It is obvious Turgenev felt that after a tragedy must follow_All Things are Possible

ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE

BY LEO SHESTOV

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION

BY S. S. KOTELIANSKY

WITH A FOREWORD BY

D. H. LAWRENCE

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER

1920

NOTE

Leo Shestov is one of the living Russians. He is about fifty years old.

He was born at Kiev, and studied at the university there. His first

book appeared in 1898, since which year he has gradually gained an

assured position as one of the best critics and essayists in Russia. A

list of his works is as follows:--

1898. Shakespeare and his Critic, Brandes.

1900. Good in the Teaching of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: Philosophy and

Preaching.

1903. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy.

1905. The Apotheosis of Groundlessness (here translated under the title

"All Things are Possible").

1908. Beginnings and Ends.

1912. Great Vigils.

FOREWORD

_In his paragraph on The Russian Spirit, Shestov gives us the real clue

to Russian literature. European culture is a rootless thing in the

Russians. With us, it is our very blood and bones, the very nerve and

root of our psyche. We think in a certain fashion, we feel in a certain

fashion, because our whole substance is of this fashion. Our speech and

feeling are organically inevitable to us_.

_With the Russians it is different. They have only been inoculated with

the virus of European culture and ethic. The virus works in them like a

disease. And the inflammation and irritation comes forth as literature.

The bubbling and fizzing is almost chemical, not organic. It is an

organism seething as it accepts and masters the strange virus. What

the Russian is struggling with, crying out against, is not life itself:

it is only European culture which has been introduced, into his psyche,

and which hurts him. The tragedy is not so much a real soul tragedy,

as a surgical one. Russian art, Russian literature after all does not

stand on the same footing as European or Greek or Egyptian art. It is

not spontaneous utterance. It is not the flowering of a race. It is a

surgical outcry, horrifying, or marvellous, lacerating at first; but

when we get used to it, not really so profound, not really ultimate, a

little extraneous_.

_What is valuable, is the evidence against European culture, implied

in the novelists, here at last expressed. Since Peter the Great Russia

has been accepting Europe, and seething Europe down in a curious

process of katabolism. Russia has been expressing nothing inherently

Russian. Russia's modern Christianity even was not Russian. Her

genuine Christianity, Byzantine and Asiatic, is incomprehensible to

us. So with her true philosophy. What she has actually uttered is her

own unwilling, fantastic reproduction of European truths. What she

has really to utter the coming centuries will hear. For Russia will

certainly inherit the future. What we already call the greatness of

Russia is only her pre-natal struggling_.

_It seems as if she had at last absorbed and overcome the virus of

old Europe. Soon her new, healthy body will begin to act in its own

reality, imitative no more, protesting no more, crying no more, but

full and sound and lusty in itself. Real Russia is born. She will

laugh at us before long. Meanwhile she goes through the last stages of

reaction against us, kicking away from the old womb of Europe_.

_In Shestov one of the last kicks is given. True, he seems to be only

reactionary and destructive. But he can find a little amusement at last

in tweaking the European nose, so he is fairly free. European idealism

is anathema. But more than this, it is a little comical. We feel the

new independence in his new, half-amused indifference_.

_He is only tweaking the nose of European idealism. He is preaching

nothing: so he protests time and again. He absolutely refutes any

imputation of a central idea He is so afraid lest it should turn out to

be another hateful hedge-stake of an ideal_.

"_Everything is possible"--this is his really central cry. It is not

nihilism. It is only a shaking free of the human psyche from old bonds.

The positive central idea is that the human psyche, or soul, really

believes in itself, and in nothing else_.

_Dress this up in a little comely language, and we have a real new

ideal, that will last us for a new, long epoch. The human soul itself

is the source and well-head of creative activity. In the unconscious

human soul the creative prompting issues first into the universe.

Open the consciousness to this prompting, away with all your old

sluice-gates, locks, dams, channels. No ideal on earth is anything

more than an obstruction, in the end, to the creative issue of the

spontaneous soul. Away with all ideals. Let each individual act

spontaneously from, the forever-incalculable prompting of the creative

well-head within him. There is no universal law. Each being is, at his

purest, a law unto himself, single, unique, a Godhead, a fountain from

the unknown_.

_This is the ideal which Shestov refuses positively to state, because

he is afraid it may prove in the end a trap to catch his own free

spirit. So it may. But it is none the less a real, living ideal for the

moment, the very salvation. When it becomes ancient, and like the old

lion who lay in his cave and whined, devours all its servants, then it

can be despatched. Meanwhile it is a really liberating word_.

_Shestov's style is puzzling at first. Having found the "ands" and

"buts" and "becauses" and "therefores" hampered him, he clips them all

off deliberately and even spitefully, so that his thought is like a man

with no buttons on his clothes, ludicrously hitching along all undone.

One must be amused, not irritated. Where the armholes were a bit tight,

Shestov cuts a slit. It is baffling, but really rather piquant.

The real conjunction, the real unification lies in the reader's own

amusement, not in the author's unbroken logic_.

D. H. LAWRENCE.

PART I

_Zu fragmentarisch ist Welt und Leben_.

H. HEINE.

The obscure streets of life do not offer the conveniences of the

central thoroughfares: no electric light, no gas, not even a kerosene

lamp-bracket. There are no pavements: the traveller has to fumble his

way in the dark. If he needs a light, he must wait for a thunderbolt,

or else, primitive-wise, knock a spark out of a stone. In a glimpse

will appear unfamiliar outlines; and then, what he has taken in he

must try to remember, no matter whether the impression was right or

false. For he will not easily get another light, except he run his head

against a wall, and see sparks that way. What can a wretched pedestrian

gather under such circumstances? How can we expect a clear account from

him whose curiosity (let us suppose his curiosity so strong) led him to

grope his way among the outskirts of life? Why should we try to compare

his records with those of the travellers through brilliant streets?

The law of sequence in natural phenomena seems so plausible, so

obvious, that one is tempted to look for its origin, not in the

realities of actual life, but in the promptings of the human mind. This

law of sequence is the most mysterious of all the natural laws. Why so

much order? Why not chaos and disorderliness? Really, if the hypothesis

of sequence had not offered such blatant advantages to the human

intelligence, man would never have thought of raising it to the rank of

eternal and irrefutable truth. But he saw his opportunity. Thanks to

the grand hypothesis, man is forewarned and forearmed. Thanks to this

master-key, the future is at his mercy. He knows, in order that he may

foreknow: _savoir pour prévoir_. Here, is man, by virtue of one supreme

assumption, dictator henceforward of all nature. The philosophers

have ever bowed the knee to success. So down they went before the

newly-invented law of natural sequence, they hailed it with the title

of eternal truth. But even this seemed insufficient. _L'appétit vient

en mangeant_. Like the old woman in the fairy-tale about the golden

fish, they had it in their minds that the fish should do their

errands. But some few people at last could not stand this impudence.

Some very few began to object....

The comfortable settled man says to himself: "How could, one live

without being sure of the morrow; how could one sleep without a roof

over one's head?" But misfortune turns him out of house and home.

He must perforce sleep under a hedge. He cannot rest, he is full of

terrors. There may be wild beasts, fellow-tramps. But in the long run

he gets used to it. He will trust himself to chance, live like a tramp,

and sleep his sleep in a ditch.

A writer, particularly a young and inexperienced writer, feels himself

under an obligation to give his reader the fullest answers to all

possible questions. Conscience will not let him shut his eyes to

tormenting problems, and so he begins to speak of "first and ultimate

things." As he cannot say anything profitable on such subjects--for it

is not the business of the young to be profoundly philosophical--he

grows excited, he shouts himself to hoarseness. In the end he is

silent from exhaustion. And then, if his words have had any success

with the public, he is astonished to find that he has become a prophet.

Whereupon, if he be an average sort of person, he is filled with an

insatiable desire to preserve his influence till the end of his days.

But if he be more sensitive or gifted than usual, he begins to despise

the crowd for its vulgar credulity, and himself for having posed in the

stupid and disgraceful character of a clown of lofty ideas.

How painful it is to read Plato's account of the last conversations of

Socrates! The days, even the hours of the old man are numbered, and

yet he talks, talks, talks.... Crito comes to him in the early morning

and tells him that the sacred ships will shortly return to Athens. And

at once Socrates is ready to talk, to argue.... It is possible, of

course, that Plato is not altogether to be trusted. It is said that

Socrates observed, of the dialogues already written down by Plato.

"How much that youth has belied me!" But then from all sources we have

it, that Socrates spent the month following his verdict in incessant

conversations with his pupils and friends. That is what it is to be a

beloved master, and to have disciples. You can't even die quietly....

The best death is really the one which is considered the worst: to die

alone, in a foreign land, in a poor-house, or, as they say, like a dog

under a hedge. Then at least one may spend one's last moments honestly,

without dissembling or ostentation, preparing oneself for the dreadful,

or wonderful, event. Pascal, as his sister tells us, also talked a

great deal before his death, and de Musset cried like a baby. Perhaps

Socrates and Pascal talked so much, for fear they should start crying.

It is a false shame!

The fact that some ideas, or some series of ideas, are materially

unprofitable to mankind cannot serve as a justification for their

rejection. Once an idea is there, the gates must be opened to it. For

if you close the gates, the thought will force a way in, or, like the

fly in the fable, will sneak through unawares. Ideas have no regard for

our laws of honour or morality. Take for example realism in literature.

At its appearance it aroused universal indignation. Why need we know

the dirt of life? And honestly, there _is_ no need. Realism could give

no straightforward justification for itself. But, as it had to come

through, it was ready with a lie; it compared itself to pathology,

called itself useful, beneficial, and so obtained a place. We can all

see now that realism is _not_ beneficial, but harmful, very harmful,

and that it has nothing in common with pathology. Nevertheless, it is

no longer easy to drive it from its place. The prohibition evaded,

there is now the _justus titulus possessions_.

Count Tolstoy preached inaction. It seems he had no need. We "inact"

remarkably. Idleness, just that idleness Tolstoy dreamed of, a free,

conscious idling that despises labour, this is one of the chief

characteristics of our time. Of course I speak of the higher, cultured

classes, the aristocracy of spirit--"We write books, paint pictures,

compose symphonies"--But is that labour? It is only the amusement of

idleness. SO that Tolstoy is much more to the point when, forgetting

his preaching of inaction, he bids us trudge eight hours a day at the

tail of the plough. In this there is some sense. Idleness spoils

us. We were returning to the most primitive of all the states of our

forefathers. Like paradisal Adam and Eve, having no need to sweat for

our bread, we were trying to pilfer the fruit from the forbidden tree.

Truly we received a similar punishment. Divine laws are inscrutable.

In Paradise everything is permitted, except curiosity. Even labour

is allowed, though it is not obligatory, as it is outside. Tolstoy

realised the dangers of the paradisal state. He stooped to talk of

inaction for a moment--and then he began to work. Since in regular,

smooth, constant, rhythmical labour, whether it is efficient or whether

it merely appears efficient, like Tolstoy's farming, there is peace

of mind. Look at the industrious Germans, who begin and who end their

day with a prayer. In Paradise, where there is no labour, and no need

for long rest and heavy sleep, all temptations become dangerous. It

is a peril to live there.... Perhaps present-day people eschew the

paradisal state. They prefer work, for where there is no work there

is no smoothness, no regularity, no peacefulness, no satisfaction. In

Eden, even the well-informed individuals Cannot tell what will come

next, _savoir pour prévoir_ does not answer, and everlasting laws are

exposed to ridicule. Amongst ourselves also a few of the work-abjurors,

the idlers, are beginning to question our established knowledge. But

the majority of men, and particularly Germans, still defend _a priori_

judgments, on the ground that without these, perfect knowledge would

be impossible, there could be no regulation of the course of natural

phenomena, and no looking ahead.

To escape from the grasp of contemporary ruling ideas, one should study

history. The lives of other men in other lands in other ages teach

us to realise that our "eternal laws" and infallible ideas are just

abortions. Take a step further, imagine mankind living elsewhere than

on this earth, and all our terrestial eternalities lose their charm.

We know nothing of the ultimate realities of our existence, nor shall

we ever know anything. Let that be agreed. But it does not follow that

therefore we must accept some or other dogmatic theory as a _modus

vivendi_, no, not even positivism, which has such a sceptical face

on it. It only follows that man is free to change his conception of

the universe as often as he changes his boots or his gloves, and that

constancy of principle belongs only to one's relationships with other

people, in order that they may know where and to what extent they may

depend on us. Therefore, on principle man should respect order in the

external world and complete chaos in the inner. And for those who find

it difficult to bear such a duality, some internal order might also

be provided. Only, they should not pride themselves on it, but always

remember that it is a sign of their weakness, pettiness, dullness.

The Pythagoreans assumed that the sun is motionless and that the earth

turns round. What a long time the truth had to wait for recognition!

In spite of Epicurus and his exasperation we are forced to admit that

anything whatsoever may result from anything whatsoever. Which does

not mean, however, that a stone ever turned into bread, or that our

visible universe was ever "naturally" formed from nebulous puffs. But

from our own minds and our own experience we can deduce nothing that

would serve us as a ground for setting even the smallest limit to

nature's own arbitrary behaviour. If whatever happens now had chanced

to happen quite differently, it would not, therefore, have seemed any

the less _natural_ to us. In other words, although there may be an

element of inevitability in our human judgments concerning the natural

phenomena, we have never been able and probably never shall be able

to separate the grain of inevitable from the chaff of accidental and

casual truth. Moreover, we do not even know which is more essential

and important, the inevitable or the casual. Hence we are forced to

the conclusion that philosophy must give up her attempt at finding the

_veritates aeternae_. The business of philosophy is to teach man to

live in uncertainty--man who is supremely afraid of uncertainty, and

who is forever hiding himself behind this or the other dogma. More

briefly, the business of philosophy is not to reassure people, but to

upset them.

When man finds in himself a certain defect, of which he can by no means

rid himself, there remains but to accept the so-called failing as a

natural quality. The more grave and important the defect, the more

urgent is the need to ennoble it. From sublime to ridiculous is only

one step, and an ineradicable vice in strong men is always rechristened

a virtue.

On the whole, there is little to choose between metaphysics and

positivism. In each there is the same horizon, but the composition and

colouring are different. Positivism chooses grey, colourless paint

and ordinary composition; metaphysics prefers brilliant colouring

and complicated design, and always carries the vision away into the

infinite; in which trick it often succeeds, owing to its skill in

perspective. But the canvas is impervious, there is no melting through

it into "the other world." Nevertheless, skilful perspectives are very

alluring, so that metaphysicians will still have something to quarrel

about with the positivists.

The task of a writer: to go forward and share his impressions with his

reader. In spite of everything to the contrary, he is not obliged to

_prove_ anything. But, because every step of his progress is dogged by

those police agents, morality, science, logic, and so forth, he needs

always to have ready some sort of argument with which to frustrate

them. There is no necessity to trouble too deeply about the quality

of the argumentation. Why fret about being "inwardly right." It is

quite enough if the reasoning which comes handiest will succeed in

occupying those guardians of the verbal highways whose intention it is

to obstruct his passage.

The Secret of Poushkin's "inner harmony."--To Poushkin nothing was

hopeless. Nay, he saw hopeful signs in everything. It is agreeable to

sin, and it is just as delightful to repent. It is good to doubt, but

it is still better to believe. It is jolly "with feet shod in steel"

to skate the ice, it is pleasant to wander about with gypsies, to pray

in church, to quarrel with a friend, to make peace with an enemy, to

swoon on waves of harmony, to weep over a passing fancy, to recall the

past, to peep into the future. Poushkin could cry hot tears, and he who

can weep can hope. "I want to live, so that I may think and suffer," he

says; and it seems as if the word "to suffer," which is so beautiful

in the poem, just fell in accidentally, because there was no better

rhyme in Russian for "to die." The later verses, which are intended to

amplify _to think and to suffer,_ prove this. Poushkin might repeat the

words of the ancient hero: "danger is dangerous to others, but not to

me." Therein lies the secret of his harmonious moods.

The well-trodden field of contemporary thought should be dug up.

Therefore, on every possible occasion, in season and out, the

generally-accepted truths must be ridiculed to death, and paradoxes

uttered in their place. Then we shall see....

What is a Weltanschauung, a world-conception, a philosophy? As we all

know, Turgenev was a realist, and from the first he tried to portray

life truthfully. Although we had had no precise exponents of realism,

yet after Poushkin it was impossible for a Russian writer to depart too

far from actuality. Even those who did not know what to do with "real

life" had to cope with it as best they could. Hence, in order that

the picture of life should not prove too depressing, the writer must

provide himself in due season with a philosophy. This philosophy still

plays the part of the magic wand in literature, enabling the author to

turn anything he likes into anything else.

Most of Turgenev's works are curious in respect of philosophy. But most

curious is his _Diary of a Superfluous Man_. Turgenev was the first to

introduce the term "a superfluous man" into Russian literature. Since

then an endless amount has been written about superfluous people,

although up till now nothing important has been added to what was

already said fifty years ago. There are superfluous people, plenty of

them. But what is to be done with them? No one knows. There remains

only to invent philosophies on their behalf. In 1850 Turgenev, then

a young man, thus solved the problem. He ends the _Diary_--with a

humorous postscript, supposed to have been scribbled by an impertinent

reader on the last fly-leaf of the MS.

_This MS. was ready and contents thereof disapproved_,

_by Peter Zudotyeshin. M.M.M.M_.

_Dear Sir, Peter Zudotyeshin, My dear Sir_.

It is obvious Turgenev felt that after a tragedy must follow a farce,

and therein lies the substance of his philosophy. It is also obvious

that in this feeling he has the whole of European civilisation behind

him. Turgenev was the most educated, the most cultured of all Russian

writers. He spent nearly all his life abroad, and absorbed into himself

all that European learning could offer. He knew this, although he never

directly admitted it, owing to an exaggerated modesty which sometimes

irritates us by its obviousness. He believed profoundly that only

learning, only European science could open men's eyes to life, and

explain all that needed explanation. According to this belief he judges

even Tolstoy. "The saddest instance of the lack of real freedom," the

sixty-year-old Turgenev writes _of War and Peace_, in his literary

memoirs: "the saddest instance of the lack of real freedom, arising

from the lack of real knowledge, is revealed to us in Leo Tolstoy's

latest work, a work which at the same time, by virtue of its creative,

poetic force, ranks almost first among all that has appeared in

Russian literature since 1840. No! without culture, without freedom in

the widest sense, freedom within oneself, freedom from preconceived

ideas, freedom with regard to one's own nation and history, without

this, the real artist is unthinkable; without this free air he cannot

breathe." Listening to Turgenev one might imagine that he had learned

some great secret in the West, a secret which gave him the right to

bear himself cheerfully and modestly when other people despaired and

lost their heads.... A year after the writing of the literary memoirs

above quoted, Turgenev happened to be present at the execution of the

notorious murderer, Tropman. His impressions are superbly rendered in a

long article called "Tropman's Execution." The description produces a

soul-shaking effect upon the reader; for I think I shall not exaggerate

if I say that the essay is one of the best, at least one of the most

vigorous of Turgenev's writings. It is true that Tolstoy describes

scenes of slaughter with no less vigour, and therefore the reader need

not yield too much to the artist's power. Yet when Turgenev relates

that, at the decisive moment, when the executioners like spiders on

a fly threw themselves on Tropman and bore him to the ground--"the

earth quietly swam away from under my feet"--we are forced to believe

him. Men respond only faintly to the horrors that take place around

them, except at moments, when the savage, crying incongruity and

ghastliness of our condition suddenly reveals itself vivid before our

eyes, and we are forced to know what we are. Then the ground slides

away from under our feet. But not for long. The horror of the sensation

of groundlessness quickly brings man to himself. He must forget

everything, he must only get his feet on earth again. In this sense

Turgenev proved himself in as risky a state at sixty as he was when, as

a young man, he wrote his _Diary of a Superfluous Man._ The description

of Tropman's execution ends with these words: "Who can fail to feel

that the question of capital punishment is one of the urgent, immediate

problems which modern humanity must settle? I shall be satisfied ...

if my story will provide even a few arguments for those who advocate

the abolition, or at least the suppression of the publicity of capital

punishments." Again the mountain has brought forth a mouse. After

a tragedy, a farce. Philosophy enters into her power, and the earth

returns under one's feet.

I emphasise and repeat: Turgenev is not alone responsible for his

attitude. With his lips speaks the whole of European civilisation. On

principle all insoluble problems are rejected. During her thousand

years of experience, the old civilisation has acquired the skill which

allows her children to derive satisfaction and benefit out of anything,

even the blood of their neighbour. Even the greatest horrors, even

crimes are beneficial, properly construed. Turgenev was, as we know,

a soft, "humane" man, an undoubted idealist. In his youth he had been

through the Hegelian school. And from Hegel he learned what an enormous

value education has, and how supremely important it is for an educated

man to have a complete and finished--most certainly a "finished"

philosophy.

To praise oneself is considered improper, immodest; to praise one's

own sect, one's own philosophy, is considered the highest duty. Even

the best writers have taken at least as much trouble to glorify their

philosophy as to found it, and have always had more success in the

former case than in the latter. Their ideas, whether proven or not, are

the dearest possession in life to them, in sorrow a consolation, in

difficulty a source of counsel. Even death is not terrible to ideas;

they will follow man beyond the grave, they are the only imperishable

riches. All this the philosophers repeat, very eloquently repeat and

reiterate concerning their ideas, not less skilfully than advocates

plead their cases on behalf of thieves and swindlers. But nobody has

ever yet called a philosopher "a hired conscience," though everybody

gives the lawyer this nickname. Why this partiality?

Certain savage tribes believe that their kings need no food, neither

to eat nor to drink. As a matter of fact, kings eat and drink, and

even relish a good mouthful more than ordinary mortals. So, having

no desire, even for the sake of form, to abstain too long, they not

infrequently interrupt the long-drawn-out religious ceremonies of

their tribes, in order to command refreshment for their frail bodies.

But none must witness, or even be aware of this refreshing, and so

while he eats the king is hidden within a purple pall. Metaphysicians

remind one of these savage kings. They want everyone to believe that

empiricism, which means all reality and substantial existence, is

nothing to them, they need only pure ideas for their existence. In

order to keep up this fiction, they appear before the world invested

in a purple veil of fine words. The crowd knows perfectly well that

it is all a take-in, but since it likes shows and bright colours, and

since also it has no ambition to appear too knowing, it rarely betrays

that it has caught the trick of the comedy. On the contrary, it loves

to pretend to be fooled, knowing by instinct that actors always do

their best when the audience believes implicitly in what happens. Only

inexperienced youths and children, unaware of the great importance of

the conventional attitude, now and then cry out in indignation and

give the lie to the performance: like the child in Andersen's story,

who so unexpectedly and inopportunely broke the general, deliberate

illusion by calling out--"But the king is naked." Of course everybody

knows without telling that the king is naked: that the metaphysicians

not only are unable to explain anything, but that hitherto they

have not been able to present even a single hypothesis free from

contradiction. It is necessary to pretend to believe that kings eat

nothing, that philosophers have divined the secrets of the universe,

that arbitrary theories are more precious than empirical harvests, and

so on. There remains only one difficulty: grownups may be won over to

the conventional lie, but what about the children? With them the only

remedy is the Pythagorean system of upbringing, so glorified by Hegel.

Children must keep silent and not raise their voice until they realise

that _some_ things may not be talked about. This is our method. With

us pupils remain silent, not only for five years, as the Pythagoreans

recommended, but for ten or more--until they have learned to speak like

their masters. And then they are granted a freedom which is no longer

any good to them. Perhaps they had wings, or might have had them, but

they have crawled all their life long in imitation of their masters,

so how can they now dream of flight? To a well-informed man, who has

studied much, the very thought of the possibility of tearing himself

away from the earth, even for a moment, is horrifying: as if he knew

beforehand what the result would be.

The best, the most effective way of convincing a reader is to begin

one's argument with inoffensive, commonplace assertions. When suspicion

has been sufficiently lulled, and a certainty has been begot that what

follows will be a confirmation of the readers own accepted views--then

has the moment arrived to speak one's mind openly, but still in the

same easy tone, as if there were no break in the flow of truisms. The

logical connection is unimportant. Consequence of manner and intonation

is much more impressive than consequence of ideas. The thing to do is

to go on, in the same suave tone, from uttering a series of banalities

to expressing a new and dangerous thought, without any break. If you

succeed in this, the business is done. The reader will not forget--the

new words will plague and torment him until he has accepted them.

The habit of logical thinking kills imagination. Man is convinced that

the only way to truth is through logic, and that any departure from

this way leads to error and absurdity. The nearer we approach the

ultimate questions of existence, in our departure from logicality,

the more deadly becomes the state of error we fall into. The Ariadne

ball has become all unwound long ago, and man is at the end of the

tether. But he does not know, he holds the end of the thread firmly,

and marks time with energy on the same spot, imagining his progress,

and little realising the ridiculous situation into which he has

fallen. How should he realise, considering the innumerable precautions

he has taken to prevent himself from losing the logical way? He had

better have stayed at home. Once he set out, once he decided to be

a Theseus and kill the Minotaur, he should have given himself up,

forfeited the old attachment, and been ready _never to escape from the

labyrinth_. True, he would have risked losing Ariadne: and this is

why long journeys should be undertaken only after family connections

have become a burden. Such being the case, a man deliberately cuts

the thread which binds him to hearth and home, so that he may have a

legitimate excuse to his conscience for not going back. Philosophy must

have nothing in common with logic; philosophy is an art which aims at

breaking the logical continuity of argument and bringing man out on

the shoreless sea of imagination, the fantastic tides where everything

is equally possible and impossible. Certainly it is difficult, given

sedentary habits of life, to be a good philosopher. The fact that the

fate of philosophy has ever lain in the hands of professors can only be

explained by the reluctance of the envious gods to give omniscience to

mortals. Whilst stay-at-home persons are searching for truth, the apple

will stay on the tree. The business must be undertaken by homeless

adventurers, born nomads, to whom _ubi bene ibi patria_. It seems to me

that but for his family and his domesticity, Count Tolstoy, who lives

to such a ripe old age, might have told us a great many important and

interesting things. Or, perhaps, had he not married, like Nietzsche

he would have gone mad. "If you turn to the right, you will marry, if

to the left, you will be killed." A true philosopher never chooses

the middle course; he needs no riches, he does not know what to do

with money. But whether he turns to the right or to the left, nothing

pleasant awaits him.

Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar. Culture is an age-long

development, and sudden grafting of it upon a race rarely succeeds.

To us in Russia, civilisation came suddenly, whilst we were still

savages. At once she took upon herself the responsibilities of a tamer

of wild animals, first working with decoys and baits, and later, when

she felt her power, with threats. We quickly submitted. In a short

time we were swallowing in enormous doses those poisons which Europe

had been gradually accustoming herself to, gradually assimilating

through centuries. Thanks to which, the transplanting of civilisation

into Russia turns out to be no mild affair. A Russian had only to

catch a whiff of European atmosphere, and his head began to swim. He

interpreted in his own way, savage-like, whatever he heard of western

success. Hearing about railways, agricultural machines, schools,

municipalities, his imagination painted miracles: universal happiness,

boundless freedom, paradise, wings, etc. And the more impossible his

dreams, the more eager he was to believe them real. How disillusioned

with Europe the westerner _Herzen_ became, after living for years on

end abroad! Yet, with all his acuteness, it did not occur to him that

Europe was not in the least to blame for his disillusionment. Europe

had dropped miracles ages ago; she contented herself with ideals. It

is we in Russia who will go on confusing miracles with ideals, as if

the two were identical, whereas they have nothing to do with each

other. As a matter of fact, just because Europe had ceased to believe

in miracles, and realised that all human problems resolve down to mere

arrangements here on earth, ideas and ideals had been invented. But

the Russian bear crept out of his hole and strolled to Europe for the

elixir of life, the flying carpet, the seven-leagued shoes, and so on,

thinking in all his naïveté that railways and electricity were signs

which clearly proved that the old nurse never told a lie in her fairy

tales.... All this happened just at the moment when Europe had finally

made away with alchemy and astrology, and started on the positive

researches resulting in chemistry and astronomy.

The first assumption of all metaphysics is, that by dialectic

development of any concept a whole system can be evolved. Of course the

initial concept, the _a priori_, is generally unsound, so there is no

need to mention the deductions. But since it is very difficult in the

realm of abstract thought to distinguish a lie from truth, metaphysical

systems often have a very convincing appearance. The chief defect only

appears incidentally, when the taste for dialectic play becomes blunted

in man, as it did in Turgenev towards the end of his life, so that he

realises the uselessness of philosophical systems. It is related that

a famous mathematician, after hearing a musical symphony to the end,

inquired, "What does it prove?" Of course, it proves nothing, except

that the mathematician had no taste for music. And to him who has no

taste for dialectics, metaphysics can prove nothing, either. Therefore,

those who are interested in the success of metaphysics must always

encourage the opinion that a taste for dialectics is a high distinction

in a man, proving the loftiness of his soul.

Man is used to having convictions, so there we are. We can none of us

do without our hangers-on, though we despise them at the bottom of our

souls.

Socrates and Plato tried to determine under the shifting change of

appearance the immutable, unchanging reality. In the Platonic "ideas"

the attempt was incarnated. The visible reality, never true to itself,

assuming numberless varying forms, this is not the genuine reality.

That which is real must be constant. Hence the ideas of objects are

real, and the objects themselves are fictitious. Thus the root of

the Platonic philosophy appears to be a fundamental defect in human

reasoning--a defect regarded as the highest merit. It is difficult

for the philosopher to get a good grasp of this agitated, capricious

life, and so he decides that it is not life at all, but a figment.

Dialectics is supreme only over general concepts--and the general

concepts are promoted to an ideal. Since Plato and Socrates, only

such philosophers have succeeded largely who have taught that the

unchangeable is preferable to the changeable, the eternal to the

temporal. The ordinary individual, who lives unconsciously, never

reckoning his spiritual credit against his spiritual debit, naturally

regards the philosopher as his legitimate book-keeper, keeper of

the soul's accounts. Already in Greece the Athenian youth watched

with passionate interest the dexterity which Socrates displayed in

his endeavour to restore by means of dialectics the lost "ultimate

foundations" of human conduct. Now in book-keeping, as we are aware,

not a single farthing must disappear untraceably. Socrates was trying

to come up to expectations. The balance between man's spiritual assets

and liabilities was with him ideally established. Perhaps in this

lies the secret of that strange attraction he exerted even over such

volatile and unsteady natures as that of Alcibiades, drawing the young

men to him so that they were attached to him with all their soul.

Alcibiades had long since lost all count of his spiritual estate, and

therefore from time to time he had need to recourse to Socrates, who

by speeches and dissertations could bring order into chaos and harmony

into the spiritual confusion of his young friend. Alcibiades turned to

Socrates to be relieved. Of course, he sought relief in order that

he might begin again his riotous living: rest is so sweet to a tired

man. But to conclude that because Alcibiades exhausted himself, and

because rest is sweet, therefore all men must rest, this is absurd. Yet

Socrates dictated this conclusion, in all his ideas. He wished that

all men should rest, rest through eternity, that they should see their

highest fulfilment in this resting. It is easier to judge of Socrates

since we have Count Tolstoy with us. Probably the physiognomist Topir

would say of Tolstoy as he said of Socrates, that there are many evil

propensities lurking in him. Topir is not here to speak, but Tolstoy

has told us himself how wicked he found his own nature, how he had to

struggle with it. Tolstoy is not naturally over-courageous; by long

effort he has trained himself to be bold. How afraid of death he was

in his youth And how cleverly he could conceal that fear. Later on,

in mature age, it was still the fear of death which inspired him to

write his confession. He was conquering that fear, and with it all

other fears. For he felt that, since fear is very difficult to master

in oneself, man must be a much higher being when he has learned not

to be afraid any more. Meanwhile, who knows? Perhaps "cowardice,"

that miserable, despicable, much-abused weakness of the underworld,

is not such a vice after all. Perhaps it is even a virtue. Think of

Dostoevsky and his heroes, think of Hamlet. If the underworld man in us

were afraid of nothing, if Hamlet was naturally a gladiator, then we

should have neither tragic poetry nor philosophy. It is a platitude,

that fear of death has been the inspiration of philosophers. Numberless

quotations could be drawn from ancient and modern writers, if they

were necessary. Maybe the poetic daimon of Socrates, which made him

wise, was only fear personified. Or perhaps it was his dark dreams.

That which troubled him by day did not quit him by night. Even after

the sentence of death Socrates dreamed that he ought to engage in the

arts, so in order not to provoke the gods he began to compose verses,

at the age of seventy. Tolstoy also at the age of fifty began to

perform good deeds, to which performance he had previously given not

the slightest attention. If it were our custom nowadays to express

ourselves mythologically, we should no doubt hear Tolstoy telling us

about his daimon or his dreams. Instead he squares his accounts with

science and morality, in place of gods or demons. Many a present-day

Alcibiades, who laves all the week in the muddy waters of life, comes

on Sundays to cleanse himself in the pure stream of Tolstoyian ideas.

Book-keeping is satisfied with this modest success, and assumes that

if it commands universal attention one day in the week, then obviously

it is the sum and essence of life, beyond which man needs nothing. On

the same grounds the keepers of public baths could argue that, since

so many people come to them on Saturdays, therefore cleanliness is the

highest ambition of man, and during the week no one should stir at all,

lest he sweat or soil himself.

In an old French writer, a contemporary of Pascal, I came across

the following remarkable words: "L'homme est si miserable que

_l'inconstance avec laquelle il abandonne ses desseins est, en quelque

sorte, sa plus grande vertu_; parce qu'il temoigne par là qu'il y a

encore en lui quelque reste de grandeur qui le porte à se dégouter de

choses qui ne méritent pas son amour et son estime." What a long way

modern thought has travelled from even the possibility of such an

assumption. To consider inconstancy the finest human virtue! Surely in

order to get somewhere in life it is necessary to give the whole self,

one's whole energy to the service of some one particular purpose. In

order to be a _virtuoso_, a master of one's art and one's instrument,

it is necessary with a truly angelic or asinine patience to try over

and over again, dozens, hundreds, thousands of times, different ways

of expressing one's ideas or moods, sparing neither labour, nor time,

nor health. Everything else must take a second place. The first must

be occupied by "the Art." Goncharov, in his novel _Obryv_, cleverly

relates how a 'cellist struggled all day, like a fish against the ice,

sawing and sawing away, so that later on, in the evening, he might play

super-excellently well. And that is the general idea. Objectionable,

tedious, irritating labour,--this is the condition of genius, which no

doubt explains the reason why men so rarely achieve anything. Genius

must submit to cultivate an ass within itself--the condition being so

humiliating that man will seldom take up the job. The majority prefer

talent, that medium which lies between genius and mediocrity. And many

a time, towards the end of life, does the genius repent of his choice.

"It would be better not to startle the world, but to live at one with

it," says Ibsen in his last drama. Genius is a wretched, blind maniac,

whose eccentricities are condoned because of what is got from him. And

still we all bow to persevering talent, to the only god in whom we

moderns believe, and the eulogy of inconstancy will awake very little

sympathy in our hearts. Probably we shall not even regard it seriously.

We very often express in a categorical form a judgment of which we do

not feel assured, we even lay stress on its absolute validity. We want

to see what opposition it will arouse, and this can be achieved only by

stating our assumption not as a tentative suggestion, which no one will

consider, but as an irrefutable, all-important truth. The greater the

value an assumption has for us, the more carefully do we conceal any

suggestion of its improbability.

Literature deals with the most difficult and important problems of

existence, and, therefore, littérateurs consider themselves the most

important of people. A bank clerk, who is always handing money out,

might just as well consider himself a millionaire. The high estimate

placed upon unexplained, unsolved questions ought really to discredit

writers in our eyes. And yet these literary men are so clever, so

cunning at stating their own case and revealing the high importance of

their mission, that in the long run they convince everybody, themselves

most of all. This last event is surely owing to their own limited

intelligence. The Romans augurs had subtler, more versatile minds. In

order to deceive others, they had no need to deceive themselves. In

their own set they were not afraid to talk about their secrets, even

to make fun of them, being fully confident that they could easily

vindicate themselves before outsiders, in case of necessity, and pull

a solemn face befitting the occasion. But our writers of to-day,

before they can lay their improbable assertions before the public,

must inevitably try to be convinced in their own minds. Otherwise they

cannot begin.

"The writer is writing away, the reader is reading away"--the writer

doesn't care what the reader is after, the reader doesn't care what the

writer is about. Such a state of things hurt Schedrin very much. He

would have liked it different; no sooner has the writer said a word,

than the reader at once scales the wall. This was his ideal. But the

reader is by no means so naive as all that. He prefers to rest easy,

and insists that the writer shall climb the wall for him. So those

authors succeed with the public who write "with their heart's blood."

Conventional tournaments, even the most brilliant, do not attract the

masses any more than the connoisseurs. People rush to see a fight of

gladiators, where awaits them a scent of real, hot, smoking blood,

where they are going to see real, not pretended victims.

Thus many writers, like gladiators, shed their blood to gratify that

modern Caesar, the mob. "_Salve, Caesar, morituri te salutant_!"

Anton Tchekhov tells the truth neither out of love or respect for the

truth, nor yet because, in the Kantian manner, a high duty bids him

never to tell a lie, even to escape death. Neither has he the impulse

which so often pushes young and fiery souls into rashness; that desire

to stand erect, to keep the head high. On the contrary, Tchekhov always

walks with a stoop, his head bent down, never fixing his eyes on the

heavens, since he will read no signs there. If he tells the truth, it

is because the most reeking lie no longer intoxicates him, even though

he swallow it not in the modest doses that idealism offers, but in

immoderate quantities, thousand-gallon-barrel gulps. He would taste the

bitterness, but it would not make his head turn, as it does Schiller's,

or Dostoevsky's, or even Socrates', whose head, as we know, could stand

any quantity of wine, but went spinning with the most commonplace lie.

_Noblesse Oblige_.--The moment of obligation, compulsion, duty, that

moment described by Kant as the essential, almost the only predicate

of moral concepts, serves chiefly to indicate that Kant was modest in

himself and in his attitude towards all whom he addressed, perceiving

in all men beings subject to the ennobling effect of morality.

_Noblesse oblige_ is a motto not for the aristocracy, which recognises

in its privileges its own instant duties, but for the self-made,

wealthy _parvenues_ who pant for an illustrious title. They have

been accustomed to telling lies, to playing poltroon, swindling, and

meanness, and the necessity for speaking the truth impartially, for

bravely facing danger, for freely giving of their fortunes scares

them beyond measure. Therefore it is necessary that they should

repeat it to themselves and to their children, in whose veins the

lying, sneaking blood still runs, hourly, lest they forget: "You must

not tell lies, you must be open, magnanimous." It is silly, it is

incomprehensible--but "_noblesse oblige_."