to be frugal. He gave brilliant parties, but when he came to me he only
got potatoes and herrings, and yet he thought that was beyond my means.
On one occasion I had bought 200 grammes of nickel-sulphate for my
chemical experiments. They cost fifty-two pence. The spendthrift came
to visit me, looked at the sulphate, and exclaimed, 'Can you afford it?
Nickel-sulphate which is so dear.' Fifty-two pence! Then he invited me
to a drive in a carriage, and a meal which cost fifty-two kronas for
an altogether unproductive purpose. When he had to pay the reckoning
he suffered torments. Perhaps he was by nature a skinflint, who had
yielded to a mania for extravagance and reacted against it. I tried to
explain this once to him, as on principle I wished to think well of the
man."
=The Hate of Parasites.=--The teacher continued: "There are
men who are spiritually so empty that they only live on others. I
have an acquaintance (when one is over fifty one does not ask for
friends any more) who constantly visits me but never says anything.
Our social intercourse consists in my speaking alone. When he
leaves me after several hours, I feel as if I had been undergoing
blood-letting. It is certainly good to be able to talk oneself out
often, but one would often like to have an answer to one's questions;
but I never get an answer, not even to a question in his own special
line. I can only remember one expression which this man used, and
that was extraordinarily stupid. Somebody had slandered me, and my
'acquaintance' had believed every word and painted my figure in false
colours. Finally one evening I defended myself, and proved that my
slanderer was not in his right senses. He rejected my explanation,
exclaiming 'Fie! how cynical you are!'
"What did this answer mean? First, that I must not wash myself clean,
for he wanted to have me dirty; secondly, that he gave me the lie;
thirdly, that his sympathies were on the side of the slanderer. I draw
the inference that this man hated me, and therefore visited me. If he
could not have intercourse with me, he could not abuse my confidence
and gratify his hate. His tactics were--to live my life, to devour
my soul, to gnaw my bones. The attraction he felt to me he called
sympathy, though it was antipathy. There are many kinds of hate, and
a wife's 'love' to her husband is a variety of hate. She desires
his virile power in order to become a husband and make him into a
passive-wife."
=A Letter from the Dead.=--The teacher said: "It seems as though
one could live the life of another parallel with one's own, or as
though one might be in touch with a stranger on another continent.
One morning I received a letter of twenty-quarto pages from America.
Long letters make me nervous; they always begin with flattery and end
with scolding. I read, as I usually do, the signature first, which
was unknown to me. Then I dipped into the letter here and there, and
saw that the writer wished to influence me. One word pricked me like
a needle, and I tore the letter into small pieces which I threw in
the paper-basket. In the night I dreamt that the remarkable man,[1]
who seemed still to guide my steps after his death, showed me an old
manuscript which I had not found worth reading. The old servant held
the manuscript against the light, and then I saw like a water-mark
another writing between the lines. Immediately afterwards I saw in
my dream a broken-off leaden wire, but closer inspection showed its
surface to be gold. When I awoke in the morning I understood the
dream in its perfectly clear symbolism. I went to the paper-basket,
collected the fragments of the stranger's letter, and spent six hours
in piecing them together. Then I began to read. I should premise that
the handwriting was so like that of my deceased and honoured teacher,
that I believed I was reading a letter from the dead."
[Footnote 1: He refers probably to the Chief Librarian in the Royal
Stockholm Library, where he had been an assistant in his youth.]
=A Letter from Hell.=--"The letter pricked me like a packet of
needles. But it was so interesting that I was continually lured onward
to read to the end. The writer began by saying that he had received his
first intellectual awakening through my books. Since then his course
for twenty years had been very irregular; led astray by the prevailing
ape-morality, he had gone in evil ways. In the midst of his wandering,
it happened to him as to Dante and others--he came into hell, but found
a Virgil who led him out and saved him. Then his own real life began.
He passed all the sciences from philosophy to chemistry under critical
review, and found them consisting of mere conventional lies. He drifted
about helplessly till he found an anchorage-ground in faith in Christ,
the Exorciser of demons, the highest Wisdom, the Redeemer who saves
from doubt, despair, and madness.
"During the perusal I felt sometimes as though I were reading my own
life or a satire on it. Annoyed by what seemed a tactless encroachment,
I often wished to throw the letter away but could not; the dream always
recurred to me, and the letter contained new and bold ideas sparkling
in a chaos of contradictions and paradoxes. In short, it proved a
turning-point in my life. It exposed my faults, but showed me at the
same time that I had held the right course, in spite of the deflections
and cross-currents to which I had been exposed."
=An Unconscious Medium.=--"Now let me say a few words about
my deceased mentor, who already in his lifetime exercised a great
influence on my development, though without knowing or wishing it. I
was young, precocious, dull, and untrustworthy, mostly because I wished
to preserve my personal independence, but also because I was godless,
and consequently immoral without any other principle except that of
getting on. He, my chief, attracted me, in spite of the fact that I was
antipathetic to him in most things. My position required that I should
serve him devotedly, but I wished also to serve my own interests. He
was a spiritist and Swedenborgian, but I was a materialist. This he was
aware of, because I was brutally truthful. But struggle as I might,
I came under his influence and became his medium. There were days on
which he was so blind that he could not read the old manuscripts which
he was editing. One day he gave me a mediæval codex in a difficult
character, and half in joke told me to read it. I read it at once,
without having learnt the character. Then he had discovered me. But
I worked alone, although unconsciously. One day I stumbled on a pile
of old documents, and found a date which he had been hunting for
for twenty years. Another time I found an historic detail of great
importance which altered our ideas of our early history. One day our
paths diverged.
=The Revenant.=--"Years passed. I lived abroad, but my thoughts
often reverted to the savant who had had a great influence on my
life. Often, without any special reason, I spoke of him for hours at
a time--not always with the respect which I owed him. I was, it must
be remembered, a pioneer, to whom nothing was sacred, neither parents
nor teacher. One day I heard that the old man was dead. Eight days
later there appeared in the paper this mysterious announcement. An
intimate friend of the deceased received, eight days after his death,
through the post, a letter from him. The paper considered it a jocose
mystification on the part of the deceased, who loved jokes. I guessed
who might have been entrusted with the letter, but felt astonished
that a dying man could take such pleasure in jesting, especially about
things which he had taken so seriously. When, two years later, began
the experiences described in my book _Inferno_, I felt that I was in
touch with my departed teacher. There were certain roguish traits in
the phenomena which reminded me of him. I remember one night addressing
the question to the darkness, 'Is it you?' The whole affair was in his
style, teasing in form, but well-meaning in purpose. I received no
answer, but the impression remained--a mixture of terrible grim earnest
and behind it a friendly smile, comforting, pardoning, protecting, just
as in his lifetime, when he practised patience with my ill manners."
=The Meeting in the Convent.=--The teacher continued: "During
my wanderings I happened once to visit a convent with a travelling
companion in a corner of Europe. What interested me specially was the
library, for I had long been trying to trace Anschar's[1] journal.
After I had slept the night in a cell which bore the inscription 'B.
Victor III. P.P.,' in memory of Pope Victor III 'who punished the
heretics who denied the divinity of Christ,' I was taken into the
library. The first thing shown me was a collection of Latin hymns of
the Middle Ages which had been edited by my deceased teacher. The
inner side of the title-page contained some handwriting by the editor,
which was so peculiar that it could hardly be imitated. I asked the
Benedictine monk who accompanied me, whose signature it was. He
answered, 'The convent librarian's.' 'Are you certain?' I asked. 'Yes,
quite certain.' This discovery of his handwriting, which I had never
seen elsewhere, after so many years made a deep impression on me. I
asked myself whether the monk, acting as a medium, could have imitated
the handwriting of the deceased editor. After an afternoon's search I
found the valuable explanation that Anschar's journal had been taken by
Abbot Thymo from Corvey to Rome in A.D. 1261. It was known that it had
since disappeared, but now I had found a trace of it. I felt as though
my deceased friend had brought me here into the convent in order to
discuss Anschar's journal, concerning the fate of which we had often
made guesses and searches."
[Footnote 1: A famous French missionary in Sweden, a.d. 801-865.]
=Correspondences.=--The teacher said: "It seems to me as though
Swedenborg's correspondences or correlatives were to be found again
in all departments, as though natural laws on a higher plane can be
applied to the spiritual life of man. If an object comes too close to
the magnifying glass, it becomes indistinct. Similarly one cannot see
the object of one's affections if she comes too close. She becomes
small and indistinct, loses outline and colour; but remove her to the
proper focus, and she becomes magnified and clear. Thus it is with
princes and their valets de chambre.
"But there are also exceptions to the rule. Many friends gain by
proximity; one must see them often, otherwise they change their
shape and become ghostly and alarming. Others again seem better at a
distance; whenever we meet them we lose an illusion. The attraction
between lovers can increase in proportion to the square of the distance
between them, and also in reverse proportion; the greater the distance,
the greater the pain of separation. It seems also possible to apply the
facts of electricity in the psychical sphere. Pellets of elder-pith
attract one another so long as they are of opposite polarity, but when
they are saturated or over-saturated they repel one another. But the
mutual repulsion also takes place when a foreign body is interposed
between them, for then an influence is produced which operates
laterally."
=Portents.=--The teacher continued: "As soon as I believe in an
Almighty God, who can suspend the few natural laws which we know, and
bring into operation the countless host of laws which we do not know,
I must believe in miracles. Swedenborg does not deal so hardly with
anyone (at the same time that he commiserates them) as the asses who
revere the creation and the laws of nature, without believing in the
Creator and Law-giver. They go with their noses on the ground, and if
anything unusual happens 'in the air,' as they say, they call it 'a
meteorological phenomenon,' and attribute it to such and such natural
causes. They register the phenomenon in their records without dreaming
of anything behind it, and forthwith forget the matter.
"We, on the other hand, will mention some events of recent years and
connect them with certain natural phenomena which may possibly denote
the presence of warning and chastising powers.
"On the 7th June, 1905, Sweden and Norway separated. A year previous an
earthquake took place which had its centre in the Kattegat. One shock
reached Christiania and caused a terrible panic in the churches; people
trampled one another to death or lost their reason. Another shock
affected Stockholm and caused alarm, but in a minor degree; among those
affected by it was a prince of high military rank. In January, 1905, a
hurricane burst over Christiania, tore the roof from the royal castle,
and injured the fortress of Akershus. The same hurricane travelled
east-ward to Stockholm, tore the roof from the guards' barracks and
threw it on the drilling-ground. These statements can be verified by
reference to the newspapers. The question is: 'Are these portents or
not?' Are symbolic natural phenomena portents?"
=The Difficult Art of Lying.=--The teacher said: "When people
lie deliberately, usually with the object of gaining something, I
often do not hear what they say. One day a carpenter came to me with a
complaint. I listened to him and helped him. The next day he came again
in order to do a piece of work. Then, among other things he let this
remark fall: 'To-day, thank God, she is better.' 'Who?' I asked. 'I
mentioned yesterday that my child had fallen down the staircase.' Then
I felt ashamed of having taken so little interest in his troubles,
and murmured some sympathetic words. But when he had gone I thought
over the matter. Since I generally hear very well and attend to what
people say, I was astonished that I had not noticed his account of his
trouble. I could not explain it to myself.
"Some time later, after some months, I conceived a strong feeling of
distrust towards this man. I remembered the German proverb, 'A liar
should have a good memory,' and determined to test him. Therefore I
said to him abruptly, 'Did you have a good summer?' 'Splendid,' he
answered. 'Is your wife quite well?' 'Perfectly.' 'Your child too?'
'She has never passed through the summer so well.' Accordingly he
had lied when he said the little girl had had an accident, and had
subsequently forgotten it. What was unreal could leave no impression
behind--an interesting fact, as it seemed to me. In connection with
this I remembered that an actor, a pessimist and hopeless despairer,
had to play the part of a believing and positive character on a certain
occasion. That evening the audience could hardly hear a word of what he
said. I was astonished at the time, but now I understand that he was
lying."
=Religious and Scientific Intuition.=--The pupil said: "The
everlasting strife between Faith and Knowledge would have been stifled
at the outset if some sharp wit had discovered in time that the problem
is wrongly stated, for the two ideas form no real antithesis. What
I know, that I believe; consequently faith presupposes knowledge,
consequently knowledge is subsumed under faith. But the word 'belief'
has received other significations. In religion it means reception
or absorption. Science recognises the fact of intuition or rapid
inference, _i.e._ the faculty of reaching certainty without sufficient
reason and without a complete chain of proof. That is scientific
belief, and is in complete analogy with religious belief. When a man
arrives at the knowledge of God and of His laws by way of intuition,
when he then tests this knowledge by observing his experiences and
finds it confirmed, then the final outcome of his investigation is
Belief. Belief is complete objective certainty, but on a higher plane,
so that all scientific chatter that Knowledge is higher than Belief
is mere nonsense. By 'knowledge' in this case one understands for the
most part information about stones, plants, and animals, and historical
facts such as the year in which a certain book was published, when
Goethe was in Strasburg, whether Rebecca Ost's real name was
Popoffsky or Johanna Hagelstrom, or whether an Apostle-mug is genuine
or imitation. The antithesis 'Faith _or_ Knowledge' is the stupidest
dispute about words which ever took place, and a disgrace to humanity."
=The Freed Thinker.=--The teacher said: "In order to think
rightly and in accordance with law, I must free my reason from fetters
of rustic intelligence, from interests, passions, conventional
considerations. One must go into deep solitude, and not be afraid of
remaining alone, deserted by all. Above all, one must not belong to
any party which regulates, inspects, and degrades. In order to be able
to dare to give up the weak and hampering support of men, one must
be able thoroughly to rely upon God. In order to do that one must
keep one's conscience as clean as possible, must hate evil, strive
after righteousness and goodness, bear everything except humiliation,
exercise mercifulness, and take trials as such and not as persecutions.
"The electric clock has contact and connection with a correctly-timed
chronometer. And so my reason cannot think logically till I have opened
connection with the Logos, and no longer discharge contrary currents of
sterile denial and doubt. Only in life with God is there freedom of
thought, freedom from impure impulses, selfish and ambitious interests,
freedom from the wish to stand well with the crowd. That is the _freed_
thinker in contrast to the 'free-thinker,' who has left the rails and
lost connection with the overhead wire; he will come to grief at the
next street-corner, and is of no more use as a vehicle of traffic."
=Primus inter pares.=--The pupil continued: "Religions seemed
to be determined by regions like nationalities. Swedenborg hints
at something of the sort, saying that people have the religion
which they ought to have. Those who have no religion are tramps and
vagabonds, pariahs and gipsies, scoundrels and swindlers. They think
they are at home everywhere, but are so only on the high-roads, in
the market-places, behind the circus-stable, in the alehouse. When
Lessing asserts in _Nathan der Weise_ that all religions are equally
good, he shows that he has not understood Christianity, which is the
beginning and end of the world's history. The Muhammedans are certainly
religious, more religious than the Christians, and among the adherents
of Islam are many sects, but no atheistic ones. All observe the hours
of prayer, fasts, and daily washings. Muhammed was no Christ-hater. But
they are alien to our climate. Still we have something to learn from
them; they are not ashamed to show their religion, while we shuffle
with it. They are not only religious on Sundays but every day and all
day.
"But, if we heard that a Christian had gone over to Islam we should
regard it as a fall from the higher to the lower, while the conversion
of a Muhammedan to Christianity would be hailed as an ascent. Saladin
was certainly noble and Nathan wise, but the nobleness of the former
had somewhat of a pose about it, and the wisdom of the latter was of
the same homely kind as Voltaire's. On the other hand, Godfrey de
Bouillon accepted the crown of thorns instead of the king's crown,
and St. Louis gave his life for the wisdom which surpasses all
understanding."
=Heathen Imaginations.=--The teacher said: "Religions are
represented by regions, defined territories, circles, of which each
considers himself the centre. The modern heathen sit in their little
bag, which is big enough to be seen, and when they only see heathen
they imagine that Christianity is decaying or altogether done with.
And yet it is flourishing as it never did before; everything serves
the Gospel with or against its will. The heathen find new weapons in
heaps of ruins and in temple-libraries; they close churches and thereby
bring Christianity into life and into the domestic circle. When they
make life bitter for the Christians, the latter turn from the sour and
seek the fresh. The missionaries who were only lately regarded with a
contemptuous smile are now discovered by great explorers in deserts
and wildernesses, where they have established oases of humanity and
mercy. There the plundered wanderer can rest his weary head, secure of
having found one trustworthy man. He who wishes to know the effect of
Christianity on an idolater should read Kanso Utschimura's _Memoirs of
a Japanese; or, How I Became a Christian_. Those who preach 'cheerful
paganism' can see in this work how a polytheist is tom and tortured
by doubt, and tossed to-and-fro between the contradictory commands of
eighty million gods."
=Thought Bound by Law.=--The teacher said: "When a young man
comes and says he is a free-thinker, say to him: 'You lie. You think
with your stomach, your throat, your sexuality, with your passions and
your interests, your hate and your sympathies. But in your youthful
immaturity you do not really think at all, but merely drivel. What
is instilled into you, you give out, and dub your wishes by the
name of thoughts.' Moreover 'free-thought' is a contradiction in
terms, for thought obeys laws, just as sound, light, and chemical
combinations do. Thought is bound, bound by laws. If you say 'There
is no God,' you speak without thinking. 'Non-existence' and 'God' are
two incommensurate ideas which cannot be brought into juxtaposition.
If they are, there results an absurdity which is the secretion or
excretion of an illogical and confused mind.
"If on the other hand you say 'There is no God _for me_,' there is
something probable in that. But you should be ashamed to speak of
it. It only means that you are a godless dog, a perverse ape, a
conscienceless deceiver and thief whom men must avoid and detectives
must watch. Fortunately godlessness is an hallucination imposed on
haughty blockheads as a punishment. When the 'free-thinker' discovers
some day how stupid he is, then he is freed, and that is a mercy for
him."
=Credo quia (et-si) absurdum.=--The teacher said: "If I call
myself a Christian it is because I recognise Christ as a power, a
source of strength, from whom I obtain strength by prayer in order to
support tolerably the burdens of life. But at the same time I confess
that I cannot understand nor explain the doctrine of Atonement through
sacrificial death. That is not, however, the fault of the doctrine but
a defect in me. I have also no right to deny a matter of fact because I
do not understand it. Here is an illustration. If I multiply 2 by 2 I
obtain an increase--4. But if I multiply ½ by ½ I obtain as a result a
decrease by half, _i.e._ ¼. Here is an incomprehensible contradiction.
Multiplication cannot produce a decrease. Yet it is mathematically
true that 2 multiplied by 2 is doubled, _i.e._ 4, but ½ multiplied by
½ is halved, _i.e._ ¼. My intelligence would fain deny it, but I must
believe it, and in doing so I do well, otherwise the whole science of
mathematics would be unusable, which would be a great loss. _Credo
quia absurdum._ That means, I must believe a fact just because it
is incomprehensible and absurd (for me, but not for others). If I
could understand it, the emergency short-cut of 'faith' would not be
necessary. That is the sacrifice, not of my reason, but of my rustic
understanding and of my pride."
=The Fear of Heaven.=--The pupil said: "The astronomy or
uranology of the astronomers has ceased to make any progress since
it has become godless. They have given up observing the sky. They sit
there and calculate, with the express purpose of calculating God's
existence away. Seven years ago I met a teacher of astronomy. He did
not know that the equator of the sky passes through the belt of Orion,
and could not point out the ecliptic. He boasted of not knowing the
constellations, saying it was no science to know them. Our nearest
neighbour the moon has been ignored for a long time. And yet in 1866 it
was noticed that changes had taken place there, and that the crater of
Linnæus was on the point of disappearing. On the other hand, they are
trying to signal to Mars. If man, who lately in his folly thinks he has
solved the riddle of the universe without God, only knew how the 'gods'
are to us, and if he understood the signals which they send to us daily
and hourly, he would go out like Peter and weep that he had denied his
Lord or behaved as though he knew Him not."