quixotized in their own despite1 joining in the fray and fighting with all their might to defend the ,faith of the ,knight1 although without sharing it4 ,i am convinced--although ,cervantes does not tell us so--,i am convinced that the partisans of the ,knight1 the quixotists or helmetists1 after having received and administered punishment1 began themselves to doubt whether the basin were a basin and to believe that it really was the helmet of ,mambrino1 for their ribs bore evidence of their belief4 ,it must be affirmed here yet again that it is martyrs who create faith rather than faith that creates martyrs4 ,in few of his adventures does ,don ,quixote appear greater than in this one1 in which he imposes his faith upon those who mocked at it1 so that they are led to defend it with kicks and blows and to suffer for it4 ,and what was it that inspired them to do so8 ,simply his courage in affirming before everybody that that basin1 which he no less than they saw with his own eyes to be a basin1 was the helmet of ,mambrino1 for to him it served the office of a helmet4 ,this is the courage of the purest water--that which resists not merely a shock to the reason or decay of fortune or loss of honour1 but also being taken for a madman and an idiot4 ,this is the courage that we need in ,spain and our soul remains paralysed because of the lack of it4 ,it is because of the lack of it that we are neither powerful nor wealthy nor cultured2 it is because of the lack of it that we have no system of irrigation1 no good harvests2 it is because of the lack of it that it doesn't rain more on our drought-parched fields1 or that when it does rain it rains in torrents1 sweeping away the manure and sometimes sweeping away the houses too4 ,this seems to you like a paradox8 ,go into the country and propose to any farmer some improvement in his methods of cultivation or the introduction of a new kind of crop or of a new agricultural machine1 and he will say3 8,that doesn't pay here40 8,have you tried it80 you ask1 and he simply repeats3 8,that doesn't pay here40 ,he doesn't know whether it pays or whether it doesn't pay1 for he hasn't tried it and doesn't mean to try it4 ,he would try it if he were sure of its success beforehand1 but the prospect of the possibility of a failure1 with the consequent mockery and derision of his neighbours1 the possibility of their taking him for a deluded fool or a lunatic1 this prospect terrifies him and so he doesn't experiment4 ,and then people are surprised at the triumph of those who have the courage to face ridicule serenely1 of those who rid themselves of the herd-instinct4 ,in the province of ,salamanca there was a remarkable man who rose from the greatest poverty to be a millionaire4 ,the peasants of the district1 with the sheep-like instincts of their kind1 were only able to explain his success by supposing that in his younger days he had embezzled money1 for these wretched peasants1 crusted over with common sense and entirely lacking in moral courage1 believe only in theft and the lottery4 ,but one day ,i was told of a quixotic feat which this cattle farmer had performed4 ,it seems that he had brought sea-bream's spawn from the ,cantabrian coast to put in one of his ponds6 ,when ,i heard that1 ,i understood everything4 ,he who has the courage to face the jeers which are bound to be provoked by bringing the spawn of a salt-water fish to put in a pond in ,castile1 he who does that deserves his fortune4 ,but it was absurd1 you say8 ,and who knows what is absurd and what is not8 ,and even if it were6 ,only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible4 ,there is only one way of hitting the nail on the head and that is by hammering on the shoe a hundred times4 ,and there is only one way of achieving a real triumph and that is by facing ridicule with serenity4 ,and it is because our agriculturists haven't the courage to face ridicule that our agriculture languishes in its present backward condition4 ,yes1 all our ills spring from moral cowardice1 from the individual's lack of staunch resolution in affirming his own truth1 his own faith1 and defending it4 ,the soul of this people1 this flock of somnolent sheep1 is smothered and swathed in falsehood1 and their stupidity proceeds from their very excess of prudence4 ,it is claimed that there are certain principles that are beyond discussion and when anyone attempts to criticize them the air rings with shouts of protest4 ,not long ago ,i proposed that we should demand the abolition of certain of the articles of our law of ,public ,instruction1 and a pack of poltroons began to bellow that such a course was inopportune and impertinent1 not to mention stronger and more offensive epithets that were used4 ,i am sick of hearing everything that is most opportune called inopportune1 everything that tends to disturb the digestion of the full-bellied and infuriates fools4 ,what are they afraid of8 ,that it will result in a brawl8 that a new civil war will break out8 ,better and better4 ,that's what we need4 ,yes1 that's what we need--a new civil war4 ,it is necessary to assert that basins ought to be and are helmets and to get up a fight about it like the fight they got up at the inn4 ,a new civil war1 let the weapons be what they will4 ,can't you hear those spiritless creatures whose hearts are dried and shrivelled up reiterating that these kinds of disputes lead to nothing practical8 ,what do they understand by practical8 ,can't you hear them reiterating that there are discussions which ought never to be broached8 ,there are plenty of cowardly spirits who are always drilling it into us that we ought to leave religious questions on one side1 that the first thing to do is to become powerful and wealthy4 ,and the poltroons don't see that it is just because we ignore what concerns our inward well-being that we are not and never shall be wealthy and powerful4 ,i repeat it yet again1 there will never be any agriculture or industry or commerce in our country1 nor roads where there ought to be roads1 until we have discovered our ,christianity1 which is ,quixotic ,christianity4 ,we shall never have a powerful and splendid and glorious and strong external life until we have kindled in the hearts of our people the fire of the eternal disquietudes4 ,we cannot be rich so long as our life is nothing but deceit1 and deceit is our spirit's daily bread4 ,can't you hear the solemn ass that opens his mouth and says3 8,it's forbidden to say that here08 ,can't you hear all those who are bound with the fetters of falsehood talking about peace1 a peace that is more deadly than death itself8 ,that terrible and ignominious rule which figures in the list of regulations of almost all the social clubs in ,spain1 8political and religious discussions prohibited0--does that say nothing to you8 ,peace6 peace6 peace6 all the frogs of our national pond croak in chorus4 ,peace6 peace6 peace6 ,yes1 but peace established upon the triumph of sincerity1 peace established upon the overthrow of falsehood4 ,peace1 but not a peace of compromise1 not a hollow political agreement1 but a comprehensive peace4 ,peace1 yes1 but only after the pursuivants have recognized ,don ,quixote's right to assert that the basin is a helmet2 and1 furthermore1 only after the pursuivants themselves have admitted and affirmed that in the hands of ,don ,quixote the basin is a helmet4 ,and the wretched crowd that shout 8,peace6 peace60 dare to take upon their lips the name of ,christ6 ,they forget that ,christ said that ,he came not to bring peace but war1 and that because of ,him they of the same household should be divided against one another1 father against son and brother against brother4 ,and this should be because of ,him1 because of ,christ1 that ,his kingdom might be established1 the social kingdom of ,jesus--which is the very reverse of that which the ,jesuits call the social kingdom of ,jesus ,christ--the kingdom of real sincerity and real truth and real love and real peace4 ,in order that the kingdom of ,jesus may be established1 there must be war4 ,,don ,,quixote',s ,,niece#c ,the good ,alonso ,quixano went on with the dictation of his will and bequeathed all his estate to ,antonia ,quixano1 his niece1 but imposing it upon her1 as a necessary condition of enjoying the bequest1 that 8if she is desirous of marrying1 she marry none but a man who1 upon strict inquiry1 shall be found never to have read a book of knight-errantry in his life2 and in case it appears that he has been conversant with such books1 and that she persists in her resolution to marry him1 she is then to forfeit all that ,i have bequeathed her1 which in such case my executors shall dispose of to pious uses at their own discretion40 ,how clearly ,don ,quixote recognized the violent mutual incompatibility that exists between the office of husband and that of knight-errant6 ,and in dictating this clause1 may not the good knight have been thinking of his ,aldonza and of how1 had he but ventured to break the seal of his too great love1 he might have been spared all the misfortunes of his knight-errantry and remained by his own fireside a happy prisoner in the arms of his love8 ,your will has been faithfully executed1 ,don ,quixote1 and the young men of this your country have renounced all knight-errantry so that they might enjoy the estates of your nieces--and among these must be counted almost all the women of ,spain--and enjoy the nieces themselves too4 ,in their arms all heroism is smothered4 ,they tremble lest it should strike their lovers and husbands with its rushing wind as it struck their uncle4 ,it is your niece1 ,don ,quixote1 it is your niece who rules and governs ,spain to-day--it is your niece1 not ,sancho4 ,it is the timorous1 home-keeping1 narrow-souled ,antonia ,quixano1 she who feared lest you should turn poet1 8a catching and incurable disease02 she who so zealously assisted the curate and the barber in burning your books2 she who presumed to tell you to your face that all stories of knight-errantry were nothing but a pack of lies and fables--a maidenly audacity which provoked you to exclaim3 8,by the ,god that sustains me1 wert thou not my proper niece1 my own sister's daughter1 ,i would take such revenge for the blasphemy thou hast uttered as would resound through the whole world02 it is she1 8the young baggage who scarce knows how to manage a dozen lace-work bobbins10 and who presumed to put in her oar and censure the histories of knights-errant1 it is she who manages and dangles and juggles with the sons of your ,spain as if they were puppets4 ,it is not ,dulcinea del ,toboso1 no4 ,neither is it ,aldonza ,lorenzo1 she for whom you sighed for twelve years without seeing her more than four times and without ever confessing your love4 ,it is ,antonia ,quixano1 she who scarce knew how to manage a dozen lace-work bobbins1 who controls your countrymen to-day4 ,it is ,antonia ,quixano1 who1 because she has a small soul and no belief in her husband's greatness1 keeps him at home and hinders him from going forth to seek heroic adventures which would win him glory and an everlasting name4 ,if it were only ,dulcinea6444 ,dulcinea1 yes1 for however strange it may seem1 ,dulcinea can make a man renounce all glory1 can make him choose the glory of renouncing glory4 ,dulcinea1 or let us rather call her ,aldonza1 the ideal ,aldonza might say to him3 8,come1 come to my arms and let all your wild longings melt away in tears upon my breast4 ,come to me4 ,yes1 ,i see you set up on a lofty pinnacle for all time1 ,i see all your brother men gazing up at you1 ,i see you acclaimed by generations yet unborn--but come to me1 renounce it all for my sake1 and that will make you great1 my ,alonso1 that will make you greater still4 ,take my mouth and cover it with warm kisses in silence1 and renounce a cold eternity of fame in the mouths of those whom you will never know4 ,will you hear them speaking of you when you are dead8 ,bury all your love in my breast1 and if it is a great love1 it is better that you should bury it in me than that you should lavish it among men who easily forget and soon pass away4 ,they are not worthy of admiring you1 my ,alonso1 they are not worthy of it4 ,you will live for me alone and so you will live more truly for all the universe and for ,god4 ,so living1 your might and your heroism will seem to be lost1 but don't mind that4 ,do you not know the infinite streams of life which flow from a silent and heroic love1 flowing out in wave after wave beyond humanity to the orbit of the remotest of the stars8 ,do you not know that the silent and triumphant love of a happy pair of lovers is a fount of mysterious energy that irradiates a whole people and all generations to come to the end of time8 ,do you not know what it is to guard the sacred fire of life1 fanning it to ever brighter flame in simple and silent worship8 ,love1 the simple act of loving1 without deeds1 is itself a heroic deed4 ,come and renounce all your deeds in my arms--the dim obscurity of your repose in my arms will be a seed-time which will bear fruit in the deeds and glory of others to whom your very name will be unknown4 ,when even the echo of your name is no longer borne upon the air1 when there is no longer any air to bear the echo of it1 the embers of your love will warm the ruins of perished worlds4 ,come and give yourself to me1 ,alonso1 for though you should never ride abroad redressing wrongs1 your greatness will not be lost1 for in my heart nothing is lost4 ,come1 rest your head upon my heart and ,i will carry you thence to the rest that has no ending40 ,with such words ,aldonza might speak1 and in renouncing all glory in her arms ,alonso would be truly great2 but such words you can never speak1 ,antonia4 ,you do not believe that love is of more worth than glory2 what you believe is that neither love nor glory is worth as much as sleepy fireside peace and quiet1 that neither love nor glory is worth as much as the certainty of the daily mess of pottage2 you believe that those who don't sleep easily in their beds come to a bad end1 and you don't know that love1 like glory1 never sleeps but watches4 ,,the ,,religion ,,of ,,quixotism ,i become more and more convinced that our philosophy1 the ,spanish philosophy1 is liquescent and diffused in our literature1 in our life1 in our action1 above all in our mysticism1 and not in philosophical systems4 ,it is concrete4 7,and is there not perhaps as much philosophy or more in ,goethe1 for example1 as in ,hegel87 ,the poetry of ,jorge ,manrique1 the ,romancero1 ,don ,quijote1 ,la ,vida es ,sueo1 ,la ,subida al ,monte ,carmelo1 imply an intuition of the world and a concept of life--,weltanschauung und ,lebensansicht4 ,this philosophy of ours could with difficulty formulate itself in the second half of the nineteenth century1 a period that was a-philosophical1 positivist1 technicist1 given up to pure history and the natural sciences1 a period essentially materialist and pessimistic4 ,we shall find the hero of ,spanish thought1 perhaps1 not in any philosopher who lived in flesh and bone1 but in an entity of fiction and of action1 more real than all the philosophers--in ,don ,quixote4 ,for there is doubtless a philosophic ,quixotism1 but there is also a ,quixotic philosophy4 ,was not perhaps the philosophy of the ,conquistadores1 of the ,counter-,reformers1 of ,loyola1 and1 above all1 the philosophy latent in the abstract but passionate thought of our mystics1 in its essence none other than this8 ,what was the mysticism of ,st4 ,john of the ,cross but a knight-errantry of the heart in the divine warfare8 ,and the feeling that animated ,don ,quixote cannot strictly be called idealism2 he did not fight for ideas4 ,it was spiritualism2 he fought for the spirit4 ,speculative or meditative ,quixotism is1 like practical ,quixotism1 foolishness1 a daughter-foolishness to the foolishness of the cross4 ,and therefore it is contemned by reason4 ,philosophy at bottom abhors ,christianity1 and well did the gentle ,marcus ,aurelius prove it4 ,the tragedy of ,christ1 the divine tragedy1 is the tragedy of the ,cross4 ,pilate1 the sceptic1 the man of culture1 sought by means of ridicule to turn it into comedy and conceived the farce of the king with the reed sceptre and crown of thorns1 saying3 8,behold the man60 ,but the people1 more human than he1 the people that thirsts for tragedy1 cried3 8,crucify him6 crucify him60 ,and the other tragedy1 the human1 the intra-human tragedy1 is that of ,don ,quixote with his face lathered for the ducal servants to laugh at1 and for the dukes1 as much slaves as their servants1 to laugh at too4 8,behold the fool60--so they would say4 ,and the comic1 the irrational tragedy is suffering beneath ridicule and contempt4 ,for an individual1 as for a people1 the highest heroism is being willing to face ridicule--still more1 being willing to make oneself ridiculous and not flinching at the ridicule4 ,antero de ,quental1 the tragic ,portuguese who committed suicide1 wrote as follows1 smarting under the ultimatum which ,england delivered to his country in #ahij3 8,an ,english statesman of the last century1 also certainly a perspicacious observer and a philosopher1 ,horace ,walpole1 said that life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think4 ,very well then1 if we have to end tragically1 we ,portuguese1 we who feel1 we much prefer this terrible1 but noble1 destiny to that which is reserved1 and perhaps at no very remote future date1 for ,england1 the country that thinks and calculates1 whose destiny is to end miserably and comically40 ,we may leave on one side the assertion that ,england thinks and calculates1 implying that she does not feel1 the injustice of which is explained by the circumstance that provoked it1 and also the assertion that the ,portuguese feel1 implying that they scarcely ever think or calculate--for we sister peoples of the ,atlantic have always been distinguished by a certain sentimental pedantry2 but there remains the terrible underlying idea1 namely1 that some1 those who put thought above feeling--,i should say reason above faith--die comically1 and those die tragically who put faith above reason4 ,for it is the ridiculers who die comically1 and ,god laughs at their comic ending1 while the portion1 the noble portion1 of those who are ridiculed is tragedy4 ,and what we must look out for in the record of ,don ,quixote is ridicule4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the philosophy in the soul of my people presents itself to me as the expression of an inward tragedy analogous to the tragedy of the soul of ,don ,quixote1 as the expression of a conflict between the world as the reason of science exhibits it to us and the world as we wish it to be1 as our religious faith tells us that it is4 ,and in this philosophy is to be found the secret of what is usually said about us1 that we are fundamentally irreducible to ,kultur1 that is to say1 that we do not resign ourselves to it4 ,no1 ,don ,quixote resigns himself neither to the world nor to its truth1 neither to science nor to logic1 neither to art nor aesthetics1 neither to morality nor to ethics4 8,in any case the result of all this10 so ,i have been told more than once and by more than one person1 8will simply be to urge people on to the maddest kind of ,catholicism40 ,and they have accused me of being a reactionary and even a ,jesuit4 ,so be it6 ,and what then8 ,yes1 ,i know1 ,i know that it is folly to seek to turn the waters of the river back to their source1 and that it is the crowd that seeks the medicine for its ills in the past2 but ,i know too that everyone who fights for any ideal whatsoever1 even though it may seem to belong to the past1 is urging the world on to the future1 and that the only reactionaries are those who find themselves at ease in the present4 ,every pretended restoration of the past is a creation of the future1 and if the past is dream1 something not properly known1 so much the better4 ,as always1 the march is towards the future2 he who marches1 marches thither1 even though he march backwards way--and who knows if that is not the better way8 ,i feel that ,i have a medival soul and ,i believe that the soul of my country is medival--that it has been forced to traverse the ,renaissance1 the ,reformation and the ,revolution1 learning from them1 yes1 but without allowing them to touch the soul1 preserving the spiritual heritage of those ages that are called dark4 ,and ,quixotism is nothing but the most desperate phase of the struggle of the ,middle ,ages against their offspring1 the ,renaissance4 ,and if some accuse me of furthering the cause of ,catholic reaction1 perhaps the others1 the official ,catholics1 accuse me of4444 ,but these1 in ,spain trouble themselves little about anything and are only interested in their own quarrels and dissensions4 ,and besides1 poor folk1 they are somewhat dull of understanding4 ,but the fact is that my work--,i was going to say my mission--is to shatter the faith of both these and those and of others besides1 faith in affirmation1 faith in negation and faith in abstention1 and this for the sake of faith in faith itself2 it is to war against all those who resign themselves1 whether to ,catholicism or to rationalism or to agnosticism2 it is to make them all live lives of inquietude and passionate desire4 ,will this work be efficacious8 ,but did ,don ,quixote believe in the immediate and visible efficacy of his work8 ,it is greatly to be doubted1 and at any rate he did not risk putting the visor he had made to the test by giving it a second blow4 ,and many passages in his history indicate that he did not believe much in the immediate success of his design to restore knight-errantry4 ,and what did it matter so long as he himself thus lived and immortalized himself8 ,and he must have surmised1 and did in fact surmise1 that his achievement would have another and a higher efficacy--namely1 that it would go on working in the minds of all those who in the spirit of devotion read of his exploits4 ,don ,quixote made himself ridiculous1 but did he perchance know the most tragic ridicule of all1 the ridicule that is reflected in the eyes of a man's own soul1 the ridicule with which a man sees his own self8 ,transfer ,don ,quixote's battlefield to his own soul2 conceive him to be fighting in his soul to save the ,middle ,ages from the ,renaissance1 not to lose the treasure of his infancy2 turn him into an inward ,don ,quixote--with his ,sancho1 a ,sancho equally inward and equally heroical at his side--and then talk to me of the comic tragedy4 ,and what has ,don ,quixote left1 do you ask8 ,i answer that he has left himself1 and a man1 a living and eternal man1 is worth all theories and all philosophies4 ,other peoples have left principally institutions1 books--we have left souls4 ,st4 ,teresa is worth any institution1 any 8,critique of ,pure ,reason40 ,don ,quixote was converted8 ,yes1 but only to die4 ,but the other1 the real ,don ,quixote1 he who remained on earth and lives among us1 breathing his spirit into us1 this ,don ,quixote was never converted1 this ,don ,quixote goes on inciting us to make ourselves ridiculous1 this ,don ,quixote must never die4 ,and the conversion of the other ,don ,quixote--he who was converted only to die--was possible because he was mad1 and it was his madness1 not his death or his conversion1 that immortalized him and earned for him the forgiveness of the crime of having been born4 ,felix culpa6 ,neither was his madness cured but only transformed4 ,his death was his last knightly adventure--in dying he stormed heaven1 which suffereth violence4 ,this ,don ,quixote died and descended into hell1 and he entered it lance on rest and freed all the condemned1 as he freed the galley-slaves1 and he shut the gates of hell1 and tore down from them the scroll that ,dante saw there1 and replaced it by one on which was written 8,long live hope60 and escorted by those whom he had freed1 and they laughing at him1 he went to heaven4 ,and ,god laughed at him paternally and this divine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness4 ,and the other ,don ,quixote remained here amongst us1 fighting with desperation4 ,is not despair the mainspring of his fighting8 ,how is it that among the words that ,english has borrowed from our tongue--siesta1 camarilla1 guerilla and the like--there occurs this word desperado8 ,this inward ,don ,quixote that ,i spoke of1 conscious of his own comicness1 is he not a man of despair--desesperado8 ,a desperado1 yes1 like ,pizarro and like ,loyola4 ,but 8despair is the master of impossibilities10 as ,salazar y ,torres tells us1 and it is despair and despair alone from whence springs heroic hope1 absurd hope1 mad hope4 ,spero quia absurdum1 it ought to be said1 rather than credo4 ,and ,don ,quixote1 who lived solitary1 sought more solitude still1 sought the solitudes of the ,pea ,pobre in order that there1 alone1 without witnesses1 he might plunge into yet wilder extravagances to the easing of his soul4 ,yet he was not quite solitary1 for ,sancho accompanied him1 ,sancho the good1 ,sancho the believing1 ,sancho the simple4 ,if1 as some say1 in ,spain ,don ,quixote is dead and ,sancho lives1 then we are saved1 for ,sancho1 his master dead1 will become a knight-errant himself4 ,at any rate he is waiting for some other mad knight to follow yet again4 ,and there is also a tragedy of ,sancho4 ,the other ,sancho1 the ,sancho who journeyed with the mortal ,don ,quixote--it does not appear certain that he died1 although some say that he died hopelessly mad1 calling for his lance1 and believing that all those things which on his death-bed his converted master abominated as lies had been really true4 ,but neither does it appear certain that the bachelor ,sanson ,carrasco1 or the curate1 or the barber1 or the dukes and canons are dead1 and it is with these that the heroic ,sancho has to fight4 ,don ,quixote journeyed alone1 alone with ,sancho1 alone with his solitude4 ,and shall we not also journey alone1 we his lovers creating for ourselves a quixotesque ,spain which exists only in our imagination8 ,and again we shall be asked3 ,what has ,don ,quixote bequeathed to ,kultur8 ,i answer3 ,quixotism1 and that is no little thing4 ,it is a whole method1 a whole epistemology1 a whole aesthetic1 a whole logic1 a whole ethic1 above all a whole religion1 that is to say1 a whole economy of things human and divine1 a whole hope in the rationally absurd4 ,for what did ,don ,quixote fight8 ,for ,dulcinea1 for glory1 for life1 for survival4 ,not for ,iseult1 who is the eternal flesh2 not for ,beatrice1 who is theology2 not for ,margaret1 who is the people2 not for ,helen1 who is culture4 ,he fought for ,dulcinea1 and he won her1 for he lives4 ,and what is greatest in him is his having been ridiculed and overcome1 for it is in being overcome that he overcame2 he overcame the world by making it laugh at him4 ,and to-day8 ,to-day he feels his own comicness and the vanity of his efforts so far as temporal issues are concerned2 he sees himself from without--culture has taught him to objectify himself1 that is to say1 to alienate himself from himself instead of to enter into himself1 and in seeing himself from without he laughs at himself1 but with a bitter laughter4 ,perhaps the most tragic character would be an inward ,margutte1 who1 like the ,margutte of ,pulci1 should die bursting with laughter1 but with laughter at himself4 ,e rider in eterno1 he will laugh for all eternity1 said the ,angel ,gabriel of ,margutte4 ,do you not hear the laughter of ,god8 ,the mortal ,don ,quixote1 in dying1 understood his own comicness and wept for his sins2 but the immortal ,don ,quixote understands and rises above his comicness and triumphs over it without renouncing it4 ,but now ,don ,quixote hears his own laughter1 he hears the divine laughter1 and since he is not a pessimist1 since he believes in eternal life1 he has to fight1 attacking the modern scientific inquisitorial orthodoxy by adducing a new and impossible ,middle ,age1 dualistic1 contradictory1 passionate4 ,like a new ,savonarola--an ,italian ,quixote of the end of the fifteenth century--he fights against this ,modern ,age which began with ,machiavelli and which will end comically4 ,he fights against the rationalism inherited from the eighteenth century4 ,peace of consciousness1 reconciliation between reason and faith1 are now1 thanks to the providence of ,god1 impossible4 ,the world must be as ,don ,quixote wishes it to be1 and inns must be castles1 and he will fight against it and will1 to all appearances1 be overcome1 but he will triumph by making himself ridiculous4 ,he will triumph by laughing at himself and making himself laughed at4 8,reason speaks and feeling bites10 said ,petrarch2 but reason also bites and bites in the heart of hearts4 ,and more light does not make more warmth4 8,light1 light1 more light60 they tell us that the dying ,goethe cried4 ,no1 warmth1 warmth1 more warmth1 for we die of cold and not of darkness4 ,it is not the night but the frost that kills4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the philosophy of ,bergson1 which is a spiritualist restoration1 in its essence mystical1 medival1 quixotesque1 has been called demi-mondaine philosophy4 ,leave out the demi2 call it mondaine1 mundane4 ,mundane--yes1 for the world and not for philosophers1 just as chemistry ought not to be for chemists alone4 ,the world wishes to be deceived--mundus vult decipi--either with the illusion antecedent to reason1 which is poetry1 or with the illusion subsequent to reason1 which is religion4 ,and ,machiavelli has said that whosoever wishes to deceive will always find someone who will let himself be deceived4 ,and blessed are those who are made fools of4 ,a ,frenchman1 ,jules de ,gaultier1 has said that it was the privilege of his countrymen n'tre pas dupe--not to be taken in4 ,a sorry privilege6 ,science does not give ,don ,quixote what he demands of it4 8,then let him not demand it10 it will be said1 8let him resign himself1 let him accept life and truth as they are40 ,but he does not accept them as they are1 and he asks for signs1 urged thereto by ,sancho who stands by his side4 ,and it is not that ,don ,quixote does not understand what those understand who talk thus to him1 those who are able to resign themselves and to accept rational life and rational truth4 ,no1 it is that the needs of his heart are greater4 ,pedantry8 ,who knows8 ,and in this critical century ,don ,quixote1 who has contaminated himself with criticism also1 has to attack his own self1 the victim of intellectualism and sentimentalism1 and it is when he wishes to be most spontaneous that he appears most affected4 ,and the poor fellow wishes to rationalize the irrational and irrationalize the rational4 ,and he sinks into the inner despair of the critical century whose two greatest victims were ,nietzsche and ,tolstoi4 ,and through despair he attains the heroic fury of which ,giordano ,bruno spoke--that ,don ,quixote of the mind who escaped from the cloister--and he becomes an awakener of sleeping souls 7dormitantium animorum excubitor71 as the ex-,dominican said of himself4 8,heroic love10 ,bruno wrote1 8is the property of those superior natures called insane insano--not because they do not know non sanno1 but because they over-know soprasanno40 ,but ,bruno believed in the triumph of his doctrines--at any rate they have stated on the inscription at the foot of his statue in the ,campo dei ,fiori1 opposite the ,vatican1 that it is dedicated to him by the age which he foretold 7il secole da lui divinato74 ,but our ,don ,quixote1 the ,don ,quixote who has risen from the dead1 the inward ,don ,quixote1 the ,don ,quixote who is conscious of his own comicness1 does not believe that his doctrines will triumph in this world1 because they are not of it4 ,and it is better that they should not triumph4 ,and if the world wished to make ,don ,quixote king1 he would retire to the mountain1 fleeing from the king-making and king-killing crowds1 as ,christ retired alone to the mountain when1 after the miracle of the loaves and fishes1 they sought to proclaim ,him king4 ,he left the title of king to be written upon the cross4 ,what1 then1 is the new mission of ,don ,quixote in the world of to-day8 ,to cry aloud1 to cry aloud in the wilderness4 ,but the wilderness hears1 though men do not hear1 and one day it will be transformed into a sounding forest1 and this solitary voice that falls upon the wilderness like seed1 will yield a gigantic cedar1 which with its hundred thousand tongues will sing an eternal hosanna to the ,lord of life and of death4 ,,large ,,and ,,small ,,towns ,i regret that ,i have not by me a certain essay dealing with this subject by ,guglielmo ,ferrero4 ,i read it in some review the name of which ,i have forgotten1 but ,i preserve a clear recollection of it1 for it interested me greatly4 ,ferrero treated the subject from the historical and sociological point of view1 and ,i1 who am neither an historian nor a sociologist1 intend to treat it1 as is my custom1 from the point of view of purely personal opinion and individual impression4 7,this is my custom1 and yet in spite of the fact ,i cannot prevent people from insisting on calling me a savant and talking about my theories4 ,i have no theories4 ,i have only impressions and sensations47 ,but1 since ,i am unable to put some quotation from ,ferrero at the head of this essay--this habit of basing our assertions upon authority is the conventional way of giving them a deceptive air of objectivity--,i will head it by a sentence from ,george ,meredith1 that extremely subtle ,english novelist4 ,in 8,the ,egoist0 it is stated that ,willoughby 8abandoned ,london as the burial-place of the individual man40 ,i1 to-day1 am one with ,willoughby in believing that great cities de-individualize1 or rather de-personalize1 us4 ,this may perhaps be due to the fact that1 though not an egoist like the hero of ,meredith's novel1 ,i still remain1 according to ,ramiro de ,maeztu1 an incorrigible egotist4 ,great cities are levelling2 they lift up the low and depress the high2 they exalt mediocrity and abase superlativeness--the result of the action of the mass1 as powerful in social life as in chemistry4 ,soon after ,i came to this ancient city of ,salamanca which has now become so dear to me1 a city of some thirty thousand souls1 ,i wrote to a friend and told him that if after two years' residence here he should be informed that ,i spent my time playing cards1 taking siestas and strolling round the square for a couple of hours every day1 he might give me up for lost2 but if at the end of that time ,i should still be studying1 meditating1 writing1 battling for culture in the public arena1 he might take it that ,i was better off here than in ,madrid4 ,and so it has proved to be4 ,i remember that ,guglielmo ,ferrero's conclusion1 based upon a review of ancient ,greece1 of the ,italy of the ,renaissance and of the ,germany of a century ago1 is that for the life of the spirit1 small cities of a population like that of ,salamanca are the best--better than very small towns or large ones of over a hundred thousand inhabitants4 ,this depends1 of course1 upon the quality of the spirit in question4 ,i am convinced that the monastic cloister1 which so often atrophies the soul and reduces the average intelligence to a lamentable slavery to routine1 has in certain exceptional cases exalted the spirit by its arduous discipline4 ,great cities are essentially democratic1 and ,i must confess that ,i feel an invincible platonic mistrust of democracies4 ,in great cities culture is diffused but vulgarized4 ,people abandon the quiet reading of books to go to the theatre1 that school of vulgarity2 they feel the need of being together2 the gregarious instinct enslaves them2 they must be seeing one another4 ,i think it was ,taine who observed that the majority of ,french geniuses were either themselves country-born or the sons of country-born parents4 ,and ,i assure you that ,i should find it difficult to believe in the genius of a ,parisian born of ,parisians4 ,guerra ,junqueiro once said to me3 8,you are fortunate in living in a city in which you can walk along the streets dreaming1 without fear of people disturbing your dream60 ,and certainly in ,madrid it is impossible to walk along the streets dreaming1 not so much for fear of motors1 trams and carriages as because of the continual stream of unknown faces4 ,the distraction of a great city1 so agreeable to those who must have something1 no matter what1 to occupy their imagination1 is necessarily vexatious to those whose chief concern is not to have their imagination diverted4 ,personally ,i find nothing more monotonous than a ,paris boulevard4 ,the people seem to me like shadows4 ,i cannot endure a crowd of unknown faces4 ,i am afraid of ,madrid4 ,that is to say1 ,i am afraid of myself when ,i go there4 ,it is easy to say that in great cities everyone can live the life that suits him best1 but it is easier to say it than to do it4 ,when ,i am in the capital1 ,i return home every night regretting having gone to the party or to the meeting that ,i went to and resolving never to go again1 but only to break my vow the very next day4 ,i am surrounded1 hemmed in and invaded by a lethal atmosphere of compliance1 an atmosphere that is generated by this so-called life of society4 ,i have always felt an aversion from this so-called life of society1 which has for its object the cultivation of social relationships4 ,is there anything more terrible than a 8call08 ,it affords an occasion for the exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces4 ,calls and the theatre are the two great centres for the propagation of platitudes4 ,a man of society1 a drawing-room man who can make himself agreeable to women when he pays a call1 is always a man whose principal concern is to suppress any arresting spontaneity1 not to let his own personality show through4 ,for it is a man's own personality that people find irritating4 ,people like to meet the average man1 the normal man1 the man who has nothing exceptional about him4 ,the exception is always irritating4 ,how many times ,i have heard the terrible phrase3 8,this man irritates me40 ,yes1 it is 8the man0 that irritates1 and the hardest fight for the man who feels that he is a man is the fight to win respect for his own individuality4 ,and in a small town8 ,its stage is very restricted2 the players soon tire of playing the parts allotted to them and the real men begin to appear underneath1 with all their weaknesses--that is to say1 with precisely that which makes them men4 ,i have a great liking for provincial life1 for there it is easiest to discern tragedy lurking beneath an appearance of calm4 ,and just as much as ,i abhor comedy1 ,i love tragedy4 ,and1 above all1 tragi-comedy4 ,i have heard it said that there are no such seething intestine rancours and dissensions as in a merchant vessel or a monastery2 that whenever men are obliged to live together1 cut off from the rest of the world1 their personalities1 their most real and intimate selves1 immediately clash against one another4 ,and ,i dare say that this is the only way of attaining that knowledge of ourselves which ought to be our chief aim4 ,it seems to me scarcely possible that a man should get to know himself by shutting himself up in the wilderness1 contemplating--what8 ,the best way of knowing one's self is to clash1 heart against heart1 that is to say1 rock against rock1 with one's fellow4 ,i know that ,i shall be told that ,i am indulging my love of paradox1 but nevertheless ,i maintain that if it is true that the most ardent admirations are those which are disguised in the form of envy1 very often the strongest attractions are those which take the appearance of hate4 ,in one of these tragi-comic1 or rather comi-tragic1 small towns ,i know two men who1 though obliged to see one another constantly in the way of business1 never greet one another in the street and profess a mutual detestation4 ,nevertheless at bottom they feel themselves reciprocally attracted to one another and each one is continually preoccupied by the other4 ,these irreconcilable feuds into which small towns are so often divided are much more favourable to the development of strong personalities than the bland comedy of a great metropolis1 where those who fight a duel to the death on the public stage embrace one another behind the scenes4 ,do you suppose that the tragedy of ,romeo and ,juliet is possible in a city that counts its inhabitants by the million8 ,and ,i ask you1 do you suppose that anyone who sees a multitude of people in the course of the day1 listens to this man to-day1 to another man to-morrow and to another man the day after1 and attends twenty or thirty conferences--do you think that such a one can preserve his spiritual integrity without any leakage8 ,in such a life a hedgehog would end by becoming a lamb1 its quills would turn into softest fleece1 and for my part ,i would rather be a hedgehog than a lamb4 ,i understand why ,willoughby fled from ,london as from the burial-place of the individual man4 ,is it not a terrible thing to walk through two or three miles of city streets and pass two or three thousand people without meeting a single known face to set a spark to a train of human thought8 ,a glance of hate from a known enemy is sweeter than a glance of indifference1 if not of disdain1 from an unknown stranger4 ,for man has acquired the habit of disdaining those whom he does not know1 and seems to suppose that every stranger must be presumed to be an imbecile until he proves himself otherwise4 ,and those who say that they are bored in a small town8 ,the reason is because they have not dug down to its tragic roots1 to the august severity of the depths of its monotony4 ,it is my belief that in great cities proud natures become vain1 that is to say1 the quills become fleece4 ,and for the man who is engaged in any kind of work in which he can exercise his influence from a distance1 for the writer or the painter1 the small town offers the inestimable advantage of enabling him to live far from his public and of its being possible that the effects which his work produces either do not reach him or reach him only after a searching process of filtration4 ,he can live more or less independently of his public1 without allowing himself to be influenced by it1 and this is the only way of making a public for oneself instead of adapting oneself to it4 ,if this be the case1 it may be urged that a village would be better than a small town1 a hamlet or perhaps even a remote farm-house4 ,but no1 for then there would be lacking that minimum of organic society without which our personality runs as much risk as it runs in the heart of a metropolis4 ,essentially1 in the sphere of psychologico-sociological relations--this is for the benefit of those who insist on labelling me savant--it is a question of what is perhaps the most fundamental of all problems1 the problem of maxima and minima4 ,this is the problem that is the nerve of physical mechanics and the nerve also of social mechanics or economics4 ,the problem always is how to obtain the maximum result or profit with the minimum effort or expense1 the largest return with the least expenditure4 ,it is also the fundamental problem of sthetics2 it is at the root of all the problems of life4 ,and with regard to the subject ,i am now considering1 it is a question of obtaining the maximum of our own personality with the minimum of others' society4 ,less society1 or a society less complex1 would diminish our personality1 and so also would more society1 or a society apparently more complex4 ,and ,i say apparently1 for ,i am not aware that an elephant is more complex than a fox4 ,very well then--he who has no sense of his own personality and is willing to sacrifice it on the altar of sociability1 let him go and lose himself among the millions of a metropolis4 ,for the man who has a longing for ,nirvana the metropolis is better than the desert4 ,if you want to submerge your own 8,i10 better the streets of a great city than the solitudes of the wilderness4 ,it is not a bad thing now and again to visit the great city and plunge into the sea of its crowds1 but in order to emerge again upon terra firma and feel the solid ground under one's feet4 ,for my part1 since ,i am interested in individuals--in ,john and ,peter and ,richard1 in you who are reading this book--but not in the masses which they form when banded together1 ,i remain in the small town1 seeing every day at the same hour the same men1 men whose souls have clashed1 and sometimes painfully1 with my soul2 and ,i flee from the great metropolis where my soul is whipped with the icy whips of the disdainful glances of those who know me not and who are unknown to me4 ,people whom ,i cannot name 444 horrible6 ,,to ,,my ,,readers ,yes1 ,i know it--,i am not sympathetic to all those who read me1 perhaps not even to the majority of them4 ,but what ,i am to do8444 ,so long as they go on reading me4444 ,for the fact is ,i would rather that they should find me not sympathetic and nevertheless go on reading me than that they should find me sympathetic and cease to read me4 ,sympathy is often purchased at the cost of authority and respect4 ,i confess that the quality of being sympathetic does not appear to me to be a very desirable thing in a writer4 ,it is perhaps the beginning of discredit1 a discredit that is none the less profound because it wears a gilded disguise4 ,yes1 ,i know that ,i am not sympathetic1 that ,i have perhaps succeeded in making myself antipathetic to many of those who read me and who in spite of this antipathy--or rather because of it--still continue to read me4 ,a short time ago a friend wrote to me saying that although he often disagrees with me he reads me because his reaction to my opinions stimulates ideas in him4 ,i profess myself well content with this1 to beget ideas in those who read me1 although these ideas should be the contrary of those which ,i expound and defend4 ,but there are many1 very many readers who don't like being obliged to think and who only want to be told what they already know1 what they have already thought4 ,in order to become sympathetic a writer has only to flatter and confirm his readers' preconceptions1 clinching the commonplaces to which their minds have given assent4 ,that is the way for a writer to become sympathetic and it is also the way for him to become soon tedious1 so that the reader remarks3 8,ah1 yes1 a very sympathetic writer1 very understanding60 and ceases to read him4 ,most people--,i have said this more than once before and as ,i am an insistent writer1 another quality which does not help to make me sympathetic1 ,i shall have to repeat it many times more--most people read in order not to be informed4 ,yes1 literally1 not to be informed4 ,the worthy ,fulnez takes the paper or the review at breakfast-time and reads it as he would listen to a waltz-tune1 in order to while away the time4 ,he dislikes being agitated1 he dislikes being contradicted2 but most of all he dislikes being told something that he has never thought of before4 ,there is a spiritual pain analogous to physical pain2 there is a spiritual pain when the tissues of the soul are torn away4 ,for just as the body has its tissues of cells and filaments1 so the soul has its tissues of impressions1 memories1 sensations and ideas4 ,the breaking of an association of ideas is like the breaking of an association of bodily cells and may produce anything from a slight irritation to the most acute pain4 ,it is a matter of common observation that the pain which we feel at the death of someone dear to us1 with whom we have lived together1 at first goes on increasing until it reaches a point when it begins to diminish4 ,its progress might be described by a rapidly ascending and gradually descending curve4 ,the first effect is one of stupor4 ,the pain becomes most acute when we feel the gap that has been left in our existence1 when we feel the rupture of our associations of ideas and feelings4 ,the image of the loved one was intimately woven into the spiritual tissue of our life1 and death cannot tear it away without destroying the tissue4 ,and every rupture of an association of ideas and feelings is accompanied by a disturbance which varies in degree from the pain that we feel at the death of a father1 husband1 wife1 brother or son1 to the minor irritation which is caused by the exploding of some commonplace that had become a habit of our mind4 ,and we writers who are given to breaking these associations--and that is why we are called paradoxists--jar on people and incur their antipathy4 ,it is our fate4 ,and they tell us that what jars is not so much what we say as our way of saying it4 ,yes1 it is because instead of cutting these associations with surgical delicacy1 first chloroforming or hypnotizing the patient1 we tear them roughly and when he is most wide awake4 ,it is a question of method1 and it is a question of temperament4 ,chloroform1 the clinical as well as the literary variety1 has its inconveniences1 and there are cases in which the patient has to suffer pain4 ,to irritate people may even become a duty binding upon the conscience1 a painful duty1 but a duty none the less4 ,and then there is another thing which makes me antipathetic1 ,i know1 and that is my lack of impersonality1 my incapacity to produce what is called objective work1 my putting my whole self1 more or less1 into all my writings1 my egotism1 as it is called4 ,but what am ,i to do8444 ,i am amazed at those who are able to eliminate their own selves1 ,i am amazed1 but ,i don't imitate them and ,i don't wish to imitate them4 ,i don't know how it may be elsewhere1 but here in ,spain the man1 the individual man1 irritates us4 ,and as ,i believe that the great battle is how to win respect for man1 respect for individuality1 ,i for my part irritate the myriad-headed1 anonymous multitude4 ,let them respect me4 ,thus they will learn to respect every individual1 to respect themselves as individuals4 ,yes1 yes1 it is quite right to use one's knowledge with discretion1 just as it is quite right to use one's wealth with discretion4 ,but neither knowledge nor wealth is one's self2 they are something annexed1 something that comes and goes1 that can be taken or left4 ,but ,i cannot make a discreet use of myself4 ,if ,i am deprived of a shilling or a dollar ,i can submit to it1 but ,i cannot easily submit to being deprived of an arm or1 still less1 of a piece of my soul4 ,a shilling or a dollar ,i can give away discreetly1 but an arm or a piece of my soul1 these ,i can only tear off and give away passionately1 that is to say indiscreetly4 ,and ,i do not give ideas1 ,i do not give knowledge--,i give pieces of my soul4 ,the ideas that ,i expound matter to me less1 far less1 than the way ,i expound them4 ,it is not the shilling that ,i give you that counts1 but the warmth that it carries with it from my hand4 ,these antipathies that ,i provoke proceed--as well ,i know1 in spite of whatever those who see only the surface may say--from the fact that ,i am not an intellectual but a man of passion4 ,almost all the things that ,i have said1 hundreds1 thousands1 have said before me4 ,i am neither erudite nor a savant4 ,there is no great originality in my ideas4 ,whence1 then1 the potency which1 thanks to ,god1 ,i have attained8 ,whence these antipathies and sympathies1 and how is it that ,i am able to say1 thanks to ,god1 that ,i am seldom read with indifference8--,it is due to passion1 to the tone of my voice4 ,yes1 ,i know it1 ,i am antipathetic to many of my readers1 and one of the things that makes me most antipathetic to them is my aggressiveness1 my sometimes morbid aggressiveness4 ,i don't deny it4 ,but the truth is1 my friend1 that this aggressiveness is directed against myself4 ,when ,i attack others ,i am attacking myself4 ,i live in a state of inward conflict4 ,i imagine that ,i am misinterpreted8 ,very likely1 since ,i myself do not always succeed in interpreting myself aright4 ,the ideas that crowd in upon me from all quarters are always battling together in my mind and ,i fail to make peace between them4 ,i fail because ,i don't even try4 ,i need these battles4 ,and1 moreover ,i am not anxious for a reputation among scholars1 for ,i am not a scholar1 ,i am not what is called a scholar4 ,nor even among men of culture1 although ,i am always preaching culture4 ,but by culture ,i understand the most intense inner life1 the life of intensest battle1 of intensest disquietude1 of intensest desire4 ,i come of a race which some people say is still1 in its essence1 in a state of savagery1 a race of a turbulent and taciturn spirit1 a race of which ,salmern said that it had not yet adapted itself to ,european civilization4 ,and so far as ,i myself and my own branch of the race#d are concerned1 ,i accept this judgment and ,i accept it with pride4 ,no1 no1 friend1 ,i am not a philanthropist4 ,the hunger and thirst for ,god are too strong within me for me to love men in the philanthropic way4 ,needs must be sown among men germs of doubt1 of distrust1 of inquietude1 and even of despair--why not8 yes1 even of despair--and if thereby they lose what they call happiness1 since it is not really happiness1 they have lost nothing4 ,and above all and before all1 none of this living in peace with all the world6 ,living in peace with all the world--horrible1 horrible1 horrible6 ,no1 no1 no1 none of this living in peace4 ,peace1 spiritual peace ,i mean1 is usually a lie and is usually stagnation4 ,i do not wish to live in peace either with others or with myself4 ,i need war1 inward war4 ,we all need war4 ,truth before peace4 ,that is my watchword4 ,and to give it greater brilliance ,i will write it in ,latin3 veritas primus pace4 ,and it goes without saying that the war that ,i need as the sustenance of my life and of the lives of others is a spiritual war1 not war with gun and sword4 ,all the rest--in spite of whatever the champions of the central current of culture and of disciplined solidarity and of respect for the so-called definitive conquests of the human spirit may say--all the rest ,i understand and ,i am even ready to applaud it if you like2 but it is not my concern1 it is not my lot to put myself at its service4 ,and above all1 my friend1 there is one thing that ,i have hated all my life and that ,i hope to die hating1 and that is1 becoming the prisoner of my public1 submitting to follow the course marked out for me by my readers4 ,i will not sacrifice my independence1 above all ,i will not mortgage my future4 ,you understand8 ,i will not mortgage my future4 ,i will keep it open and free4 ,and so ,i alienate sympathy8444 ,who knows8 ,what ,i want to avoid is public indifference4 ,sympathies and antipathies are perhaps the same thing4 ,antipathy--now for a paradox6--is a form of sympathy4 ,reading me for the sake of being annoyed and quarrelling with what ,i say or my way of saying it1 is the same as reading me and agreeing with what ,i say4 ,to combat a man is one way of animating and confirming him4 ,i have put warmth and life into my books and it is for the sake of the warmth and life ,i have put into them that you read them4 ,i have put passion into my books4 ,passion of hate1 passion of disdain1 passion of contempt very often--,i don't deny it4 ,but does warmth come only from this thing that they call love and which1 ninety times out of a hundred1 is nothing but drivelling mawkishness and debility of spirit8 ,and ,i have put my loves into my books too1 those loves which beget my indignations1 those loves which are the cause of my being so often harsh1 severe1 disdainful4 ,yes1 love makes me antipathetic1 a greater and purer love than that delusive sympathy which some people urge me to seek after4 ,never1 never1 never6 ,let such apostleship be for others4 ,every man has his own destiny4 ,and this is not a presumption of superiority4 ,no1 don't think that4 ,if you suspect such a thing it is because you don't know me4 ,no1 it is not that4 ,i don't condemn your opinion2 ,i don't regard the advice you give me as bad2 ,i only say that it is no use to me4 ,i tell you that you are mistaken about me4 ,and not because you lack intelligence1 no1 a thousand times no4 ,you are mistaken because each of us sets out from a different point of view1 or rather from a different point of feeling4 ,you appear to me to be an optimist1 or at any rate a man who believes that progress will alleviate the pains of mankind2 you speak with a certain unction of the noble crusade of thought and of the great enterprise of culture1 and ,i believe that the best that this enterprise can do is to make us forget that we have been born and that we have to die4 ,i confess that ,i have a tragic sense of life4 ,i confess it without petulance or pedantry1 and ,i know that you will not doubt my sincerity4 ,this bitterness that you find so disagreeable in my writings has grown with being exercised against myself4 ,i am the sword and the whetstone and ,i sharpen my sword on myself4 ,hence it is that ,i am as tired with the sword-play as ,i am with sharpening the sword that ,i play with4 ,and if ,i am to tell you the truth1 it hurts and wounds me to see men marching as confidently as if they marched on solid ground1 some confident in the prejudices and anti-prejudices of their religious beliefs1 others slaves of science1 others slaves of ignorance1 slaves all of them4 ,i would have them doubt1 ,i would have them suffer1 above all ,i would have them despair1 ,i would have them be men and not mere partisans of the party of progress4 ,despair1 even though it be a resigned despair1 is perhaps the highest state that man can attain to4 ,god1 friend1 did not send me into the world to be an apostle of peace1 or to reap sympathy1 but to be a sower of disquietude and irritation and to endure antipathy4 ,antipathy is the price of my redemption4 ,,soliloquies ,i ,it would seem1 ,miguel1 that your audience will have to allow you1 if only just for once1 to talk aloud to yourself1 to unburden your heart4--,do it now1 and then it will be all the easier to do it again some other day4--,writing for the public is a harsh kind of slavery4 ,doubtless you willed it4 ,you chose to be a writer and you must patiently bear the consequences of your choice4 ,but are we as free to choose our vocation as we think we are8 ,you crave retirement1 tranquillity and silence in order that you may devote yourself to some solid and unhurried task1 remote from the turmoil that deafens the ear with its noise and blinds the eye with its dust4 ,your heart with its yearning for solitude turns longingly towards those men of old who dedicated themselves to works that endure1 far from the traffic of the world with its daily contentions and anxieties4 ,you yearn for the classic1 the eternally classic4 ,but the vertigo of life sweeps you along and you find yourself involved in the burning dissensions of your contemporaries4 ,you cannot live among the dead2 you have to live among the living4 ,and yet1 dear ,miguel1 what a source of consolation and strength is this intercourse with the glorious dead1 whose works never die6 ,how the soul is refreshed by the vivifying streams that flow from those immortal spirits who live their deepest lives in us--,homer1 ,plato1 ,virgil1 ,st4 ,augustine1 ,shakespeare1 ,descartes1 ,spinoza1 ,kant1 ,goethe1 and so many others6 ,yes1 there is no doubt about it--this insane eagerness to know what those round about us are saying or repeating hinders us from following the progress of the human soul as it reveals itself in its immortal sons1 those erect pillars that are landmarks for all time4 ,what does it matter to you1 tell me1 what your neighbour is clamouring about8 ,you are not going to follow the example of those whose time and soul are so absorbed in listening to all the superficialities of their contemporaries that they have no time left to enjoy the enduring legacy of humanity4 ,this form of modernity serves only to enfeeble both men and peoples4 ,distrust novelties1 ,miguel1 and be sure that there is nothing more novel than what is for ever4 ,homer and ,shakespeare are more modern than most of the living writers who are accounted most modern4 ,you will learn more from ,plato than from the author of the latest volume in ,alcan's ,library of ,modern ,philosophy4 ,the modern is the fashionable and you must fly from all fashions4 ,but it is useless--,i know it--useless4 ,i can see that the voices round about you1 the ardent voices of the living1 have caught your ear1 perhaps in spite of yourself4 ,it is the voice of humanity1 and you are and ought to be before all else a man4 ,do you remember what your dead friend ,coleridge1 the wonderful ,coleridge1 says in his ,biographia ,literaria about his contemporaries8 ,i will repeat it to you again3 8,the great works of past ages seem to a young man things of another race1 in respect to which his faculties must remain passive and submiss1 even as to the stars and mountains4 ,but the writings of a contemporary1 perhaps not many years older than himself1 surrounded by the same circumstances1 and disciplined by the same manners1 possess a reality for him1 and inspire an actual friendship as of a man for a man4 ,his very admiration is the wind which fans his hope4 ,the poems themselves assume the properties of flesh and blood4 ,to recite1 to extol1 to contend for them is but the payment of a debt due to one who exists to receive it40 ,consider this same ,samuel ,taylor ,coleridge who wrote these words and tell me if the memory of this man who died many years before you were born can give you that glow which the recollection of one still living gives you4 ,and nevertheless1 you will say1 how sweet and peaceful it is to converse with those who once were and to-day sleep in the lap of the teeming earth4 99 99 99 99 99 ,you have dreamed of producing a magnum opus that would endure1 and you find yourself condemned to the fragmentary and fugitive labour of journalism4 ,must you repine at that8 ,we never know1 believe me1 when we have succeeded best4 ,and remember that the slowly and carefully elaborated work of the solitary author1 holding himself aloof from all collaboration with his public1 is perhaps after all only the monument of his own egoism4 ,collaboration with the public1 ,i say4 ,for the public collaborates more or less ostensibly in the work of every publicist1 sometimes with applause1 sometimes with censure4 ,i know that you have been influenced in your work by the letters which from time to time you receive from unknown readers1 especially from those in ,america1 and which have provided you with helpful notes and suggestions4 ,but in addition to this1 you are influenced1 perhaps without knowing it1 by the reaction of your readers1 of those who follow your work1 and this reaction affects what you write1 forcing you sometimes to adapt yourself to your readers' point of view1 sometimes to combat it and endeavour to make it conform to yours4 ,it is said that some of the greatest dramas1 among others those of ,shakespeare1 have been actually created on the stage1 in collaboration with the public1 having been modified at every representation according to the way in which the public received them4 ,and do you not think that the successive works of a productive author are not very often merely successive editions1 more or less revised1 of one and the same work8 ,every author who writes much repeats himself much2 the more original he is and the more he draws from his own depths instead of merely echoing what he hears round about him1 the more he repeats himself4 ,the greatest geniuses have been men of few and simple ideas expressed with vigour and efficacy1 but expressed also with more uniformity and continuity than those of writers of only average ability4 ,there have been men whose greatness has been owing to the fact that they were men of one idea1 men who were simply an idea incarnate4 ,by dint of living one single but noble and fruitful idea1 they have succeeded in presenting it to us in all its forms4 ,variety1 multiplicity of points of view1 almost always indicates a certain spiritual weakness4 ,but ,i do not need to convince you of this1 for ,i know how much you admire ,athanasius for being a man of one idea4 ,yes1 your own works1 in spite of their apparent variety--novels1 commentaries1 essays1 poems--are1 if you consider it carefully1 simply the continuous development in multiple forms of but one and the same fundamental idea4 ,and in thus seeking to communicate this central thought of yours1 you go on condensing it more and more and discovering new forms of expression for it1 until perhaps some day you will hit upon the most adequate1 the most precise form4 ,and1 believe me1 a writer achieves a lasting place when he has discovered the permanent form of any idea1 when he has succeeded in giving it its definitive body4 ,and in your effort to discover this1 who shall say that this writing of fugitive and fragmentary pieces is not as useful as any other way of search8 ,you know that very often one thinks more when talking than when meditating4 ,do you remember that experience which occurred to you one afternoon when you were walking with your friend ,vincent1 that wise and subtle spirit1 so unhappily cut off in his prime8 ,you were arguing as usual2 his subtle objections forced you to concentrate your mind1 and after a quick reply to one of his questions1 almost before the words were out of your mouth1 you exclaimed delightedly3 8,how right that is6 how exact6 how precise60 ,and when he showed surprise that you should be astonished by one of your own remarks1 you said3 8,the fact is1 it is as new to me as it is to you4 ,doubtless the solution was already there in my mind1 but it was dim and confused4 ,i myself was not conscious of its being there4 ,it was only in the effort to meet your objections that it took shape and disclosed itself to me4 ,and so you see it was really as new to me as to you40 ,and so it often happens4 ,thought depends upon language1 for we think with words1 and language is a social thing4 ,language is conversation4 ,and thought itself is therefore social4 ,the only clear thought is transmissible thought4 ,if anyone tells you that he sees a thing quite clearly but that he does not know how to communicate it1 you may reply that he cannot be sure whether he sees it clearly or not4 ,to every writer it has happened more than once that he has realized the absurdity or obscurity of his own thought only after he has seen it in print4 ,be assured1 then1 that you meditate more and meditate better when you are writing things like this letter that you are now addressing to yourself than when you shut yourself up in your room to devote yourself to what is called meditation and what is really only mind-wandering4 ,the necessity of giving your thought transmissible expression is that which makes it a living and effective process4 ,it is when your pen is in your hand that things occur to you most readily1 and the reason is because then you are not thinking for yourself but thinking for others4 ,thinking for oneself is not properly thinking--it is losing oneself in vague reveries1 like a man on the verge of sleep idly watching the drift of his cigar-smoke4 ,to think is to think for others2 thinking is a social function4 ,you have sometimes heard it said that ,paul of ,tarsus used to draw inspiration from his own words1 that these words provoked ideas1 and that in his epistles it is possible to follow this process of ideation by means of verbal associations4 ,and of ,augustine of ,hippo--one of the immortal pillars1 like ,paul1 ,bernard and ,martin ,luther1 of the ,christianity of the heart--it has been said that he developed his theme by antitheses1 that is to say rhetorically4 ,and both ,paul and ,augustine were men of burning passion1 not solitary contemplatives1 but active fighters4 ,they consider you to be an egotist because you often refer to yourself--you are doing it now in this soliloquy--and talk about yourself1 but the truth is that this self of yours1 in so far as you are a writer1 is something that belongs to all the world--you stand in the middle of the street1 hailed by everybody and answering back4 ,you would be not merely an egotist but a miserable egoist if you shut yourself up in the tower of ivory1 far from your fellows1 and worked day after day upon some minute and exquisite jewel4 ,you work in the open air1 in the public gaze1 and from time to time1 in order to keep your work clean1 you blow away the dust of the turmoil that has settled upon it4 ,enough4 ,let us talk no more together1 you and ,i1 this hidden and intimate self and this apparent and public self4 ,are they really two8 ,are you anything else but a writer8 ,or rather1 this self that is not the publicist1 of what worth is it8 ,,ii ,it appears to be the fact that many people believe me to be a man who lives shut up in a library1 buried among books1 isolated from the world4 ,they say that ,i lack what they call the sense of reality4 ,as for the first charge1 that ,i spend my days devouring books1 it is a pure fiction4 ,i travel more than ,i wish to travel and ,i see more people than ,i wish to see4 ,with regard to the second1 my lack of the sense of reality--let us consider it4 ,that which men of the world--and in my speech and writings ,i always use this phrase in a sufficiently depreciatory sense--that which men of the world call the sense of reality appears to me to be no more than a sense of apparentiality4 ,a man is said to possess the sense of reality who stops to consider only the transient surface of things and does not penetrate into their permanent substance4 ,those who are said to possess this sense of reality are interested only in news1 what is called the latest information4 ,and as for me--,i must say it perfectly frankly--,i detest the latest information4 ,there is nothing in the newspaper that strikes me as so empty as the page devoted to the latest news4 ,this craving to have news1 news usually lacking in any deep import1 as quickly as possible1 seems to me puerile4 ,the important thing1 ,i have always supposed1 is to know things thoroughly1 not to know them quickly4 ,but the current runs in the other direction4 ,for one who reads a book with the sole purpose of knowing1 enjoying and profiting by it1 there are twenty who read it simply in order to say that they have read it and to gain kudos by quoting from it4 ,there are1 or at any rate there ought to be1 in each one of us two men1 the temporal and the eternal1 the one who is preoccupied with the cares of the passing day and the one who is preoccupied with the eternal preoccupations1 the one who says3 8,what shall ,i eat1 or how shall ,i amuse myself to-morrow80 and the one who says3 8,what will happen to us after death80 ,in some cases the inner man dominates and leads captive the external man and then the individual either retires to a monastery or he lives a life of resigned despair1 ceaseless wrestling with mystery2 and in some cases the external and temporal man subjugates and strangles the inner and eternal man1 and then we have the man of the world1 the man who boasts of being practical and of possessing the sense of reality4 ,and this practical man does not interest me in the least4 ,when ,i find myself in a modern city1 in one of these cities that are called progressive because of their system of police and hygiene1 with smoothly paved streets1 pretentious buildings1 electric trams1 luxurious motors replete with fashionably dressed women1 well-kept parks1 comfortable clubs1 theatres--in short1 complete with all the apparatus of a modern city--whenever ,i find myself in such a city ,i am enveloped1 invaded and oppressed by a sense of profound and utter solitude4 ,the men appear to me like shadows without substance4 ,and like ,diogenes ,i begin to look for a man1 a real man1 a man who wrestles with destiny and mystery1 a man of religious spirit1 a man1 in short1 who believes in ,god or denies ,him1 but who believes in ,him or denies ,him passionately1 with the heart1 not merely in virtue of some philosophical formula forming part of the general knowledge that a well-educated man is expected to possess4 ,i set about looking for a man 444 and rarely1 very rarely1 do ,i find him4 8,the man you ought to know is ,lpez10 they tell me1 8a man of culture and distinction40 ,and so1 although without any illusion1 and chiefly in order not to offend the friend who recommends him to me1 ,i get to know ,lpez4 ,and in effect ,lpez has read a great deal and knows the names of the most prominent writers and publicists and discusses ,comte and ,spencer and ,schopenhauer and ,nietzsche1 and has read the latest ,french novelists1 and knows several famous passages of poetry by heart and has his tincture of history1 sociology1 psychology and natural science1 and ,lpez 444 is not the man ,i am looking for4 ,it is not the great classic authors that ,lpez has read1 the essential geniuses1 the men who have gazed at the ,sphinx face to face1 but rather their expositors and commentators2 he knows the great minds of all time as they are reflected in manuals of the history of philosophy or literature4 ,once perhaps1 not so much even for curiosity's sake as to be able to say that he has read them1 he has looked into the book of ,job or ,st4 ,augustine or ,pascal or ,kempis1 but his heart has not been touched4 ,and naturally ,lpez does not interest me1 does not even appear to me to be a man2 he is simply a member of a club1 or a member of ,parliament1 or a brilliant figure in polite society4 ,his distinction is of the same category as that of his wife's mediocre facility in playing the piano4 ,lpez knows how to present himself to the best advantage4 ,but fortunately and thanks to ,god ,i do not live in one of these cities1 which are all alike1 all attempting to imitate ,paris4 ,i live in an ancient city1 whose age is perpetual youth1 whose golden stones distil memories4 ,and even so1 whenever ,i can ,i escape into the country and there ,i talk with some old shepherd who has brooded for long hours beneath the sky upon eternal themes4 ,and this man who reads no newspapers1 who does not know where ,serbia is and has never heard of ,dreyfus or ,anatole ,france or the ,kaiser1 who knows nothing about the latest sociological theory or the latest fashion in morning coats1 this man speaks to me the ancient words of the wisdom of ,ecclesiastes4 ,and as he has never read ,ecclesiastes1 but has derived his wisdom from the same fount1 the ancient words come to me new1 eternally new4 ,many times ,i have wished in my secret heart that ,i had lived in one of those ages of burning faith1 among a people consumed by an infinite passion1 among the ,crusaders or among the ,albigenses1 in the ranks of ,cromwell's ,ironsides or of ,coligny's ,huguenots1 or in the obscurity of the monastery in which ,heinrich ,seuss underwent his tremendous mortifications4444 ,but who in ,god's name1 if he be a man and a real man1 can stand one of those banquets with which the friends of the distinguished ,lpez celebrate the honour of his being appointed governor of a province1 with their interminable toasts1 all full of the same empty platitudes1 pronounced to the hateful accompaniment of the popping of champagne corks8 ,when the unavoidable exigencies of social servitude compel me to attend one of these ceremonies of homage1 ,i feel a desire to get up and say3 8,brothers1 let us meditate upon death60 and launch forth into a sermon4 ,i don't do so1 of course1 though not for fear of ridicule1 but because ,i know that it would avail nothing4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but enough of unbosoming myself4 ,you needn't be afraid1 ,i know that ,i am a slave1 ,i know that we are all slaves4444 ,i will return to the beaten track1 ,i will return to 8objective0 themes1 but4444 ,but must my heart never be allowed the relief of a sigh1 a sigh at once of resignation and rebellion8 ,must ,i not be allowed some time to say that all this that you call civilization appears to me to be nothing but the trappings of culture and that those who are content merely with the trappings are savages muffled in royal robes1 and that the splendour of your metropolises leaves me cold8 ,,my ,,religion ,a friend writing to me from ,chile tells me that he has met people acquainted with my writings who have asked him3 8,what1 in a word1 is the religion of this ,seor ,unamuno80 ,i myself have several times been asked a similar question4 ,and ,i am going to see if ,i cannot--,i will not say1 answer it1 for that is a thing ,i do not pretend to be able to do1 but endeavour at any rate to elucidate the meaning of the question4 ,individuals as well as peoples characterized by intellectual inertia--and intellectual inertia is quite compatible with great productive activity in the sphere of economics and in other kindred spheres--tend to dogmatism1 whether they know it or not1 whether they wish it or not1 whether they intend it or not4 ,intellectual inertia shuns the critical or sceptical attitude4 ,i say sceptical1 taking the word scepticism in its etymological and philosophical sense1 for the sceptic does not mean him who doubts1 but him who investigates or researches1 as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found4 ,the one is the man who studies a problem and the other is the man who gives us a formula1 correct or incorrect1 as the solution of it4 ,in the order of pure philosophical speculation it is premature to demand that an investigator shall produce a definite solution of a problem while he is engaged in defining the problem itself more exactly4 ,when a long calculation does not work out correctly1 it is no small step forward to rub it all out and begin afresh4 ,when a house threatens to collapse or becomes completely uninhabitable1 the first thing to do is to pull it down and not to demand that another shall be built on top of it4 ,the new house may indeed be built with materials taken from the old one1 but only after the old one has first been demolished4 ,in the meantime1 if there is no other house available1 the people can find shelter in a hut or sleep in the open4 ,and it is necessary not to lose sight of the fact that in the problems of practical life we must seldom expect to find definite scientific solutions4 ,men live and always have lived upon hazardous hypotheses and explanations1 and sometimes even without them4 ,men have not waited to agree as to whether or not the criminal was possessed of free will before punishing him1 and a man does not pause before sneezing to reflect upon the possible injury that may be caused by the obstructing particle that provokes him to sneeze4 ,i think that those men are mistaken who assert that they would live evilly if they did not believe in the eternal pains of hell1 and the mistake is all to their credit4 ,if they ceased to believe in a sanction after death1 they would not live worse1 but they would look for some other ideal justification for their conduct4 ,the good man is not good because he believes in a transcendental order1 but rather he believes in it because he is good--a proposition which ,i am sure must appear obscure or involved to those inquirers who suffer from intellectual inertia4 ,i am asked1 then3 8,what is your religion80 ,and ,i will reply3 ,my religion is to seek truth in life and life in truth1 even though knowing full well that ,i shall never find them so long as ,i live2 my religion is to wrestle unceasingly and unwearyingly with mystery2 my religion is to wrestle with ,god from nightfall until the breaking of the day1 as ,jacob is said to have wrestled with ,him4 ,i cannot accommodate myself to the doctrine of the ,unknowable or to that of 8thus far and no farther40 ,i reject the everlasting ,ignorabimus4 ,and at all hazards ,i seek to scale the unattainable4 8,be perfect as your ,father in heaven is perfect10 ,christ said to us1 and such an ideal of perfection is1 without doubt1 unattainable4 ,but ,he put the unattainable before us as the goal and term of our endeavours4 ,and ,he attained to it1 say the theologians1 by grace4 ,and ,i wish to fight my fight careless of victory4 ,are there not armies and even peoples who march to certain defeat8 ,do we not praise those who die fighting rather than surrender8 ,this1 then1 is my religion4 ,those who put this question to me want me to give them a dogma1 a solution which they can accept without disturbing their mental inertia4 ,or rather it is not this that they want1 so much as to be able to label me and put me into one of the divisions in which they classify minds1 so that they can say of me3 ,he is a ,lutheran1 a ,calvanist1 a ,catholic1 an atheist1 a rationalist1 a mystic1 or any other of those nicknames whose exact meaning they do not understand but which dispense them from further thinking4 ,and ,i do not wish to have myself labelled1 for ,i1 ,miguel de ,unamuno1 like every other man who aspires to full consciousness1 am a unique species4 8,there are no diseases1 but only persons who are diseased10 some doctors say1 and ,i say that there are no opinions1 but only opining persons4 ,in religion there is but little that is capable of rational resolution1 and as ,i do not possess that little ,i cannot communicate it logically1 for only the rational is logical and transmissible4 ,i have1 it is true1 so far as my affections1 my heart and my feelings are concerned1 a strong bent towards ,christianity1 but without adhering to the special dogmas of this or that ,christian confession4 ,i count every man a ,christian who invokes the name of ,christ with respect and love1 and ,i am repelled by the orthodox1 whether ,catholic or ,protestant--the latter being usually as intransigent as the former--who deny the ,christianity of those who interpret the ,gospel differently from themselves4 ,i know a ,protestant ,christian who denies that ,unitarians are ,christians4 ,i frankly confess that the supposed rational proofs--ontological1 cosmological1 ethical1 etc4--of the existence of ,god1 prove to me nothing2 that all the reasons adduced to show that a ,god exists appear to me to be based on sophistry and begging of the question4 ,in this ,i am with ,kant4 ,and in discussions of this kind1 ,i feel that ,i am unable to talk to cobblers in the terms of their craft4 ,nobody has succeeded in convincing me rationally of the existence of ,god1 nor yet of ,his non-existence2 the arguments of atheists appear to me even more superficial and futile than those of their opponents4 ,and if ,i believe in ,god1 or at least believe that ,i believe in ,him1 it is1 first of all1 because ,i wish that ,god may exist1 and then1 because ,he is revealed to me1 through the channel of the heart1 in the ,gospel and in ,christ and in history4 ,it is an affair of the heart4 ,which means that ,i am not convinced of it as ,i am of the fact that two and two make four4 ,if it were a question of something that did not touch my peace of conscience or console me for having been born1 perhaps ,i should pay no heed to the problem2 but as it involves my whole interior life and the spring of all my actions1 ,i cannot quiet myself by saying3 ,i do not know nor can ,i know4 ,i do not know1 that is certain2 perhaps ,i can never know4 ,but ,i want to know4 ,i want to1 and that is enough4 ,and ,i shall spend my life wrestling with mystery1 and even without hope of penetrating it1 for this wrestling is my sustenance and my consolation4 ,yes1 my consolation4 ,i have accustomed myself to wrest hope from despair itself4 ,and let not fools in their superficiality shriek3 ,paradox6 ,i cannot conceive of a man of culture without this preoccupation1 and in point of culture--and culture is not the same as civilization--,i can hope but little from those who live without interest in the metaphysical aspect of the religious problem1 and only study it in its social or political aspects4 ,i can hope but very little for the enrichment of the spiritual treasury of mankind from those men or from those peoples who1 whether it be from intellectual inertia1 or from superficiality1 or from scientificism1 or from any other cause1 are unmoved by the great and eternal disquietudes of the heart4 ,i can hope nothing from those who say3 8,we must not think about these things60 ,i can hope even less from those who believe in a heaven and a hell such as those which we believed in when we were children2 and still less can ,i hope from those who affirm with a fool's gravity3 8,all this is but myth and fable2 he who dies is buried and there's an end of it40 ,i can hope for something only from those who do not know1 but who are not resigned not to know2 from those who fight unrestingly for the truth and put their life in the fight itself rather than in the victory4 ,the greater part of my work has always been to disquiet my neighbours1 to rob them of heart's ease1 to vex them if ,i can4 ,i have said this already in my commentary upon 8,the ,life of ,don ,quixote and ,sancho10 in which ,i have confessed myself most fully4 ,let them seek as ,i seek1 let them wrestle as ,i wrestle1 and between us all we will tear some shred of secret from ,god1 and at any rate this wrestling will make us more men1 men of more spirit4 ,in order to accomplish this work--a religious work--among peoples like those that speak the ,castilian tongue who suffer from intellectual inertia and superficiality1 slumbering in the routine of ,catholic dogma or in the dogmatism of free-thought or of scientificism1 it has been necessary for me to appear sometimes shameless and indecorous1 at other times harsh and aggressive1 and not a few times perverse and paradoxical4 ,in our pusillanimous literature it was a rare thing to hear anyone cry out from the depths of his heart1 to get excited1 to exclaim4 ,the shout was almost unknown4 ,writers were frightened of making themselves ridiculous4 ,they behaved and still behave like those who put up with an affront in the street for fear of the ridicule of being seen with their hat on the ground marched off by the police4 ,but ,i1 no6 ,when ,i have felt like shouting ,i have shouted4 ,never have ,i been restrained by decorum4 ,and this is one of the things for which ,i have never been forgiven by my colleagues of the pen1 so discreet1 so correct1 so disciplined1 even when they preach indiscretion and indiscipline4 ,literary anarchists are more punctilious about style and syntax than about anything else4 ,and when they play out of tune they do so tunefully2 their discords resolve themselves into harmonies4 ,when ,i have felt a pain ,i have shouted and shouted in public4 ,the psalms which are to be found in my ,poesas are simply the cries from the heart with which ,i have sought to make the heart-strings of the wounded hearts of others vibrate4 ,if they have no heart-strings or only heart-strings that are too rigid to vibrate1 then my cry will awaken no echo in them and they will declare that it is not poetry and they will proceed to investigate its acoustic properties4 ,it is possible also to study acoustically the cry that is torn from the heart of a man who sees his son suddenly fall down dead--and he who has neither heart nor sons will understand no more of it than the acoustics4 ,these psalms1 together with various other pieces in my ,poesas1 are my religion1 a religion that ,i have sung1 not expressed in logic and reasoning4 ,and ,i sing it as best ,i can1 with the voice and ear that ,god has given me1 because ,i cannot reason it4 ,and he to whom my verses appear to be more full of reasoning and logic and method and exegesis than of life1 because they are not peopled with fauns1 dryads1 satyrs and the like or garbed in the latest modernist fashion1 had better leave them alone1 for it is evident that ,i shall not touch his heart whether ,i use a violin bow or a hammer4 ,what ,i fly from1 ,i repeat1 as from the plague1 is any kind of classification of myself1 and when ,i die ,i hope ,i shall still hear these intellectual sluggards inquiring3 8,and this gentleman1 what is he80 ,liberal or progressive fools will take me for a reactionary and perhaps for a mystic1 without understanding of course what they may mean2 and conservative and reactionary fools will take me for a kind of spiritual anarchist2 and both of them will pity me as an unfortunate gentleman anxious to distinguish himself by singularity1 hoping to be reputed an original1 and with a bonnet full of bees4 ,but no one need worry about what fools think of him1 be they progressive or conservative1 liberal or reactionary4 ,and since man is naturally intractable1 and does not habitually thirst for the truth1 and after being preached at for four hours usually returns to all his inveterate habits1 these busy inquirers1 if they chance to read this1 will return to me with the question3 8,well1 but what solutions do you offer80 ,and ,i will tell them1 once and for all1 that if it is solutions they want1 they can go to the shop opposite1 for ,i do not deal in the article4 ,my earnest desire has been1 is and will be that those who read me should think and meditate on fundamental things1 and it has never been to furnish them with thoughts ready made4 ,i have always sought to agitate and to suggest rather than to instruct4 ,it is not bread that ,i sell1 not bread1 but yeast1 ferment4 ,i have friends1 and good friends1 who advise me to abandon this task and to concentrate upon what they call some objective work1 something which will be1 so they express it1 definitive1 something constructive1 something that will last4 ,they mean something dogmatic4 ,i declare that ,i am incapable of it1 and ,i claim my liberty1 my holy liberty1 even1 if need be1 the liberty of contradicting myself4 ,i do not know whether anything that ,i have written or may write in the future is destined to live for years and centuries after ,i am dead2 but ,i know that if anyone agitates the surface of a shoreless sea the waves will go radiating without end1 even though at last they dwindle into ripples4 ,to agitate is something4 ,and if thanks to this agitation another who comes after me shall create something that will live1 then my work will live in his4 ,it is a work of supreme mercy to awaken the sleeper and to shake the sluggard1 and it is a work of supreme religious piety to seek truth in everything and to expose fraud1 stupidity and ignorance wherever they are to be found4 ,,solitude ,it is my love for the multitude that makes me fly from them4 ,in flying from them1 ,i go on seeking them4 ,do not call me a misanthrope4 ,misanthropes seek society and intercourse with people2 they need them in order to feed their hatred and disdain of them4 ,love can live upon memories and hopes2 hate needs present realities4 ,let me1 then1 fly from society and take refuge in the quiet of the country1 seeking in the heart of it and within my own soul the company of people4 ,men only feel themselves really brothers when they hear one another in the silence of things in the midst of solitude4 ,the hushed moan of your neighbour which reaches you through the wall that separates you penetrates much more deeply into your heart than would all his laments if he told you them to your face4 ,i shall never forget a night that ,i once spent at a watering-place1 during the whole of which ,i was kept awake by a very faint intermittent moaning--a moaning that seemed to wish to stifle itself in order not to awaken those who were asleep1 a discreet and gentle moaning that came to me from the neighbouring bedroom4 ,that moaning1 which came from ,i know not whom1 had lost all personality2 it produced upon me the illusion of coming out of the silence of the night itself1 as if it were the silence or the night that lamented1 and there was even a moment when ,i dreamt that that gentle lament rose to the surface from the depths of my own soul4 ,i left the following day without having sought to ascertain who was the sufferer or why he suffered4 ,and ,i believe that ,i have never felt so much pity for any other man4 ,it is only solitude that dissolves that thick cloak of shame that isolates us from one another2 only in solitude do we find ourselves2 and in finding ourselves1 we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude4 ,solitude unites us1 believe me1 just as much as society separates us4 ,and if we do not know how to love one another1 it is because we do not know how to be alone4 ,it is only in solitude1 when it has broken the thick crust of shame that separates us from one another and separates us all from ,god1 that we have no secrets from ,god2 only in solitude do we raise our heart to the ,heart of the ,universe2 only in solitude does the redeeming hymn of supreme confession issue from our soul4 ,there is no other real dialogue than the dialogue that you hold with yourself1 and you can hold this dialogue only when you are alone4 ,in solitude and only in solitude can you know yourself as a neighbour2 and so long as you do not know yourself as a neighbour1 you can never hope to see in your neighbours other ,i's4 ,if you want to learn to love others1 withdraw into yourself4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i am accused of not caring about or being interested in the anxieties of men4 ,it is just the contrary4 ,i am convinced that there is no more than one anxiety1 one and the same for all men1 and never do ,i feel it or understand it more deeply than when ,i am alone4 ,each day ,i believe less and less in the social question1 and in the political question1 and in the sthetic question1 and in the moral question1 and in the religious question1 and in all the other questions that people have invented in order that they shall not have to face resolutely the only real question that exists--the human question1 which is mine1 yours1 his1 everyone's4 ,and as ,i know that you will say that ,i am playing with words and that you will ask me what ,i mean by this human question1 ,i shall have to repeat it once again3 ,the human question is the question of knowing what is to become of my consciousness1 of yours1 of his1 of everyone's1 after each one of us has died4 ,so long as we are not facing this question1 all that we are doing is simply making a noise so that we shall not hear it4 ,and that is why we fear solitude so much and seek the company of one another4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the greatest thing that there is among men is a poet1 a lyric poet1 that is to say a real poet4 ,a poet is a man who keeps no secrets from ,god in his heart1 and who1 in singing his griefs1 his fears1 his hopes and his memories1 purifies and purges them from all falsehood4 ,his songs are your songs1 are my songs4 ,have you ever heard any deeper1 any more intimate1 any more enduring poetry than that of the ,psalms8 ,and the ,psalms are meant for singing alone4 ,i know that they are sung by crowds1 assembled together under the same roof in religious services2 but in singing them the crowd ceases to be a crowd4 ,in singing the ,psalms1 each one withdraws into himself and the voices of others echo in his ears simply as the consonance and reinforcement of his own voice4 ,and ,i observe this difference between a crowd assembled together to sing the ,psalms and a crowd assembled to see a drama or to hear an orator3 it is that the former is a real society1 a company of living souls1 in which each one exists and subsists by himself1 while the other is a formless mass and each one of those who compose it no more than a fragment of the human herd4 ,i have never felt any desire to move a crowd1 to exercise influence upon a mass of people--who lose their personality in being massed together--and on the other hand ,i have always felt a furious desire to perturb the heart of each individual man1 to exercise an influence upon each one of my brothers in humanity4 ,whenever ,i have spoken in public ,i have almost always succeeded in employing a kind of lyrical oratory1 and ,i have endeavoured to force upon myself the illusion that ,i was speaking to only one of my hearers1 to any one1 no matter which1 to each one1 not to all of them en masse4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we men are impenetrable4 ,spirits1 like solid bodies1 can only communicate with one another by the contact of surfaces1 not by penetrating one another1 still less by fusing together4 ,you have heard me say a thousand times that most spirits seem to me like crustaceans1 with the bone outside and the flesh inside4 ,and when in some book that ,i have forgotten ,i read what a painful and terrible thing it would be if the human spirit were to be incarnated in a crab and had to make use of the crab's senses1 organs and members1 ,i said to myself3 8,this is what actually happens2 we are all unfortunate crabs1 shut up in hard shells40 ,and the poet is he whose flesh emerges from the shell1 whose soul oozes forth4 ,and when1 in our hours of anguish or joy1 our soul oozes forth1 we are all of us poets4 ,and that is why ,i believe that it is necessary to agitate the masses1 to shake men and winnow them as in a sieve1 to throw against one another1 in order to see if in this way their shells will not break and their spirits flow forth1 whether they will not mingle and unite with one another1 and whether the real collective spirit1 the soul of humanity1 may not thus be welded together4 ,but the sad thing is1 if we are to go by past experience1 that all these mutual rubbings and clashings1 far from breaking the shells1 harden1 thicken and enlarge them4 ,they are like corns that grow larger and stronger with rubbing4 ,although perhaps it is that the clashes are not violent enough4 ,and in any case it must be clashing1 not rubbing4 ,i do not like to rub against people but to clash against them2 ,i do not like to approach people obliquely and glance off them at a tangent1 but to meet them frontally1 and if possible split them in two4 ,it is the best service ,i can do them4 ,and there is no better preparation for this task than solitude4 ,it is very sad that we have to communicate with one another by touching1 at most by rubbing1 through the medium of the hard shells that isolate us from one another4 ,and ,i am convinced that this hard shell becomes weaker and more delicate1 in solitude1 until it changes into the most tenuous membrane which permits of the action of osmosis and exosmosis4 ,and that is why ,i believe that it is solitude that makes men really sociable and human4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there are two kinds of union3 one by removing differences1 separating the elements that differentiate from those that unite1 the other by fusion1 bringing these differences into agreement4 ,if we take away from the mind of each man that which is his own1 that way of looking at things that is peculiar to him1 everything that he takes care to hide for fear people should think him mad1 we are left with that which he has in common with everyone else1 and this common element gives us that wretched thing that is called common sense and which is nothing more than the abstract of the practical intelligence4 ,but if we fuse into one the differing judgments of people1 with all that they jealously preserve1 and bring their caprices1 their oddities1 their singularities into agreement1 we shall have human sense1 which1 in those who are rich in it1 is not common but private sense4 ,the best that occurs to men is that which occurs to them when they are alone1 that which they dare not confess1 not only not to their neighbour but very often not even to themselves1 that which they fly from1 that which they imprison within themselves while it is in a state of pure thought and before it can flower into words4 ,and the solitary is usually daring enough to express this1 to allow it to flower1 and so it comes about that he speaks that which others think in solitude by themselves and which nobody dares to publish4 ,the solitary thinks everything aloud1 and surprises others by saying that which they think beneath their breath1 while they seek to deceive one another by pretending to make them believe that they are thinking something else1 but without anybody believing them4 ,all this will help you to deduce for yourself in what way and to what extent solitude is the great school of sociability1 and how right it is that we should sometimes withdraw ourselves from men in order that we may the better serve them4 ,,intellectuality ,,and ,,spirituality ,there are more things in heaven and earth1 ,horatio1 ,than are dreamt of in your philosophy4 ,hamlet1 ,act ,i1 ,scene ,v4 ,for some days he had been spiritually restless4 ,his sterile mind flitted hither and thither like a butterfly4 ,nothing succeeded in interesting him4 ,he picked up a book1 read two or three pages and then had to close it again1 unable to control his wandering attention4 ,he tried to write1 but half of the sheets that he wrote he tore up4 ,and yet he had never enjoyed better health1 never felt the blood coursing more vigorously through his veins1 or the heart and lungs working in better unison4 ,at the same time he had a premonition of something strong and mature within himself striving to come to birth2 he felt that he was on the verge of bringing forth thoughts brimful of vitality and splendour4 ,but something1 a kind of solemn calm1 against which he contended in vain1 encompassed and paralysed him4 ,it was no doubt sheer insensibility in him not to wait in peace for the grace of the ,spirit to visit him but to seek to force it with violence4 ,at last1 one afternoon1 when the light of the setting sun was pouring upon the wide balcony of his cell-like room1 he shut himself up in it1 with its dumb books1 with all its familiar objects the sight of which was always grateful to him4 ,it was like shutting himself up within himself1 or even better than that1 for this wonted ambience served him as a means of communion with the world4 ,that square glass inkstand1 those fat pen-holders1 that carpet1 that stout leather arm-chair in which his body rested while his mind went galloping away1 those rough plain chairs1 those rows of books against the white naked walls3 all these things were a kind of prolongation of his spirit and at the same time they were like arms which the world stretched out to enfold him in4 ,they belonged to him and yet they belonged also to the world2 they were himself and at the same they were the not-himself4 ,they would not deceive him1 no4 ,he had touched them once and a thousand times and every touch had linked itself with all the other touches1 until at last these things of humble use had become invested with a kind of soul made up of the outpourings of spirit and memories4 ,he had books that were like lovers1 grateful1 remembering1 for whenever he opened them at random they opened themselves of their own accord at the same place1 always offering him the same passage1 the choicest1 the most intense1 the most life-giving that they had to offer4 ,and when he read the passage over again1 the intimate ambience of the peaceful room yielded up the memory of all the other fugitive moments when he had read it before1 and his soul vibrated across the gulf of time until its vibrations were lost in that remoteness of the past where consciousness loses itself too4 ,from the balcony of his room1 across red roofs stained here and there with the green of lichen1 he could just glimpse the clouds glowing in the sunset light4 ,and nearer at hand1 along the eaves of the roof opposite1 the white stone-crop blossomed1 its tiny flowerets nourishing their life upon the moist earthy sediment washed down by the rain from the sun-baked clay tiles and deposited in the guttering4 ,in summer1 pigeons flew down from the neighbouring belfry to bill and coo upon the roof1 picking the seeds of the stone-crop at its edge1 while the dark swifts skimmed through the air above4 ,sometimes cats crept stealthily with sinuous movement across the tiles4 ,upon this roof too his eyes had often rested2 the little wild garden in the gutter1 the pigeons1 the swifts1 the cats1 these too belonged to him and at the same time to the world2 and often while he had held them in his gaze his mind had been intent upon his innermost thoughts4 ,he shut himself up there in his study1 like an oyster in its shell4 ,he untethered his mind1 letting it roam at will1 without spur or bridle4 ,for a time it wandered up and down1 plucking at passing ideas1 ranging over the backs of the books and divining famous names and titles of renown4 ,then it collected itself and withdrew into the body that it animated and made use of1 and presently the arm of this body reached out for a sheet of paper and the eyes glanced over it4 ,it was the strident manifesto that had been so much talked about2 it was the famous composition into which he1 he himself1 who was now sitting at ease in his cow-hide arm-chair1 had emptied his spirit4 ,he began to read it1 and as he read it a strange disquiet invaded him4 ,no1 that was not his1 that was not what he had thought and believed1 that was not what he had written4 ,and yet there could be no doubt about it4 ,that1 that which now seemed so strange to him1 he had written that1 and it had increased his fame4 ,he read it over again4 ,no1 we do not communicate what we want to communicate1 he reflected4 ,no sooner does a thought incarnate itself in words and issue forth into the world than it belongs to someone not ourself1 or rather it belongs to nobody because it belongs to everybody4 ,the flesh with which language clothes itself is communal and external2 it wizens up thought1 it imprisons it and even reverses and falsifies it4 ,it was a singular and disturbing effect that was produced in him by reading himself as if he were a stranger1 as if his writing had been written by someone else4 ,this effect of the duplication of his personality reminded him of a former experience of self-duplication which he never recalled without a shudder4 ,once when gazing at the reflection of his own gaze in a mirror he had the sensation of seeing himself as someone else2 he regarded himself as an unsubstantial shadow1 as an impalpable phantom1 and this alarmed him to such a degree that he called to himself softly by his own name4 ,and his voice sounded to him as if it were the voice of another1 a voice which came forth out of space1 out of the invisible1 out of impenetrable mystery4 ,he cleared his throat1 touched himself1 felt the quickened beating of his heart4 ,he had never forgotten that unforgettable experience4 ,his present feeling was not the same1 but it had something that resembled it4 ,had he written that8 ,was he the same person as the man who had written that8 ,did he contain within himself more than one person8 ,might it not be that he carried within him a whole legion of souls sleeping one below another8 ,were not all his ancestors sleeping somewhere in the limbo of his brain8 ,did others see him as he saw himself1 or did they see him quite differently1 and was he always actually doing and saying that which he thought he was8 ,this last idea1 an absurd and extravagant idea1 had obsessed him for some time past and it caused him anguish1 for he said to himself3 ,this is madness1 this is sheer madness4 ,only too often1 in fact1 as he walked quietly along the street1 it had occurred to him to think something like this3 8,what if1 instead of walking quietly and soberly1 ,i were really pirouetting or making ridiculous contortions or behaving improperly8 ,this hostility which ,i have remarked in certain of my acquaintance1 may it not have arisen because ,i have said things to them which ,i am unaware of having said1 or because when ,i thought ,i was offering them my hand ,i was in fact making some impudent or contemptuous gesture8 ,when ,i imagine myself to be saying one thing1 may it not be they hear something very different or perhaps contrary80 ,this absurd obsession disquieted him1 irritated him1 made him doubt the sanity and vigour of his reason1 and he had to exercise all the power of autosuggestion at his command to overcome it4 ,with a vigorous effort he threw off this obstinate vagary of his mind1 but only to return to the question of the strangeness of what he had written4 ,formerly1 a long time ago1 he had been a convinced determinist1 unable to tolerate even the mention of free will1 so irrational did the supposition of it seem to him4 ,but later on1 after further examination of the question1 his inflexible determinist faith had broken down2 and now1 at the time at which we discover him1 seated in his arm-chair in his study1 he has put this question of determinism and free will away into the lumber-room of metaphysics from which he rarely takes it out4 ,he believes now that science has not succeeded in putting this question in its true light1 but that it always involves it in a petitio principii4 ,but what he really does feel--he feels rather than thinks it--is that however free a man may be within himself1 in so far as he has to exteriorize and manifest himself1 to speak or to act1 to communicate with his fellows1 in so far as he has to avail himself of his body and of the bodies of others1 he remains bound by the rigid laws of these bodies1 he is a slave4 ,my acts--he thinks--are never exclusively mine3 if ,i speak ,i have to make use of air that is not mine in order to produce my voice2 neither are my vocal cords1 strictly speaking1 mine2 nor is the language mine which ,i must use if ,i wish to make myself understood2 and the case is the same if ,i write1 if ,i strike a blow1 if ,i kiss1 if ,i fight4 ,and he asks himself in conclusion3 8,am ,i myself really mine80 ,and so the tormenting obsession buzzes round him again4 ,there is something which we have incorporated and made our own and there is much that is completely alien to us2 and between these two extreme terms everything is partly ours and partly not ours4 ,our life is a continual combat between our spirit which seeks to make itself master of the world1 to make the world its own1 to make the world it1 and the world which in its turn seeks to possess itself of our spirit1 to make our spirit its own4 ,i wish to make the world mine--our man thinks--to make it myself1 and the world tries to make me its1 to make me it2 ,i strive to personalize it and it strives to depersonalize me4 ,and in this tragic combat--for yes1 the combat is a tragic one--,i have to make use of my enemy in order to dominate him1 and my enemy has to make use of me in order to dominate me4 ,whatever ,i say1 write or do1 it is only with the world's help that ,i can say1 write or do it2 and thus the world at once depersonalizes my saying1 writing and doing and makes them its own1 and ,i appear to be different from what ,i am4 ,what an unhappy necessity is that of writing6 ,what woeful constraint is that of having to talk6 ,between any two who talk together1 language mediates1 the world mediates1 that which is neither one nor the other of the interlocutors mediates2 they are involved in this intrusive element which1 while enabling them to communicate1 separates them4 ,if it were only possible to create language in the very act of speaking our thought6444 ,undoubtedly speech is a more perfect medium than writing1 because it is less material3 the vibrations of the air are dissipated1 while the trace of the ink remains4 ,undoubtedly the flatus vocis1 like everything fugitive1 is richer in association1 more complete in orchestration1 while writing1 like everything concrete1 remains detached4 ,but better still if pure thought could communicate itself by means only of those vague and fluid words upon which it floats within the soul6 ,to make oneself understood in words or writing is to communicate the accidents1 not the substance1 of thought4 ,our man looks at the clouds in the western sky1 combed out by the unseen comb of the wind1 and watches them turn to flame in the light of the setting sun4 ,and he thinks of the substantial communion of spirits1 communication by the act of spiritual presence alone4 ,he remembered how once1 on hearing some old ballad sung by a shepherd boy1 the sound of which had come to him faintly through a leafy screen of grey oaks1 he had trembled and felt as if he heard voices from another world1 not from another world beyond this world1 but from a world that lives within the world we know--voices which seemed to issue from the very heart of things1 as if they were the song of the soul of the oaks1 of the clouds1 of the pebbles of the stream1 of the earth and of the sky4 ,where had he heard that song before8 ,who knows8 ,perhaps one night1 when he lay asleep1 the shepherd boy had passed by singing his song1 and the song had lapped his dream and steeped it in the fountains of life4 ,another time--he remembered--when on a journey1 he had met a woman1 a foreigner1 who did not know his language nor did he know hers4 ,neither of them knew any human tongue in which they could make themselves understood1 and they sat there in the railway carriage alone1 opposite one another1 looking and sometimes smiling at one another4 ,theirs was a protracted and mute conversation4 ,when he thought kindly and tenderly of her the stranger smiled1 and when a less innocent desire stirred within him the shadow of a frown crossed her brow4 ,perhaps they heard1 without themselves knowing that they heard1 the measured beating of their hearts1 beating in unison while their eyes gazed at one another2 but without a doubt the breath of their souls mingled together4 ,for the soul breathes4 ,the soul breathes4--,why not speak in metaphors8 ,our man began to think about breathing and how the air1 penetrating into the cells of the lungs1 aerates the blood1 this inner atmosphere of our bodies4 ,it is the material substance of the world--he thought--which circulates within us2 it is the world diluted and made our own4 ,and from this he went on to imagine a kind of spiritual aeration of our mind1 and how the world of colours1 forms1 sounds and impressions of every kind is diluted in it4 ,but these are metaphors1 nothing but metaphors1 he said1 then at once reflecting3 ,metaphors8 and what is not metaphor8 ,science is built up of metaphors and language is essentially metaphorical4 ,matter1 force1 light1 memory--all metaphors4 ,when positivists1 or those who consider themselves positivists1 try to sweep science clean of metaphors1 they sweep them away with a metaphorical broom1 and so sweep the metaphors back again4 ,and then his mind began to play around one of his specially favourite ideas1 namely the idea of the superiority of what we call imagination over the other so-called faculties of the spirit1 and how the excellency of poets was greater than that of men of science and men of action4 ,a thousand times he had deplored the barbarous intransigence of most of those with whom he had to communicate--in accidental1 not substantial1 communion2 that dismal lack of comprehension of every opinion which they do not themselves share2 that ridiculous belief that there are ideas which one must necessarily consider absurd and which can only be professed by confused and unhinged minds4 ,all that--he was wont to say to himself--is simply lack of imagination1 incapacity to see things oneself1 even momentarily1 as others see them1 sheer aridity of mind4 ,how far from all that was the large spirit of the great ,goethe1 who was able to feel himself deist1 pantheist1 atheist all at the same time1 whose mind embraced a profound understanding of paganism together with an equally profound understanding of ,christianity6 ,but ,goethe was a poet1 the poet1 a true and essential poet1 not a miserable didacticist or dogmatist like those who think they travel more safely the more ballast of formal logic they carry1 at the expense of intelligence1 and the more closely they hug the level shores of thought1 moored fast to tradition and the senses4 ,our man cast his eyes once more over the manifesto and said to himself3 8,and ,i have been called an intellectual6 ,i6 ,i who abhor intellectualism more than anybody6 ,if they had labelled me #8an imaginative'--well and good4 ,but an intellectual80 ,and he thought of ,paul of ,tarsus and the pregnant sentences of his epistles4 ,he thought of ,paul of ,tarsus and his classification of men into carnal1 intellectual and spiritual1 for so he was pleased to translate it1 or rather to interpret it4 ,for there was a time when he had delighted in exegesis4 ,not scientific exegesis2 not investigating and searching for the actual meaning of the writers of the sacred books2 not co-ordinating them logically and trying to discover1 by reference to the ideas and sentiment of the age and country in which they lived1 what they really felt and thought2 but taking as his starting-point the text that had been consecrated and enriched by centuries of tradition and thence launching out into free speculation4 ,the moment that ,paul of ,tarsus gave his epistles to the world they ceased to be his1 they belonged to the world1 they were part of the common stock1 of the patrimony1 of humanity1 and it was possible for him to understand them and feel them altogether differently from the way in which the ,apostle himself had felt and understood them4 ,that which others did to his writings when they read them and commented upon them1 it was possible for him to do to the ,apostle's1 provided he undertook the task with knowledge and conscientiousness4 ,the actual text furnished his mind with the necessary foothold1 it was the jumping-off place from which his imagination could take flight4 ,and in ,paul of ,tarsus1 in his epistle to the ,romans and his first epistle to the ,corinthians1 he found those three classes of men3 the carnal or sarcinal1 1 the natural or psychical1 1 and the spiritual or pneumatical1 4 ,he had often read that #adth verse of the #gth chapter of the epistle to the ,romans3 8,for we know that the law is spiritual pneumatical2 but ,i am carnal sarcinal1 sold under sin02 and that #ddth verse of the #aath chapter of the first epistle to the ,corinthians which says that there is a natural or psychical body and a spiritual or pneumatical body2 and he was aware that for the ,apostle the psyche1 1 was something inferior1 something that was more or less equivalent to what was later to be called the vital force1 the sensitive soul1 common to men and animals2 the pneuma1 on the other hand1 being the higher part of the soul1 the spirit1 the of the ,stoics1 something that survives the body4 ,but he preferred to give it another interpretation1 and he always regarded the psyche as the intellectual power that is bound to the necessities of our actual earthly life1 the slave of a logic that is educated and trained by the struggle for life1 ordinary1 common1 current knowledge1 necessary in order to enable us to live1 the knowledge from which science is evolved4 ,he could not help thinking of psychical men as intellectuals1 men of common sense and logic1 men whose ideas are dominated by the associations which the external and visible world suggests to them1 reasonable men who are trained to some profession and practice it1 who1 if they are doctors1 learn how to cure diseases1 if engineers to construct roads1 if chemists to prepare drugs and analyse compounds1 if architects to build houses4 ,these psychical men are the average men1 those who take the middle course1 those of whom it is said that they have a sound and clear judgment and standard1 those who do not believe in any fallacy that is not consecrated by tradition and habit1 those who never swallow any new absurdity1 because their minds are already so stuffed with timeworn absurdities4 ,between these and the carnal or sarcinal men he always established a difference4 ,for him the carnal men were the brutish1 the absolutely uncultured1 those who scarcely think of anything but eating1 drinking and sleeping1 those who are wholly and completely immerged in animal life4 ,the psychical man1 no2 the psychical man is interested in questions of science and culture2 the psychical ,spaniard preaches national regeneration1 is enthusiastic about the telephone1 the gramophone and the cinematograph1 reads ,flammarion1 ,haeckel1 ,ribot1 buys popular works on philosophy1 and if he is in the neighbourhood of a railway stands in ecstatic contemplation of the majestic progress of the locomotive4 ,if the psychical man is an orthodox ,catholic1 he admires the genius of ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas1 although he has never read him1 he knows that modern geology squares with the ,mosaic account of the ,creation1 and that it is legitimate to admit a part of ,darwinism1 and that the ,church possesses a remedy for all the social ills that afflict our age4 ,the psychical man is an intellectual1 his intellect may be small or great1 but fundamentally he is an intellectual4 ,and lastly come the spiritual men1 the dreamers1 those whom the intellectuals contemptuously call mystics1 those who tolerate the tyranny neither of science nor of logic1 those who believe that there is another world within our world and mysterious dormant forces in the depths of our spirit1 those who speak the language of the heart and many who prefer not to speak at all4 ,most of the great poets have been spiritual men1 not intellectuals4 ,of one of them1 of the sweet singer ,wordsworth1 it has been said that he was a genius without talent1 that is to say a great spirit without sufficient intelligence4 ,how many times had he not read and re-read the end of the second and the beginning of the third chapter of the first epistle to the ,corinthians6 8,for what man knoweth the things of a man1 save the spirit of man which is in him8 ,even so the things of ,god knoweth no man1 but the spirit of ,god4 ,now we have received not the spirit of the world1 but the spirit which is of ,god2 that we might know the things that are freely given to us of ,god4 ,which things also we speak1 not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth not with didactical arguments1 which is the term employed in the text1 but which the ,holy ,spirit teacheth2 comparing spiritual things with spiritual4 ,but the natural man psychical1 or as our man translated it1 intellectual receiveth not the things of the ,spirit of ,god3 for they are foolishness unto him3 neither can he know them1 because they are spiritually discerned4 ,but he that is spiritual pneumatical judgeth all things1 yet he himself is judged of no man4 ,for who hath known the mind of the ,lord that he may instruct him8 ,but we have the mind of ,christ4 ,and ,i1 brethren1 could not speak unto you as unto spiritual1 but as unto carnal sarcinal1 even as unto babes in ,christ4 ,i have fed you with milk1 and not with meat2 for hitherto ye were not able to bear it1 neither yet now are ye able4 ,for ye are yet carnal44440 ,he turned again to the epistles of ,paul of ,tarsus and re-read the verses that he had so often read before4 8,the things of ,god knoweth no man1 but the ,spirit of ,god40 ,and he said to himself3 ,useless to seek to know the things of ,god by the method of didactical argument1 of theology1 of logic2 a theology is a contradiction in terms1 for the theos is at war with the logia2 arguments do not help us to reach ,god4 ,and he remembered ,kant and his shattering of the supposed logical proofs of the existence of ,god1 and how in his own spirit all that scaffolding of a metalogical belief1 spiritual and not intellectual1 psychical and not pneumatical1 had collapsed4 ,the ontological proof1 the cosmological proof1 the metaphysical proof1 the ethical proof1 all had come tumbling down in his mind at the same time1 and with them the so-called ,god of reason4 ,all that theological rationalism had come to earth in his spirit with a crash1 though the noise of it was heard only by himself1 destroying not a few delicate flowers in its fall and covering the ground with rubbish4 ,upheavals of the heart1 earthquakes of the spirit1 had cleared the ground of the debris1 and in a new way1 a way the intellectuals do not know1 there sprung up within him a faith which came from the ,spirit of ,god4 ,for the things of ,god knoweth no man1 but the ,spirit of ,god4 8,which things also we speak1 not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth1 but which the ,spirit teacheth1 comparing spiritual things with spiritual40--,mystic6 ,this word1 spat out with contempt1 like an insult or a reproach1 seemed to be spoken into his ear1 and so near1 so clear1 so distinct it was1 that he involuntarily turned his head4 ,and there at his side1 not in the body1 visible and tangible1 but present in the spirit1 was the prototype of the intellectual1 with all his most exclusively intellectual attributes--there was the psychical man1 the natural man par excellence4 ,there he was repeating his physiological creed parrot-wise1 while in his heart he rebelled against his poetic and creative impotence1 against his unconfessed unspirituality4--,he shrugged his shoulders1 smiled and turned again to look at the slowly darkening sky4 ,the sunset clouds now appeared like mountains of ashes1 the remains of the solar conflagration4 ,he turned on the electric switch and the wire thread glowed in the bulb--there was light1 light of man's making1 light of applied science4 8,but the natural man receiveth not the things of the ,spirit of ,god3 for they are foolishness into him3 neither can he know them1 because they are spiritually discerned40 ,foolishness 444 madness 444 he repeated to himself1 while his eyes wandered over those familiar objects which the electric light had called forth out of the dark shadows4 ,madness 444 and what is madness8 ,there are alienists1 phreno-pathologists1 psychiatrists1 and who knows by how many other names they are called8444 ,but what is sanity8 ,for perhaps one ought to begin with that4 ,health is that condition in which a man is free from every kind of disease2 but what is disease8 ,health1 others say1 is 8that condition in which the organism exercises all its faculties normally40#e ,normally 444 normally 444 and what is the normal8 ,he stretched out his hand for a book which he was just then reading1 a book stored with a mass of data relating to the mysterious life of the spirit1 the work of that noble mind that had been the soul of the ,society for ,psychical ,research1 and he read3 8,the word normal in common speech is used almost indifferently to imply either of two things1 which may be very different from each other--conformity to a standard and position as an average between extremes4 ,often1 indeed1 the average constitutes the standard--as when a gas is of average density2 or is practically equivalent to the standard--as when a sovereign is of normal weight4 ,but when we come to living organisms a new factor is introduced4 ,life is change2 each living organism changes2 each generation differs from its predecessor4 ,to assign a fixed norm to a changing species is to shoot point-blank at a flying bird4 ,the actual average at any given moment is no ideal standard2 rather1 the furthest evolutionary stage now reached is tending1 given stability in the environment1 to become the average of the future40#f ,he shut the book and said to himself again3 ,normal 444 madness 444 sanity 444 disease 444 health4444 ,the madness of to-day will be the sanity of to-morrow1 just as the sanity of to-day will appear madness to-morrow4 ,intellectuals call that madness which they are unable to understand1 for it can only be discerned spiritually4 ,and an intellectual1 what is he1 in the last instance1 but a normal man1 a man of the via media1 equally far removed from the carnal and from the spiritual man8 ,the intellectual is the man of the via media1 at an equal distance from the enormous mass of carnality and from the very limited quantity of conscious spirituality--for the other kind of spirituality1 the unconscious and potential1 is dormant in all men and is perhaps more alive in the carnal men themselves than in the intellectuals4 ,for it is easier for the flesh than for the intellect to receive the spirit2 between intellect and spirit the logic of the schools interposes4 ,the intellectual is the man of average sense1 which he calls common sense1 and which is as far from the universal1 cosmic or instinctive sense in which carnal men live1 as it is from that private sense which fortifies the spirit of spiritual men4 8,but he that is spiritual judgeth all things1 yet he himself is judged of no man40 ,by what right do those whose own spirit is buried beneath their intellect judge the things of the spirit8 8,for who hath known the mind of the ,lord1 that he may instruct him8 ,but we have the mind of ,christ40 ,at this word ,christ our man's thinking was arrested4 ,he had arrived at what is called the religious problem and it presented itself to him in the form under which he had been contemplating it now for some time4 ,in this problem--the problem1 the religious problem--he saw the principal touchstone that distinguishes the intellectuals from the spiritual men4 ,in so far as the religious question is concerned1 the intellectuals presented themselves to him1 in effect1 as divided into two large groups1 usually called believers and unbelievers4 ,taking these terms in the concrete and in relation to his own country1 they resolved themselves into intellectual ,catholics and intellectual non-,catholics1 who in practice were always anti-,catholics4 ,these two factions contended one against another2 but as a contest is only possible on a common basis1 they contended on the same ground4 ,no contest is possible between a fish which never emerges from the depths of the sea and a bird which never descends from the altitudes of the air4 ,these two factions contended facing one another--that is to say1 one looking in one direction and the other in another--but both standing on the same ground1 both on the same plane of intellectuality4 ,and woe to him who should address them either from above or from below1 from another plane than theirs1 from the plane of spirituality or from the plane of carnality4 ,they will both unite in calling him either a madman or a brute4 ,these two factions contend together4 ,for the one1 religion is needful as the necessary basis of morality1 social order being impossible without the fear of hell1 of death and of the devil2 religion is assured by external proofs1 prophecies1 miracles--or1 rather1 accounts of miracles--and before all and above all1 by a tradition of centuries resting upon an authority4 ,for the other1 proofs of the truth of religion are wanting2 social order can be established without hell or the fear of death and of the devil1 and the tradition has neither been constant nor does it possess any convincing logical value4 ,both approach the question from the same side3 the one sees in religion a social institution devoted to the interests of order1 the other a social institution devoted to the interests of despotism2 the one seeks for external logical proofs and the other rejects these proofs4 ,advocates1 and merely advocates1 both of them6 ,for both of them it is a question of a social institution1 something based upon external authorities and evidences or inevidences1 upon something logical or illogical4 ,it is what they call the conflict between reason and faith1 although this faith is not faith but only belief4 ,it was not possible for him1 for our man1 to feel it in that way1 and the arguments of the one side interested him as little as those of the other4 ,disputes of intellectuals6444 ,he was now called to supper and he went away to attend to the wants of the body1 giving it first food and then sleep4 ,,the ,,materialism ,,of ,,the ,,masses ,in the course of my frequent peregrinations1 when ,i go up and down the country preaching my lay sermons in the towns and cities of ,spain1 ,i have a way of taking my audiences as raw material for experiment4 ,i carry out tests upon them1 observing how they respond and react to my words4 ,and ,i have observed that whenever they hear me say something which they think1 however erroneously1 implies a kind of negation of the immortality of the soul and of the existence of another life transcending this world1 they break out into applause4 ,and this applause saddens me and sometimes prompts me to attack4 ,if these outbursts of applause meant simply3 8,hear1 hear6 ,bravo6 ,this man's honest4 ,he puts love of truth1 however painful the truth may be1 before love of consolation0--if the applause meant that1 ,i would accept it1 though with a certain sadness4 ,but no1 this applause means something different4 ,it means3 8,hear1 hear6 ,excellent6 ,we don't want another life6 ,this life is enough for us60 ,and this wounds me1 for it is an explosion of the most debasing materialism4 ,not believing that ,god exists or that the soul is immortal1 or believing that ,god does not exist and that the soul is not immortal--and believing that the soul is not immortal is not the same as not believing that it is immortal--this is a belief that ,i can respect2 but not wishing that ,god should exist or that the soul should be immortal is a thing profoundly repellent to me4 ,and it is precisely because ,i have this thorn in my heart of hearts1 because ,i cannot resign myself to one day returning to unconsciousness1 because ,i have a thirst for eternity1 that this applause bruises my heart4 ,that a man should not believe in another life1 that ,i understand1 for ,i myself find no proof of it2 but that he should resign himself to this1 and above all that he should not desire anything more than this life1 that is a thing ,i do indeed not understand4 ,and then these gross calumniations of ,christ and of ,christianity1 these stupidities that go contrary to nature and that have stunted the human spirit1 and all this alluvion of vulgarity that so many unfortunate people swallow whole4444 ,in one of those series of popular publications which flatter and seduce the coarsest instincts of the unlettered multitudes1 there is a book--translated from the ,italian1 ,i believe--entitled 8,jesus ,christ ,has ,never ,existed40 ,it is one of the most deplorable1 shallow1 and worthless books imaginable1 inspired not by a love of truth but by the most blatant sectarianism4 ,i was talking about it one day to a man who had read it and who had been delighted with it1 and ,i said3 8,it is not the thesis that shocks me4 ,the thesis that ,jesus had no historical existence1 that ,he is a myth1 has many times been put forward1 and with apparently very plausible arguments1 at any rate with erudition--recently by ,karthoff--but it is a thesis that has been demolished by the most judicious investigators1 no matter what their personal creed may have been40 ,he replied3 8,then ,i'm sorry1 for ,he ought not to have existed40 ,and naturally ,i did not know what to say to that4 ,this lack of ideality1 this aridity and poverty of inward life1 which is implied by not longing for another and transcendental life1 all this practical materialism1 is dismaying to the mind of whosoever meditates a little upon the worth of human life4 ,for my own part1 ,i have very little hope of peoples who fall into this materialistic attitude4 ,understand me clearly3 ,i am not assuring you1 nor can ,i assure you1 that there is another life2 ,i myself am not convinced that there is2 but ,i cannot conceive that a man1 a true man1 should not merely resign himself to the enjoyment of this life only1 but that he should renounce and even spurn another life4 ,and as for this idea that we shall continue to live in our works1 in our children1 in the memory of other generations1 and that everything renews and transforms itself1 and that we shall help to build up a more perfect society--all this appears to me to be the most miserable subterfuge for escaping the depths of despair4 ,this is the reason why the radicalism of certain sections of the masses dismays me and why ,i cannot hope that anything fruitful will come of it4 ,the radicalism of the masses in ,spain1 and perhaps in other so-called ,latin1 or1 more strictly speaking1 ,catholic1 countries1 is lacking in the spirit and substance of religion4 ,the weak point in our socialism is its confused notion of the supreme end of the individual life4 ,let us better the economic condition of man--good6 ,let us put an end to the division between rich and poor--exactly6 ,let us realize a state in which a moderate amount of work will be sufficient to satisfy all our wants--very good6 ,and then8 ,we have now created a society such as ,bebel or ,kropotkin dreamed of1 and what is to happen to each one of us in this society8 ,what is to be the end of this society8 ,what shall we live for8 8,get rich60 said ,guizon1 the ,calvinist1 to the ,catholic bourgeoisie of ,france2 8get rich60 ,very good4 ,and then1 when we have got rich8444 ,a country in which the people think only of getting rich is a country 444 well1 ,i would rather not inquire what kind of a country it is4 ,suffice it to say that ,i at any rate should die in it of cold1 of shame1 of disgust4 ,and if a country which is solely preoccupied with getting rich is abhorrent to me1 still more abhorrent is the country in which the dominant preoccupation is that of enjoyment1 of diversion4 ,in other words1 of self-stupefaction4 ,a collective patriotic enthusiasm1 an imperialistic instinct1 a passionate desire to influence other peoples and to impress your own stamp upon them--this1 after all1 is something4 ,but this enthusiasm1 this instinct1 this desire1 lives and burns in those peoples which preserve the inward spring of religion1 an underlying inextinguishable thirst for eternity4 ,the people that is satisfied with this life lives1 strictly speaking1 on the defensive1 and the people that lives on the defensive ends by being absorbed and dominated by those in whom the aggressive and dominating instinct is uppermost4 ,the so-called struggle for life is efficacious only when the struggle is for predominance1 not for preservation4 ,the essence of being1 as ,spinoza showed1 consists not so much in the effort to persist in mere being as in the effort to become more1 to become everything4 ,it is the appetite for infinity and eternity4 ,i do not know what is to be hoped from peoples that have been materialized by a long indoctrination of implicit ,catholic faith1 whose beliefs are a matter of routine1 in whom the inner spring appears to be exhausted--that inward disquietude which distinguishes the essentially ,protestant spirit4 ,i do not know what is to be hoped from peoples in whom centuries of a religion more social than individual1 characterized rather by ritual and ceremony and externality and authority than by inward struggle1 have resulted in generating a kind of free-thinking that issues in indifference and in resignation to the life of this world4 ,from the superstition of a ridiculous and childish heaven and hell they have fallen into the superstition of a gross and unspiritual earth4 ,,the ,,man ,,of ,,flesh ,,and ,,bone ,homo sum2 nihil humani a me alienum puto1 said the ,latin playwright4 ,and ,i would rather say3 ,nullum hominem a me alienum puto3 ,i am a man2 no other man do ,i deem a stranger4 ,for to me the adjective humanus is no less suspect than its abstract substantive humanitas1 humanity4 ,neither the 8human0 nor 8humanity10 neither the simple adjective nor the substantivized adjective1 but the concrete substantive--man4 ,the man of flesh and bone2 the man who is born1 suffers1 and dies--above all1 who dies2 the man who eats and drinks and plays and thinks and wills2 the man who is seen and heard2 the brother1 the real brother4 ,for there is something else that is also called man1 and he is the subject of many more or less scientific speculations4 ,he is the legendary featherless biped1 the of ,aristotle1 the social contractor of ,rousseau1 the homo economicus of the ,manchester school1 the homo sapiens of ,linnus1 or1 if you like1 the vertical mammal4 ,a man neither of here nor there1 neither of this age nor of another1 who has neither sex nor country1 who is1 in brief1 merely an idea4 ,that is to say1 a no-man4 ,our man is the other man1 the man of flesh and bone--,i and you1 my reader1 and the other man over there1 all of us who weigh upon the earth4 ,and this concrete man1 this man of flesh and bone1 is at once the subject and the supreme object of all philosophy1 whether certain self-styled philosophers like it or not4 ,in most of the histories of philosophy that ,i know1 philosophic systems are presented to us as if they grew out of one another and their authors1 the philosophers1 appear only as mere pretexts4 ,the inward biography of the philosophers1 of the men who philosophized1 occupies a secondary place4 ,and it is this1 nevertheless1 this inward biography1 that explains most things to us4 ,it behoves us to say1 before all1 that philosophy lies closer to poetry than to science4 ,all philosophic systems that have been constructed as a supreme concord of the final results of the individual sciences have in every age possessed much less consistency and less life than those which have expressed the integral desire of the spirit of their authors4 ,for the fact is that the sciences1 important to us as they are and indeed indispensable for our life and thought1 are in a certain sense more extraneous to us than philosophy4 ,they fulfil a more objective end1 that is to say1 an end more external to ourselves4 ,they are1 at bottom1 a matter of economics4 ,a new scientific discovery1 of the kind called theoretical1 is like a mechanical discovery--that of the steam-engine1 the telephone1 the phonograph1 or the aeroplane--a thing that is useful for something4 ,thus the telephone may be useful to us in enabling us to communicate at a distance with the woman we love4 ,but she1 what is she useful to us for8 ,a man takes an electric tram to go to hear an opera and asks himself3 ,which is in this case more useful1 the tram or the opera8 ,philosophy answers to our need of forming a complete and unitary conception of the world and of life1 and as a result of this conception1 a feeling which gives birth to an inward attitude and even to an activity4 ,but in fact this feeling1 instead of being a consequence of this conception1 is the cause of it4 ,our philosophy--that is1 our mode of understanding or of not understanding the world and life--springs from our feeling towards life itself4 ,and this1 like everything affective1 has subconscious1 perhaps unconscious1 roots4 ,it is not usually our ideas that make us optimists or pessimists1 but it is our optimism or our pessimism1 of physiological or perhaps pathological origin1 as much the one as the other1 that makes our ideas4 ,man1 they say1 is a reasoning animal4 ,i do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal4 ,perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason4 ,more often ,i have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep4 ,perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly--but then perhaps the crab also resolves equations of the second degree inwardly4 ,and thus in a philosopher what must most concern us is the man4 99 99 99 99 99 ,man is an end1 not a means4 ,all civilization addresses itself to man1 to each man1 to each 8,i40 ,what is this idol--call it ,humanity or call it what you will--to which all men and each individual man must be sacrificed8 ,for ,i sacrifice myself for my neighbours1 for my fellow-countrymen1 for my children1 and these sacrifice themselves in their turn for theirs1 and theirs again for those who come after them1 and so on in a never-ending series of generations4 ,and who receives the fruit of this sacrifice8 ,those who talk to us about this fantastic sacrifice1 this dedication without an object1 are wont to talk to us also about the right to live4 ,and what is this right to live8 ,they tell me that ,i have come into the world to realize ,i know not what social end2 but ,i feel that ,i1 like each one of my fellows1 am here to realize myself1 to live4 ,yes1 yes1 ,i see it all--an enormous social activity1 a mighty civilization1 an accumulation of science1 of art1 of industry1 of morality1 and afterwards1 when we have filled the world with industrial marvels1 with great factories1 with roads1 with museums1 with libraries1 we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all1 and it will endure--for whom8 ,was man made for science or was science made for man8 8,why60--the reader will exclaim--8we are getting back to what the ,catechism says3 #8,q4 ,for whom did ,god create the world8 ,a4 ,for man'80 ,precisely--so ought the man who is a man to reply4 ,the ant1 if it took account of these matters and were a person1 conscious of itself1 would reply3 8,for the ant10 and it would reply rightly4 ,the world is made for consciousness1 for each consciousness4 ,a human soul is worth all the universe1 someone has said--,i know not who1 but it was excellently well said4 ,a human soul1 mind you6 ,not a human life4 ,not this life4 ,and it is a fact that the less a man believes in the soul1 that is to say1 in his conscious immortality1 personal and concrete1 the more he will exaggerate the worth of this poor transitory life4 ,hence arises the effeminate sentimental feeling against war4 ,true1 a man ought not to wish to die1 but it is the other1 the eternal death1 that he ought not to wish4 8,whosoever will save his life shall lose it10 says the ,gospel2 but it does not say 8whosoever will save his soul10 the immortal soul--the soul that we believe and wish to be immortal4 ,and all those definers of objectism do not realize1 or rather do not wish to realize1 that a man1 in affirming his 8,i10 his personal consciousness1 affirms man1 man concrete and real1 affirms the true humanism--the humanism of man1 not of the things of man--and in affirming man he affirms consciousness4 ,for the only consciousness of which we have consciousness is that of man4 ,the world is for consciousness4 ,or rather this for1 this notion of finality1 and feeling rather than notion1 this teleological feeling is born only where there is consciousness4 ,consciousness and finality are the same thing fundamentally4 ,if the sun possessed consciousness it would think1 no doubt1 that it lived in order to give light to the worlds2 but it would also and above all think that the worlds existed in order that it might give them light and joy in giving them light and so live4 ,and it would think well4 ,and all this tragic fight of man to save himself1 this immortal craving for immortality which caused the man ,kant to make that immortal leap#g of which ,i have spoken1 all this is simply a fight for consciousness4 ,if consciousness is1 as some inhuman thinker has said1 nothing more than a flash of light between two eternities of darkness1 then there is nothing more execrable than existence4 ,it is possible that someone will discover that everything that ,i am saying rests upon a contradiction1 since sometimes ,i express a longing for immortality and at other times ,i say that this life does not possess the value that is attributed to it4 ,contradiction8 ,to be sure6 ,the contradiction of my heart that says ,yes and of my head that says ,no4 ,of course there is contradiction4 ,who does not recollect those words of the ,gospel3 8,lord1 ,i believe1 help thou my unbelief08 ,contradiction8 ,of course6 ,for we only live upon contradictions and by them2 life is tragedy1 and the tragedy is perpetual struggle1 without victory or the hope of victory2 life is contradiction4 ,it is a question1 as you see1 of an affective value1 and against affective values reasons do not avail4 ,for reasons are nothing more than reasons1 that is to say1 they are not even truths4 ,there are definition-mongers--pedants by nature and by grace--who produce an effect upon me like that of a man who consoles a father for the loss of a son1 dead in the prime of his life1 by saying3 8,patience1 friend1 we all must die40 ,would you think it strange if this father were irritated by such an ineptitude8 ,for it is an ineptitude4 ,how often may it not be said-- para penser cual t1 slo es preciso no tener nada ms que inteligencia8#h ,there are1 in fact1 people who appear to think only with the brain or with whatever other organ may be the specific organ for thinking2 while others think with the whole body and with the whole soul1 with the blood1 with the marrow of the bones1 with the heart1 with the lungs1 with the belly1 with the life4 ,and the people who think only with the brain become definition-mongers2 they become the professionals of thought4 ,and you know what a professional is4444 ,if a philosopher is not a man1 he is anything rather than a philosopher2 he is1 above all1 a pedant1 that is to say1 a caricature of a man4 ,the cultivation of any science--of chemistry1 of physics1 of geometry1 of philology--may be1 though within very narrow limits and restrictions1 a work of differentiated specialization2 but philosophy1 like poetry1 is either a work of integration and harmony or else it is mere philosophism1 pseudo-philosophical erudition4 ,all knowledge has an ultimate object4 ,knowing for the sake of knowing is1 say what you will1 nothing but a solemn begging of the question4 ,we learn a thing either for an immediate practical end1 or in order to complete the rest of our knowledge4 ,even the ideas that appear to us most theoretical--that is to say1 of least immediate application to the non-intellectual necessities of life--answer to an intellectual necessity1 which is also a real necessity1 to a principle of unity and continuity of consciousness4 ,but just as scientific knowledge has its finality in the rest of our knowledge1 the philosophy which we may be forced to choose has another extrinsic finality--it refers to our whole destiny1 to our attitude towards life and the universe4 ,and the most tragic problem of philosophy is that of reconciling intellectual necessities of the heart and the will4 ,for it is just here that every philosophy that claims to resolve the eternal and tragic contradiction that is the very basis of our existence breaks down4 ,but do all men confront this contradiction8 ,little can be hoped for from a ruler1 for example1 who has not been preoccupied at some time or other1 even if only in some dim way1 with the first beginning and ultimate end of all things1 and1 above all1 of men1 with their first 8why0 and their ultimate 8wherefore40 ,and this supreme preoccupation cannot be purely rational1 it must be affective4 ,it is not enough to think about our destiny1 it must be felt4 ,and the would-be leader of men who says and proclaims that he pays no heed to the things of the spirit1 does not deserve to lead them4 ,which does not mean1 of course1 that any determinate solution is to be required of him4 ,solution8 ,is there1 indeed1 any8 ,for my part1 ,i will never willingly yield myself1 nor entrust my confidence1 to any popular leader who has not a real conviction that the leader of a people is a leader of men--men of flesh and bone2 men who are born1 suffer1 and1 although they may not wish to die1 die2 men who are ends in themselves1 not merely means2 men who have to be themselves and not others2 men1 in short1 who seek that which we call happiness4 ,it is inhuman1 for example1 to sacrifice one generation of men to the generation following when there is no regard for the destiny of those sacrificed--not merely for their memory1 for their names1 but for themselves4 ,all this idea that a man lives in his children1 or in his works1 or in the universe1 is but vague verbiage which satisfies only those who suffer from affective stupidity and who may1 for the rest1 be persons of a certain cerebral distinction4 ,for it is possible to possess a great talent or what we call great talent1 and yet to be stupid as far as the feelings are concerned1 and even morally imbecile4 ,there have been instances4 ,those who are mentally talented and affectively stupid usually say that it is useless to seek to delve into the unknowable or to kick against the pricks4 ,it is as if one should say to a man whose leg has been amputated that it is useless to think about it4 ,and we all lack something2 only some of us feel it and others do not4 ,or they pretend not to feel it1 and then they are hypocrites4 ,there is something which1 for want of a better name1 we will call the tragic sense of life1 which carries with it a whole conception of life itself and of the universe1 a whole philosophy1 more or less formulated1 more or less conscious4 ,and this sense may be possessed1 and is possessed1 not only by individual men but by whole peoples4 ,and this sense does not flow from ideas but rather determines them1 although afterwards1 of course1 these ideas react upon the sense and confirm it4 ,sometimes this sense may proceed from a casual illness--from dyspepsia1 for example--but at other times it is constitutional4 ,and it is useless to speak of men who are healthy and men who are unhealthy4 ,apart from there being no normal standard of health1 nobody has proved that man is necessarily cheerful by nature4 ,and1 further1 man1 by the very fact of being man1 of possessing consciousness1 is1 when compared with the ass or the crab1 already a diseased animal4 ,consciousness is a disease4 ,among men of flesh and bone there have been typical examples of those who possess the tragic sense of life4 ,i recall now ,marcus ,aurelius1 ,st4 ,augustine1 ,pascal1 ,rousseau1 ,ren1 ,obermann1 ,thomson1#i ,leopardi1 ,vigny1 ,lenau1 ,kleist1 ,amiel1 ,quental1 ,kierkegaard--men laden with wisdom rather than with knowledge4 ,and there are1 ,i believe1 also peoples who possess this tragic sense of life4 ,,the ,,problem ,,of ,,immortality ,the great master of rationalist phenomenalism1 ,david ,hume1 begins his essay 8,on the ,immortality of the ,soul0 with these decisive words3 8,it appears difficult by the mere light of reason to prove the immortality of the soul4 ,the arguments in favour of it are commonly derived from metaphysical1 moral1 or physical considerations4 ,but it is really the ,gospel1 and only the ,gospel1 that has brought to light life and immortality40 ,which is equivalent to denying the rationality of the belief that the soul of each one of us is immortal4 ,kant1 who took ,hume as the starting-point for his criticism1 attempted to establish the rationality of this longing for immortality and the belief that it imports1 and that is the real origin1 the inward origin1 of his 8,critique of ,practical ,reason0 and of his categorical imperative and of his ,god4 ,but in spite of all this1 the sceptical affirmation of ,hume remains unshaken4 ,there is no way of rationally proving the immortality of the soul4 ,there are1 on the other hand1 ways of rationally proving its mortality4 ,it would be not merely superfluous but ridiculous to explain here at length how far the individual human consciousness depends upon the organization of the body1 how it comes gradually to birth according as the brain receives impressions from without1 how it is temporally interrupted during sleep1 swoons1 and other accidents1 and how everything leads us to the rational conjecture that death carries with it loss of consciousness4 ,and just as before our birth we were not1 nor have we any personal pre-natal memory1 so after our death we shall no longer be4 ,this is the rational position4 ,rationalism--and by rationalism ,i mean the doctrine that abides solely by reason1 by objective truth--is necessarily materialist4 ,and let not idealists be scandalized thereby4 ,the truth is--it is necessary to state it clearly--that what we call materialism means for us nothing else but the doctrine which denies the immortality of the individual soul1 the persistence of personal consciousness after death4 ,in another sense it may be said that1 since we know what spirit is1 and since matter is for us no more than an idea1 materialism is idealism4 ,in fact1 and as regards our problem--the most vital1 the only really vital problem--it is all the same to say that everything is matter as to say that everything is idea1 or everything energy1 or what you please4 ,every monist system will always seem to us materialist4 ,the immortality of the soul is saved only by the dualist systems--those which teach that human consciousness is something substantially distinct and different from other manifestations of phenomena4 ,and reason is naturally monist4 ,for it is the function of reason to understand and explain the universe1 and in order to understand and explain it1 it is in no way necessary for the soul to be an imperishable substance4 ,for the purpose of understanding and explaining our psychic life1 for psychology1 the hypothesis of the soul is unnecessary4 ,all the attempts to substantivate consciousness1 making it independent of extension--it will be remembered that ,descartes opposed thought to extension--are but sophistical subtleties intended to establish the rationality of faith in the immortality of the soul4 ,it is sought to give the value of objective reality to that which does not possess it1 to that of which the reality exists only in thought4 ,and the immortality that we crave is a phenomenal reality1 it is a continuation of this life4 ,from whatever side we look at it1 it is always found that reason confronts our longing for personal immortality and contradicts it4 ,and in strict truth1 reason is the enemy of life4 ,all that is vital is anti-rational1 and all that is rational is anti-vital1 for reason is essentially sceptical4 ,rationalists persist in endeavouring to convince men that there are motives for living and that there is a consolation for having been born1 even though there must come a time1 at the end of some tens or hundreds or millions of centuries1 when all human consciousness shall have ceased to exist4 ,and these motives for living and working1 this thing which some call humanism1 illustrate the amazing affectional and emotional hollowness of rationalism and of its stupendous hypocrisy--a hypocrisy that is resolved to sacrifice sincerity to veracity and not to confess that reason is a dissolvent and disconsolatory power4 ,must ,i repeat again what ,i have already said about all this idea of creating culture1 of progressing1 of realizing good1 truth1 and beauty1 of establishing justice on earth1 of ameliorating life for those who shall come after us1 of subserving ,i know not what destiny1 divorced from all preoccupation with the ultimate end of each one of us8 ,must ,i again declare to you the supreme vacuity of culture1 of art1 of good1 of truth1 of beauty1 of justice 444 of all these beautiful conceptions1 if at the last end of everything1 in four days or in four million centuries--it matters not which--no human consciousness shall exist to appropriate this culture1 this science1 art1 good1 truth1 beauty1 justice1 and all the rest8 ,many and various have been the rationalist devices--more or less rational--from the days of the ,epicureans and the ,stoics1 by means of which it has been sought to discover rational consolation in truth and to convince men--though the convincers were themselves unconvinced--that there are motives for working and lures for living1 even though the human consciousness be destined ultimately to disappear4 ,the ,epicurean attitude1 the extreme and grossest expression of which is 8,let us eat and drink1 for to-morrow we die10 or the ,horatian carpe diem1 which may be rendered by 8,live for the day10 is not radically different from the ,stoic attitude with its 8,do what your conscience tells you1 and afterward let it be as it may be40 ,both attitudes have a common base1 and pleasure for pleasure's sake comes to the same thing as duty for duty's sake4 ,it is true that there are people who assert that reason suffices them1 and they counsel us not to seek to penetrate into the impenetrable4 ,but of those who say that they have no need of any faith in eternal personal life in order to find incentives to living and motives for action1 ,i know not well how to think4 ,a man blind from birth may also assure us that he feels no great desire to enjoy the world of sight nor suffers any great anguish from not having enjoyed it1 and we must needs believe him1 for nihil volitum quin prcognitum1 nothing can be willed that is not previously known4 ,but ,i cannot be persuaded that he who has once in his life1 either in his youth or at some other point of time1 cherished the belief in the immortality of the soul1 will ever find peace without it4 ,and this kind of blindness from birth is scarcely possible among men1 except by a strange aberration4 ,and the merely and exclusively rational man is an aberration and nothing but an aberration4 ,i do not know why so many people were scandalized1 or pretended to be scandalized1 when ,brunetire proclaimed once again the bankruptcy of science4 ,for science1 in so far as it is a substitute for religion1 and reason1 in so far as it is a substitute for faith1 have always foundered4 ,science will be able to satisfy in an increasing measure1 and in fact does satisfy1 our increasing logical and intellectual needs1 our desire to know and understand the truth2 but science does not satisfy the needs of our heart and our will1 our hunger for immortality--far from satisfying it1 it contradicts it4 ,rational life and truth stand in opposition to one another4 ,and can it be that there is any other truth than rational truth8 ,it must remain established1 therefore1 that reason1 human reason1 within its limits not only does not prove rationally that the soul is immortal and that the human consciousness is through all the ages indestructible1 but that it proves rather--within its limits1 ,i repeat--that the individual consciousness cannot persist after the death of the physical organism upon which it depends4 ,and these limits1 within which ,i say that human reason proves this1 are the limits of rationality1 of what we know by demonstration4 ,beyond these limits is the irrational1 which is all the same whether it be called the super-rational or the infra-rational or the contra-rational4 ,beyond these limits is the absurd of ,tertullian1 the impossible of the certum est1 quia impossible est4 ,and this absurd can only base itself upon the most absolute incertitude4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the vital longing for human immortality1 therefore1 finds no rational confirmation1 nor does reason give us any incentive or consolation for living or give to life itself any real finality4 ,but here1 in the depths of the abyss1 the despair of the heart and the will and the scepticism of reason meet face to face and embrace fraternally4 ,and it will be from this embrace1 a tragic1 that is to say a profoundly loving1 embrace1 that the fountain of life will flow1 a life earnest and terrible4 ,scepticism1 uncertainty--the ultimate position at which reason arrives by practising its analysis upon itself1 upon its own validity--is the foundation upon which the despair of the vital sense must build its hope4 ,disillusioned1 we have had to abandon the position of those who seek to convert rational and logical truth into consolation1 pretending to prove the rationality1 or at any rate the non-irrationality1 of consolation2 and we have had to abandon likewise the position of those who seek to convert consolation and motives for living into rational truth4 ,neither of these positions satisfies us4 ,the one is at variance with our reason1 the other with our feeling4 ,peace between these two powers is impossible and we must live by their war4 ,we must make of this war1 of war itself1 the condition of our spiritual life4 ,faith in immortality is irrational4 ,and nevertheless1 faith1 life and reason have mutual need of one another4 ,this vital longing is not properly a problem1 cannot be formulated in propositions capable of rational discussion2 but it announces itself in us as hunger announces itself4 ,neither can the wolf that throws itself upon its prey to devour it or upon the she-wolf to fecundate her1 enunciate its impulse rationally and as a logical problem4 ,reason and faith are two enemies neither of which can maintain itself without the other4 ,the irrational demands to be rationalized and reason alone can operate on the irrational4 ,they are compelled to seek mutual support and association4 ,but association in conflict1 for conflict is a mode of association4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there is no possible permanent position of agreement and harmony between reason and life1 between philosophy and religion4 ,and the tragic history of human thought is simply the history of a struggle between reason and life--reason bent on rationalizing life and making it resign itself to the inevitable1 to mortality2 life bent on vitalizing reason and forcing it to serve as a support for its vital desires4 ,and this is the history of philosophy1 inseparable from the history of religion4 ,our sense of the world1 of objective reality1 is necessarily subjective1 human1 anthropomorphic4 ,and vitalism will always rise up against rationalism1 the will will always stand up against reason4 ,hence the rhythm of the history of philosophy and the alternation of periods in which life imposes itself1 giving birth to spiritual forms1 with periods in which reason imposes itself1 giving birth to materialistic forms1 although both of these classes of forms of belief may disguise themselves under other names4 ,neither reason nor life ever acknowledges itself vanquished4 ,no doubt it will be said that life ought to submit to reason and to this we shall reply that nothing ought to be done that cannot be done1 and life cannot submit to reason4 8,ought1 therefore can10 some ,kantian will retort4 ,to which we shall demur3 8,cannot1 therefore ought not40 ,and life cannot submit to reason1 because the end of life is living and not understanding4 ,there is always someone who will tell us of the religious duty of resigning ourselves to mortality4 ,this is indeed the very summit of aberration and insincerity4 ,and over against sincerity will be set the opposing ideal of veracity4 ,be it so1 and yet it is quite possible to reconcile the two4 ,veracity1 respect for what ,i believe to be rational1 for what we call truth in the logical sense1 moves me to affirm that the immortality of the individual soul is a logical contradiction1 is something not only irrational but contra-rational2 but sincerity leads me to affirm also that ,i do not resign myself to this former affirmation and that ,i protest against its validity4 ,what ,i feel is a truth1 as much a truth at any rate as what ,i see1 touch1 hear1 and what is demonstrated to me--,i believe that it is even more of a truth--and sincerity obliges me not to hide my feelings4 ,and in self-defence life searches for the weak point in reason and finds it in scepticism1 which it seizes hold of1 endeavouring to save itself by maintaining its hold4 ,it needs the weakness of its adversary4 ,in an outburst of passion1 ,lamennais exclaims3 8,but what6 ,all hope lost1 shall we plunge blindly into the mute depths of a universal scepticism8 ,shall we doubt that we think1 that we feel1 that we are8 ,nature does not allow it2 she forces us to believe even when our reason is not convinced4 ,absolute certainty and absolute doubt are both alike forbidden to us4 ,we hover in a vague mean between these two extremes1 as between being and nothingness2 for complete scepticism would be the extinction of the intelligence and the total death of man4 ,but it is not given to man to annihilate himself2 there is in him something which invincibly resists destruction1 ,i know not what vital faith1 which the will itself cannot master4 ,whether he like it or not1 he must believe1 because he must act1 because he must preserve himself4 ,his reason1 if he listened only to that1 teaching him to doubt everything1 itself included1 would reduce him to a state of absolute inaction2 he would perish before even he had been able to prove to himself that he existed40#aj ,it is not strictly true that reason leads us to absolute scepticism4 ,no1 reason does not lead me and cannot lead me to doubt that ,i exist4 ,whither reason does lead me is to vital scepticism1 or more properly to vital negation--not merely to doubt but to deny that my consciousness survives my death4 ,vital scepticism comes from the clash between reason and desire4 ,and from this clash1 from this embrace between despair and scepticism is born holy1 sweet1 saving incertitude1 our supreme consolation4 ,the absolute and complete certainty1 on the one hand1 that death is a complete1 definite1 irrevocable annihilation of personal consciousness1 a certainty of the same order as the certainty that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles1 or1 on the other hand1 the absolute and complete certainty that our personal consciousness is prolonged beyond death in these or those conditions1 including withal the extraneous and adventitious addition of eternal rewards and punishments--both of these certainties would equally make life impossible for us4 ,in the most secret chamber of the spirit of him who believes himself convinced that death puts an end to his personal consciousness1 his memory1 for ever1 there lurks a shadow1 all unknown to him perhaps1 a vague shadow1 a shadow of a shadow of uncertainty1 and while he says within himself3 8,well1 let us live this passing life1 for there is no other60 the silence of this secret chamber speaks to him and murmurs3 8,who knows64440 ,he may not think he hears it1 but he hears it4 ,and likewise in some secret place of the soul of the believer who most firmly holds the faith in future life1 there is a muffled voice1 a voice of uncertainty1 which whispers in the ear of his spirit3 8,who knows64440 ,these voices are like the humming of a mosquito when the gale roars through the trees in the wood2 we cannot distinguish this faint humming1 nevertheless1 merged in the clamour of the storm1 it reaches the ear4 ,otherwise1 without this uncertainty1 how could we live8 8,is there80 8,is there not80--these are the bases of our inner life4 ,there may be a rationalist who has never wavered in his conviction of the mortality of the soul1 and there may be a vitalist who has never wavered in his faith in immortality2 but at the most this would only prove that just as there are monsters1 so there are people who are affectively and feelingly stupid1 however much intelligence they may have1 and people who are intellectually stupid1 however great their virtue may be4 ,but in normal cases ,i cannot believe those who assure me that never1 not even for a moment1 not in the hours of greatest loneliness and tribulation1 has this murmur of uncertainty breathed upon their consciousness4 ,i do not understand the men who tell me that the prospect of the yonder side of death has never tormented them1 that the thought of their own annihilation never disquiets them4 ,for my part ,i do not wish to make peace between my heart and my head1 between my faith and my reason--,i wish rather that there should be war between them4 99 99 99 99 99 8,lord1 ,i believe2 help thou my unbelief60 ,this may appear to be a contradiction1 for if the man believes1 if he trusts1 how is it that he beseeches the ,lord to help his lack of trust8 ,nevertheless it is this contradiction that gives all its deepest human value to this cry torn from the heart of the father of a demoniac4 ,his faith is a faith that is based upon incertitude4 ,because he believes1 that is to say1 because he wishes to believe1 because he has need that his son should be cured--he beseeches the ,lord to help his unbelief1 his doubt that such a cure could be effected4 ,of such a kind is human faith4 ,of such a kind was the heroic faith that ,sancho ,panza had in his master1 the knight ,don ,quixote de la ,mancha1 as ,i think ,i have shown in my 8,life of ,don ,quixote and ,sancho0--a faith based upon incertitude1 upon doubt4 ,sancho ,panza was indeed a man1 a whole and a real man1 and he was not stupid1 for only if he had been stupid would he have believed without a shadow of doubt in the follies of his master4 ,neither did his master believe in them without a shadow of doubt1 for neither was ,don ,quixote1 though mad1 stupid4 ,he was fundamentally a man of despair1 as ,i think ,i have shown in my book4 ,and because he was a man of an heroic despair1 the hero of that inward and resigned despair1 he is the eternal exemplar of every man whose soul is the battle-ground of reason and immortal desire4 ,our ,lord ,don ,quixote is the prototype of the vitalist whose faith is based upon incertitude1 and ,sancho is the prototype of the rationalist who doubts his own reason4 ,,creative ,,faith ,when as a boy ,i began to be disquieted by the eternal problems1 ,i read in a book1 the author of which ,i have no wish to recall1 this sentence3 8,god is the great x placed over the barrier of human knowledge--as science advances1 the barrier recedes40 ,and ,i wrote in the margin3 8,on this side of the barrier1 everything is explained without ,him2 on the further side1 nothing is explained1 either with ,him or without ,him4 ,god1 therefore1 is superfluous40 ,and so as far as concerns the ,god-,idea1 the ,god whose existence is supposed to be logically proved1 ,i continue to be of the same opinion4 ,laplace is said to have stated that he had not found the hypothesis of ,god necessary in the construction of his system of the origin of the ,universe1 and it very certainly is so4 ,the idea of ,god does not in any way help us to understand any better the existence1 the essence and the finality of the ,universe4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the living ,god1 the human ,god1 is reached not by the way of reason but by the way of love and of suffering4 ,reason rather separates us from ,him4 ,it is not possible to know ,him in order that afterwards we may love ,him2 we must begin by loving ,him1 longing for ,him1 hungering for ,him1 before knowing ,him4 ,the knowledge of ,god proceeds from the love of ,god1 and it is a knowledge that has little or nothing of the rational in it4 ,for ,god is indefinable4 ,to seek to define ,him is to claim to limit ,him in our mind--that is to say1 to kill ,him4 ,in so far as we attempt to define ,him1 we are confronted by ,nothingness4 ,the idea of ,god which the would-be rational theodicy presents us with is merely an hypothesis1 like the hypothesis of the ether1 for example4 ,the ether is1 in effect1 merely a hypothetical entity1 which is of value only in so far as it explains that which by means of it we seek to explain--light1 or electricity1 or universal gravitation--and only so far as these facts cannot be explained in any other way4 ,similarly the idea of ,god is also an hypothesis which is of value only in so far as we explain by means of it that which we seek to explain--the essence and existence of the ,universe--and only so long as these cannot be explained better in some other way4 ,and since in reality we explain the ,universe neither better nor worse with this idea than without it1 the idea of ,god1 the supreme petitio principii1 fails of its purpose4 ,but if the ether is nothing but an hypothesis intended to explain light1 air on the other hand is a thing that is directly felt2 and even though it did not enable us to explain sound1 we should have a direct sensation of it1 and1 above all1 of the lack of it in moments of suffocation or air-hunger4 ,and in the same way1 ,god ,himself1 not the idea of ,god1 may become a directly felt reality2 and although the idea of ,him may not enable us to explain either the existence or the essence of the ,universe1 we have at times the direct feeling of ,god1 above all in moments of spiritual suffocation4 ,and this feeling--mark it well1 for herein lies its tragicness and the whole tragic sense of life--is a feeling of hunger for ,god1 of lack of ,god4 ,to believe in ,god is1 in the first instance1 to wish that there may be a ,god1 not to be able to live without ,him4 ,so long as ,i pilgrimaged through the fields of reason in search of ,god1 ,i could not find ,him1 for ,i was not taken in by the idea of ,god1 neither could ,i take an idea for ,god2 and it was then1 as ,i wandered among the wastes of rationalism1 that ,i told myself that we ought to seek no other consolation than the truth1 meaning thereby reason1 and yet for all that ,i was not comforted4 ,but as ,i sank deeper and deeper into rational scepticism on the one hand and into heart's despair on the other1 the hunger for ,god awoke within me1 and the suffocation of spirit made me feel the want of ,god1 and with the want of ,him1 ,his reality4 ,and ,i wished that there might be a ,god1 that ,god might exist4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the problem of the existence of ,god1 a problem that is rationally insoluble1 is in its essence none other than the problem of consciousness1 the very problem of the substantial existence of the soul1 the very problem of the perpetuity of the human soul1 the very problem of the human finality of the ,universe4 ,to believe in a living and personal ,god1 in an eternal and universal consciousness that knows us and loves us1 is to believe that the ,universe exists for man4 ,for man1 or for a consciousness of the same order as the human consciousness1 of the same nature1 although sublimated1 a consciousness that is cognizant of us1 in whose depths our memory lives for ever4 ,perhaps by a supreme and desperate effort of resignation we might succeed in making the sacrifice of our personality if we knew that in dying it would go to enrich a ,supreme ,personality1 a ,supreme ,consciousness1 if we knew that the ,universal ,soul was nourished by our souls and had need of them4 ,perhaps we might meet death with a desperate resignation or with a resigned desperation1 delivering up our soul to the soul of humanity1 bequeathing to it our work1 the work that bears the stamp of our personality1 if this humanity were in its turn to bequeath its soul to another soul after the ultimate extinction of consciousness upon this earth with its burden of longings4 ,but if it be otherwise8 ,and if the soul of humanity is eternal1 if the human collective consciousness is eternal1 if there is a ,consciousness of the ,universe and if this ,consciousness is eternal1 why should not our own individual consciousness1 yours1 reader1 and mine1 not be eternal8 ,in the whole of the vast universe must there needs be such a thing as a consciousness that knows itself1 loves itself and feels itself1 an exception united to a organism that can only live between such and such degrees of heat1 a transitory phenomenon8 ,no1 it is not mere curiosity to wish to know whether or not the stars are inhabited by living organisms1 by consciousness akin to our own1 and there is an element of profound longing in the dream of the transmigration of our souls through the stars that people the vast remotenesses of the heavens4 ,the feeling of the divine makes us wish and believe that everything is animated1 that consciousness1 in a greater or lesser degree1 extends through all things4 ,we wish not only to save ourselves but to save the world from nothingness4 ,and therefore ,god4 ,such is ,his felt finality4 ,what would a universe be without any consciousness to reflect it and to know it8 ,what would the objectified reason be1 without will and without feeling8 ,for us it would be the same as nothing--a thousand times more dreadful than nothing4 ,if such a supposed universe is reality1 then our life lacks value and meaning4 ,it is not1 therefore1 rational necessity but vital anguish that leads us to believe in ,god4 ,and to believe in ,god--,i must repeat it again--is1 before all and above all1 to feel hunger for ,god1 hunger for divinity1 to feel the lack and absence of ,god1 to wish that ,god may exist4 ,and it is to wish to save the human finality of the ,universe4 ,for we might even succeed in resigning ourselves to being absorbed by ,god if our consciousness rests upon a ,consciousness1 if consciousness is the end of the ,universe4 8,the wicked man has said in his heart3 ,there is no ,god40 ,and there is truth in this4 ,for it is possible for a righteous man to say in his head3 ,god does not exist4 ,but only the wicked can say it in his heart4 ,not to believe that there is a ,god or to believe that there is not a ,god1 is one thing2 to resign oneself to there not being a ,god is another thing1 though an inhuman and horrible thing2 but not to wish that there is a ,god exceeds every other moral aberration4 ,although in fact those who deny ,god do so because of their despair at not finding ,him4 ,and now once again there comes the rational question1 the question of the ,sphinx--the ,sphinx1 in effect1 is reason--does ,god exist8 ,this eternal and eternalizing ,person who gives meaning--,i do not add 8human10 for there is no other meaning--to the universe1 is ,he a substantial something external to our consciousness1 external to our desire8 ,here you have something that is insoluble1 and it is better that it should be insoluble4 ,let it suffice for reason that the impossibility of ,his existence cannot be proved4 ,to believe in ,god is to long for ,his existence1 and1 furthermore1 it is to act as if ,he existed4 ,it is to live by this longing and to make it the inner spring of our action4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to believe is to place confidence in someone1 and it has reference to a person4 ,i say that ,i know that there is an animal called the horse1 and that it has such and such characteristics1 because ,i have seen it2 and ,i say that ,i believe in the existence of the giraffe or the ornithorhyncus1 and that it has such and such qualities1 because ,i believe those who assure me that they have seen it4 ,and hence the element of uncertainty that attaches to faith1 for a person may be deceived or he may deceive us4 ,but1 on the other hand1 this personal element in belief gives it an affective character1 it connects it with love1 and above all1 in religious faith1 it carries with it a reference to what is hoped for4 ,perhaps there is nobody who would sacrifice his life for the sake of maintaining that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles1 for such a truth does not require the sacrifice of our life2 but on the other hand there are many who have lost their lives for the sake of maintaining their religious faith1 and it is martyrs that make faith rather than faith that makes martyrs4 ,for faith is not the mere adherence of the intellect to an abstract principle2 it is not the recognition of a theoretical truth in which the will does nothing save move us to understand2 faith is a matter of the will1 it is a movement of the mind towards a practical truth1 towards a person1 towards something that makes us live and not merely understand life4 ,but although we said that faith is a matter of the will1 it would perhaps be better to say that it is the will itself1 the will not to die1 or rather some other psychic force distinct from intelligence1 will and feeling4 ,we should then have feeling1 knowing1 willing1 and believing or creating4 ,for neither feeling nor intelligence nor will creates2 they operate upon a material already given1 upon a material given by faith4 ,faith is the creating power of man4 ,but since it has a more intimate relation with the will than with any other of his faculties1 we present it under the form of volition4 ,faith is1 then1 if not creative power1 the fruit of the will1 and its function is to create4 ,faith1 in a certain sense1 creates its object4 ,and faith in ,god consists in creating ,god1 and since it is ,god that gives us faith in ,him1 it is ,god who is continually creating ,himself in us4 ,hence ,st4 ,augustine said3 8,i will seek ,thee1 ,lord1 by calling upon ,thee1 and ,i will call upon ,thee by believing in ,thee4 ,my faith calls upon ,thee1 ,lord1 the faith which ,thou hast given me1 with which ,thou hast inspired me through the ,humanity of ,thy ,son1 through the ministry of the ,preacher0 78,confessions10 ,book ,i1 chap4 ,i74 ,the power of creating ,god in our own image and likeness1 of personalizing the ,universe1 simply means that we carry ,god within us1 as the substance of what we hope for1 and that ,god is continually creating us in ,his image and likeness4 ,but after all this ,i shall be told that to show that faith creates its own object is to show that this object is an object for faith alone1 that it has no objective reality external to faith itself--just as1 on the other hand1 to maintain that faith is necessary in order to restrain or to console people is to declare that the object of faith is illusory4 ,what is certain is that for thinking believers to-day1 faith is1 before all and above all1 wishing that ,god may exist4 ,wishing that ,god may exist1 and acting and feeling as if ,he did exist4 ,and it is in this way1 wishing for ,god's existence and acting conformably with this desire1 that we create ,god in ourselves1 that is1 that ,god creates ,himself in us1 manifests ,himself to us1 opens and reveals ,himself to us4 ,for ,god goes out to meet him who seeks ,him with love and by love and withdraws ,himself from him who seeks ,him with the cold and loveless reason4 ,god wills that the heart should have rest but not the head1 while in the physical life the head sometimes rests and sleeps and the heart wakes and works unrestingly4 ,and thus knowledge without love removes us from ,god2 and love1 even without knowledge1 and perhaps better without it1 leads us to ,god1 and through ,god to wisdom4 ,blessed are the pure in heart1 for they shall see ,god4 99 99 99 99 99 ,faith is our longing for the eternal1 for ,god2 and hope is ,god's longing1 the longing of the eternal1 of the divine in us1 which advances to meet our faith and raises us up4 ,man aspires to ,god by faith and cries to ,him3 8,i believe--give me1 ,lord1 wherein to believe40 ,and ,god1 the divinity in man1 sends him hope in another life in order that he may believe in it4 ,hope is the reward of faith4 ,only he who believes truly hopes1 and only he who truly hopes believes4 ,we believe only what we hope1 and we hope only what we believe4 ,,the ,,song ,,of ,,the ,,eternal ,,waters ,the narrow road1 hewn out of the naked rock1 goes winding along above the abyss4 ,on one side rise high tors and crags1 on the other side is heard the ceaseless murmur of waters in the dark depths of the ravine1 deeper than eye can reach4 ,at intervals the track widens so as to form a kind of refuge1 just large enough to hold about a dozen people1 a resting-place1 screened by leafy branches1 for those who travel along the road above the ravine4 ,in the distance1 crowning the summit of a jutting crag1 a castle stands out against the sky4 ,the clouds passing over it are torn by the pinnacles of its tall towers4 ,with the pilgrims goes ,maquetas4 ,he walks hurriedly1 sweating1 seeing nothing but the road in front of his eyes1 except when from time to time he raises them towards the castle4 ,as he walks he sings an old wailing song that his grandmother taught him when he was a child1 and he sings it so that he shall not hear the ominous murmur of the torrent flowing unseen in the depths of the abyss4 ,as he approaches one of the resting-places1 a maiden who is sitting inside on a bank of turf calls to him3 8,maquetas1 come here and stop awhile4 ,come and rest by my side1 with your back to the abyss1 and let us talk a little4 ,nothing heartens us for this journey like a few words spoken in love and companionship4 ,stay awhile here with me4 ,afterwards you will go on your way again refreshed and renewed40 8,i cannot1 my girl10 ,maquetas replied1 slowing his pace but without halting1 8,i cannot4 ,the castle is still a great way off and ,i must reach it before the sun sets behind its towers40 8,you will lose nothing by staying here awhile1 young man1 for afterwards you will take the road again with more mettle and with new strength4 ,are you not tired80 8,that ,i am1 lass40 8,then stay awhile and rest4 ,here you have this turf for your couch and my lap for your pillow4 ,come1 stay60 ,and she opened her arms1 offering him her bosom4 ,maquetas paused for a moment1 and as he did so there came to his ears the voice of the invisible torrent flowing in the depths of the abyss4 ,he quitted the road1 stretched himself on the turf and laid his head on the girl's lap4 ,with her fresh rosy hands she wiped the sweat from his brow1 while his eyes gazed up at the morning sky overhead1 a sky that was as young as the eyes of the girl4 8,what is it you are singing1 lass80 8',tis not ,i singing--it is the water that flows down there1 behind us40 8,and what is it that it sings80 8,it sings the song of eternal rest4 ,but now rest yourself40 8,eternal1 did you say80 8,yes1 that is what the torrent sings4 ,but now rest40 8,and afterwards44440 8,rest1 ,maquetas1 and don't say #8afterwards4'0 ,the girl put her lips to his lips and kissed him4 ,maquetas felt the kiss melt and flow through all his body1 and so sweet it was that it seemed as if all the sky poured itself down over him4 ,his senses swooned4 ,he dreamed that he was falling endlessly down into the bottomless abyss4444 ,when he awoke and opened his eyes he saw above him the sky of evening4 8,o lass1 how late it is6 ,now ,i shall not have time to reach the castle4 ,let me go1 let me go40 8,go then1 and ,god guide and companion you4 ,and don't forget me1 ,maquetas40 8,give me one kiss more40 8,take it1 and may it strengthen you40 ,with the kiss ,maquetas felt that his strength was increased a hundredfold and he began to run along the road1 the lilt of his song keeping time with his strides4 ,and he ran and ran1 leaving the other pilgrims behind him4 ,one of them shouted to him as he passed3 8,you'll stop1 ,maquetas40 ,then he saw that the sun was beginning to set behind the towers of the castle and ,maquetas felt a chill strike his heart4 ,the fires of the sunset lasted but for a moment4 ,he heard the grating of the chains of the drawbridge4 ,and ,maquetas said to himself3 8,they are shutting the castle-gate40 ,night began to fall1 an impenetrable night4 ,very soon ,maquetas had to halt1 for he could see nothing1 absolutely nothing4 ,blackness enveloped everything4 ,maquetas stood still1 silent1 and in the impenetrability of the darkness he heard only the murmur of the waters of the torrent in the abyss4 ,the cold grew denser4 ,maquetas stooped down1 felt the road with his numb hands1 and began to creep along on all fours1 warily1 like a fox4 ,he kept edging away from the abyss4 ,he went forward like this for a long1 long time4 ,and he said to himself3 8,ah1 that lass deceived me6 ,why did ,i heed her80 ,the cold became horrible4 ,it penetrated everywhere1 like a thousand-edged sword4 ,maquetas no longer felt the touch of the ground1 he no longer felt his own hands2 he was benumbed4 ,he stopped still4 ,or rather he scarcely knew whether he was stopping or crawling4 ,maquetas felt himself suspended in the midst of the darkness1 black night all around him4 ,he heard nothing but the ceaseless murmur of the waters of the abyss4 8,i will call out10 ,maquetas said to himself1 and he made an effort to shout4 ,but no sound was heard2 his voice did not come forth out of his chest4 ,it was as if it were frozen within him4 ,then ,maquetas thought3 8,can ,i be dead80 ,and as this thought took hold of him1 it seemed as if the darkness and the cold fused together and eternalized themselves round about him4 8,can this be death80 ,maquetas went on thinking4 8,shall ,i have to live henceforward like this1 in pure thought1 in memory8 ,and the castle8 ,and the abyss8 ,what do the waters say8 ,what a dream1 what an appalling dream6 ,and not to be able to sleep6444 ,to die like this1 dreaming1 dying little by little1 and not to be able to sleep6444 ,and now what am ,i going to do8 ,what shall ,i do to-morrow8 8,to-morrow8 ,what is to-morrow8 ,what does to-morrow mean8 ,what is this idea of to-morrow that seems to come to me out of the depth of the darkness1 where the waters are singing8 ,to-morrow8 ,for me there is now no to-morrow4 ,everything is now1 everything is blackness and cold4 ,even this song of the eternal waters seems like a song of ice--just one prolonged note4 8,but can ,i really have died8 ,how long the dawn is in coming6 ,but ,i don't even know how long it is since the sun set behind the towers of the castle4444 8,once upon a time10 he went on thinking1 8there was a man who was called ,maquetas1 a great wayfarer1 and he walked for days and days journeying to a castle1 where a good dinner awaited him and a warm fire and a good bed to rest in1 and in the bed a good bedmate4 ,and there in the castle he was going to live days without end1 listening to stories that went on for ever1 joying in his sweet companion1 a life of perpetual youth4 ,and those days would be all alike and all peaceful4 ,and as they passed1 oblivion would fall on them4 ,and all those days would be thus one eternal day1 one same day eternally renewed1 a perpetual to-day overflowing with a whole infinity of yesterdays and with a whole infinity of to-morrows4 8,and ,maquetas believed that that was life1 and set out on his journey4 ,and he journeyed on1 stopping at inns where he slept1 and when the sun rose he went on his way again4 ,and once1 as he was leaving an inn1 he met an aged beggar who was sitting on the trunk of a tree by the door1 and the beggar said to him3 #8,maquetas1 what meaning have things8' ,and that ,maquetas answered him1 shrugging his shoulders3 #8,what does that matter to me8' ,and the aged beggar asked him again3 #8,maquetas1 what does this road mean8' ,and that ,maquetas1 now somewhat irritated1 answered him3 #8,why do you ask me what the road means8 ,how should ,i know8 ,does anybody know8 ,does the road mean anything8 ,leave me in peace1 and ,god be with you4' ,and the aged beggar knitted his brows and smiled sadly1 gazing on the ground4 8,and then ,maquetas came to a very rugged country and had to cross a wild mountain ridge by a precipitous footpath hewn out of the rock1 high up over an abyss1 in the depths of which sang the waters of an invisible torrent4 ,and thence he discerned afar the castle that he had to reach before the sun set1 and when he discerned it his heart leaped for joy in his breast1 and he quickened his steps4 ,but a lass1 sweet as a vision1 compelled him to stop and rest awhile on a bank of turf1 and that ,maquetas rested his head on her lap and stopped4 ,and when he left her the lass gave him a kiss1 the kiss of death1 and as soon as the sun set behind the towers of the castle the cold and the darkness closed in all round him and the darkness and the cold grew denser and merged into one4 ,and there fell a silence from which only that song of the eternal waters emerged4 ,yonder1 in life1 sounds1 songs1 murmurs1 used to issue out of a vague murmurous background1 out of a kind of mist of sound2 but here this song emerged out of the profound silence1 the silence of darkness and cold1 the silence of death4 8,of death8 ,yes1 of death1 for that ,maquetas1 that valiant wayfarer1 died4444 8,how sweet the story is1 and how sad6 ,it is sweeter1 far sweeter1 sadder1 far sadder1 than that old song my grandmother taught me4 ,let me see1 how does it go8 ,i will repeat it over again4 8,once upon a time there was a man who was called ,maquetas1 a great wayfarer1 and he walked for days and days journeying to a castle44440 ,and ,maquetas repeated to himself again and again and again and again the story of that other ,maquetas1 and he continues repeating it and so he will go on repeating it as long as the waters of the invisible torrent go on singing1 and the waters will sing for ever1 ever1 ever1 without a yesterday and without a to-morrow1 for ever1 ever1 ever4444 ,,the ,,tower ,,of ,,monterrey ,it is freezing4 ,a biting north wind cuts short the breath4 ,from the steely blue a pale sun sheds a glittering light that cuts out the shadows and models the landscape into a kind of architectural relief4 ,for this crystal-clear light1 bright as frost1 without haze1 appears not so much to illumine as to civilize ,nature2 it makes it civil1 which means that it makes it more than human4 ,to humanize is much1 but to civilize is more4 ,to civilize1 to make civil--or1 if you like1 to citizenize--is to superhumanize4 ,humanity seems to us1 so far as man is concerned1 to be everything2 but civility embraces more than humanity2 it is more than all1 for it is the future in never-ending process of realization--it is the ideal4 ,the all is that which is and that which is permanent2 but the more than all is that which1 over and above all that has been and is1 will be4 ,the all is the past that is condensed in the present2 the more than all is the eternity that embraces the past1 the present and the future4 ,the all is the universe and the more than all is thought4 ,for thought exceeds all that has been thought and all that is thinkable and goes beyond them4 ,the city also is ,nature4 ,its streets and its squares and its erect pillared towers also are landscape4 ,and its lines are like the lines of the country4 ,baroque lines they are said to be4 ,but not all4 ,the escarpments which slope down from the vast tableland of ,la ,armua to the banks of the ,tormes are like the buttresses of a gigantic cathedral2 they are architectonic4 ,there are villages which seem as if they were sculptured out of the earth of the bleak upland plains1 out of the rock itself4 ,and if you look long enough at some dark poplar standing near the spire of a village church1 you begin to wonder which is the tree and which the spire4 ,and the skeleton trees1 all swart naked bone1 look like the pillars of a ruined temple the roof of which has fallen in4 ,in travelling through this barren rocky ,iberian land1 have you never sometimes fancied that you discerned in some distant craggy hill the outline of a ,baroque cathedral8 ,and conversely1 here in the city1 one might imagine oneself to be in the midst of some vast geological formation4 ,men1 like coral insects1 have built up these masses of grey and golden coral1 gleaming in the naked winter sun4 ,every one of these fabrics of stone might be said to be an immense architectonic phrase1 an aphorism in lines4 ,in a phrase culminates and is condensed a whole system of ideas1 of thoughts4 ,in the title--,la ,vida es ,sueo--of ,caldern's drama1 the immortal fellow of 8,don ,quixote10 is condensed 7as ,farinelli rightly says in his work ,la ,vita un ,sogno1 which ,i have just been reading7 8the substance of all earthly philosophies40 ,it was by a phrase that each of the seven wise men of ,greece won a lasting place in the memory of their race2 for these seven wise men eternalized themselves in the thought of their people as being the authors of seven single sentences4 ,and a phrase1 a civil sentence1 civil rather than human1 is an edifice of thought in which economy of material and of brute force has achieved its supreme triumph4 ,the ,pyramids are phrases of stone which rise up from the sands of the desert2 and like an immense phrase1 like one of the periods of ,demosthenes1 or rather of ,pericles1 which ,thucydides has bequeathed to us for ever1 stands the ,parthenon4 ,and these towers are phrases too1 civil phrases1 phrases of civility now made one with ,nature4 ,i know not how ,i am to translate to you in sounding words--words that are winged1 yet captive1 words that fly and soar1 yet abide--that which this harmonious phrase of hewn stone1 this tower of ,monterrey1 says to me1 says to us all1 in the fine cutting light of these benumbing winter mornings1 when the frost sleeps idly on its lofty pinnacles2 but ,i know that it is a phrase when ,i see it clear-cut against the blue of heaven4 ,and if men pass away and yet abide1 these stones will abide to tell ,nature that once there was ,humanity1 once there was thought2 they will abide to tell of plan1 and of order1 and of proportion1 to the ,universe4 ,and why should not the planets which journey through space in obedience to the laws which they themselves communicated to ,kepler1 understand geometry and mathematics8 ,is not the whole vast structure of the ,universe a great city1 the city of ,god1 its supreme ,architect and ,inhabiter8 ,all this is a dream4 ,true6 ,but this dream of stone1 in the clarified frosty light1 tells us that dream is what abides1 the lasting1 the permanent1 the substantial1 and that on the surface of the dream1 like waves on the surface of the sea1 roll our sorrows and our joys1 our hates and our loves1 our memories and our hopes4 ,the waves are of the sea2 but the waves pass and the sea abides2 the sorrows and the joys1 the hates and the loves1 the memories and the hopes1 are of the dream1 the dream of life2 but they--sorrows1 joys1 hates1 loves1 memories1 hopes--pass away and the dream abides4 ,and it abides thus1 converted into stone1 stone of the earth1 but civilized1 civil or spiritual stone1 a phrase minted for ever1 monumentum re perennius1 more enduring than bronze4 ,this dream of stone enters into the soul and sinks into it1 into the innermost depths of it1 into the soul's soul1 into what is innermost in the soul itself1 and it bears our soul along with it into the underlying substance of all souls1 fugitive waves submerged in the sea of souls4 ,is it a sea8 ,is it liquid8 ,is it not rather a rocky floor1 a plain1 a stony stratum of many mansions for civil human thought to dwell in8 ,and is not each one of our souls a stone which life hews--hews with hammer-strokes of sorrow and joy1 of hate and love1 of memory and hope--so that it may fit into the great civil1 human cathedral1 in the temple of our civil and human ,god8 ,it was but yesterday1 but a moment ago1 that is to say it was five and twenty years ago--the third of a full lifetime--that ,i first saw you1 tower of ,monterrey1 and you carry me beyond1 far beyond1 those twenty-five years1 back to when1 before ever ,i was born1 ,i beheld you--where8--and in beholding you1 you carry me from the midst of these twenty-five years1 beyond1 far beyond1 to when1 after ,i am dead and dead indeed1 ,i shall go on beholding you--this vision of you which in the clarified frosty light is imprinted on my soul will abide with me1 at rest and buried deep in the sea of souls4 ,dream abides4 ,it is the only thing that abides2 vision abides4 ,spirit1 when it suffers or rejoices1 when it hates or loves1 when it remembers or hopes1 becomes earth1 becomes water1 becomes fire or becomes air2 and stone1 when it thinks and thinks civilly1 becomes abiding spirit1 congealed1 crystallized1 substantivated4 ,this tower is a diamond of spirit4 ,and what does it say8 ,it says nothing that is not itself2 it says itself1 it proclaims itself immortal1 it affirms itself4 ,no matter if an earthquake or a bombardment--which is another earthquake--or any other accident that the hate of ,nature or of man may bring about1 throws you to the ground and scatters your stones in confusion1 tower of ,monterrey1 for the vision of you will remain4 ,it will remain fused in the souls which behold you4 ,and to the soul that beholds you1 tower of ,monterrey1 you say that he says the utmost that can be said who says himself1 who expresses his person1 who strips his spirit naked in the icy-clear light of the civil world1 standing statue-like before the world of men4 ,the greatest thing that men can see is another man1 and if they but once saw him utterly and completely1 they would carry him with them for ever4 ,and this tower and other towers fill our soul with the tormenting longing to say the unsayable1 to leave in words that are borne on wings of sound and pass away and are lost1 something that does not pass away and is never lost4 ,to say what one sees and to say it so that it is seen in being heard2 to see what is heard3 that is the whole secret of ,art4 ,art makes the blind to see--and many are blind whose eyes reflect the images of what they see upon the mind--and it makes them see with the word2 ,art makes the deaf to hear--and many are deaf whose ears vibrate with the sounds they hear round about them--and it makes them hear with the vision4 ,a poem gives sight to the blind2 a picture gives hearing to the deaf4 ,art fuses the senses1 descending to that which unites them in a common root and ascending to that which also unites them in a common crown4 ,tower of ,monterrey1 not the tower which ,i see with my eyes when ,i go forth from my house on these benumbing mornings of clarified light to read the divine ,plato with my pupils--,o noble word degraded to so ignoble use6--my tower of ,monterrey1 the tower that ,i carry in the crystal of my mind1 as if it were a vision which by some enchantment had remained frozen for ever upon the frozen surface of a lake1 this tower of mine tells me that he who says himself remains for ever too4 ,it matters not1 my soul1 what you say if you say yourself4 ,for what art thou but a phrase in the thought of ,god8 ,the thought of ,god is ,history3 human history1 civil history1 the history of this civil humanity in which ,god became man and dwelt among men1 and proclaimed that ,his kingdom1 the kingdom of ,god1 that is1 the kingdom of ,man1 the kingdom of ,god-,man1 is not of this world of sorrows and joys1 of hates and loves1 of memories and hopes4 ,for the kingdom of ,god1 the kingdom of ,man1 is of thought1 which is above sorrow and joy1 above hate and love1 above memory and hope1 although it is made of these1 as the towers that abide in ,history are made of stones4 ,the thought of ,god is ,history2 ,history is what ,god thinks1 what ,he goes on thinking4 ,and he who lives in ,history1 more or less audible and visible1 whatever the fashion of his life1 however far beneath the surface1 lives in the thought of ,god1 and1 abiding in ,god's thought1 he abides in ,god4 ,and everyone who1 willingly or unwillingly1 knowingly or unknowingly1 helps to make ,history1 lives in ,history2 everyone1 however obscurely and hesitatingly he lives1 who has civil consciousness4 ,absolute death is unconsciousness4 ,and this my tower of ,monterrey speaks to me of our ,renaissance1 of the ,spanish renaissance1 of the eternal essence of ,spain1 and tells me to say my ,spanish self and to affirm that if life is dream1 dream is the only thing that abides1 and that the rest1 all that is not dream1 is nothing but a process of digestion that passes away1 as sorrow and joy1 hate and love1 memory and hope1 pass away4 ,yes1 life without dream is nothing but digestion and respiration1 breath that vanishes4 ,breath1 air1 pneuma1 anima1 spiritus1 such are the names that have been given to the life that animates the body but is not dream2 and the breath passes away1 but the dream abides4 8,life is dream60 affirmed the man1 the ,spaniard1 who believed in the eternal and the substantial1 and those who do not believe in it say in the foolishness of their hearts3 8,life is breath60 ,and the tower of ,monterrey1 my tower of ,monterrey1 my tower of the ,spanish renaissance1 of renaissant ,spanishness1 tells me that life is not breath that passes away and is lost1 but dream that abides and triumphs4 ,when ,i go forth in the morning and the tower says to me3 8,here am ,i60 ,i1 beholding it1 say to it3 8,here am ,i60 ,,appendix ,the foregoing essays are derived from the following works4 8,the ,spirit of ,castile0--,en ,torno al ,casticismo1 #ahie1 ,ensayos1 ,vol4 ,i4 8,spanish ,individualism0--,el ,individualismo ,espaol 7,a propsito del libro de ,martin ,a4 ,s4 ,hume1 8,the ,spanish ,people3 ,their ,origin1 ,growth and ,influence10 ,london1 #aija71 #aijb1 ,ensayos1 ,vol4 ,,iv4 8,some ,arbitrary ,reflections upon ,europeanization0--,sobre la ,europeizacion 7,arbitrariedades71 #aijf1 ,ensayos1 ,vol4 ,,vii4 8,the ,spanish ,christ0--,mi ,religin y ,otros ,ensayos 7,el ,cristo ,espaol71 #aiaj4 8,the ,sepulchre of ,don ,quixote0--,introduction to #bnd edition of ,la ,vida de ,don ,quijote y ,sancho1 #aiac4 7,originally published in ,la ,espaa ,moderna1 ,february1 #aijf47 8,the ,helmet of ,mambrino0--,la ,vida de ,don ,quijote y ,sancho1 ,part ,i1 ,chap4 ,,xlv4 8,don ,quixote's ,niece0--,la ,vida de ,don ,quijote y ,sancho1 ,part ,,ii1 ,chap4 ,,lxxiv4 8,the ,religion of ,quixotism0--,del ,sentimiento ,trgico de la ,vida 7,don ,quijote en la ,tragi-,comedia ,europea ,contempornea71 #aiab4 8,large and ,small ,towns0--,por ,tierras de ,portugal y de ,espaa 7,grandes y ,pequeas ,ciudades71 #aijh4 8,to ,my ,readers0--,soliloquios y ,conversaciones 7,a ,mis ,lectores71 #aiaa4 8,soliloquies0--,soliloquios y ,conversaciones 7,soliloquios and ,desahogo ,lirico71 #aiaa4 8,my ,religion0--,mi ,religin y ,otros ,ensayos1 #aiaj4 8,solitude0--,soledad1 #aije1 ,ensayos1 ,vol4 ,,vi4 8,intellectuality and ,spirituality0--,intellectualidad y ,espiritualidad1 #aijd1 ,ensayos1 ,vol4 ,,iv4 8,the ,materialism of the ,masses0--,mi ,religin y ,otros ,ensayos1 7,materialismo ,popular1 #aiji74 8,the ,man of ,flesh and ,bone10 8,the ,problem of ,immortality10 8,creative ,faith0--,del ,sentimiento ,trgico de la ,vida1 #aiab4 8,the ,song of the ,eternal ,waters0--,mi ,religin y ,otros ,ensayos 7,el ,canto de las ,aguas ,eternas1 #aiji74 8,the ,tower of ,monterrey0--,andanzas y ,visiones ,espaolas 7,la ,torre de ,monterrey1 #aiaf74 ,,bibliography ,,paz ,,en ,,la ,,guerra 7,peace in ,war4 ,novel74 ,fernando ,f1 ,madrid1 #ahig4 ,,de ,,la ,,ense,,anza ,,superior ,,en ,,espa,a 7,secondary ,education in ,spain74 ,revista ,nueva1 ,madrid1 #ahii4 ,,tres ,,ensayos 7,three ,essays74 ,b4 ,rodriguez ,serra1 ,madrid1 #aijj4 ,,amor ,y ,,pedagogia 7,love and ,pedagogy4 ,novel74 ,heinrich y ,cia4 ,barcelona1 #aijb4 ,,paisajes 7,landscapes74 ,colon1 ,salamanca1 #aijb4 ,,de ,,mi ,,pais 7,about ,my ,country74 ,fernando ,f1 ,madrid1 #aijc4 ,,vida ,,de ,,don ,,quijote ,y ,,sancho segn ,miguel de ,cervantes ,saavedra explicada y comentada por ,miguel de ,unamuno 7,life of ,don ,quixote and ,sancho1 with explanation and commentary by ,miguel de ,unamuno74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aije4 ,second edition1 with introductory article1 ,el ,sepulcro de ,don ,quijote1 #aiac4 ,,poesias4 ,fernando ,f y ,victoriano ,suarez1 ,madrid1 #aijg4 ,,recuerdos ,,de ,,ni,,ez ,y ,,de ,,mocedad 7,recollections of ,childhood and ,youth74 ,fernando ,f y ,victoriano ,suarez1 ,madrid1 #aijh4 ,,mi ,,religion ,y ,,otros ,,ensayos ,,breves 7,my ,religion and other short essays74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiaj4 ,,por ,,tierras ,,de ,,portugal ,y ,,de ,,espa,a 7,travels in ,portugal and ,spain74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiaa4 ,,rosario ,,de ,,sonetos ,,liricos 7,rosary of ,lyrical ,sonnets74 ,fernando ,f y ,victoriano ,suarez1 ,madrid1 #aiaa4 ,,soliloquios ,y ,,conversaciones 7,soliloquies and ,conversations74 ,biblioteca ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiab4 ,,contra ,,esto ,y ,,aquello 7,against ,this and ,that74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiab4 ,,el ,,porvenir ,,de ,,espa,a 7,the ,future of ,spain4 ,a series of open letters exchanged between ,miguel de ,unamuno and ,angel ,ganivet1 reprinted from ,el ,defensor de ,granada74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiab4 ,,el ,,espejo ,,de ,,la ,,muerte 7,the ,mirror of ,death4 ,short ,stories74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiac4 ,,del ,,sentimiento ,,tr,,gico ,,de ,,la ,,vida ,,en ,,los ,,hombres ,y ,,en ,,los ,,pueblos 7,the ,tragic ,sense of ,life in ,men and ,peoples74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiac4 ,,niebla 7,mist4 ,novel74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiad4 ,,ensayos 7,essays4 ,collected ,edition1 #g ,vols474 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiaf-ah4 ,,abel ,s,,nchez1 una historia de pasin 7,abel ,snchez1 a story of passion4 ,novel74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiag4 ,,tres ,,novelas ,,ejemplares ,y ,,un ,,pr,,logo 7,three ,exemplary ,novels and a ,prologue74 ,calpe1 ,madrid and ,barcelona1 #aibj4 ,,el ,,cristo ,,de ,,velasquez 7,the ,christ of ,velasquez4 ,poem74 ,calpe1 ,madrid1 #aibj4 ,,la ,,tia ,,tula 7,aunt ,tula4 ,novel74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aiba4 ,,andanzas ,y ,,visiones ,,espa,,olas 7,things ,done and ,seen in ,spain74 ,renacimiento1 ,madrid1 #aibb4 ,,fedra 7,play1 originally published in ,la ,pluma74 ,madrid1 #aibd4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,pues el delito mayor ,del hombre es haber nacido4 --,,calderon1 ,la ,vida es ,sueo1 ,act ,i1 ,scene ,,ii4 #b ,unamuno describes his 8,commentary upon the ,life of ,don ,quixote0 as 8a free and personal exegesis40 8,i do not think ,i need repeat10 he says in his preface1 8that ,i feel myself to be a ,quixotist rather than a ,cervantist and that ,i have allowed myself sometimes even to differ from the way in which ,cervantes understood and dealt with his two heroes4 ,the truth is1 ,i believe that these fictitious personages possess a life of their own1 with a certain autonomy1 within the mind of the author who created them1 and that they obey an inner logic of which the author himself is not wholly conscious40 ,cervantes did not so much create them1 he maintains1 as derive them from the spiritual depths of the ,spanish people1 and therefore it is possible for us to understand them better even than their author4 ,it may be conjectured that ,unamuno can never quite forgive the slightly ironical attitude that ,cervantes always adopts towards his hero4 #c ,it will be remembered that ,don ,quixote1 otherwise known as ,alonso ,quixano1 when he turned knight-errant1 resolved that it was proper for him to have some lady to whom he might send the trophies of his valour4 ,accordingly he chose for his mistress one ,aldonza ,lorenzo1 8a good1 likely country lass10 for whom he had long cherished an unavowed passion4 ,he bestowed upon her the name of ,dulcinea1 with the addition of ,del ,toboso from the place where she was born4 ,according to ,unamuno's exegesis1 ,dulcinea stands 8for glory1 for life1 for survival40 #d ,the ,basque race4 #e ,this is the definition given by the ,real ,academia de la ,lengua4 #f 8,human ,personality and ,its ,survival of ,bodily ,death10 by ,frederic ,w4 ,h4 ,myers4 ,chap4 #c1 para4 #cjf4 #g ,the leap from the 8,critique of ,pure ,reason10 in which he subjected the traditional proofs of the existence of ,god to a destructive analysis1 to the 8,critique of ,practical ,reason10 in which he reconstructed ,god1 but the ,god of the conscience1 the ,author of the moral order4 #h ,to think as you think1 all that is necessary is to possess nothing more than intelligence4 #i ,james ,thomson1 author of 8,the ,city of ,dreadful ,night40 #aj ,essai sur l'indiffrence en matire de religion1 ,part ,,iii1 chap4 lxvii4 ,typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber3 example1 to snythetize example1 to synthetize pg vii possibly unfamilar possibly unfamiliar pg #ad inadequate susbtitute inadequate substitute pg #ae uniqueness and indestrucibility uniqueness and indestructibility pg #bg that of the the immense plain that of the immense plain pg #cc the suppostion that the supposition that pg #dh innate atttractions innate attractions pg #ee it sees a tryant it sees a tyrant pg #gj not know know what not know what pg #aaa not for philosphers not for philosophers pg #abb ,schopenhauer and ,neitzsche ,schopenhauer and ,nietzsche pg #aea the poltical question the political question pg #afe making ricidulous making ridiculous pg #agd cummunicate itself communicate itself pg #agf a social instituion a social institution pg #ahh people is a a leader people is a leader pg #bjb shadow of uncertainity shadow of uncertainty pg #bad heroic dsepair heroic despair pg #baf supreme ,achitect supreme ,architect pg #bce