it is to lose for ever not only the reputation of a writer, but even
of a man. None the less, "conscience" demands such a confession. True,
in this case as in most others the demands of conscience are satisfied
only when they incur no very dire consequences. Leaving aside the fact
that people are no longer terrified of the once-so-terrible public
opinion (the public has been tamed, it listens with reverence to what
is told to it, and never dares judge)--the admission "I do not know
myself what I want" seems to offer a guarantee of something important.
Those who know what they want generally want trifles, and attain to
inglorious ends: riches, fame, or at the best, progress or a philosophy
of their own. Even now it is sometimes not a sin to laugh at such
wonders, and may-be the time is coming when a rehabilitated Hamlet will
announce, not with shame but with pride: "I don't in the least know
what I want." And the crowd will applaud him, for the crowd always
applauds heroes and proud men.
63
Fear of death is explained conclusively by the desire for
self-preservation. But at that rate the fear should disappear in old
and sick people, who ought by nature to look with indifference on
death. Whereas the horror of death is present in all living things.
Does not this suggest that there is still some other reason for the
dread, and that even where the pangs of horror cannot save a man
from his end, still it is a necessary and purposeful anguish? The
natural-scientific explanation here, as usual, stops halfway, and
fails to lead the human mind to the promised goal.
64
Moral indignation is only a refined form of ancient vengeance. Once
anger spoke with daggers, now words will do. And happy is the man who,
loving and thirsting to chastise his offender, yet is appeased when the
offence is punished. On account of the gratification it offers to the
passions, morality, which has replaced bloody chastisement, will not
easily' lose its charm. But there are offences, deep, unforgettable
offences, inflicted not by people, but by "laws of nature." How are we
to settle these? Here neither dagger nor indignant word will serve.
Therefore, for him who has once run foul of the laws of nature morality
sinks, for ever or for a time, into subsidiary importance.
65
Fatalism frightens people particularly in that form which holds it just
to say, of anything that happens, or has happened, or will happen: be
it so! How can one acquiesce in the actuality of life, when it contains
so many horrors? But _amor fati_ does not imply eternal acquiescence
in actuality. It is only a truce, for a more or less lasting period.
Time is needed in which to estimate the forces and intentions of the
enemy. Under the mask of friendship the old enmity persists, and an
awful revenge is in preparation.
66
In the "ultimate questions of life" we are not a bit nearer the truth
than our ancestors were. Everybody knows it, and yet so many go on
talking about infinity, without any hope of ever saying anything. It
is evident that a result--in the usual acceptance of the word--is
not necessary. In the very last resort we trust to instinct, even in
the field of philosophy, where reason is supposed to reign supreme,
uttering its eternal "Why?" "Why?" laughs at all possible "becauses."
Instinct, however, does not mock. It simply ignores the whys, and
leads us by impossible ways to ends that our divine reason would hold
absurd, if it could only see them in time. But reason is a laggard,
without much foresight, and, therefore, when we have run up to an
unexpected conclusion, nothing remains but for reason to accept: or
even to justify, to exalt the new event. And therefore,--"reality is
reasonable," say the philosophers: reasonable, not only when they
draw their philosophic Salaries, as the socialists, and with them our
philosopher Vladimir Soloviov, explain; but still reasonable even
when philosophers have their maintenance taken away from them. Nay,
in the latter case, particularly in the latter case, in spite of the
socialists and VI. Soloviov, reality shows herself most reasonable. A
philosopher persecuted, downtrodden, hungry, cold, receiving no salary,
is nearly always an extreme fatalist--although this, of course, by no
means hinders him from abusing the existing order. Theories of sequence
and consequence, as we already know, are binding only upon disciples,
whose single virtue lies in their scrupulous, logical developing of the
master's idea. But masters themselves _invent_ ideas, and, therefore,
have the right to substitute one for another. The sovereign power which
proclaims a law has the same power to abolish it. But the duty of the
subordinate consists in the praise, in the consequential interpretation
and the strict observance of the dictates of the higher will.
67
The Pharisee in the parable fulfilled all that religion demanded of
him: kept his fasts, paid his tithes, etc. Had he a right to be pleased
with his own piety, and to despise the erring publican? Everybody
thought so, including the Pharisee himself. _The judgment of Christ
came as the greatest surprise to him_. He had a clear conscience.
He did not merely pretend before others to be righteous, he himself
believed in his own righteousness. And suddenly he turns out guilty,
awfully guilty. But if the conscience of a righteous man does not help
him to distinguish between good and evil, how is he to avoid sin? What
does Kant's moral law mean, that law which was as consoling as the
starry sky? Kant lived his life in profound peace of soul, he met his
death quietly, in the consciousness of his own purity. But if Christ
came again, he might condemn the serene philosopher for his very
serenity. For the Pharisee, we repeat, was righteous, if purity of
intentions, together with a firm readiness to fulfil everything which
appears, to him in the light of duty, be righteousness in a man.
68
We jeer and laugh at a man not because he is ridiculous, but because
_we_ want to have a laugh out of him. In the same way we are indignant,
not because this or the other act is revolting to us, but because we
want to let off our steam. But it does not follow from this that we
ought always to be calm and smooth. Woe to him who would try to realise
the ideal of justice on earth.
69
We think with peculiar intensity during the hard moments of our
life--we write when we have nothing else to do. So that a writer can
only communicate something of importance in reproducing the past. When
we are driven to think, we have unfortunately no mind to write, which
accounts for the fact that books are never more than a feeble echo of
what a man has gone through.
70
Tchekhov has a story called _Misfortune_ which well illustrates the
difficulty a man finds in adapting himself to a new truth, if this
truth threaten the security of his condition. The Merchant Avdeyer
does not believe that he is condemned, that he has been brought to
trial, and tried, and found guilty, for his irregularities in a public
bank. He still thinks the verdict is yet to come--he still waits. In
the world of learning something like this is happening. The educated
have become so accustomed to think themselves not guilty, perfectly
in the right, that they do not admit for a moment even now that they
are brought to court. When threatening voices reach them, calling
them to give an account of themselves, they only suspiciously shrug
their shoulders. "All this will pass away"--they think. Well, when at
last they are convinced that misfortune has befallen them, they will
probably begin to justify themselves, like Avdeyer, declaring that they
cannot even read printed matter sufficiently well. As yet, they pass
for respectable, wise, experienced, omniscient men.
71
If a man had come to Dostoevsky and said to him, "I am hopelessly
unhappy," the great artist in human misery would probably, at the
bottom of his soul, have laughed at the naïveté of the poor creature.
May one confess such things of oneself? May one go to such lengths of
complaint, and still expect consolation from his neighbour?
Hopelessness is the most solemn and supreme moment in life. Till that
point we have been assisted--now we are left to ourselves. Previously
we had to do with men and human laws--now with eternity, and with the
complete absence of laws. Is it not obvious?
72
Byelinsky, in his famous letter, accuses Gogol, among other things,
that in his _Correspondence with Friends_, he, Gogol, succumbs to the
fear of death, of devils, and of hell. I find the accusation just:
Gogol definitely feared death, demons, and hell. The point is, whether
it is not right to fear these things, and whether fearlessness would
be a proof of the high development of a man's soul. Schopenhauer
asserts that death inspired philosophy. All the best poetry, all the
wonderful mythology of the ancients and of modern peoples have for
their source the fear of death. Only modern science forbids men to
fear, and insists on a tranquil attitude towards death. So we arrive
at utilitarianism and the positivist philosophy. If you wish to be rid
of both these creeds you must be allowed to think again of death, and
without shame to fear hell and its devils. It may be there is really
a certain justification for concealing fears of such kind: in the
ability to conceal one's agitation at moments of great danger there
is a true beauty. But to deaden human sensitiveness and to keep the
human intelligence within the bounds of perception, such a task can
have charms only for a petty creature. Happily, mankind has no means by
which to perform on itself such monstrous castration. Persecuted Eros,
it is true, has hidden himself from the eyes of his enemies, but he
has never abjured himself; and even the strictest medieval monks could
not completely tear out their hearts from their breasts. Similarly
with the aspiration towards the infinite: science persecuted it and
put a veto on it. But laboratory workers themselves, sooner or later,
recover their senses, and thirstily long to get out of the enclosure of
positive knowledge, with that same thirsty longing that tortured the
monks who wanted to get out of the enclosure of monastery walls.
73
If fate--and they say there is such a law--punishes criminals, it has
its penalty also for the lovers of good. The former it throttles, the
latter it spits upon. The former end in bitter torment, the latter--in
ignominy.
74
Philosophy has always loved to occupy the position of a servant. In
the Middle Ages she was the _ancilla theologiæ_, nowadays she waits on
science. At the same time she calls herself the science of sciences.
75
I wonder which more effectually makes a man rush forwards without
looking back: the knowledge that behind him hovers the head of Medusa,
with horrible snakes, ready to turn him into stone; or the certainty
that in the rear lies the unchangeable order laid down by the law of
causality and by modern science. Judging from what we see, judging
from the degree of tension which human thought has reached to-day,
it would seem that the head of Medusa is less terrible than the law
of causality. In order to escape the latter, man will face anything.
Rather than return to the bosom of scientific cause and effect, he
embraces madness: not that fine frenzy of madness which spends itself
in fiery speeches, but technical madness, for which one is stowed away
in a lunatic asylum.
76
"To experience a feeling of joy or sorrow, of triumph or despair,
_ennui_ or happiness, and so on, without having sufficient cause for
such feeling, is an unfailing sign of mental disease...." One of the
modern truths which is seeing its last days.
77
Count Tolstoy's German biographer regrets the constant misunderstanding
and quarrels which took place between Tolstoy and Turgenev. He reminds
us of Goethe and Schiller, and thinks that Russian literature would
have gained a great deal if the two remarkable Russian writers had
been more pacific, had remained on constantly friendly terms with one
another, and bequeathed to posterity a couple of volumes of letters
dealing with literary and philosophic subjects. It might have been very
nice--but I refuse to imagine Tolstoy and Turgenev keeping up a long,
peaceful correspondence, particularly on high subjects. Nearly every
one of Turgenev's opinions drove Tolstoy to madness, or was capable of
so driving him. Dostoevsky's dislike of Turgenev was even stronger than
Tolstoy's; he wrote of him very spitefully and offensively, libelling
him rather than drawing a caricature. Evidently Dostoevsky, like
Tolstoy, detested the "European" in their _confrere._ But here he was
mistaken, in spite of his psychological acuteness. To Dostoevsky, it
was enough that Turgenev wore European clothes and tried to appear like
a westerner. He himself did the opposite: he tried to get rid of every
trace of Europeanism from himself, apparently without great success,
since he failed to make clear to himself wherein lay the strength of
Europe, and where her sting. Nevertheless, the late Mikhailovsky is not
wrong in calling Dostoevsky a seeker of buried treasure. Surely, in the
second half of his literary activity Dostoevsky no longer sought for
the real fruits of life. There awoke in him the Russian, the elemental
man, with a thirst for the miraculous. Compared with what he wanted,
the fruits of European civilisation seemed to him trivial, flat,
insipid. The age-long civilisation of his neighbours told him that
there never had been a miracle, and never would be. But all his being,
not yet broken-in by civilisation, craved for the stupendous unknown.
Therefore, the apparently-satisfied progressivist enraged him. Tolstoy
once said of Turgenev: "I hate his democratic backside." Dostoevsky
might have repeated these words.... And now, for the gratification
of the German critic, please reconcile the Russian writers and make
them talk serenely on high-flown matters! Dostoevsky was within a
hair's-breath of a quarrel with Tolstoy, with whom, not long before
death interrupted him, he began a long controversy concerning "Anna
Karenina." Even Tolstoy seemed to him too compliant, too accommodating.
78
We rarely make a display of that which is dear to us, near and dear
and necessary. On the other hand, we readily exhibit that which is
of no importance to us--there is nothing else to be done with it. A
man takes his mistress to the theatre and sticks her in full view of
everybody; he prefers to remain at home with the woman he loves, or to
go about with her quietly, unnoticed. So with our "Virtues." Every time
we notice in ourselves some quality we do not prize we haste to make a
show of it, thinking perhaps that someone would be glad of it. If it
wins us approval, we are pleased--so there is some gain. To an actor,
a writer, or an orator, his own antics, without which he can have no
success with the public, are often disgusting. And yet his knack of
making-such antics he considers a talent, a divine gift, and he would
rather die than that it should be lost to the public. Talent, on the
whole, is accounted a divine gift, only because it is always on show,
because it serves the public in some way or other. All our judgments
are permeated through and through with utilitarianism, and were we to
attempt to purify them from this adulteration what would remain of
modern philosophy? That is why youngish, inexperienced writers usually
believe in _harmonia praestabilitata_, even though they have never
heard of Leibnitz. They persuade themselves that there is no breach
between egoistic and idealistic aspirations; that, for instance, thirst
for fame and desire to serve mankind are one and the same thing. Such
a persuasion is usually very tenacious of life, and lasts long in men
of vigorous and courageous mind. It seems to me that Poushkin would not
have lost it, even had he lived to a prolonged old age. It was also
part of Turgenev's belief--if a man of his spiritual fibre could have
any belief. Tolstoy now believed, and now disbelieved, according to the
work he had in hand. When he had other people's ideas to destroy he
doubted the identity of egoistic and idealist aspirations; when he had
his own to defend, he believed in it. Which is a line of conduct worthy
of attention, and supremely worthy of imitation; for human truths are
proper exclusively for ancillary purposes....
79
Man is such a conservative creature that any change, even a change for
the better, scares him, he prefers the bad old way to the new good
one. A man who has been all his life a confirmed materialist would
not consent to believe that the soul was immortal, not if it were
proved to him _more geometrico,_ and not if he were a constitutional
coward, fearing death like Shakespeare's Falstaff. Then we must take
human conceit into account. Men do not like to admit themselves
wrong. It is absurd, but it is so. Men, trivial, wretched creatures,
proved by history and by every common event to be bunglers, yet must
needs consider themselves infallible, omniscient. What for? Why not
admit their ignorance flatly and frankly? True, it is easier said
than done. But why should slavish intellect, in spite of our desire
to be straightforward, deck us out with would-be truths, of which we
cannot divest ourselves even when we know their flimsiness. Socrates
wanted to think that he knew nothing--but he could not bring it off.
He most absorbedly believed in his own knowledge; nothing could be
"truth," except his teaching; he accepted the decree of the oracle,
and sincerely esteemed himself the wisest of men. And so it will be,
as long as philosophers feel it their duty to teach and to save their
neighbours. If a man wants to help people, he is bound to become a
liar. We should undertake doubt seriously, not in order to return at
length to established beliefs, for that would be a vicious circle.
Experience shows us that such a process, certainly in the development
of ultimate questions, only leads from error to error; we should doubt
_so that doubt becomes a continuous creative force, inspiring the
very essence of our life_. For established knowledge argues in us a
condition of imperfect receptivity. The weak, flabby spirit cannot
bear quick, ceaseless change. It must look round, it must have time
to gather its wits, and so it must undergo the same experience time
after time. It needs the support and the security of habit, But the
well-grown soul despises your crutches. He is tired of crawling on his
own cabbage patch, he tears himself away from his own "native" soil,
and takes himself off into the far distances, braving the infinitude
of space. Surely everybody knows we are not to live in the world for
ever. But cowardice prevents one straightforward admitting of it, we
keep it close till there is an occasion to air it as a truism. Only
when misfortune, disease, old age come upon us, then the dread fear of
departure walks with us like our own skeleton. We cannot dismiss him.
At length, involuntarily, we begin to examine our gruesome companion
with curiosity. And then, strangely enough, we observe that he not only
tortures us, but, keeping pace with us, he has begun to gnaw through
all the threads that bind us to the old existence. At moments it seems
as if, a few more threads gone, nothing, nothing will remain to hold
us back, the eternal dream of crawling man will be fulfilled, we shall
be released from the bonds, we shall betake ourselves in liberty to
regions far from this damned vale of earth....
80
Moralists are abused because they offer us "moral consolations."
This is not quite fair. Moralists would joyfully substitute palpable
blessings for their abstract gifts, _if they could_. When he was young,
Tolstoy wanted to make men happy; when he was old, and knew he could
not make them happy, he began to preach renunciation, resignation, and
so forth. And how angry he got when people wouldn't have his teaching!
But if, instead of foisting his doctrines off on us as the solution
of the ultimate problems, and as optimism, he had only spoken of the
impossibility of finding satisfactory answers, and have offered himself
as a pessimist, he would probably have obtained a much more willing
hearing. Now he is annoying, because, finding himself unable to relieve
his neighbours, he turns to them and insists that they shall consider
themselves relieved by him, nay, even made happy by him. To which many
will not agree: for why should they voluntarily renounce their rights?
Since although, God knows, the right of quarrelling with one's fate,
and cursing it, is not a very grand right, still, it _is_ a right ...
81
Ivanov, in Tchekhov's drama of that name, compares himself to an
overstrained labourer. The labourer dies, so that all that remains to
Ivanov is to die. But logic, as you know, recommends great caution in
coming to conclusions by analogy. Behold Tchekhov himself, who, as far
as we can judge, had endured in his own soul all the tragedy, just as
Ivanov had, did not die or think of dying, or even turn out a wasted
man. He is doing something, he struggles, he seeks, his work seems
important and considerable to us, just like other human works. Ivanov
shot himself because the drama _must_ end, while Tchekhov had not yet
finished his own struggle. Our aesthetics demand that the drama must
have a climax and a finale: though we have abandoned the Aristotelian
unities. Given a little more time, however, dramatic writers will have
got rid of this restriction also. They will frankly confess that they
do not know how, or with what event to end their dramas. Stories have
already learnt to dispense with an ending.
82
More of the same.--Ivanov says: "Now, where is my salvation? In what?
If an intelligent, educated, healthy man for no discoverable reason
sets up a Lazarus lament and starts to roll down an inclined plane,
then he is rolling without resisting, and there is no salvation for
him." One way out would be to accept the inclined plane and the
gathering impetus as normal. Even further, one might find in the
rolling descent a proof of one's spiritual superiority to other men.
Of course in such a case one should go apart from the rest, not court
young girls or fraternise with those who are living the ordinary life,
but be alone. "Love is nonsense, caresses maudlin, work is meaningless,
and song and fiery speeches are banal, played-out," continued
Ivanov. To young Sasha these words are horrible,--but Ivanov will be
responsible for them. He is already responsible for them. That he is
tottering is nothing: it is still full early for him to shoot himself.
He will live whilst his creator, Tchekhov, lives. And we shall listen
to the shaky, vacillating philosophy. We are so sick of symmetry and
harmony and finality, sick as we are of bourgeois self-complacency.
83
It will be seen from the above that already in _Ivanov_, one of his
early works, Tchekhov has assumed the rôle of _advocatus diaboli_.
Wherever Ivanov appears he brings ruin and destruction. It is true,
Tchekhov hesitates to take his side openly, and evidently does not know
what to do with his hero, so that in the end he shakes him off, so
to speak, he washes his hands of him in the accepted fashion: Ivanov
shoots himself in the sight of everybody, has not even time to go
discreetly into a corner. The only justification of _Ivanov_ is that
caricature of honesty, Doctor Lvov. Lvov is not a living figure--that
is obvious. But this is why he is remarkable. It is remarkable that
Tchekhov should deem it necessary to resurrect the forgotten Starodoum,
that utterer of truisms in Fon-Visin's comedy; and to resurrect him
no longer that people may bow their heads before the incarnation of
virtue, but so that they shall jeer at him. Look at Doctor Lvov! Is he
not Starodoum alive again? He is honesty personified. From force of
old habit, honesty sticks his chest out, and speaks in a loud voice,
with imperious tone, and yet not one of this old loyal subjects gives
a brass farthing for him. They don't even trouble to gibe at him,
but spit on him and shove him through the door, as a disgusting and
impudent toady. Poor honesty! What has he sunk to! Evidently virtues,
like everything else, should not live too long on earth.