all take their origin therefrom. Hate, envy, jealousy, vengeance,
resentment, readiness to take offence, malice, injustice in the
judgment of others, all as little noble as possible, are nothing but
the consequences of fear. Even covetousness, the restless struggle for
money and property, often springs not so much from a mad propensity to
scrape everything together for oneself alone, as from the necessity
(justified if there were no God) of winning and maintaining in the
“struggle for existence” a place which never can be sufficiently
assured against all mischances, and against all the assaults of
a like-minded overwhelming number of enviers and haters of every
individual prosperity. Looking at the matter just from the standpoint
of covetousness alone (which has its own great inconveniences), if
this fear were not present, there would very likely be no men wholly
dispossessed and no social question.
If one would remedy these conditions, otherwise so hopeless, then some
must be freed from the fear of being obliged to spend a short life
without a just share in the happiness earth has to offer, whereby they
are necessarily driven to half-insane exertions to win it by force;
and others must be freed from the apprehension lest they shall see all
become poor and wretched on account of a new distribution of property
equally among all. To desire to mediate between these two opposites by
means of palliatives is the fruitless exertion of the hour. Neither
attitude of mind, however, has anything noble about it.
A soul that has attained complete nobility, free from fear and resting
upon a firm ground of faith, is the most beautiful but also the rarest
thing there is now. Very few will arrive at this goal to-day otherwise
than by roundabout paths, be it through great doubts or through great
sorrows; though to some the way thereto is made easier because of their
parentage and ancestry, so that they can already begin to strive after
it with the advantage of a better footing.
Yet it remains a sad fact that every child that is born clearly bears
upon it the stamp of such a destiny, whose attainability is, with most,
more and more lost with advancing age, although a heavy curse hangs
over the head of him who draws away from this destiny a single one of
the millions endowed with a nature called to the highest things.
Nevertheless, this is actually so, and, as was said at the beginning,
it is impossible that there should be none but noble souls on earth;
that would be at once the “state of eternal rest.” Such a noble and
“exclusive” society we picture for the future life, so far as we can
imagine that life at all. But there must always be at least a number of
people who will not bow the knee to the “Baal” of the hour and just as
little desire to live out their lives on a merely natural basis (for
this is of the nature of animals); but their only care is, that God may
continually dwell upon the earth.
To this, all are called, especially those who belong to the fellowship
of Christianity; and if few are actually “chosen,” yet they form
an élite to which every man has access. This kind of aristocracy
will never pass out of existence, and to it undoubtedly belongs the
immediate future, the more the democratic reform wins the upper hand
in the life of the nations. But it will also, wherever it is genuine,
be ever confirmed and upheld by God. An aristocracy, on the other hand,
that no longer has any basis in its nation, is certainly a false or
degenerate aristocracy that rightfully falls into decay.
For the genuine aristocracy there is another and a sterner privilege
than what are commonly considered privileges. Something more is
demanded of it than the continuous longing ordinary souls have for
happiness and pleasure. And it is not good for it if it is ever quite
absolved of the sorrows which alone keep it in this disposition,
or if it succeeds or is disappointed in something that sprang from
ordinary motives. The belief in the purifying power of sorrow and
therefore in its necessity is always the kernel and centre of all true
ethics, whether based upon philosophy or upon religion. The noblest
of all earthly lots is sorrow cheerfully borne, and the blessing that
springs therefrom for many. And herein lies the key to an otherwise
perplexing riddle; and on this account many men, who will have nothing
to do with religion, nevertheless stand nearer to it than many who are
loud in their religious professions. Whoever can accept sorrow with
a good-will and turn it victoriously to the building up of a better
nature within him, is and will remain a noble man, with a nature
fundamentally religious, much as his reason may resist any positive
confession of religious faith. And in this one point lies the unity,
which, silently surmounting all limitations, binds the nobler men of
every faith and confession.
And so, a noble soul must be able to endure a considerable amount of
injustice as it now exists in the world, apparently never to cease; nor
will it find a cause of offence either in its own misfortunes or in
those of others; nor must it try too carefully to escape a reputation
for being somewhat foolish.
It is not always the greatest talents that are adapted to the greatest
things. It is very significant that Isaiah says, “Who is blind, saith
the Lord, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I send?” In
the same manner Christ often says that, to be fit for the Kingdom of
Heaven, one needs a childlike nature which the unwise are closer to
than the wise. And the same thing was shown during the Reformation
in the case of many who were the wisest of their time, but could not
decide to surrender a certain “cultured” attitude of open-mindedness
and impartiality toward questions of which the learned know, of course,
that one can, in any event, “look at it from another point of view.”
This is yet to-day the narrow defile which very many of the cultured
shun to whom Christianity would be quite right, if it only fitted in
a little more with the demands of the time, if it only would give up
something of its uncompromising attitude in regard to ethics, and
something of its absolute demand for faith in respect to things that
are transcendental and not to be proved.
Christ himself would undoubtedly in his day have been able to conceive
his calling in another way than he did. The story of the temptation
was an event such as, once in his life, has happened to every highly
gifted man, and for which he could assign place and date. Happy if
he then struck the right road and no longer let himself be misled
because the whole world was against him. Again and again it has finally
been obliged to yield, this “whole world,” before a single soul; and
we often experience yet to-day, in the smallest as in the greatest
questions, the truth of the bold saying, “Who firmly holds to his mind,
will fashion the world to himself.”
There is therefore always a place and a need in the world for this
kind of people, and in this fact they find their modest portion. They
have their difficulties, to be sure; but to be without them is neither
necessary nor good for them.
Finally, that is a very true word a wise man once spoke, though from an
opposite point of view, “In the struggle for existence there is always
room above.” Only the lower and middle places are overfilled.
Therefore, you who are young or are dissatisfied with your search thus
far for happiness, strike at once for the highest goal. In the first
place, that is the surest and best way because it is God’s will and
because he expressly calls you to it. In the second place, it is, of
all goals, the one that most brings peace, while all the others bring
many disillusionments and bitternesses in their train. And lastly, it
is the only one where the race with those contending for the same prize
of victory is one with friends and helpers, and where you will not be
received at the goal by enviers and secret opponents, but by sincere
friends and men of the same high intent--just noble souls, with whom
alone it is easy and good to live.
VI. TRANSCENDENTAL HOPE
VI. TRANSCENDENTAL HOPE
This earthly life can not be the end of all life; it can not be the
final word concerning our destinies, unless they are, even in the
most favorable cases, to close with an enigmatic deficit, and with an
unexplainable divergence between capacity and accomplishment, between
task and performance: this must be evident to every one who carefully
reflects upon it, to every one who is unwilling to dismiss such
questions curtly, unwilling to accept of death as an all-conclusive,
comfortless fate.
The life of every thinking man who does not believe in its continuance
after death, ends, therefore, in deep sadness. The decline of all the
powers, bodily and mental, fills the heart that knows no further hope
with dejection, and with a terror, at times, that no circumstances of
earthly fortune can save him from. Even the consideration that the
works of a man survive him, or that “when the body shall fall to dust
the great name shall still live on,” gives him no adequate comfort for
the passing away of life itself. Some then forcibly rouse themselves
and seek in feverish activity to use up the last moments of vanishing
existence in making sure that others will have something to remember
them by, or feel a momentary regret over their loss. In other aging
men, on the other hand, once more there awakens with almost elementary
force the long-slumbering desire for pleasure in every direction,
seeking again to blow into flame the pitiful spark of the fire of life.
The end in both cases, however, is a helpless breaking-down in the
face of the constantly approaching Unknown, or the banishment of all
thoughts on the subject as far as possible, or finally, in the bravest
cases, a stoical surrender to an unavoidable fate--unless there is a
_hope_ that life will continue beyond. Only where such hope is present
is Death the friendly-earnest messenger who heralds to the tired
wanderer the end of his journey and the soon impending prospect, from a
slowly and toilsomely mounted hilltop, into a broad new world; for all
others he is the ugly skeleton as represented in the mediæval Dance of
Death, or at least the inexorable, cruel Reaper of the very beautiful,
but very melancholy poem of Clemens Brentano, “There is a reaper whose
name is Death.”
Now, for the first, there comes to light the most remarkable of all
the differences between men; now, at the end of life, the “simple
fool” comes to a victorious vindication. For while to all others every
autumnal falling leaf awakens the feeling of a hopeless passing away,
_he_ sees, even in the tree stripped bare, the buds already of a new
and gracious spring, and he hears, in his last days, not only the
unalterable judgment of death, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return,” but at the same time likewise the word of life, “Arise, shine,
for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”
II
The attitude of men toward the question of death, the most important
of life’s questions, is that which best characterizes each one of
them, and if one always knew their thoughts about it, one would be
able to draw therefrom the most definite conclusions as to their whole
conception of life.
The fear of death is also the best test-stone for every philosophy. A
philosophy that does not overcome this fear, or at best leads to sad
reflections upon the transitoriness of life, is in the first place
of not very much practical value, and in any case does not completely
fulfil its purpose. Nor is it even quite consonant with reason; for how
could we picture a reasonable condition of man and society, if there
were no death? For when the lives of prominent persons have been too
prolonged, it has been a manifest misfortune to their fellow-men. Far
from being an evil that makes a shrill discord in the universe, death
is rather an advantage, the only conceivably possible arrangement under
which a world such as ours, in which the good must contend with the
evil, can exist.
This at least is certain, that even upon those whose “heart is
fortified” against any event, the incompleteness and trouble of life
often lies heavily, and that to them this earthly existence seems
merely a transitory state from which there must some day be release.
Even the happiest life knows such moods, and though one might be
entirely satisfied with his own lot, he could not possibly be so for
his nation and for the millions of men whose life seems only one long
chain of deprivations and blunders that mock at all attempts to help.
An old German poet, Heinrich von Laufenburg (1445), already gives
expression to this mood in the following verses:
“_I would I were at home on high,
And all my worldly toil laid by;
At home above is life deathless,
And all is joy without distress;
A thousand year make there one day,
And pain and strife are gone for aye.
Then up! my heart and hardihood,
Seek ye the good above all good;
Ye may not stay for long below,
To-day, to-morrow, ye must go.
Farewell, O world! may God thee bless;
I fare to Heaven’s happiness._”
But neither is this yet the right conception of death. One can also die
“full of days,” and age is not necessarily a tedious, ever-increasing,
hopelessly incurable disease, but it can also be a continuous
advancing, an evolving of oneself toward a nobler and a purer life than
is possible on this earth. Death is then but the wholly natural and
by no means violent and illogical transition into an analogous kind
of existence that only needs to be continued; the fruit is ripe, and
falls, not to be destroyed, but for a useful harvest.
Moreover, if there is no awakening after death, then those who believe
in an awakening will suffer naught from such a delusion, but, without
ever being conscious of it, will share the common human fate of
extinction; while, if there is an awakening after death, such an
awakening can not be a pleasant thing for those who did not believe
in it. This, indeed, is where faith has the advantage, to speak quite
practically; for if it should be mistaken, it will fare no worse, in
this life or later, than the opposite view; but if it shall find itself
on the right path, it will fare better.
III
Still, our hope in a further life is only a hope and not a demonstrable
certainty. Yet perhaps it is a well-grounded assurance, resting first
of all on the fact that capacities and powers are placed in men for
whose complete development human life is too short, and which would
therefore be pointless if they did not attain to a further evolution.
This is particularly manifest in the case of all men who die young.
Again, we have the very definite testimony of Christ, whose whole
conception of life would otherwise rest upon a huge error. The
resurrection of the personality is one of the most indubitable and the
most definite promises of Christianity, and without it Christianity
would have a very dubious amount of truth and a very doubtful value
for life; no “resurrection of the body,” of course, in the literal
sense of the Christian confession of faith, as many conceive it, but
in the sense in which Christ, and Paul too on occasion, announced it
and in which alone it can satisfy us also. For though we do not wish
to lose our individuality, nor rise again, as Job rightly says, as “a
stranger to ourselves” (in which case there is no continuation of _our_
life and the whole question no longer has any meaning), yet we shall
surely not desire to live on with all “the weaknesses of the flesh”;
and under any circumstances there is need of a thorough transformation,
laying deep hold upon the whole nature of man, a transformation for
which the Catholic church, indeed, assumes a special preparatory stage.
The details of this transformed continued life we do not know at all;
nor do we know, in particular, how far those who are in that life have
any consciousness of their former condition (as, indeed, logically
belongs to a continued life, else it is none), nor how far they are in
a position to maintain a connection with their kinsmen here. Moreover,
we could not apprehend it with our present organs of perception,
even if it were to be disclosed to us. Likewise all descriptions
of “eternal glory” (with which the fantasy of men has taken so much
pleasure in busying itself), as well as the notion of an “everlasting
rest” (which, with our present ideas of rest, we could not endure),
are nothing further than fantasy, expressed in impossible, or at
any rate in quite imperfect pictures. It is surely possible, we may
hope, for the nature of the life to come to be, far beyond all human
understanding, greater than all these pictures represent; but it will
quite surely be intelligible only for those whose spiritual nature is
suited for it and sufficiently purified from everything that tends to
decay. That is, in other words, if there is a continued life for all,
and if they who have lived for nullities and have not developed their
capabilities toward the attainment of things eternal, do not sink into
nothingness, then every one surely continues to live in the element to
which he truly belongs.
Whether there is then an endless duration of this new state under all
circumstances, or whether there are still many separate steps of life,
as in our life, and a final purification for all men (the so-called
“restoration of all things”)--these are questions that no one will
ever be able to answer satisfactorily. Whether there is an eternal
punishment of the wicked does not seem to be so very important--less
important, at least, than the unending advance of the good; and whether
the wicked believe this, or do not believe, it has no very real
influence upon their conduct. The punishment of the resolutely wicked
(which many do not see brought about, and so become easily dubious of
the existence of divine justice in the world) is particularly this,
that they are unable to become better even if in their better moments
they wish to do so. They are obliged to remain slaves to their lower
nature, and to lose their life without any results worth while and
without the hope of an immortality which they could only fear. If that
still seems to you to be no satisfactory compensation for the sorrows
and deprivations of the good upon earth, then add this fact to the
account, that evil men do not experience the love and fidelity of men,
the best of all outward things the world has to offer, and without
which all their other possessions might well appear worthless, even
to him who has them in the greatest fulness. He who loves no one,
and whom no one loves, is a poor, lonely man, though he may, in the
common belief, be sitting in the lap of fortune. And things are so
arranged that these unhappy men can not understand or value the love
which perhaps is still tendered them, but must infallibly lose it
again through their own folly. To the things of highest value in human
existence, the nearness of God, an inward trust in the good ending of
a brave life, and that love and fidelity which can not exist without
reciprocal esteem,--to these the evil man never attains. The other
things let him enjoy in uneasiness and in the continual fear of the
envy and hate of thousands (if that can be called “enjoyment”), and do
not begrudge him a happiness that, for much the greater part, exists
only in the mistaken idea that others have of it. “_Non ragionam di
lor, ma guarda e passa_,”--speak not of them, but look, and pass them
by.
As far as concerns our present life and nature, what is necessary (and
therefore conceivable) as a reason for our faith, is only this: that
without faith (that is, a trust in the transcendental, in what we can
not grasp with the senses), we can not carry out the purpose of life
in its entirety, nor can we lift ourselves to that plane which, _with_
this faith, lies in our power of attainment and therefore becomes our
task; that, further, for the attainment of this plane we need a power
of love which is stronger than that which rests on human affections,
and which is also very likely the element that creates life and
sustains it and that possesses the power to overcome death; and that
finally neither this faith nor this love would endure in the face of
the enormous obstacles which oppose them on every hand in our earthly
existence, if it were not for the glad hope that “there remaineth a
rest to the people of God.”
IV
The most positive fact we really know as to an existence after death
is the resurrection of Christ. This is evidence not only historically
vouched for (better, indeed, than most so-called “historical facts” of
equal antiquity), but also a necessary postulate from a philosophical
and ethical point of view, unless the whole history of the world for
two thousand years past is to rest upon a delusion, or even, one may
say, upon an intentional falsehood. The resurrection is, and will
remain, therefore, the foundation both of all true Christianity and of
all transcendental hope.
Judging by this resurrection of Jesus, the future life would seem to be
somewhat similar to our present existence, and death accordingly an
event of much less importance and, one might properly say, much more a
matter of indifference than we usually assume it to be. At any rate,
the future life will be an evolution; neither an everlasting rest in
the literal sense, nor everlasting enjoyment. The latter would not be
noble enough, and the former appears to us as beautiful only in moments
of weariness and not when we are endued with new vigor.
On the contrary, indestructible power of work and joy in work, joined
with true depth and clearness of vision as to the ends of life one
should pursue, enter, in the case of all divinely guided men, only
toward the end of their life, when all seeking for pleasure has ceased;
and this is a very safe indication, both as to the continuation of life
itself (that it can not suddenly cease at this stage of development),
and as to the nature of that continuation (that it can only be a
heightening of the best of our present activities). This is often so
clear to the reason that the assumption of a sudden extinction of this
activity, just when it has become full of vitality, seems thoroughly
unmeaning, and unworthy of the order of the universe unless it rests
upon mere chance; and a cosmical order resting upon chance alone, yet
existing for thousands of years, would be a simple impossibility.
Banish from your life, therefore, the melancholy fancy of a helpless
sinking beneath the waters, for that is foolishness; but banish
likewise too great a contempt of life. Life is no mere vale of sorrow
that must be escaped from as soon as possible, but an important,
perhaps the most important, part of our whole existence, in which
we make our decision for advancing life, or for a gradual and real
death. Even the many weak-hearted men of our day who only want to
die quickly and “go to heaven” without a struggle, may well find
themselves deceived, and that the struggle will yet meet them, but
under less favorable conditions. Nor are we to envy the “innocent”
children and young people who, in the view of the Greeks, have died
early by a special favor of the gods; for they must none the less
begin from the beginning. It is through conflict and many troubles of
every sort that we must attain to the perfection which is our present
task. This perfecting process alone opens the hard and unreceptive
heart sufficiently to receive the noble seed of a higher conception
of life, a seed that must be sown in the heart, and first spring up,
then grow, then blossom, and at last bear fruit. This life-process may
neither be hastened nor avoided, but it must be gone through. It is
therefore reasonable that we should not be eager for death, even if
we do not fear it, but we may justly rejoice only over what we have
already happily gone through and now, for all eternity, no longer need
to experience and endure.
When one once believes firmly in a continuation of existence that
alone supplies our present life with an intelligible solution of all
its questions and riddles, then a bit more or less enjoyment or pain
during this short span of imperfect existence becomes more a matter
of indifference, and much that was important before falls away from
us as a form without meaning; while, if these thoughts are untrue,
and if this is the only world, full as it is of injustices, sorrows,
and passions, it is a simple impossibility to believe in a just and
almighty God. Upon this single point, therefore, hangs our entire
philosophy of life.