Chapter 2

Börne, a contemporary of Heine, was very much offended when his enemies insisted on explaining his misanthropic outpourings as the result of a stomach and liver disease. It seemed to him much nobler and loftier to be indignant and angry because of the triumph of evil on earth, than because of the disorders of his own physical organs. Sentimentality apart—was he right, and is it really nobler?

A real writerdisdainsto repeat from hearsay events which he has not witnessed. It seems to him tedious and humiliating to tell "in his own words," like a schoolboy, things which he has fished out of another man's books. But there—how can we expect him to stoop to such insignificance!

Whilst conscience stands between the educated and the lower classes, as the only possible mediator, there can be no hope for mutual understanding. Conscience demands sacrifices, nothing but sacrifices. It says to the educated man: "You are happy, well-off, learned—the people are poor, unhappy, ignorant; renounce therefore your well-being, or else soothe your conscience with suave speeches." Only he who has nothing to sacrifice, nothing to lose, having lost everything, can hope to approach the people as an equal.

This is why Dostoevsky and Nietzsche were not afraid to speak in their own name, and did not feel compelled either to stretch up or to stoop down in order to be on a level with men.

Not to know what you want is considered a shameful weakness. To confess it is to lose for ever not only the reputation of a writer, but even of a man. None the less, "conscience" demands such a confession. True, in this case as in most others the demands of conscience are satisfied only when they incur no very dire consequences. Leaving aside the fact that people are no longer terrified of the once-so-terrible public opinion (the public has been tamed, it listens with reverence to what is told to it, and never dares judge)—the admission "I do not know myself what I want" seems to offer a guarantee of something important. Those who know what they want generally want trifles, and attain to inglorious ends: riches, fame, or at the best, progress or a philosophy of their own. Even now it is sometimes not a sin to laugh at such wonders, and may-be the time is coming when a rehabilitated Hamlet will announce, not with shame but with pride: "I don't in the least know what I want." And the crowd will applaud him, for the crowd always applauds heroes and proud men.

Fear of death is explained conclusively by the desire for self-preservation. But at that rate the fear should disappear in old and sick people, who ought by nature to look with indifference on death. Whereas the horror of death is present in all living things. Does not this suggest that there is still some other reason for the dread, and that even where the pangs of horror cannot save a man from his end, still it is a necessary and purposeful anguish? The natural-scientific explanation here, as usual, stops halfway, and fails to lead the human mind to the promised goal.

Moral indignation is only a refined form of ancient vengeance. Once anger spoke with daggers, now words will do. And happy is the man who, loving and thirsting to chastise his offender, yet is appeased when the offence is punished. On account of the gratification it offers to the passions, morality, which has replaced bloody chastisement, will not easily' lose its charm. But there are offences, deep, unforgettable offences, inflicted not by people, but by "laws of nature." How are we to settle these? Here neither dagger nor indignant word will serve. Therefore, for him who has once run foul of the laws of nature morality sinks, for ever or for a time, into subsidiary importance.

Fatalism frightens people particularly in that form which holds it just to say, of anything that happens, or has happened, or will happen: be it so! How can one acquiesce in the actuality of life, when it contains so many horrors? Butamor fatidoes not imply eternal acquiescence in actuality. It is only a truce, for a more or less lasting period. Time is needed in which to estimate the forces and intentions of the enemy. Under the mask of friendship the old enmity persists, and an awful revenge is in preparation.

In the "ultimate questions of life" we are not a bit nearer the truth than our ancestors were. Everybody knows it, and yet so many go on talking about infinity, without any hope of ever saying anything. It is evident that a result—in the usual acceptance of the word—is not necessary. In the very last resort we trust to instinct, even in the field of philosophy, where reason is supposed to reign supreme, uttering its eternal "Why?" "Why?" laughs at all possible "becauses." Instinct, however, does not mock. It simply ignores the whys, and leads us by impossible ways to ends that our divine reason would hold absurd, if it could only see them in time. But reason is a laggard, without much foresight, and, therefore, when we have run up to an unexpected conclusion, nothing remains but for reason to accept: or even to justify, to exalt the new event. And therefore,—"reality is reasonable," say the philosophers: reasonable, not only when they draw their philosophic Salaries, as the socialists, and with them our philosopher Vladimir Soloviov, explain; but still reasonable even when philosophers have their maintenance taken away from them. Nay, in the latter case, particularly in the latter case, in spite of the socialists and VI. Soloviov, reality shows herself most reasonable. A philosopher persecuted, downtrodden, hungry, cold, receiving no salary, is nearly always an extreme fatalist—although this, of course, by no means hinders him from abusing the existing order. Theories of sequence and consequence, as we already know, are binding only upon disciples, whose single virtue lies in their scrupulous, logical developing of the master's idea. But masters themselvesinventideas, and, therefore, have the right to substitute one for another. The sovereign power which proclaims a law has the same power to abolish it. But the duty of the subordinate consists in the praise, in the consequential interpretation and the strict observance of the dictates of the higher will.

The Pharisee in the parable fulfilled all that religion demanded of him: kept his fasts, paid his tithes, etc. Had he a right to be pleased with his own piety, and to despise the erring publican? Everybody thought so, including the Pharisee himself.The judgment of Christ came as the greatest surprise to him. He had a clear conscience. He did not merely pretend before others to be righteous, he himself believed in his own righteousness. And suddenly he turns out guilty, awfully guilty. But if the conscience of a righteous man does not help him to distinguish between good and evil, how is he to avoid sin? What does Kant's moral law mean, that law which was as consoling as the starry sky? Kant lived his life in profound peace of soul, he met his death quietly, in the consciousness of his own purity. But if Christ came again, he might condemn the serene philosopher for his very serenity. For the Pharisee, we repeat, was righteous, if purity of intentions, together with a firm readiness to fulfil everything which appears, to him in the light of duty, be righteousness in a man.

We jeer and laugh at a man not because he is ridiculous, but becausewewant to have a laugh out of him. In the same way we are indignant, not because this or the other act is revolting to us, but because we want to let off our steam. But it does not follow from this that we ought always to be calm and smooth. Woe to him who would try to realise the ideal of justice on earth.

We think with peculiar intensity during the hard moments of our life—we write when we have nothing else to do. So that a writer can only communicate something of importance in reproducing the past. When we are driven to think, we have unfortunately no mind to write, which accounts for the fact that books are never more than a feeble echo of what a man has gone through.

Tchekhov has a story calledMisfortunewhich well illustrates the difficulty a man finds in adapting himself to a new truth, if this truth threaten the security of his condition. The Merchant Avdeyer does not believe that he is condemned, that he has been brought to trial, and tried, and found guilty, for his irregularities in a public bank. He still thinks the verdict is yet to come—he still waits. In the world of learning something like this is happening. The educated have become so accustomed to think themselves not guilty, perfectly in the right, that they do not admit for a moment even now that they are brought to court. When threatening voices reach them, calling them to give an account of themselves, they only suspiciously shrug their shoulders. "All this will pass away"—they think. Well, when at last they are convinced that misfortune has befallen them, they will probably begin to justify themselves, like Avdeyer, declaring that they cannot even read printed matter sufficiently well. As yet, they pass for respectable, wise, experienced, omniscient men.

If a man had come to Dostoevsky and said to him, "I am hopelessly unhappy," the great artist in human misery would probably, at the bottom of his soul, have laughed at the naïveté of the poor creature. May one confess such things of oneself? May one go to such lengths of complaint, and still expect consolation from his neighbour?

Hopelessness is the most solemn and supreme moment in life. Till that point we have been assisted—now we are left to ourselves. Previously we had to do with men and human laws—now with eternity, and with the complete absence of laws. Is it not obvious?

Byelinsky, in his famous letter, accuses Gogol, among other things, that in hisCorrespondence with Friends, he, Gogol, succumbs to the fear of death, of devils, and of hell. I find the accusation just: Gogol definitely feared death, demons, and hell. The point is, whether it is not right to fear these things, and whether fearlessness would be a proof of the high development of a man's soul. Schopenhauer asserts that death inspired philosophy. All the best poetry, all the wonderful mythology of the ancients and of modern peoples have for their source the fear of death. Only modern science forbids men to fear, and insists on a tranquil attitude towards death. So we arrive at utilitarianism and the positivist philosophy. If you wish to be rid of both these creeds you must be allowed to think again of death, and without shame to fear hell and its devils. It may be there is really a certain justification for concealing fears of such kind: in the ability to conceal one's agitation at moments of great danger there is a true beauty. But to deaden human sensitiveness and to keep the human intelligence within the bounds of perception, such a task can have charms only for a petty creature. Happily, mankind has no means by which to perform on itself such monstrous castration. Persecuted Eros, it is true, has hidden himself from the eyes of his enemies, but he has never abjured himself; and even the strictest medieval monks could not completely tear out their hearts from their breasts. Similarly with the aspiration towards the infinite: science persecuted it and put a veto on it. But laboratory workers themselves, sooner or later, recover their senses, and thirstily long to get out of the enclosure of positive knowledge, with that same thirsty longing that tortured the monks who wanted to get out of the enclosure of monastery walls.

If fate—and they say there is such a law—punishes criminals, it has its penalty also for the lovers of good. The former it throttles, the latter it spits upon. The former end in bitter torment, the latter—in ignominy.

Philosophy has always loved to occupy the position of a servant. In the Middle Ages she was theancilla theologiæ, nowadays she waits on science. At the same time she calls herself the science of sciences.

I wonder which more effectually makes a man rush forwards without looking back: the knowledge that behind him hovers the head of Medusa, with horrible snakes, ready to turn him into stone; or the certainty that in the rear lies the unchangeable order laid down by the law of causality and by modern science. Judging from what we see, judging from the degree of tension which human thought has reached to-day, it would seem that the head of Medusa is less terrible than the law of causality. In order to escape the latter, man will face anything. Rather than return to the bosom of scientific cause and effect, he embraces madness: not that fine frenzy of madness which spends itself in fiery speeches, but technical madness, for which one is stowed away in a lunatic asylum.

"To experience a feeling of joy or sorrow, of triumph or despair,ennuior happiness, and so on, without having sufficient cause for such feeling, is an unfailing sign of mental disease...." One of the modern truths which is seeing its last days.

Count Tolstoy's German biographer regrets the constant misunderstanding and quarrels which took place between Tolstoy and Turgenev. He reminds us of Goethe and Schiller, and thinks that Russian literature would have gained a great deal if the two remarkable Russian writers had been more pacific, had remained on constantly friendly terms with one another, and bequeathed to posterity a couple of volumes of letters dealing with literary and philosophic subjects. It might have been very nice—but I refuse to imagine Tolstoy and Turgenev keeping up a long, peaceful correspondence, particularly on high subjects. Nearly every one of Turgenev's opinions drove Tolstoy to madness, or was capable of so driving him. Dostoevsky's dislike of Turgenev was even stronger than Tolstoy's; he wrote of him very spitefully and offensively, libelling him rather than drawing a caricature. Evidently Dostoevsky, like Tolstoy, detested the "European" in theirconfrere.But here he was mistaken, in spite of his psychological acuteness. To Dostoevsky, it was enough that Turgenev wore European clothes and tried to appear like a westerner. He himself did the opposite: he tried to get rid of every trace of Europeanism from himself, apparently without great success, since he failed to make clear to himself wherein lay the strength of Europe, and where her sting. Nevertheless, the late Mikhailovsky is not wrong in calling Dostoevsky a seeker of buried treasure. Surely, in the second half of his literary activity Dostoevsky no longer sought for the real fruits of life. There awoke in him the Russian, the elemental man, with a thirst for the miraculous. Compared with what he wanted, the fruits of European civilisation seemed to him trivial, flat, insipid. The age-long civilisation of his neighbours told him that there never had been a miracle, and never would be. But all his being, not yet broken-in by civilisation, craved for the stupendous unknown. Therefore, the apparently-satisfied progressivist enraged him. Tolstoy once said of Turgenev: "I hate his democratic backside." Dostoevsky might have repeated these words.... And now, for the gratification of the German critic, please reconcile the Russian writers and make them talk serenely on high-flown matters! Dostoevsky was within a hair's-breath of a quarrel with Tolstoy, with whom, not long before death interrupted him, he began a long controversy concerning "Anna Karenina." Even Tolstoy seemed to him too compliant, too accommodating.

We rarely make a display of that which is dear to us, near and dear and necessary. On the other hand, we readily exhibit that which is of no importance to us—there is nothing else to be done with it. A man takes his mistress to the theatre and sticks her in full view of everybody; he prefers to remain at home with the woman he loves, or to go about with her quietly, unnoticed. So with our "Virtues." Every time we notice in ourselves some quality we do not prize we haste to make a show of it, thinking perhaps that someone would be glad of it. If it wins us approval, we are pleased—so there is some gain. To an actor, a writer, or an orator, his own antics, without which he can have no success with the public, are often disgusting. And yet his knack of making-such antics he considers a talent, a divine gift, and he would rather die than that it should be lost to the public. Talent, on the whole, is accounted a divine gift, only because it is always on show, because it serves the public in some way or other. All our judgments are permeated through and through with utilitarianism, and were we to attempt to purify them from this adulteration what would remain of modern philosophy? That is why youngish, inexperienced writers usually believe inharmonia praestabilitata, even though they have never heard of Leibnitz. They persuade themselves that there is no breach between egoistic and idealistic aspirations; that, for instance, thirst for fame and desire to serve mankind are one and the same thing. Such a persuasion is usually very tenacious of life, and lasts long in men of vigorous and courageous mind. It seems to me that Poushkin would not have lost it, even had he lived to a prolonged old age. It was also part of Turgenev's belief—if a man of his spiritual fibre could have any belief. Tolstoy now believed, and now disbelieved, according to the work he had in hand. When he had other people's ideas to destroy he doubted the identity of egoistic and idealist aspirations; when he had his own to defend, he believed in it. Which is a line of conduct worthy of attention, and supremely worthy of imitation; for human truths are proper exclusively for ancillary purposes....

Man is such a conservative creature that any change, even a change for the better, scares him, he prefers the bad old way to the new good one. A man who has been all his life a confirmed materialist would not consent to believe that the soul was immortal, not if it were proved to himmore geometrico,and not if he were a constitutional coward, fearing death like Shakespeare's Falstaff. Then we must take human conceit into account. Men do not like to admit themselves wrong. It is absurd, but it is so. Men, trivial, wretched creatures, proved by history and by every common event to be bunglers, yet must needs consider themselves infallible, omniscient. What for? Why not admit their ignorance flatly and frankly? True, it is easier said than done. But why should slavish intellect, in spite of our desire to be straightforward, deck us out with would-be truths, of which we cannot divest ourselves even when we know their flimsiness. Socrates wanted to think that he knew nothing—but he could not bring it off. He most absorbedly believed in his own knowledge; nothing could be "truth," except his teaching; he accepted the decree of the oracle, and sincerely esteemed himself the wisest of men. And so it will be, as long as philosophers feel it their duty to teach and to save their neighbours. If a man wants to help people, he is bound to become a liar. We should undertake doubt seriously, not in order to return at length to established beliefs, for that would be a vicious circle. Experience shows us that such a process, certainly in the development of ultimate questions, only leads from error to error; we should doubtso that doubt becomes a continuous creative force, inspiring the very essence of our life. For established knowledge argues in us a condition of imperfect receptivity. The weak, flabby spirit cannot bear quick, ceaseless change. It must look round, it must have time to gather its wits, and so it must undergo the same experience time after time. It needs the support and the security of habit, But the well-grown soul despises your crutches. He is tired of crawling on his own cabbage patch, he tears himself away from his own "native" soil, and takes himself off into the far distances, braving the infinitude of space. Surely everybody knows we are not to live in the world for ever. But cowardice prevents one straightforward admitting of it, we keep it close till there is an occasion to air it as a truism. Only when misfortune, disease, old age come upon us, then the dread fear of departure walks with us like our own skeleton. We cannot dismiss him. At length, involuntarily, we begin to examine our gruesome companion with curiosity. And then, strangely enough, we observe that he not only tortures us, but, keeping pace with us, he has begun to gnaw through all the threads that bind us to the old existence. At moments it seems as if, a few more threads gone, nothing, nothing will remain to hold us back, the eternal dream of crawling man will be fulfilled, we shall be released from the bonds, we shall betake ourselves in liberty to regions far from this damned vale of earth....

Moralists are abused because they offer us "moral consolations." This is not quite fair. Moralists would joyfully substitute palpable blessings for their abstract gifts,if they could. When he was young, Tolstoy wanted to make men happy; when he was old, and knew he could not make them happy, he began to preach renunciation, resignation, and so forth. And how angry he got when people wouldn't have his teaching! But if, instead of foisting his doctrines off on us as the solution of the ultimate problems, and as optimism, he had only spoken of the impossibility of finding satisfactory answers, and have offered himself as a pessimist, he would probably have obtained a much more willing hearing. Now he is annoying, because, finding himself unable to relieve his neighbours, he turns to them and insists that they shall consider themselves relieved by him, nay, even made happy by him. To which many will not agree: for why should they voluntarily renounce their rights? Since although, God knows, the right of quarrelling with one's fate, and cursing it, is not a very grand right, still, itisa right ...

Ivanov, in Tchekhov's drama of that name, compares himself to an overstrained labourer. The labourer dies, so that all that remains to Ivanov is to die. But logic, as you know, recommends great caution in coming to conclusions by analogy. Behold Tchekhov himself, who, as far as we can judge, had endured in his own soul all the tragedy, just as Ivanov had, did not die or think of dying, or even turn out a wasted man. He is doing something, he struggles, he seeks, his work seems important and considerable to us, just like other human works. Ivanov shot himself because the dramamustend, while Tchekhov had not yet finished his own struggle. Our aesthetics demand that the drama must have a climax and a finale: though we have abandoned the Aristotelian unities. Given a little more time, however, dramatic writers will have got rid of this restriction also. They will frankly confess that they do not know how, or with what event to end their dramas. Stories have already learnt to dispense with an ending.

More of the same.—Ivanov says: "Now, where is my salvation? In what? If an intelligent, educated, healthy man for no discoverable reason sets up a Lazarus lament and starts to roll down an inclined plane, then he is rolling without resisting, and there is no salvation for him." One way out would be to accept the inclined plane and the gathering impetus as normal. Even further, one might find in the rolling descent a proof of one's spiritual superiority to other men. Of course in such a case one should go apart from the rest, not court young girls or fraternise with those who are living the ordinary life, but be alone. "Love is nonsense, caresses maudlin, work is meaningless, and song and fiery speeches are banal, played-out," continued Ivanov. To young Sasha these words are horrible,—but Ivanov will be responsible for them. He is already responsible for them. That he is tottering is nothing: it is still full early for him to shoot himself. He will live whilst his creator, Tchekhov, lives. And we shall listen to the shaky, vacillating philosophy. We are so sick of symmetry and harmony and finality, sick as we are of bourgeois self-complacency.

It will be seen from the above that already inIvanov, one of his early works, Tchekhov has assumed the rôle ofadvocatus diaboli. Wherever Ivanov appears he brings ruin and destruction. It is true, Tchekhov hesitates to take his side openly, and evidently does not know what to do with his hero, so that in the end he shakes him off, so to speak, he washes his hands of him in the accepted fashion: Ivanov shoots himself in the sight of everybody, has not even time to go discreetly into a corner. The only justification ofIvanovis that caricature of honesty, Doctor Lvov. Lvov is not a living figure—that is obvious. But this is why he is remarkable. It is remarkable that Tchekhov should deem it necessary to resurrect the forgotten Starodoum, that utterer of truisms in Fon-Visin's comedy; and to resurrect him no longer that people may bow their heads before the incarnation of virtue, but so that they shall jeer at him. Look at Doctor Lvov! Is he not Starodoum alive again? He is honesty personified. From force of old habit, honesty sticks his chest out, and speaks in a loud voice, with imperious tone, and yet not one of this old loyal subjects gives a brass farthing for him. They don't even trouble to gibe at him, but spit on him and shove him through the door, as a disgusting and impudent toady. Poor honesty! What has he sunk to! Evidently virtues, like everything else, should not live too long on earth.

Tchekhov's "Uncle Vanya" is waiting to throw himself on the neck of his friend and rival, the doctor, throw himself on his neck and sob there like a little child, But he finds that the doctor himself has an unquenchable thirst for consolation and encouragement, whilst poor Sonia can bear her maiden sorrows no longer. They all go wandering round with big, lost eyes, looking for someone to relieve them frompartof their woes, at least. And lo, everybody is in the same street as themselves. All are over-heavy-laden, not one can carry his own burden, let alone give a lift to another's. The last consolation is taken away. It is no use complaining: there is no sympathetic response. On all faces the same expression of hopelessness and despair. Each must bear his cross in silence. None may weep nor utter pitiful cries—it would be uncalled-for and indecent. When Uncle Vanya, who has not realised at once the extremity of his situation, begins to cry out: "My life's a waste!" nobody wants to listen to him. "Waste, waste! Everybody knows it's a waste! Shut your mouth, howling won't help you: neither will pistol-shots solve anything. Everyone of us might start your cry—but we don't, neither do we shout:

—You think I'll weep;No, I'll not weep: I have full cause of weeping,But this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,Or ere I'll weep; O Fool, I shall go mad."

Gradually there settles down a dreadful, eternal silence of the cemetery. All go mad, without words, they realise what is happening within them, and make up their minds for the last shift: to hide their grief for ever from men, and to speak in commonplace, trivial words which will be accepted as sensible, serious, and even lofty expressions. No longer will anyone cry: "Life is a waste," and intrude his feelings on his neighbours. Everybody knows that it is shameful for one's life to be a waste, and that this shame should be hidden from every eye. The last law on earth is—loneliness.

Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute!

Groundless assumptions.—"Based on nothing," because they seem to derive from common assumption of the reasonableness of human existence, which assumption surely is the child of our desires, and probably a bastard at that..... In hisMiserly KnightPoushkin represented a miser as a romantic figure. Gogol, with his Plyushkin, creates on the contrary a repulsive figure of a miser. Gogol was nearer to reality. A miser is ugly, whatever view you take of him—inward or outward. Yet Gogol ought not to teach people to preserve in their age the ideals of their youth. Once old age is upon us—it must not be improved upon, much less apologised for. It must be accepted, and its essence brought to light. Plyushkin, the vulgar, dirty maniac is disgusting—but who knows? perhaps he is fulfilling the serious mission of his own being. He is possessed by one desire—to everything else, to all happenings in the outer world he is indifferent. It is the same to him whether he is hungry or full, warm or cold, clean or dirty. Practically no event can distract his attention from his single purpose. He is disinterestedly mean, if one may say so. He has no need for his riches. He lets them rot in a disgusting heap, and does not dream, like Poushkin's knight, of palaces and power, or of sportive nymphs. Upon what end is he concentrated? No one has the time to think it out. At the sight of Plyushkin everyone recalls the damage the miser has done. Everyone of course is right: Plyushkins, who heap up fortunes to let them rot, are very harmful. The social judgment is nearly always to the point. But not quite always. It won't hurt morals and social considerations if at times they have to hold their tongue—and at such times we might succeed in guessing the riddle of meanness, sordidness, old age.

We have sufficient grounds for taking life mistrustfully: it has defrauded us so often of our cherished expectations. But we have still stronger grounds for mistrusting reason: since if life deceived us, it was only because futile reason let herself be deceived. Perhaps reason herself invented the deception, and then to serve her own ambitious ends, threw the blame on life, so that life shall appear sick-headed. But if we have to choose between life and reason, we choose life, and then we no longer need try to foresee and to explain, we can wait, and accept all that is unalterable as part of the game. And thus Nietzsche, having realised that all his hopes had gradually crumbled, and that he could never get back to his former strength, but must grow worse and worse every day, wrote in a private letter of May 28, 1883: "Ich will es so schwer haben, wie nur irgend ein Mensch es hat; erst writer diesem Drucke gewinne ich das gute Gewissen dafür, etwas zu besitzen, das wenige Menschen haben und gehabt haben: Flügel, um im Gleichnisse zu reden." In these few simple words lies the key to the philosophy of Nietzsche.

"So long as Apollo calls him not to the sacred offering, of all the trifling children of men the most trifling perhaps is the poet." Put Poushkin's expression into plain language, and you will get a page on neuropathology. All neurasthenic individuals sink from a state of extreme excitation to one of complete prostration. Poets too: and they are proud of it.

Shy people usually receive their impressions post-dated. During those moments when an event is taking place before their eyes, they can see nothing, only later on, having evoked from their memory a fragment of what happened, they make for themselves an impression of the whole scene. And then, retrospectively arise in their soul feelings of pity, offence, surprise, so vivid, as if they were the flames of the instant moment, not rekindlings from the past. Thus shy people always think a great deal, and are always too late for their work. It is never too late for thought. Timid before others, they reach great heights of daring when alone. They are bad speakers—but often excellent writers. Their life is insignificant and tedious, they are not noticed,—until they become famous. And by the time fame comes, they do not need popular attention any more.

If Tchekhov's Layevsky, inThe Duel, had been a writer with a literary talent, people would have said of him that he was original, and that he was engaged in the study of the "mysticism of sex," like Gabriele D'Annunzio for example; whereas, as he stands, he is only banal. His idleness is a reproach to him: people would prefer that at least he should copy out extracts from documents.

From observations on children.—Egoism in a man strikes us unpleasantly because it betrays our poverty. "I cannot dole out my abundance to my neighbour, for if I do I myself shall be left with little." We should like to be able to scatter riches with a royal hand; and, therefore, when we see someone else clutching his rags with the phrase, "property is sacred," we are hurt. What is sacred comes from the gods, and the gods have plenty of everything, they do not count and skimp, like mortals.

We see a man repent for his actions, and conclude that such actions should be avoided: an instance of false, but apparently irreproachable reasoning. Time passes, and we see the same man repenting again of the self-same acts. If we love logic, this will confirm us in our first conclusion. But if we do not care for logic, we shall say: man is under an equal necessity to commit these acts, and to repent of them. Sometimes, however, the first conclusion is corrected differently. Having decided that repentance proves that a certain course of action should be avoided, man avoids it all his life; only to realise in the end, suddenly, with extraordinary clarity, how bitter is his regret that he has not trodden the forbidden course. But by this time a new conclusion is already useless. Life is over, and the newly-enlightened mind no longer knows how to rid itself of the Superfluous light.

A version of one of the scenes of Tolstoy'sPower of Darknessreminds us exactly of a one-act piece of Maeterlinck. There can be no question of imitation. When thePower of Darknesswas written nobody had heard of Maeterlinck. Tolstoy evidently wanted to try a new method of creating, and to get rid of his own manner, which he had evolved through tens of years of dogged labour. But the risk was too great. He preferred to cure himself of his doubts by the common expedient, manual toil and an outdoor life. So he took up the plough.

Every woodcock praises its own fen; Lermontov saw the sign of spiritual pre-eminence in dazzling white linen, and therefore his heroes always dressed with taste. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, despised show: Dmitri Karamazov wears dirty linen—and this is assigned to him as a merit, or almost a merit.

While he was yet young, when he wrote his story,Enough, Turgenev saw that something terrible hung over his life. He saw, but did not get frightened, although he understood that in time he ought to become frightened, because life without a continual inner disturbance would have no meaning for him.

Napoleon is reputed to have had a profound insight into the human soul; Shakespeare also. And their vision has nothing in common.

What we call imagination, which we value so highly in great poets—is, essentially, unbridled, loose, or if you will, even perverted mentality. In ordinary mortals we call it vice; but to the poets everything is forgiven on account of the benefit and pleasure we derive from their works. In spite of our high-flown theories we have always been extremely practical, great utilitarians. Two-and-a-half-thousand years went by before Tolstoy got up, and, in his turn, offered the poets their choice: either to be virtuous, or to stop creating and forfeit the fame of teachers. If Tolstoy did not make a laughing-stock of himself, he has to thank his grey hairs and the respect which was felt for his past. Anyhow, nobody took him seriously. Far from it; for never yet did poets feel so free from the shackles of morality as they do now. If Schiller were writing his dramas and philosophic essays to-day, he would scarcely find a reader. In Tolstoy himself it is not so much his virtues as his vices which we find interesting. We begin to understand his works, not so much in the light of his striving after ideals, but from the standpoint of that incongruity which existed between the ideas he artificially imposed upon himself, and the demands of his own non-virtu ous soul, which struggled ever for liberty. Nicolenka Irtenyev, inChildhood, and Youth, would sit for hours on the terrace, turning over in his mind his elder brother Volodya's love-making with the chambermaids. But, although he desired it "more than anything on earth" he could never bring himself to be like Volodya. The maid said to the elder brother, "Why doesn't Nicolai Fetrovitch ever come here and have a lark?" She did not know that Nicolai Petrovitch was sitting at that moment under the stairs, ready to giveanything on earthto take the place of the scamp Volodya. "Everything on earth" is twice repeated. Tolstoy gives a psychological explanation of his little hero's conduct. "I was timid by nature," Nicolenka tells us, "but my shyness was increased by the conviction of my ugliness." Ugliness, the consciousness of one's ugliness, leads to shyness! What good can there be in virtue which has such a suspicious origin? And how can the morality of Tolstoy's heroes be trusted i Consciousness of one's ugliness begets shyness, shyness drives the passions inwards and allows them no natural outlet. Little by little there develops a monstrous discrepancy between the imagination and its desires, on the one hand, and the power to satisfy these desires, on the other. Permanent hunger, and a contracted alimentary canal, which does not pass the food through. Hence the hatred of the imagination, with its unrealised and unrealisable cravings.... In our day no one has scourged love so cruelly as Tolstoy inPower of Darkness. But the feats of the village Don Juan need not necessarily end in tragedy. "More than anything on earth," however, Tolstoy hates the Don Juans, the handsome, brave, successful, the self-confident, who spontaneously act upon suggestion, the conquerors of women, who stretch out their hands to living statues cold as stone. As far as ever he can he has his revenge on them in his writing.

In the drama of the future the whole presentation will be different. First of all, the difficulties of the dénouement will be set aside. The new hero has a past-reminiscent—but no present; neither wife, nor sweetheart, nor friends, nor occupation. He is alone, he communes only with himself or with imaginary listeners. He lives a life apart. So that the stage will represent either a desert island or a room in a large densely-populated city, where among millions of inhabitants one can live alone as on a desert island. The hero must not return to people and to social ideals. He must go forward to loneliness, to absolute loneliness. Even now nobody, looking at Gogol's Plyushkin, will feel any more the slightest response to the pathetic appeal for men to preserve the ideals of youth on into old age. Modern youths go to see Plyushkin, not for the sake of laughing at him or of benefiting from the warning which his terrible miserly figure offers them, but in order to see if there may not be some few little pearls there where they could be least expected, in the midst of his heap of dirt.

... Lycurgus succeeded in fixing the Spartans like cement for some centuries—but after that came the thaw, and all their hardness melted. The last remains of the petrified Doric art are now removed to museums.... Is something happening——?

If I sow not in the spring, in autumn I shall eat no bread. Every day brings troubles and worries enough for poor, weak man. He had to forget his work for a moment, and now he is lost: he will die of hunger or cold. In order merely to preserve our existence we have to strain mind and body to the utmost: nay more, we have to think of the surrounding world exclusively with a view to gaining a livelihood from it. There is no time to think about truth! This is why positivism was invented, with its theory of natural development. Really, everything we see is mysterious and incomprehensible. A tiny midge and a huge elephant, a caressing breeze and a blizzard, a young tree and a rocky mountain—what are all these? What are they, why are they? we incessantly ask ourselves, but we may not speak out. For philosophy is ever pushed aside to make room for the daily needs. Only those think who are unable to trouble about self-preservation, or who will not trouble, or who are too careless: that is, sick, desperate, or lazy people. These return to the riddle which workaday men, confirmed in the certainty that they are right, have construed into "naturalness."

Kant, and after him Schopenhauer, was exceedingly fond of the epithet "disinterested," and used it on every occasion when the supply of laudatory terms he had at his disposal was exhausted. "Disinterested thinking," which does not pursue any practical aim, is, according to Schopenhauer, the highest ideal towards which man can strive. This truth he considered universal, ana priori. But had he chanced to be brought amongst Russian peasants he would have had to change his opinion. With them thoughts about destiny and the why and wherefore of the universe and infinity and so on, would by no means be considered disinterested, particularly if the man who devoted himself to such thoughts were at the same time to announce, as becomes a philosopher, that he claimed complete freedom from physical labour. There the philosopher, were he even Plato, would be stigmatised with the disgraceful nickname, "Idle-jack." There the highest activity is interested activity, directed towards strictly practical purposes; and if the peasants could speak learnedly, they would certainly call the principle upon which their judgment is founded ana priori. Tolstoy, who draws his wisdom from the folk-sources, attacks the learned for the very fact that they do not want to work, but are disinterestedly occupied in the search for truth.

100

It is clear to any impartial observer that practically every man changes his opinion ten times a day. Much has been said on this subject, it has served for innumerable satires and humorous sketches. Nobody has ever doubted that it was a vice to be unstable is one's opinions. Three-fourths of our education goes to teaching us most carefully to conceal within ourselves the changeableness of our moods and judgments. A man who cannot keep his word is the last of men: never to be trusted. Likewise, a man with no firm convictions: it is impossible to work together with him. Morality, here as always making towards utilitarian ends, issues the "eternal" principle: thou shalt remain true to thy convictions. In cultured circles this commandment is considered so unimpeachable that men are terrified even to appear inconstant in their own eyes. They become petrified in their beliefs, and no greater shame can happen to them than that they should be forced to admit that they have altered in their convictions. When a straightforward man like Montaigne plainly speaks of the inconstancy of his mind and his views, he is regarded as a libeller of himself. One need neither see, nor hear, nor understand what is taking place around one: once your mind is made up, you have lost your right to grow, you must remain a stock, a statue, the qualities and defects of which are known to everybody.

101

Every philosophic world-conception starts from some or other solution of the general problem of human existence, and proceeds from this to direct the course of human life in some particular direction or other. We have neither the power nor the data for the solution of general problems, and consequently all our moral deductions are arbitrary, they only witness to our prejudices if we are naturally timid, or to our propensities and tastes if we are self-confident. But to keep up prejudices is a miserable, unworthy business: nobody will dispute that. Therefore let us cease to grieve about our differences in opinion, let us wish that in the future there should be many more differences, and much less unanimity. There is no arbitrary truth: it remains to suppose that truth lies in changeable human tastes and desires. In so far as our common social existence demands it—let us try to come to an understanding, to agree: but not one jot more. Any agreement which does not arise out of common necessity will be a crime against the Holy Spirit.

102

Tchekhov was very good at expounding a system of philosophy—even several systems. We have examples in more than one of his stories, particularly inThe Duel,where Fon-Koren speaksex cathedra. But Tchekhov had no use for such systems, save for purely literary purposes. When you write a story, and your hero must speak clearly and consistently, a system has its value. But when you are left to yourself, can you seriously trouble your soul about philosophy? Even a German cannot, it seems, go so far in his "idealism." Vladimir Semionovitch, the young author in Tchekhov'sNice People, sincerely and deeply believes in his own ideas, but even of him, notwithstanding his blatantly comical limitations, we cannot say more than that his ideas were constant little views or pictures to him, which had gradually become a second natural setting to everything he saw. Certainly he did not live by ideas. Tchekhov is right when he says that the singing ofGaudeamus igiturand the writing of a humanitarian appeal were equally important to Vladimir Semionovitch. As soon as Vladimir's sister begins to think for herself, her brother's highest ideas, which she has formerly revered, become banal and objectionable to her. Her brother cannot understand her, neither her hostility to progress and humanitarianism, nor to the university spree andGaudeamus igitur.But Tchekhovdoesunderstand. Only, let us admit, the word "understand" does not carry its ordinary meaning here. So long as the child was fed on its mother's milk, everything seemed to it smooth and easy. But when it had to give up milk and take to vodka,—and this is the inevitable law of human development—the childish suckling dreams receded into the realm of the irretrievable past.

103

The summit of human existence, say the philosophers, is spiritual serenity,aequanimitas: But in that case the animals should be our ideal, for in the matter of imperturbability they leave nothing to be desired. Look at a grazing sheep, or a cow. They do not look before and after, and sigh for what is not. Given a good pasture, the present suffices them perfectly.

104

A hungry man was given a piece of bread, and a kind word. The kindness seemed more to him than the bread. But had he been given only the kind word and no bread, he would perhaps have hated nice phrases. Therefore, caution is always to be recommended in the drawing of conclusions: and in none more than in the conclusion that truth is more urgently required than a consoling lie. The connections of isolated phenomena can very rarely be discerned. As a rule, several causes at once produce one effect. Owing to our propensity for idealising, we always make prominent that cause which seems to us loftiest.

105

A strange anomaly! we see thousands of human beings perish around us, yet we walk warily lest we crush a worm. The sense of compassion is strong in us, but it is adapted to the conditions of our existence. It can relieve an odd case here and there—and it raises a terrific outcry over a trifling injustice. Yet Schopenhauer wanted to make compassion the metaphysical basis of morality.

106

To discard logic as an instrument, a means or aid for acquiring knowledge, would be extravagant. Why should we? For the sake of consequentialism?i.e.for logic's very self? But logic, as an aim in itself, or even as theonlymeans to knowledge, is a different matter. Against this one must fight even if he has against him all the authorities of thought—beginning with Aristotle.

107

"When the yellowing corn-fields sway and are moved, and the fresh forest utters sound to the breeze ... then I see happiness on earth, and God in heaven." It may be so, to the poet; but it may be quite different. Sometimes the corn-field waves, the woods make noise in the wind, the stream whispers its best tales: and still man cannot perceive happiness, nor forget the lesson taught in childhood, that the blue heavens are only an optical illusion. But if the sky and the boundless fields do not convince, is it possible that the arguments of Kant and the commentations of his dozens of talentless followers can do anything?

108

The greatest temptation.—In Dostoevsky'sGrand Inquisitorlurks a dreadful idea. Who can be sure, he says—metaphorically, of course—that when the crucified Christ uttered His cry: "Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?" He did not call to mind the temptation of Satan, who for one word had offered Him dominion over the world? And, if Jesus recollected this offer, how can we be sure that He did not repent not having taken it?... One had better not be told about such temptations.

109

From the "Future Opinions concerning contemporary Europe."—"Europe 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 hisInjured and Insulted, not to mentionPoor Folk. But inLetters from the Underworldand the rest of his books he is the shrewdest and cleverest of writers. The same may be said of Nietzsche, Tolstoy, or Shakespeare. In hisBirth of TragedyNietzsche seems just like the ordinary honest, rather simple, blue-eyed provincial German student, and inZarathustrahe reminds one of Machiavelli. Poor Shakespeare got himself into a row for his Brutus—but no man could deny the great mind inHamlet.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

InTroilus and CressidaThersites 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 Dostoevskyquietly believein the teachings of their master. Does it not mean thatde factothey 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 inBoris Godunovsays 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 GermanIntroduction 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 anotherIntroduction 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 hisphilosophicsensibility 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 aHistory 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 theconsensus 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 whodethrone truthand 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 thea prioriof 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, thea prioriof 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, moralwill, 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 atAllgemeingültigkeit. 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 ofAllgemeingültigkeit, 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. Thatthere is nothing unthinkablein 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 tounderstandpeople, 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 ofknowingwe should sacrifice, and gladly, understanding, since understanding in any case is a secondary affair.-Zu fragmentarisch ist Welt und Leben!...

Nur für Schwindelfreie.

(FromAlpine Recollections.)

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 tosee, 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!

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, nobodywantsto 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.

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