he behaves wisely. If he wantonly neglects his treatment, we say
he acts stupidly. If a healthy person wished to inoculate himself
with some dangerous disease--say phthisis--we should say he was mad,
and forcibly restrain him. To such an extent are we convinced that
disease is evil, health good. Well--on what is our conviction based?
At a glance the question seems absurd. But then at a glance people
would absolutely refuse to doubt the fixity of the earth, at a glance
an ordinary person would giggle if he was shown the problem of the
relation between the real world and the ideal. Who knows what would
seem amenable to discussion to the ordinary person? The philosopher
has no right to appeal to the ordinary person. The philosopher must
doubt and doubt and doubt, and question when nobody questions, and
risk making a laughing-stock of himself. If common sense were enough
to settle all problems, we should have known everything long age. So
that--why do we value health more than sickness? Or even further--which
is better, health or sickness. If we will drop the utilitarian point
of view--and all are agreed that this has no place in philosophy--then
we shall see at once that we have no grounds whatever for preferring
health and sickness. We have invented neither the one nor the other.
We found them both in the world along with us. Why then do we, who
know so little about it, take upon ourselves to judge which are
nature's successes, which her failures? Health is agreeable--sickness
disagreeable. But this consideration is unworthy of a philosopher:
otherwise why be a philosopher, why distinguish oneself from the herd?
The philosopher invented morality, which has at its disposal various
pure ideas that have no relation to empirical life. Then let us go
further. Reason should have a supply of pure ideas also. Let Reason
judge in her own independent way, without conforming to conventional
ideas. When she has no other resort, let her proceed by the method of
negation: everything that common sense asserts, I, Reason, declare
to be false. So--common sense Says sickness is bad, reason therefore
asserts that sickness is the highest boon. Such Reason we should call
autonomous, law-unto-itself. Like a real monarch, it is guided only by
its own will. Let all considerations point in favour of health, Reason
must remain inexorable and keep her stand till we are all brought to
obedience. She must praise suffering, deformity, failure, hopelessness.
At every step she must fight common-sense and utilitarianism, until
mankind is brought under. Is she afraid of rebellion? Must she in the
last issue, like morality, adapt herself to the inclinations of the
mob?
44
_Experience and Science_.--As we are well aware, science does not,
nay cannot, admit experience in all its extent. She throws overboard
an enormous quantity of individual facts, regarding them as the
ballast of our human vessel. She takes note only of such phenomena as
alternate constantly and with a certain regularity. Best of all she
likes those phenomena which can be artificially provoked, when, so
to speak, experiment is possible. She explains the rotation of the
earth and succession of the seasons since a regular recurrence is
observable, and she demonstrates thunder and lightning with a spark
from an electric machine. In a word, in so far as a regular alternation
of phenomena is observable, so far extends the realm of science. But
what about those individual phenomena which do not recur, and which
cannot be artificially provoked? If all men were blind, and one for a
moment recovered his sight and opened his eyes on God's world, science
would reject his evidence. Yet the evidence of one seeing man is worth
that of a million blind. Sudden enlightenments are possible in our
life--even if they endure only for a few seconds. Must they be passed
over in silence because they are not normal and cannot be provoked?--or
treated poetically, as beautiful fictions? Science insists on it. She
declares that no judgments are true except such as can be verified by
all and everyone. She exceeds her bounds. Experience is wider than
scientific experiment, and individual phenomena mean much more to us
than the constantly recurrent.
Science is useful--but she need not pretend to truth. She cannot know
what truth is, she can only accumulate universal laws. Whereas there
are, and always have been, non-scientific ways of searching for truth,
ways which lead, if not to the innermost secrets, yet to the threshold.
These roads, however, we have let fall into ruin whilst we followed
our modern methodologies, so now we dare not even think of them. What
gives us the right to assert that astrologers, alchemists, diviners,
and sorcerers who passed the long nights alone with their thoughts,
wasted their time in vain? As for the philosopher's stone, that was
merely a plausible excuse invented to satisfy the uninitiated. Could
an alchemist dare to confess openly that all his efforts were towards
no useful or utilitarian end? He had to guard against importunate
curiosity and impertinent authority in outsiders. So he lied, now
frightening, now alluring the mob through its cupidity. But certainly
he had his own important work to do: and it had only one fault, that
it was purely personal to him. And about personal matters it is
considered correct to keep silent.... Astonishing fact! As a rule a
man hesitates over trifles. But it does sometimes occur that a moment
arrives when he is filled with unheard-of courage and resolution in his
judgments. He is ready to stand up for his opinions against all the
world, dead or living. Whence such sudden surety, what does it mean?
Rationally we can discover no foundation for it. If a lover has got
into his head that his beloved is the fairest woman on earth, worth
the whole of life to him; if one who has been insulted feels that
his offender is the basest wretch, deserving torture and death; if a
would-be Columbus persuades himself that America is the only goal for
his ambition--who will convince such men that their opinions, shared
by none but themselves, are false or unjustifiable? And for whose
sake will they renounce their tenets? For the sake of objective truth?
that is, for the pleasure of the assurance that all men after them
will repeat their judgment for truth? They don't care. Let Don Quixote
run broadcast with drawn sword, proving the beauty of Dulcinea or the
impending horror of windmills. As a matter of fact, he and the German
philosophers with him have a vague idea, a kind of presentiment, that
their giants are but mill-sails, and that their ideal on the whole is
but a common girl driving swine to pasture. To defy such deadly doubt
they take to the sword or to argument, and do not rest until they have
succeeded in stopping the mouth of everybody. When from all lips they
hear the praise of Dulcinea they say: yes, she is beautiful, and she
never drove pigs. When the world beholds their windmilling exploits
with amazement they are filled with triumph; sheep are not sheep, mills
are not mills, as you might imagine; they are knights and cyclops. This
is called a proven, all-binding, universal truth. The support of the
mob is a necessary condition of the existence of modern philosophy and
its knights of the woful countenance. Scientific philosophy wearies
for a new Cervantes who will put a stop to its paving the way to truth
by dint of argument. All opinions have a right to exist, and if we
speak of privilege, then preference should be given to such as are most
run down to-day; namely, to such opinions as cannot be verified and
which are, for that self-same reason, universal. Once, long ago "man
invented speech in order to express his real relation to the universe."
So he may be heard, even though the relation he wishes to express be
unique, not to verified by any other individual. To attempt to verify
it by observations and experiments is strictly forbidden. If the habit
of "objective verification" has destroyed your native receptivity to
such an extent that your eyes and ears are gone, and you must rely only
on the evidence of instruments or objects not subject to your will,
then, of course, nothing is left you but to stick to the belief that
science is perfect knowledge. But if your eyes live and your ear is
sensitive--throw away instruments and apparatuses, forget methodology
and scientific Don-Quixotism, and try to trust yourself. What harm is
there in not having universal judgments or truths? How will it hurt
you to see sheep as sheep? It is a step forward. You will learn not
to see with everybody's eyes, but to see as none other sees. You will
learn not to meditate, but to conjure up and call forth with words
alien to all but yourself an unknown beauty and an unheard-of power.
Not for nothing, I repeat, did astrologers and alchemists scorn the
experimental method--which, by the way, far from being anything new or
particularly modern, is as old as the hills. Animals experiment, though
they do not compose treatises on inductive logic or pride themselves
on their reasoning powers. A cow who has burnt her mouth in her
trough will come up cautiously next time to feed. Every experimenter
is the same--only he systematises. But animals can often trust to
instinct when experience is lacking. And have we humans got sufficient
experience? Can experience give us what we want most? If so, let
science and craftsmanship serve our everyday need, let even philosophy,
also eager to serve, go on finding universal truths. But beyond craft,
science, and philosophy there is another region of knowledge. Through
all the ages men, each one at his own risk, have sought to penetrate
into this region. Shall we, men of the twentieth century, voluntarily
renounce our supreme powers and rights, and because public opinion
demands it, occupy ourselves exclusively with discovering useful
information? Or, in order not to appear mean or poverty-stricken in
our own eyes, shall we accept in place of the philosopher's stone our
modern metaphysics, which muffles her dread of actuality in postulates,
absolutes, and such-like apparently transcendental paraphernalia?
45
_The Russian Spirit_.--It will easily be admitted that the
distinguishing qualities of Russian literature, and of Russian art in
general, are simplicity, truthfulness, and complete lack of rhetorical
ornament. Whether it be to our credit or to our discredit is not for
me to judge, but one thing seems certain: that our simplicity and
truthfulness are due to our relatively scanty culture. Whilst European
thinkers have for centuries been beating their brains over insoluble
problems, we have only just begun to try our powers. We have no
failures behind us. The fathers of the profoundest Russian writers were
either landowners, dividing their time between extravagant amusement
and State service, or peasants whose drudgery left them no time for
idle curiosity. Such being the case, how can we know whether human
knowledge has any limits? And if we don't know, it seems to us it is
only because we haven't tried to find out. Other people's experience
is not ours. We are not bound by their conclusions. Indeed, what do we
know of the experience of others, save what we gather, very vaguely
and fragmentarily and unreliably, from books? It is natural for us to
believe the best, till the contrary is proved to us. Any attempt to
deprive us of our belief meets with the most energetic resistance.
The most sceptical Russian hides a hope at the bottom of his soul.
Hence our fearlessness of the truth, realistic truth which so stunned
European critics. Realism was invented in the West, established
there as a theory. But in the West, to counteract it, were invented
numberless other palliating theories whose business it was to soften
down the disconsolate conclusions of Realism. There in Europe they
have the _l'être suprême_, the _deus sive natura_, Hegel's absolute,
Kant's postulates, English utilitarianism, progress, humanitarianism,
hundreds of philosophic and sociological theories in which even extreme
realists can so cleverly dish up what they call life, that life, or
realism, ceases to be life or reality altogether.
The Westerner is self-reliant. He knows that if he doesn't help himself
nobody will help him. So he directs all his thoughts to making the
best of his opportunities. A limited time is granted him. If he can't
get to the end of his song within the time-limit, the song must remain
unsung. Fate will not give him one minute's grace for the unbeaten
bars. Therefore as an experienced musician he adapts himself superbly.
Not a second is wasted. The _tempo_ must not drag for an instant,
or he is lost. The _tempo_ is everything, and it exacts facility
and quickness of movement. During a few short beats the artist must
produce many notes, and produce them so as to leave the impression
that he was not hurried, that he had all the time in the world at his
disposal. Moreover, each note must be complete, accomplished, have its
fulness and its value. Native talent alone will not suffice for this.
Experience is necessary, tradition, training, and inherited instinct.
_Carpe diem_--the European has been living up to the motto for two
thousand years. But if we Russians are convinced of anything, it is
that we have time enough and to spare. To count days, much less hours
and minutes--find me the Russian who could demean himself to such a
bourgeois occupation. We look round, we stretch ourselves, we rub our
eyes, we want first of all to decide what we shall do, and how we
shall do it, before we can begin to live in earnest. We don't choose
to decide anyhow, nor at second-hand, from fragments of other people's
information. It must be from our own experience, with our own brains,
that we judge. We admit no traditions. In no literature has there been
such a-determined struggle with tradition as in ours. We have wanted
to re-examine everything, re-state everything. I won't deny that our
courage is drawn from our quite uncultured confidence in our own
powers. Byelinsky, a half-baked undergraduate, deriving his knowledge
of European philosophy at third hand, began a quarrel with the universe
over the long-forgotten victims of Philip II. and the Inquisition.
In that quarrel is the sense and essence of all creative Russian
literature. Dostoevsky, towards his end, raised the same storm and the
same question over the little tear of an unfortunate child.
A Russian believes he can do anything, hence he is afraid of nothing.
He paints life in the gloomiest colours--and were you to ask him: How
can you accept such a life? how can you reconcile yourself with such
horrors of reality as have been described by all your writers, from
Poushkin to Tchekhov? he would answer in the words of Dmitri Karamazov:
_I do not accept life._ This answer seems at first sight absurd. Since
life is here, impossible not to accept it. But there is a sub-meaning
in the reply, a lingering belief in the possibility of a final triumph
over "evil." In the strength of this belief the Russian goes forth to
meet his enemy--he does not hide from him. Our sectarians immolate
themselves. Tolstoyans and votaries of the various sects that crop up
so plentifully in Russia go in among the people, they go, God knows
to what lengths, destroying their own lives and the lives of others.
Writers do not lag behind sectarians. They, too, refuse to be prudent,
to count the cost or the hours. Minutes, seconds, time-beats, all this
is so insignificant as to be invisible to the naked eye. We wish to
draw with a generous hand from fathomless eternity, and all that is
limited we leave to European bourgeoisie. With few exceptions Russian
writers really despise the pettiness of the West. Even those who have
admired Europe most have done so because they failed most completely
to understand her. They did not want to understand her. That is why we
have always taken over European ideas in such fantastic forms. Take
the sixties for example. With its loud ideas of sobriety and modest
outlook, it was a most drunken period. Those who awaited the New
Messiah and the Second Advent read Darwin and dissected frogs. It is
the same to-day. We allow ourselves the greatest luxury that man can
dream of--sincerity, truthfulness--as if we were spiritual Croesuses,
as if we had plenty of everything, could afford to let everything be
seen, ashamed of nothing. But even Croesuses, the greatest sovereigns
of the world, did not consider they had the right to tell the truth at
all times. Even kings have to pretend--think of diplomacy. Whereas,
we think we may speak the truth, and the truth only, that any lie
which obscures our true substance is a crime; since our true substance
is the world's finest treasure, its finest reality.... Tell this
to a European, and it will seem a joke to him, even if he can grasp
it at all. A European uses all his powers of intellect and talent,
all his knowledge and his art for the purpose of concealing his
real self and all that really affects him:--for that the natural is
ugly and repulsive, no one in Europe will dispute for a moment. Not
only the fine arts, but science and philosophy in Europe tell lies
instinctively, by lying they justify their existence. First and last,
a European student presents you with a finished theory. Well, and what
does all the "finish" and the completeness signify? It merely means
that none of our western neighbours will end his speech before the
last reassuring word is said; he will never let nature have the last
word; so he rounds off his synthesis. With him, ornament and rhetoric
is a _sine qua non_ of creative utterance, the only remedy against all
ills. In philosophy reigns theodicy, in science, the law of sequence.
Even Kant could not avoid declamation, even with him the last word is
"moral necessity." Thus there lies before us the choice between the
artistic and accomplished lie of old, cultured Europe, a lie which is
the outcome of a thousand years of hard and bitter effort, and the
artless, sincere simplicity of young, uncultured Russia.
They are nearer the end, we are nearer the beginning. And which is
nearer the truth? And can there be a question of voluntary, free
choice? Probably neither the old age of Europe nor the youth of Russia
can give us the truth we seek. But does such a thing as ultimate truth
exist? Is not the very conception of truth, the very assumption of the
possibility of truth, merely an outcome of our limited experience,
a fruit of limitation? We decide _a priori_ that one thing must be
possible, another impossible, and from our arbitrary assumptions we
proceed to deduce the body of truth. Each one judges in his own way,
according to his powers and the conditions of his existence. The timid,
scared man worries after _order,_ that will give him a day of peace
and quiet, youth dreams of beauty and brilliance, old age doesn't want
to think of anything, having lost the faculty for hope. And so it goes
on, _ad infinitum_. And this is called truth, truths! Every man thinks
that his own experience covers the whole range of life. And, therefore,
the only men who turn out to be at all in the right are empiricists and
positivists. There can be no question of truth once we tear ourselves
away from the actual conditions of life.
Our confident truthfulness, like European rhetoric, turns out to be
"beyond truth and falsehood." The young East and the old West alike
suffer from the restrictions imposed by truth--but the former ignores
the restrictions, whilst the latter adapts itself to them. After all,
it comes to pretty much the same in the end. Is not clever rhetoric
as delightful as truthfulness? Each is equally _life_. Only we find
unendurable a rhetoric which poses as truth, and a truthfulness
which would appear cultured. Such a masquerade would try to make us
believe that truth, which is only _limitedness_, has a real objective
existence. Which is offensive. Until the contrary is proved, we need to
think that only one assertion has or can have any objective reality:
_that nothing on earth is impossible_. Every time somebody wants to
force us to admit that there are other, more limited and limiting
truths, we must resist with every means we can lay hands on. We do not
hesitate even to make use of morality and logic, both of which we have
abused so often. But why not use them!
When a man is at his last resources, he does not care what weapons he
picks up.
46
_Nur für Schwindelfreie_.--To be proper, I ought to finish with a
moral. I ought to say to the reader that in spite of all I have said,
or perhaps _because of_ all I have said--for in conclusions, as you
are aware, "in spite of" is always interchangeable with "because of,"
particularly if the conclusion be drawn from many scattered data--well
then, because of all I have said, hope is not lost. Every destruction
leads to construction, sweet rest follows labour, dawn follows the
darkest hour, and so on and so on and so on--all the banalities with
which a writer reconciles his reader. But it is never too late for
reconciliation, and it is often too early. So why not postpone the
moral for a few years--even a few dozen years, God granting us the
length of life? Why make the inevitable "conclusion" at the end of
every book? I am almost certain that sooner or later I can promise the
reader all his heart desires. But not yet. He may, of course, dispense
with my consolations. What do promises matter, anyhow? especially when
neither reader nor writer can fulfil them. But if there is no escape,
if a writer is finally obliged to admit in everybody's hearing that the
secret desires of poor mankind may yet be realised, let "us at least
give the wretched writer a respite, let him postpone his confession
till old age_--usque ad infinitum_,... Meanwhile our motto "_Nur für
Schwindelfreie._" There are in the Alps narrow, precipitous paths where
only mountaineers may go, who feel no giddiness. Giddy-free! "Only
for the giddy-free," it says on the notice-board. He who is subject
to giddiness takes a broad, safe road, or sits away below and admires
the snowy summits. Is it inevitably necessary to mount up? Beyond the
snow-line are no fat pastures nor goldfields. They say that up there
is to be found the clue to the eternal mystery--but they say so many
things. We can't believe everything. He who is tired of the valleys,
loves climbing, and is not afraid to look down a precipice, and, most
of all, has nothing left in life but the "metaphysical craving," he
will certainly climb to the summits without asking what awaits him
there. He does not fear, he longs for giddiness. But he will hardly
call people after him: he doesn't want just anybody for a companion.
In such a case companions are not wanted at all, much less those
tender-footed ones who are used to every convenience, roads, street
lamps, guide-posts, careful maps which mark every change in the road
ahead. They will not help, only hinder. They will prove superfluous,
heavy ballast, which may not be thrown overboard. Fuss over them,
console them, promise them! Who would be bothered? Is it not better to
go one's way alone, and not only to refrain from enticing others to
follow, but frighten them off as much as possible, exaggerate every
danger and difficulty? In order that conscience may not prick too
hard--we who love high altitudes love a quiet conscience--let us find
a justification for their inactivity. Let us tell them they are the
best, the worthiest of people, really the salt of the earth. Let us
pay them every possible mark of respect. But since they are subject to
giddiness, they had better stay down. The upper Alpine ways, as any
guide will tell you, are _nur für Schwindelfreie_.