[1]
Pues el delito mayor
Del hombre es haber nacido.
--CALDERON, _La Vida es Sueño_, Act I, Scene II.
[2] Unamuno describes his “Commentary upon the Life of Don Quixote” as
“a free and personal exegesis.” “I do not think I need repeat,” he says
in his preface, “that 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 heroes.
The truth is, I believe that these fictitious personages possess a
life of their own, with a certain autonomy, within the mind of the
author who created them, and that they obey an inner logic of which
the author himself is not wholly conscious.” Cervantes did not so much
create them, he maintains, as derive them from the spiritual depths of
the Spanish people, and therefore it is possible for us to understand
them better even than their author. It may be conjectured that Unamuno
can never quite forgive the slightly ironical attitude that Cervantes
always adopts towards his hero.
[3] It will be remembered that Don Quixote, otherwise known as Alonso
Quixano, when he turned knight-errant, resolved that it was proper
for him to have some lady to whom he might send the trophies of his
valour. Accordingly he chose for his mistress one Aldonza Lorenzo, “a
good, likely country lass,” for whom he had long cherished an unavowed
passion. He bestowed upon her the name of Dulcinea, with the addition
of Del Toboso from the place where she was born.
According to Unamuno’s exegesis, Dulcinea stands “for glory, for life,
for survival.”
[4] The Basque race.
[5] This is the definition given by the _Real Academia de la Lengua_.
[6] “Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death,” by Frederic
W. H. Myers. Chap. 3, para. 306.
[7] The leap from the “Critique of Pure Reason,” in which he subjected
the traditional proofs of the existence of God to a destructive
analysis, to the “Critique of Practical Reason,” in which he
reconstructed God, but the God of the conscience, the Author of the
moral order.
[8] To think as you think, all that is necessary is to possess nothing
more than intelligence.
[9] James Thomson, author of “The City of Dreadful Night.”
[10] _Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion_, Part III, chap.
lxvii.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
example, to snythetize=> example, to synthetize {pg vii}
possibly unfamilar=> possibly unfamiliar {pg 14}
inadequate susbtitute=> inadequate substitute {pg 15}
uniqueness and indestrucibility=> uniqueness and indestructibility {pg
27}
that of the the immense plain=> that of the immense plain {pg 33}
the suppostion that=> the supposition that {pg 48}
innate atttractions=> innate attractions {pg 55}
it sees a tryant=> it sees a tyrant {pg 70}
not know know what=> not know what {pg 111}
not for philosphers=> not for philosophers {pg 122}