of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries presented a strange
picture. After Luther, Christianity degenerated into morality, and
all the threads connecting man with God were cut. Together with
the rationalisation of religion, all life took on a fiat, rational
character. Knights were replaced by a standing army, recruited on the
principle of compulsory military service for all, and existing chiefly
for the purpose of parades and official needs. Alchemy, which had been
trying to find the philosopher's stone, was replaced by chemistry,
which tried to discover the best means for cheap preparation of cheap
commodities. Astrology, which had sought in the stars the destinies
of men, was replaced by astronomy, which foretold the eclipses of the
sun and the appearing of comets. Even the dress of the people became
strangely colourless; not only men, but women also wore uniform,
monochromatic clothes. Most remarkable of all, that epoch did not
notice its own insignificance, but was even proud of itself. It seemed
to the man of that day that never before had the common treasury of
spiritual riches been so well replenished. We, of course, may smile at
their naïveté, but if one of their own number had allowed himself to
express an opinion disdainful of the bases of the contemporary culture
he would have been declared immoral, or put away in a mad-house: a
terrible punishment, very common in that coarse period, though now
it is very difficult even to imagine what such a proceeding implied.
But in those days, to be known as immoral, or to find oneself in a
mad-house, was worse than to die. One of the famous poets of the
nineteenth century, Alexander Poushkin, said: 'God forbid that I should
go mad. Rather let me be a starving beggar.' In those times people,
on the whole, were compelled to tell lies and play the hypocrite, so
that not infrequently the brightest minds, who saw through the shams of
their epoch, yet pretended to believe in science and morality, only in
order to escape the persecution of public opinion."
110
_Writers of tragedies on Shakespeare's model._--To obtain a spark,
one must strike with all one's might with an iron upon a stone.
Whereupon there is a loud noise, which many are inclined to believe
more important than the little spark. Similarly, writers having shouted
very loudly, are deeply assured that they have fulfilled their sacred
mission, and are amazed that all do not share their raptures, that some
even stop their ears and run away.
111
_Metamorphoses_.--Sense and folly are not at all native qualities
in a man. In a crisis, a stupid man becomes clever. We need not go
far for an example. What a gaping simpleton Dostoevsky looks in his
_Injured and Insulted_, not to mention _Poor Folk_. But in _Letters
from the Underworld_ and the rest of his books he is the shrewdest and
cleverest of writers. The same may be said of Nietzsche, Tolstoy, or
Shakespeare. In his _Birth of Tragedy_ Nietzsche seems just like the
ordinary honest, rather simple, blue-eyed provincial German student,
and in _Zarathustra_ he reminds one of Machiavelli. Poor Shakespeare
got himself into a row for his Brutus--but no man could deny the great
mind in _Hamlet._ The best instance of all, however, is Tolstoy. Right
up to to-day, whenever he likes he can be cleverer than the cleverest.
Yet at times he is a schoolboy. This is the most interesting and
enviable trait in him.
112
In _Troilus and Cressida_ Thersites says: "Shall the elephant Ajax
carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him: O worthy satisfaction!
would it were otherwise; that I could beat him, whilst he railed at
me." Dostoevsky might have said the same of his opponents. He pursued
them with stings, sarcasm, abuse, and they drove him to a white heat
by their quiet assurance and composure.... The present-day admirers of
Dostoevsky _quietly believe_ in the teachings of their master. Does it
not mean that _de facto_ they have betrayed him and gone over to the
side of his enemies.
113
The opinion has gained ground that Turgenev's ideal women--Natalie,
Elena, Marianna--are created in the image and likeness of Poushkin's
Tatyana. The critics have been misled by external appearances. To
Poushkin his Tatyana appears as a vestal guarding the sacred flame
of high morality--because such a job is not fitting for a male. The
Pretender in _Boris Godunov_ says to the old monk Pimen, who preaches
meekness and submission: "But you fought under the walls of Kazan,
etc." That is a man's work. But in the hours of peace and leisure the
fighter needs his own hearth-side, he must feel assured that at home
his rights are safely guarded. This is the point of Tatyana's last
words: "I belong to another, and shall remain forever true to him." But
in Turgenev woman appears as the judge and the reward, sometimes even
the inspirer of victorious man. There is a great difference.
114
From a German _Introduction to Philosophy_.--"We shall maintain the
opinion that metaphysics, as the crown of the particular sciences, is
possible and desirable, and that to it falls the task intermediate
between theory and practice, experiment and anticipation, mind and
feeling, the task of weighing probabilities, balancing arguments,
and reconciling difficulties." Thus metaphysics is a weighing of
probabilities. _Ergo_--further than probable conclusions it cannot
go. Thus why do metaphysicians pretend to universal and obligatory,
established and eternal judgments? They go beyond themselves. In the
domain of metaphysics there cannot and must not be any established
beliefs. The word established loses all its sense in the connection. It
is reasonable to speak of eternal hesitation and temporality of thought.
115
From another _Introduction to Philosophy,_ also German. "Compared
with the delusion of the materialists ... the wretchedest worshipper
of idols seems to us a being capable of apprehending to a certain
degree the great meaning and essence of things," Perhaps this thought
strayed in accidentally among the huge herd of the other thoughts of
the professor, so little does it resemble the rest. But even so, it
loses none of its interest. If the materialists here spoken of, those
of the nineteenth century, Buchner, Vogt, Moleschot, all of them men
who stood on the pinnacle of natural science, were capable of proving
in the realm of philosophy more uninformed than the nakedest savage,
then it follows, not only that science has nothing in common with
philosophy, but that the two are even hostile. Therefore we ought to
go to the savages, not to civilise them, but even to learn philosophy
from them. A Papuan or a Tierra del Fuegan delivering a lecture in
philosophy to the professors of the Berlin University--Friedrich
Paulsen, for example--is a curious sight. I say to Friedrich Paulsen,
and not to Buchner or Moleschot, because Paulsen is also an educated
person, and therefore his _philosophic_ sensibility may have suffered
from contact with science, even if not so badly as that of the
materialists. He needs the assistance of a red-skinned master. Why
have German professors so little daring or enterprise? Why should not
Paulsen, on his own initiative, go to Patagonia to perfect himself in
philosophy?--or at least send his pupils there, and preach broadcast
the new pilgrimage. And now lo and behold he has hatched an original
and fertile idea, so he will stick in a corner with it, so that even if
you wanted you could not get a good look at it. The idea is important
and weighty: our philosophers would lose nothing by sitting at the feet
of the savages.
116
From a _History of Ethics_.--"Doubts concerning the existence or
the possibility of discovering a moral norm have, _of course_ (I
underline it), proved a stimulus to a new speculative establishing
of ethics, just as the denial of the possibility of knowledge led to
the discovery of the condition of knowledge." With this proposition
the author does not play hide-and-seek, as Paulsen with his. He places
it in a conspicuous position, in a conspicuous section of his book,
and accompanies it with the trumpeting herald "of course." But only
one thing is clear: namely, that the majority share the opinion of
Professor Yodl, to whom the quoted words belong. So that the first
assumption of ethics has as its foundation the _consensus sapientium_.
It is enough.
117
"The normative theory," which has taken such hold in Germany and
Russia, bears the stamp of that free and easy self-assurance which
characterises the state of contentment, and which does not desire, even
for the sake of theoretical perfection, to take into consideration the
divided state of soul which usually accompanies discontent. Windelband
(_Praeludien_, p. 313) is evidence of this. He exposes himself with
the naive frankness almost of an irrational creature, and is not only
unashamed, but even proud of his part. "Philosophic research," he says,
"is possible only to those who are convinced that the norm of the
universal imperative is supreme above individual activities, and that
such a norm is discoverable." Not every witness will give evidence so
honestly. It amounts to this: that philosophic research is not a search
after truth, but a conspiracy amongst people who _dethrone truth_ and
exalt instead the all-binding norm. The task is truly ethical: morality
always was and always will be utilitarian and bullying. Its active
principle is: He who is not with us, is against us.
118
"If, besides the reality which is evident to us, we were susceptible to
another form of reality, chaotic, lawless, then this latter could not
be the subject of thought." (Riehl--_Philosophie der Gegenwart_.) This
is one of the _a priori_ of critical philosophy--one of the unproved
first assumptions, evidently. It is only an expression in other
words of Windelband's assertion quoted above, concerning the ethical
basis of the law of causation. Thus, the _a priori_ of contemporary
thought convince us more and more that Nietzsche's instinct was not
at fault. The root of all our philosophies lies, not in our objective
observations, but in the demands of our own heart, in the subjective,
moral _will_, and therefore science cannot be uprooted except we first
destroy morality.
119
One of the lofty truisms--"The philosopher conquers passion by
perceiving it, the artist by bodying it forth." In German it sounds
still more lofty: but does not for that reason approach any nearer
to the truth. "_Der Philosoph überwindet die Leidenschaft, indem er
sie begreift--der Künstler, indem er sie darstellt_." (Windelband,
_Praeludien_, p. 198.)
120
The Germans always try to get at _Allgemeingültigkeit_. Well, if the
problem of knowledge is to fathom all the depths of actual life, then
experience, in so far as it repeats itself, is uninteresting, or at
least has a limit of interest. It is necessary, however, to know what
nobody yet knows, and therefore we must walk, not on the common road
of _Allgemeingültigkeit_, but on new tracks, which have never yet seen
human feet. Thus morality, which lays down definite rules and thereby
guards life for a time from any surprise, exists only by convention,
and in the end collapses before the non-moral surging-up of individual
human aspirations. Laws--all of them--have only a regulating value, and
are necessary only to those who want rest and security. But the first
and essential condition of life is lawlessness. Laws are a refreshing
sleep--lawlessness is creative activity.
121
A = A.--They say that logic does not need this postulate, and could
easily develop it by deduction. I think not. On the contrary, in my
opinion, logic could not exist without this premiss. Meanwhile it has
a purely empirical origin. In the realm of fact, A is always more or
less equal to A. But it might be otherwise. The universe might be so
constituted as to admit of the most fantastic metamorphoses. That which
now equals A would successively equal B and then C, and so on. At
present a stone remains long enough a stone, a plant a plant, an animal
an animal. But it might be that a stone changed into a plant before our
eyes, and the plant into an animal. That _there is nothing unthinkable_
in such a supposition is proved by the theory of evolution. This
theory only puts centuries in place of seconds. So that, in spite of
the risk to which I expose myself from the admirers of the famous
Epicurean system, I am compelled to repeat once more that anything
you please may come from anything you please, that A may not equal A,
and that consequently logic is dependent, for its soundness, on the
empirically-derived law of the unchangeableness of the external world.
Admit the possibility of supernatural interference--and logic will lose
that certitude and inevitability of its conclusions which at present is
so attractive to us.
122
The effort to _understand_ people, life, the universe prevents us from
getting to know them at all. Since "to know" and "to understand" are
two concepts which are not only non-identical, but just the opposite
of one another in meaning; in spite of their being in constant use
as synonyms. We think we have understood a phenomenon if we have
included it in a list of others, previously known to us. And, since all
our mental aspiration reduces itself to understanding the universe,
we refuse to know a great deal which will not adapt itself to the
plane surface of the contemporary world-conceptions. For instance
the Leibnitz question, put by Kant into the basis of the critique of
reason: "How can we know a thing outside us, if it does not enter into
us?" It is non-understandable; that is, it does not agree with our
notion of understanding. Hence it follows that it must be squeezed out
of the field of view--which is exactly what Kant attempted to do. To
us it seems, on the contrary, that in the interests of _knowing_ we
should sacrifice, and gladly, understanding, since understanding in any
case is a secondary affair.-_Zu fragmentarisch ist Welt und Leben_!...
PART II
_Nur für Schwindelfreie_.
(From _Alpine Recollections_.)
1
Light reveals to us beauty--but also ugliness. Throw vitriol in the
face of a beautiful woman, and the beauty is gone, no power on earth
will enable us to look upon her with the same rapture as before. Could
even the sincerest, deepest love endure the change? True, the idealists
will hasten to say that love overcomes all things. But idealism needs
be prompt, for if she leaves us one single moment in which to _see_,
we shall see such things as are not easily explained away. That is why
idealists stick so tight so logic. In the twinkling of an eye logic
will convey us to the remotest conclusions and forecasts. Reality could
never overtake her. Love is eternal, and consequently a disfigured face
will seem as lovely to us as a fresh one. This is, of course, a lie,
but it helps to preserve old tastes and obscures danger. Real danger,
however, was never dispelled by words. In spite of Schiller and eternal
love, in the long run vitriol triumphs, and the agreeable young man is
forced to abandon his beloved and acknowledge himself a fraud. Light,
the source of his life and hope, has now destroyed hope and life for
him. He will not return to idealism, and he will hate logic: light,
that seemed to him so beautiful, will have become hideous. He will turn
to darkness, where logic and its binding conclusions have no power, but
where the fancy is free for all her vagaries. Without light we should
never have known that vitriol ruins beauty. No science, nor any art can
give us what darkness gives. It is true, in our young days when all
was new, light brought us great happiness and joy. Let us, therefore,
remember it with gratitude, as a benefactor we no longer need. Do after
all let us dispense with gratitude, for it belongs to the calculating,
bourgeois virtues. _Do ut des_. Let us forget light, and gratitude, and
the qualms of self-important idealism, let us go bravely to meet the
coming night. She promises us great power over reality. Is it worth
while to give up our old tastes and lofty convictions? Love and light
have not availed against vitriol. What a horror would have seized us
at the thought, once upon a time! That short phrase can annul all
Schiller. We have shut our eyes and stopped our ears, we have built
huge philosophic systems to shield us from this tiny thought. And
now--now it seems we have no more feeling for Schiller and the great
systems, we have no pity on our past beliefs. We now are seeking for
words with which to sing the praises of our former enemy. Night, the
dark, deaf, impenetrable night, peopled with horrors--does she not
now loom before us, infinitely beautiful? Does she not draw us with
her still, mysterious, fathomless beauty, far more powerfully than
noisy, narrow day? It seems as if, in a short while, man will feel that
the same incomprehensible, cherishing power which threw us out into
the universe and set us, like plants, to reach to the light, is now
gradually transferring us to a new direction, where a new life awaits
us with all its stores. _Fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt._ And
perhaps the time is near when the impassioned poet, casting a last look
to his past, will boldly and gladly cry:
_Hide thyself, sun! O darkness, be welcome_!
2
Psychology at last leads us to conclude that the most generous
human impulses spring from a root of egoism. Tolstoy's "love to
one's neighbour," for example, proves to be a branch of the old
self-love. The same may be said of Kant's idealism, and even of
Plato's. Though they glorify the service of the idea, in practice
they succeed in getting out of the vicious circle of egoism no better
than the ordinary mortal, who is neither a genius nor a flower of
culture. In my eyes this is "almost" an absolute truth. (It is never
wrong to add the retractive "almost"; truth is too much inclined to
exaggerate its own importance, and one must guard oneself against
its despotic authority.) Thus--all men are egoists. Hence follows
a great deal. I even think this proposition might provide better
grounds for metaphysical conclusions than the doubtful capacity for
compassion and love for one's neighbour which has been so tempting
to dogma. For some reason men have imagined that love for oneself
is more natural and comprehensible than love for another. Why? Love
for others is only a little-rarer, less widely diffused than love
to oneself. But then hippopotami and rhinoceros, even in their own
tropical regions, are less frequent than horses and mules. Does it
follow that they are less natural and transcendental? Positivism is
not incumbent upon blood-thirsty savages. Nay, as we know, many of
them are less positive-minded than our learned men. For instance, a
future life is to them such an infallible reality that they even enter
into contracts, part of which is to be fulfilled in the next world. A
German metaphysician won't go as far as that. Hence it follows that
the way to know the other world is not by any means through love,
sympathy, and self-denial, as Schopenhauer taught. On the contrary, it
appears as if love for others were only an impediment to metaphysical
flights. Love and sympathy chain the eye to the misery of this earth,
where such a wide field for active charity opens out. The materialists
were mostly very good men--a fact which bothered the historians of
philosophy. They preached Matter, believed in nothing, and were
ready to perform all kinds of sacrifices for their neighbours. How
is this? It is a case of clearest logical consequence: man loves his
neighbour, he sees that heaven is indifferent to misery, therefore
he takes upon himself the rôle of Providence. Were he indifferent
to the sufferings of others, he would easily become an idealist and
leave his neighbours to their fate. Love and compassion kill belief,
and make a man a positivist and a materialist in his philosophical
outlook. If he feels the misery of others, he leaves off meditating
and wants to act. Man only thinks properly when he realises he has
nothing to do, his hands are tied. That is why any profound thought
must arise from despair. Optimism, on the other hand, the readiness
to jump hastily from one conclusion to another, may be regarded as an
inevitable sign of narrow self-sufficiency, which dreads doubt and
is consequently always superficial. If a man offers you a solution
of eternal questions, it shows he has not even begun to think about
them. He has only "acted." Perhaps it is not necessary to think--who
can say how we ought or ought not to live? And how could we be brought
to live "as we ought," when our own nature is and always will be an
incalculable mystery. There is no mistake about it, nobody _wants_
to think, I do not speak here of logical thinking. That, like any
other natural function, gives man great pleasure. For this reason
philosophical systems, however complicated, arouse real and permanent
interest in the public provided they only require from man the logical
exercise of the mind, and nothing else. But to think---really to
think--surely this means a relinquishing of logic. It means living a
new life. It means a permanent sacrifice of the dearest habits, tastes,
attachments, without even the assurance that the sacrifice will bring
any compensation. Artists and philosophers like to imagine the thinker
with a stern face, a profound look which penetrates into the unseen,
and a noble bearing--an eagle preparing for flight. Not at all. A
thinking man is one who has lost his balance, in the vulgar, not in
the tragic sense. Hands raking the air, feet flying, face scared and
bewildered, he is a caricature of helplessness and pitiable perplexity.
Look at the aged Turgenev, his Poems in Prose and his letter to
Tolstoy. Maupassant thus tells of his meeting with Turgenev: " There
entered a giant with a silvery head." Quite so! The majestic patriarch
and master, of course! The myth of giants with silver locks is firmly
established in the heart of man. Then suddenly enters Turgenev in his
Prose Poems--pale, pitiful, fluttering like a bird that has been
"winged." Turgenev, who has taught us everything--how can he be so
fluttered and bewildered? How could he write his letter to Tolstoy?
Did he not know that Tolstoy was finished, the source of his creative
activity dried up, that he must seek other activities. Of course he
knew--and still he wrote that letter. But it was not for Tolstoy, nor
even for Russian literature, which, of course, is not kept going by the
death-bed letters and covenants of its giants. In the dreadful moments
of the end, Turgenev, in spite of his noble size and silver locks, did
not know what to say or where to look for support and consolation. So
he turned to literature, to which he had given his life.... He yearned
that she, whom he had served so long and loyally, should just once
help him, save him from the horrible and thrice senseless nightmare.
He stretched out his withered, numbing hands to the printed sheets
which still preserve the traces of the Soul of a living, suffering
man. He addressed his late enemy Tolstoy with the most flattering
name: "Great writer of the Russian land"; recollected that he was his
contemporary, that he himself was a great writer of the Russian land.
But this he did not express aloud. He only said, "I can no longer----"
He praised a strict school of literary and general education. To the
last he tried to preserve his bearing of a giant with silvery locks.
And we were gratified. The same persons who are indignant at Gogol's
correspondence, quote Turgenev's letter with reverence. The attitude
is everything. Turgenev knew how to pose passably well, and this is
ascribed to him as his greatest merit. _Mundus vult decipi, ergo
decipiatur_. But Gogol and Turgenev felt substantially the same. Had
Turgenev burnt his own manuscripts and talked of himself instead of
Tolstoy, before death, he would have been accounted mad. Moralists
would have reproached him for his display of extreme egoism.... And
Philosophy? Philosophy seems to be getting rid of certain prejudices.
At the moment when men are least likely to play the hypocrite and lie
to themselves Turgenev and Gogol placed their personal fate higher
than the destinies of Russian literature. Does not this betray a
"secret" to us? Ought we not to see in absolute egoism an inalienable
and great, yes, very great quality of human nature? Psychology,
ignoring the threats of morality, has led us to a new knowledge. Yet
still, in spite of the instances we have given, the mass of people
will, as usual, see nothing but malice in every attempt to reveal
the human impulses that underlie "lofty" motives. To be merely men
seems humiliating to men. So now malice will also be detected in my
interpretation of Turgenev's letter, no matter what assurance I offer
to the contrary.
3