[3]War and Christianity,by Vladimir Soloviev.
[3]War and Christianity,by Vladimir Soloviev.
There are but few orthodox Hegelians left among philosophers nowadays, yet Hegel is still supreme over the minds of our contemporaries. It may even be that certain of his ideas have taken deeper root nowadays than when Hegelianism was in full bloom: for instance, the conception that history is the unfolding of the idea in reality, or, to put it more briefly and in terms more familiar to the modern mind—the idea of progress. Try to convince an educated person of the contrary: you are sure to be worsted. But,de omnibus dubitandum,which means in other words, that doubt is called upon to fulfil its mission above all in those cases where a conviction is particularly strong and unshakable. Therefore one must admit, whether he will or no, that progress so called—the development of mankind in time—is a fiction.
We have wireless telegraphy, radium and the rest, yet we stand no higher than the Romans or the Greeks of old. You admit this? Then, one step further: although we have wireless telegraphy and all the other blessings of civilisation, still we stand no higher than red-or black-skinned savages. You protest: but the principle compels. You began to doubt: then what is the use of drawing back?
For myself, I must confess that the idea of the spiritual perfection of savages entered my mind but lately, when, for the first time for many years, I looked through the works of Tylor, Lubbock and Spencer. They speak with such certainty of the advantages of our spiritual organisation, and have such sincere contempt for the moral misery of the savage, that in spite of myself stole in the thought: Is it not exactly here, where all are so certain that no one ever examines the question, that the source of error is to be found? High time to recall Descartes and his rule! And as soon as I began to doubt, all my former certainty—of course I fully shared the opinion of the English anthropologists—disappeared in a moment.... It began to appear that the savage indeed is higher and more important than our savants, and not our materialists only, as Professor Paulsen thinks, but our idealists, metaphysicians, mystics, and even our convinced missionaries (sincere believers, not the profit-mongering sort), whom Europe sends forth into the world to enlighten the backward brethren. It seemed to me that the credit transactions common among savages, with a promise to pay in the world beyond the grave, have a deep meaning. And human sacrifices! In them Spencer sees a barbarity, as an educated European should. I also see in them barbarity, because I also am a European and have a scientific education. But I deeply envy their barbarity, and curse the cultivation which has herded me together with believing missionaries, idealist, materialist, and positivist philosophers, into the narrow fold of the sultry and disgusting apprehensible world. We may write books to prove the immortality of the soul, but our wives won't follow us to the other world: they will prefer to endure the widow's lot here on the earth. Our morality, based on religion, forbids us to hurry into eternity. And so in everything. We are guessing, at the best we are sicklied with dreams, but our life passes outside our guesses and our dreams. One man still accepts the rites of the Church, however strange they may be, and seriously imagines that he is brought into contact with other worlds. Beyond the rites no step is taken. Kant died when he was eighty; had it not been for cholera, Hegel would have lived a hundred years; while the savages—the young ones kill the old and ... I dare not complete the sentence for fear of offending sensitive ears. Again I recall Descartes and his rule: who is right, the savages or we? And if the savages are right, can history be the unfolding of the idea? And is not the conception of progress in time (that is the development from the past to the present and to the future) the purest error? Perhaps, and most probably, there is development, but the direction of this development is in a line perpendicular to the line of time. The base of the perpendicular may be any human personality. May God and the reader forgive one the obscurity of the last words. I hope the clarity of the foregoing exposition will to some extent atone for it.
We are obliged to think that nothing certain can be said either of self-renunciation or of megalomania, though each one of us in his own experience knows something of the former as well as of the latter. But it is well known that the impossibility of solving a question never yet kept people from reflecting. On the contrary: to us the most alluring questions are those to which there is no actual, no universally valid, answer. I hope that sooner or later, philosophy will be thus defined, in contrast to science:—philosophy is the teaching of truths which are binding on none. Thereby the accusation so often made against philosophy will be removed, that philosophy properly consists of a series of mutually exclusive opinions. This is true, but she must be praised for it, not blamed: there is nothing bad in it, but good, a very great deal of good. On the other hand, it is bad, extremely bad, that science should consist of truths universally binding. For every obligation is a constraint. Temporarily, one can submit to a restraint, put on a corset, fetters; one can agree to anything temporarily. Rut who will voluntarily admit the mastery over himself of an eternal law? Even from the quiet and clear Spinoza I sometimes hear a deep sigh, and I think that he is longing for freedom—he who wasted all his life, all his genius in the glorification of necessity.... With such an introduction one may say what he pleases.
It seems to me that self-renunciation and megalomania, however little they resemble one another apparently, may be observed successively, even simultaneously, in one and the same person. The ascetic, who has denied life and humbles himself before everybody, and the madman (like Nietzsche or Dostoevsky), who affirms that he is the light, the salt of the earth, the first in the whole world or even in the whole universe—both reach their madness—I hope there is no necessity to demonstrate that self-renunciation as well as megalomania is a kind of madness—under conditions for the most part identical. The world does not satisfy the man and he begins to seek for a better. All serious seeking brings a man to lonely paths, and lonely paths, it is well known, end in a great wall which sets a fatal bound to man's curiosity. Then arises the question, how shall a man pass beyond the wall, by overcoming either the law of impenetrability or the equally invincible law of gravity, in other words, how shall a man become infinitely small or infinitely great? The first way is that of self-renunciation: I want nothing, I myself am nothing, I am infinitely small, and therefore I can pass through the infinitely small pores of the wall.
The other way is megalomania. I am infinitely strong, infinitely great, I can do all things, I can shatter the wall, I can step over it, though it be higher than all the mountains of the earth and though it has hitherto dismayed the strongest and the bravest. This is probably the origin of the two most mysterious and mighty spiritual transformations. There is no single religion upon which are not more or less clearly impressed the traces of these methods of man's struggle with the poverty of his powers. In ascetic religions the tendency to self-renunciation predominates: Buddhism glorifies the suppression of the individual and has for its ideal Nirvana. The Greeks dreamed of Titans and heroes. The Jews consider themselves the chosen people and await the Messiah. As for the Gospel, it is hard to say to which method of struggle it gives the preference. On the one hand are the great miracles, the raising from the dead, the healing of the sick, the power over the winds and the sea; on the other: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.' The Son of God who will sit on the right hand of power now lives in the company of publicans, beggars, and harlots, and serves them. 'Who is not for us, is against us'; the promise to thrust down his enemies into the fiery hell; eternal torment for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and equal with these the exhortation to the extreme of humility and love to the enemy: 'Turn to him the other cheek also.' Throughout, the Gospel is permeated with contradictions, which are not extraneous and historical, concerned with facts, but intrinsic, contradictions of mood, of 'ideals,' as the modern man would say. What is in one chapter praised as the noblest task is in the next degraded to an unworthy labour. It is in no way strange that the most opposite teachings should find justification in this little book, which is half composed of repetitions. The Inquisitors, the Jesuits, and the old ascetics called themselves. Christians; so do the modern Protestants and our Russian sectaries. To a greater or less degree they all are right, even the Protestants. Such contradictory elements are intertwined in the Gospel, that men, above all those who travel the high road, who can move in one direction only, and under one conspicuous flag, who have become accustomed to believe in the unity of reason and the infallibility of logical laws, could never fully grasp the teaching of the Gospel, and always aspired to give to the words and deeds of Christ a uniform explanation which should exclude contradictions, and more or less correspond to the common conceptions of the work and problems of life. They read in the mysterious book, 'Have faith and thou shalt say to this mountain: be thou removed,' and understood it to mean that always, every hour and every minute, one must think and desire the self-same thing, prescribed beforehand and fully denned; whereas in these words the Gospel allows and commends the maddest and most perilous experiments. That which is, did not exist for Christ; and only that existed, which is not.
The old Roman, Pilate, who was apparently an educated man, clever and not bad at heart, though weak in character, could neither understand nor elucidate the cause of the strange struggle which took place before him. With his whole heart he pitied the pale Jew before him, who was guilty of nothing. 'What is truth?' he asked Christ. Christ did not answer him, nor could He answer, not through ignorance, as the heathen desired to believe, but because that question cannot be answered in words. It would have been necessary to take Pilate's head, and turn it towards the other side, in order that he might see what he had never seen before. Or, still better; to have used the method to which the hunch-backed pony turns in the fairy tale, in order to change sleepy Ivanushka into a wizard and a beauty: first, to plunge him into a cauldron of boiling milk, then into another of boiling water, then a third of ice-cold water. There is every reason to suppose that with this preliminary preparation Pilate would have begun to act differently, and I think the hunch-backed pony would agree that self-renunciation and megalomania would be a fair substitute for the cauldrons of the tale.
Great privations and great illusions so change the nature of man that things which seemed before impossible, become possible, and the unattainable, attainable.
In theMemorabiliaXenophon tells of the meeting of Socrates with the famous sophist Hippias. When Hippias came to Socrates, the latter as usual held forth, and as usual asked why it is that men who wish to learn carpentry or smith's work know to whom they should apply, but if they desire to learn virtue, cannot possibly find a teacher. Hippias, who had heard these opinions of Socrates many times before, remarked ironically: 'So you 're still saying the same old things, that I heard from you years ago!' Socrates understood and accepted the challenge, as he always accepted challenges of this kind. A dispute began, by which it was demonstrated (as usual in Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates was a stronger dialectician than his opponent. He succeeded in showing that his conception of justice was based on the same firm foundation as all his other conceptions, and that convictions once formed, if they are true, are as little liable to the action of time as noble metals to rust.
Socrates lived seventy years. He was once a youth, once a man, once a greybeard. But what if he had lived a hundred and forty years, experienced once again all the three seasons of life, and had again met Hippias? Or, better still, if the soul, as Socrates taught, is immortal and Socrates now lives somewhere in the moon or Sirius, or in any other place predestined for immortal souls, does he really go on plaguing his companions with discourses on justice, carpenters, and smiths? And does he still emerge victorious as of old from the dispute with Hippias and other persons who dare to affirm that everything (human convictions included) may be, and ought to be, subject to the laws of time, and that mankind not only loses nothing, but gains much by such subjection?
The word justice is on all men's lips. But do men indeed so highly prize justice as one would think, who believed all that has been said and is still being said concerning it? More than this, is it so highly appreciated by its sworn advocates and panegyrists—poets, philosophers, moralists, theologians—even by the best of them, the most sincere and gifted? I doubt it, I doubt it deeply. Glance at the works of any wise man, whether of the modern or the ancient world. Justice, if we understand it as the equality of all living men before the laws of creation—and how else can we understand it?—never occupied any one's attention. Plato never once asked Destiny why she created Thersites contemptible and Patroclus noble. Plato argues that men should be just, but never once dares to arraign the gods for their injustice. If we listen to his discourses, a suspicion will steal into our souls that justice is a virtue for mortals, while the immortals have virtues of their own which have nothing in common with justice. And here is the last trial of earthly virtue. We do not know whether the human soul is mortal or immortal. Some, we know, believe in immortality, others laugh at the belief. If it were proved that they were both in the wrong, and that men's destinies after death are as unequal as they are in life: the successful, the chosen take up their abode in heaven, the others remain to rot in the grave and perish with their mortal clay. (It is true that such an admission is made by our Russian prophet, the priest of love and justice, Dostoevsky, in hisLegend of the Grand Inquisitor.) Now, if it should turn out that Dostoevsky is really immortal, while his innumerable disciples and admirers, the huge mass of grey humanity which is spoken of inThe Grand Inquisitor,end their lives in death as they began them with birth, would Dostoevsky himself (whom I have named deliberately as the most passionate defender of the ideal of justice, though there have been yet more fervent and passionate and remarkable defenders of justice on earth whom I ought perhaps to name, were it not that I would avoid speaking lightly of sacred things—let him who finds Dostoevsky small, himself choose another)—would Dostoevsky reconcile himself to such an injustice, would he rise in revolt beyond the grave against the injustice, or would he forget his poor brethren when he occupied the place prepared for him? It is hard to judgea priori: a posteriorione would imagine that he would forget.
And between Dostoevsky and a small provincial author the gulf is colossal; the injustice of the inequality cries out to heaven. Nevertheless we take no heed, we live on and do not cry, or if we do, we cry very rarely, and then, to tell the truth, it is hard to say certainly why we cry. Is it because we would draw the attention of the indifferent heaven, or is it because there are many amateurs of lamentation among our neighbours, like the pilgrim woman in Ostrovsky'sStorm,who passionately loved to hear a good howl? All these considerations will seem particularly important to those who, like myself at the present moment—I cannot speak for to-morrow—share Dostoevsky's notion that even if there is immortality, then it is certainly not for everybody but for the few. Moreover, I follow Dostoevsky further and admit that they alone will rise from the dead who on the existing hypotheses should expect the worse fate after death. The first here will be the first still, there, while of the last not even a memory will remain. And no one will be found to champion those who have perished: a Dostoevsky, a Tolstoi, and all the other 'first' who succeed in entering heaven will be engaged in business incomparably more important.
So continue, if you will, to take thought for the just arrangement of the world, and, after the fashion of Plato, to make the teaching of justice the foundation of philosophy.
Schopenhauer answered the question of the immortality of the soul in the negative. In his opinion, man as Thing-in-Himself is immortal, but as phenomenon mortal. In other words, all that is individual in us exists only in the interval between birth and death; but since each individual according to Schopenhauer's teaching is a manifestation of 'Will' or 'Thing-in-Itself,' the unalterable and eternal principle which is the only reality of the world, continually made object in the manifold of phenomena, then, in so far as this principle is displayed in man, he is eternal. This is Schopenhauer's opinion, evidently derived as a logical conclusion from his general philosophic doctrine, both from that relating to the Thing-in-Itself, and from that which relates to the individual. The first part shall go unregarded: after all, if Schopenhauer was mistaken, and the Thing-in-Itself is mortal, we need not weep over it, nor is there any cause to rejoice over its immortality. But here is the individual. He is deprived of his right to immortality, and for reason is alleged an argument which is at first sight irrefutable. Everything which has a beginning has an end also, says Schopenhauer. The individual has a beginning, birth; therefore an end, death, awaits him. To Schopenhauer himself the general proposition as well as the conclusion seemed so obvious, that he did not admit the possibility of mistake even for a moment. But this time we have an incontestable case of a wrong conclusion from a wrong premiss. First, why must everything which has a beginning also have an end? The observations of experience point to such an hypothesis; but are the observations of experience really strong enough to support general propositions? And are we really entitled to make use of propositions so acquired as first principles for the solution of the most important problems of philosophy? And even if we admit that the premiss is correct, nevertheless the conclusion at which Schopenhauer arrived is wrongly drawn. It may indeed be that everything which has a beginning also has an end; it may indeed be that the individual is sooner or later doomed to perish; but why identify the moment of the soul's destruction with the death of the body? It may be that the body will die, but the soul which the same fate attends at some future time will find for itself a more or less suitable integument somewhere in a distant planet, perhaps still unknown to us, and live on, though only for a little while and not for all eternity, as the extreme optimists believe. How important would it be for poor humanity to retain even such a hope: particularly seeing that we can hardly say with certainty what it is that men desire when they speak of the immortality of the soul. Is it that they merely desire at all costs to live eternally, or would they be satisfied with one or two lives more, especially if the subsequent lives should appear to be less offensively insignificant than this earthly existence, wherein even the lowest rank of nobility is to many an unattainable ideal? It seems to me that it is not every one who would consent to live eternally. And what if every possibility should have been exhausted, and endless repetition should begin?
It does not of course follow from this that we have the right to reckon upon an existence beyond the grave. The question remains open as before, even when Schopenhauer's arguments have been refuted. But it does follow that the best arguments on closer consideration often appear worthless.Quod erat demonstrandum—naturally pending the discovery of arguments to refute my refutation of Schopenhauer's. I make this reserve to deprive my critics of the pleasure and possibility of a little wordplay.
It cannot be doubted thatWhen We Dead Awakeis one of the most autobiographical of Ibsen's plays. Nearly all his dramas reveal striking traces of his personal experience; their most valuable quality, even, is the possibility of following out in them the history of the author's inward struggle. But there is a particular significance inWhen We Dead Awake,which comes from the fact that it was conceived and written by the author in his old age. Those who are interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done on the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity of communing with very old men, with the dying, and generally with men who are placed in exceptional conditions, above all when they are not afraid to speak the truth, and have by past experience developed in themselves the art and the courage—the former is as necessary as the latter—to look straight into the eyes of reality. To such men Ibsen seems even more interesting than Tolstoi. Tolstoi indeed has not yet betrayed his gift; but he is primarily a moralist. Now, as in his youth, power over men is the dearest thing of all to him, and more fascinating than all the other blessings of the world. He still gives orders, makes demands, and desires at all costs to be obeyed. One may, and one ought, to consider this peculiarity of Tolstoi's nature with attention and respect. Not Tolstoi alone, but many a regal hermit of thought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender of mankind. On the day of his death, an hour before end, Socrates taught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had discovered. Plato in his extreme old age journeyed to Syracuse to plant the seeds of wisdom there. It is probable that such stubbornness in great men has its explanation and its deep meaning.
Tolstoi, and also Socrates and Plato, and the Jewish prophets, who in this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of wisdom, probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one gigantic inward task, the condition of its successful performance being the illusion that the whole world, the whole universe, works in concert and unison with them. In Tolstoi's case I have elsewhere shown that he finds himself at present on the brink of Solipsism in his conception of the world. Tolstoi and the whole world are to him synonymous. Without such a temporary delusion of his whole being—it is not an intellectual delusion, of the head, for the head knows well that the world is by itself, and Tolstoi by himself—he would have to give up his most important work. So it is with us, who know since Copernicus that the earth moves round the sun, that the stars are not clear, bright, golden rings, but huge lumps of various composition, that there is not a firm blue vault overhead. We know these things: nevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take delight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world. Truth so-called has but a limited value. Nor does the sacrifice of Galileo by any means refute my words.E pur si muove,if ever he uttered the phrase, might not have referred to the movement of the earth, though it was spoken of the earth. Galileo did not wish to betray the work of his life. Who will, however, stand surety to us that not only Galileo is capable of such sacrifice, but his pupil also, even the most devoted and courageous, who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle but from the lips of his master. Peter in one night thrice denied Christ. Probably we could not find a single man in all the world who would consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of Galileo. Evidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider into the secret of their great deeds. Evidently they cannot themselves always give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks which they set themselves. Socrates himself, who all his life long so stubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose, and introduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing reality; Socrates, who spent thirty days without interruption in persuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and justice; Socrates himself, I say, perhaps, most probably even, knew as little why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death, or as babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power they have been summoned from nonentity into being. Such is our life: wise men and fools, old men and children march at random to goals which have not yet been revealed by any books, whether worldly or spiritual, common or sacred. It is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism into contempt that I recall these considerations. I have always been convinced, and am still certain, that dogmatists feel no shame, and are by no means to be driven out of life; besides, I have lately come to the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their stubbornness. Belief, and the need of belief, are strong as love, as death. In the case of every dogmatist I now consider it my sacred duty to concede everything in advance, even to the acknowledgment of the least, and least significant, shades of his convictions and beliefs. There is but one limitation, one only, imperceptible and almost invisible: the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely and universally binding, that is, not binding upon the whole of mankind without exception. The majority, the vast majority, millions, even tens of millions of people, I will readily allow him, on the understanding that they themselves desire it, or that he will show himself skilful enough to entice them to his side—violence is surely not to be admitted in matters of belief. In a word, I allow him almost the whole of humankind, in consideration whereof he must agree that his convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or tens that remain. I agree to an outward submission. And the dogmatist, after such a victory—my confession is surely a complete victory for him—must consider himself satisfied in full.
Socrates was right, Plato, Tolstoi, the prophets were right: there is only one truth, one God; truth has the right to destroy lie, light to destroy darkness. God, omniscient, most gracious and omnipotent, will like Alexander of Macedon conquer nearly all the known world, and will drive out from his possessions, amid the triumphant and delighted shouts of his millions of loyal subjects, the devil and all those who are disobedient to his divine word. But he will renounce his claim to power over the souls of his few opponents, according to the agreement, and a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle, invisible to the millions, and will there continue their free, peculiar life. And here—to return to the beginning—among these few disobedient will be found Ibsen as he was in the last years of his life, as he is seen in his last drama. For inWhen We Dead AwakeIbsen approves and glorifies that which Gogol actually did fifty years ago. He renounces his art, and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once the business of his life. On April 15, 1866, Ibsen wrote to King Karl: 'I am not fighting for a careless existence; I am fighting for the work of my life, in which I unflinchingly believe, and which I know God has given me to do.' By the way, you will hardly find one of the great workers who has not repeated this assertion of Ibsen's, whether in the same or in another form. Evidently, without such an illusion, temporary or permanent, one cannot compass the intense struggle and the sacrifices which are the price of great work. Evidently, illusions of various kinds are necessary even for success in small things. In order that a little man should fulfil his microscopical work, he too must strain his little forces to the extreme. And who knows whether it did not seem to Akaky Akakievitch that God had assigned to him the task of copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made? Of course he would never dare to say so, and he would never be able to, first because of his timidity, and then because he has not the gift of expression. The Muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak: they sing only Croesus and Caesar. But there is no doubt that the first in the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the first in Rome. Caesar felt this, and not mere ambition alone spoke in him when he uttered the famous phrase. Men do not believe in themselves and always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty, whether justified or mistaken, may spring up within them that they stand in the sight of God. But with years all illusions vanish, and among them the illusion that God chooses certain men for his particular purposes and puts on them particular charges. Gogol, who had thus long understood his task as an author, burnt his best work before his death. Ibsen did almost the same. In the person of Professor Rubek he renounces his literary activity and jeers at it, though it had brought him everything that he could have expected from it, fame, respect, riches.... And think why! Because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of the artist, to give up Irene whom he loved, to marry a woman to whom he was indifferent. Did Ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that God had appointed him the task of being a male? But all men are males, while only individuals are artists. Had this been said, not by Ibsen, but by a common mortal, we would call it the greatest vulgarity. On the lips of Ibsen, an old man of seventy years, the author ofBrand,from which the divines of Europe draw the matter for their sermons, on the lips of Ibsen who wroteEmperor and Galileansuch a confession acquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning. Here you cannot escape with a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile. Not anybody, but Ibsen himself speaks—the first, not in the village, not in Rome even, but in the world. Here surely is the human law at work: 'Forswear not the prison nor the beggar's wallet!'
Perhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of Turgeniev. Turgeniev, too, had high ideals which he probably thought he had received direct from God. We may with assurance put into the mouth of Brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay,Hamlet and Don Quixote,concludes: 'Everything passes, good deeds remain.' In these words is the whole Turgeniev, or better, the whole conscious Turgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs. And not only in that period, but up to the last minutes of his life, the conscious Turgeniev would not recant those words. But in theProse Poemsan utterly different motive is heard. All that he there relates, and all that Ibsen tells in his last drama, is permeated with one infinite, inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain, for a life which had been spent in preaching 'good.' Yet neither youth, nor health, nor the powers that fail are regretted. Perhaps even death has no terrors.... What the old Turgeniev cannot away with are his memories of 'the Russian girl.' He described and sang her as no one in Russian literature before him, but she was to him only an ideal; he, like Rubek, had not touched her. Ibsen had not touched Irene; he went off to Madame Viardo. And this is an awful sin, in no wise to be atoned, a mortal sin, the sin of which the Bible speaks. All things will be forgiven, all things pass, all things will be forgotten: this crime will remain for ever. That is the meaning of Turgeniev'ssenilia; that is the meaning of Ibsen'ssenilia.I have deliberately chosen the wordsenilia,though I might have said swan songs, though it would even have been more correct to speak of swan songs. 'Swans,' says Plato, 'when they feel the approach of death, sing that day better than ever, rejoicing that they will find God, whom they serve.' Ibsen and Turgeniev served the same God as the swans, according to the Greek belief, the bright God of songs, Apollo. And their last songs, theirsenilia,were better than all that had gone before. In them is a bottomless depth awful to the eye, but how wonderful! There all things are different from what they are with us on the surface. Should one hearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men, or should he tie himself to the mast of conviction, verified by the experience of mankind, and cover his ears as once the crafty Ulysses did to save himself from the Syrens? There is a way of escape: there is a word which will destroy the enchantment. I have already uttered it:senilia.Turgeniev wished to call hisProse Poemsby this name—manifestations of sickness, of infirmity, of old age. These are terrible; one must run away from these! Schopenhauer, the philosopher and metaphysician, feared to revise the works of his youth in his old age. He felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch. And all men mistrust old age, all share Schopenhauer's apprehensions. But what if all are mistaken? What ifseniliabring us nearer to the truth? Perhaps the soothsaying birds of Apollo grieve in unearthly anguish for another existence; perhaps their fear is not of death but of life; perhaps in Turgeniev's poems, as well as in Ibsen's last drama, are already heard, if not the last, then at least the penultimate words of mankind.
In text-books of philosophy you will find most diverse answers to this question. During the twenty-five hundred years of its existence it has been able to make an immense quantity of attempts to define the substance of its task. But up till now no agreement has been reached between the acknowledged representatives of the lovers and favourites of wisdom. Every one judges in his own way, and considers his opinion as the only true one; of aconsensus sapientiumit is impossible even to dream. But strangely enough, exactly in this disputable matter wherein the agreement of savants and sages is so impossible, theconsensus profanorumis fully attained. All those who were never engaged in philosophy, who have never read learned books, or even any books at all, answer the question with rare unanimity. True, it is apparently impossible to judge of their opinions directly, because people of this kind cannot speak at all in the language evolved by science; they never put the question in such a form, still less can they answer it in the accepted words. But we have an important piece of indirect evidence which gives us the right to form a conclusion. There is no doubt that all those who have gone to philosophy for answers to the questions which tormented them, have left her disenchanted, unless they had a sufficiently eminent gift to enable them to join the guild of professional philosophers. From this we may unhesitatingly conclude, although the conclusion is for the time being only negative, that philosophy is engaged in a business which may be interesting and important to the few, but is tedious and useless to the many.
This conclusion is highly consoling as well for the sage as for the profane. For every sage, even the most exalted, is at the same time one of the profane—if we discard the academical use of words—a human being, pure and simple. To him also it may happen that those tormenting questions will arise, which ordinary people used to bring to him, as for instance in the case of Tolstoi's Ivan Ilyich or Tchekhov's professor inThe Tedious Story.And then he will of course be obliged to confess that the necessary answers are missing from the great tomes which he has studied so well. For what can be more terrible to a man than to be compelled in the hard moments of his life to acknowledge any doctrine of philosophy as binding upon him? For instance, to be compelled to hold with Plato, Spinoza, or Schopenhauer that the chief problem of life is moral perfection, or in other words, self-renunciation. It was easy for Plato to preach justice. It did not in the least prevent him from being the son of his time, or from breaking to a permissible extent the commandments which he himself had given. By all the evidence Spinoza was much more resolute and consequent than Plato; he indeed kept the passions in subservience, but that was his personal and individual inclination. Consistence was not merely a property of his mind, but of his whole being. Displaying it, he displayed himself. As for Schopenhauer, it is known that he praised the virtues only in his books; but in life, like many another clever, independent man, he was guided by the most diverse considerations.
But these are all masters, who devise systems and imperatives. Whereas the pupil, seeking in philosophy an answer to his questions, cannot permit himself any liberties and digressions from the universal rules, for the essence and the fundamental problem of any doctrine reduces to the subordination not merely of men's conduct, but of the life of the whole universe to one regulating principle. Individual philosophers have discovered such principles, but to this day they have reached no final agreement among themselves, and this to some extent lightens the burden of those unhappy ones who, having lost the hope of finding help and guidance elsewhere, have turned to philosophy. If there is not in philosophy one universal principle binding upon and acknowledged by all, it means that it is permitted to each man, at least for the meantime, to feel and even to act in his own way. A man may listen to Spinoza, or he may stop his ears. He may kneel before Plato's eternal ideas, or he may give his allegiance to the ever-changing, ever-flowing reality. Finally, he may accept Schopenhauer's pessimism, but nothing on earth can compel him to celibacy on the ground that Schopenhauer successfully laughed at love. Nor is there any necessity at all, in order to win such freedom for one's self, to be armed with the light dialectic of the old Greek philosopher, or with the heavy logic of the poor Dutch Jew, or with the subtle wit of the profound German. Neither is it necessary to dispute them. It is even possible to agree with them all. The room of the world is infinite, and will not only contain all those who lived once and those who are yet to be born, but will give to each one of them all that he can desire: to Plato, the world of ideas, to Spinoza, the one eternal and unchangeable substance, to Schopenhauer, the Nirvana of Buddhism. Each of these, and all the other philosophers, will find what they want in the universe even to the belief, even to the conviction, that theirs are the only true and universal doctrines. But, at the same time, the profane will find suitable worlds for themselves. From the fact that people are cooped up on the earth, and that they must put forth efforts beyond belief to gain each cubit of earth, and even their illusory liberties, it by no means follows that poverty, obscurantism, and despotism must be considered eternal and original principles, and that economical uniformity is the last refuge of man. A plurality of worlds, a plurality of men and gods amid the vast spaces of the vast universe—this is, if I may be forgiven the word, an ideal. It is true it is not built according to the idealists. Yet what a conclusion does it foreshadow! We leave the disputes and arguments of philosophers aside, so soon as we begin to speak of gods. According to the existing beliefs and hypotheses the gods also have always been quarrelling and fighting among themselves. Even in monotheistic religions people always made their God enter a fight, and devised an eminent opponent for him—the devil. Men can by no means rid themselves of the thought that everything in heaven goes on in exactly the same way as it does on the earth, and they attribute all their own bad qualities as well as their good ones to the denizens of heaven. Whereas it is by far the most probable that a great many of the things which are, according to our notions, perfectly inseparable from life do not exist in heaven. Among other things, there is no struggle. And this is well. For every struggle, sooner or later, develops inevitably into a fight. When the supply of logical and ethical arguments is exhausted, one thing is left for the irreconcilable opponents—to come to blows, which do in fact usually decide the issue. The value of logical and ethical arguments is arbitrarily assigned, but material force is measured by foot-pounds and can be calculated in advance. So that where on the common supposition there will be no foot-pounds, the issue of the fight will very often remain undecided. When Lermontov's demon goes to Tamara's cell, an angel meets him on the way. The demon says that Tamara belongs to him; the angel demands her for himself. The demon will not be dissuaded by words and arguments: he is not built that way. As for the angel, he always considers himself doubly right. How can the issue be decided? At last Lermontov, who could not or dared not devise a new solution, admitted the interference of material force: Tamara is dragged away from the demon exactly as the stronger robber pulls his prey from the weaker on earth. Evidently the poet admitted that conclusion, that he might pay his tribute to the piety of tradition. But in my opinion the solution is not pious, but merely blasphemous. In it the traces of barbarity and idolatry are still clearly visible. The tastes and attributes of which earthly despots dream are attributed to God. By all means he must be, he desires to be, the strongest, the very first, just like Julius Caesar in his youth. He fears rivalry above all things, and never forgives his unconquered enemies. This is evidently a barbarous mistake. God does not want to be the strongest, the very first, at all. Certainly—for that would be intelligible and in accordance with common sense—he would not like to be weaker than others, in order that he might not be exposed to violence; but there is no foundation at all for attributing to him ambition or vainglory. Therefore there is equally no reason to think that he does not suffer equals, desires to be supreme, and seeks at all costs to destroy the devil. Most probably he lives in peace and concord even with those who least adapt themselves to his tastes and habits. Perhaps he is even delighted that not all are as he, and he readily shares his possessions with the devil, the more readily because by such a division neither loses, since the infinite—I admit that God's possessions are infinite—divided by two and even by the greatest possible finite number still leaves infinity.
Now we can return to the original question, and it seems that we can even give an answer to it—two answers even, one for the sage, another for the profane. To the first, philosophy is art for art's sake. Every philosopher tries to construct a harmonious and various system, curiously and nicely fashioned, using for his material his own intrinsic experience as well as his own personal observations of the life beyond him, and the observations of others. A philosopher is an artist of his kind, to whom his works are dearer than everything in life, sometimes dearer than life itself. We very often see philosophers sacrifice everything for the sake of their work—even truth. Not so the profane. To them philosophy—more exactly, that which they would call philosophy if they possessed a scientific terminology—is the last refuge when material forces have been wasted, when there are no weapons left to fight for their stolen rights. Then they run for help and support to a place which they have always taken care to avoid before. Think of Napoleon at St. Helena. He who had been collecting soldiers and guns all his life, began to philosophise when he was bound hand and foot. Certainly he behaved in this new sphere like a beginner, a very inexperienced and, strange to say, a pusillanimous novice.
He who feared neither pestilence nor bullet, was afraid, we know, of a dark room. Men used to philosophy, like Schopenhauer, walk boldly and with confidence in a dark room, though they run away from gun shots, and even less dangerous things. The great captain, the once Emperor of nearly all Europe, Napoleon, philosophised on St. Helena, and even went so far as to begin to ingratiate himself with morality, evidently supposing that upon morality his ultimate fate depended. He assured her that for her sake, and her sake alone, he had contrived his murderous business—he who, all the while a crown was on his head and a victorious army in his hands, hardly knew even of the existence of morality. But this is so intelligible. If one were to come upon a perfectly new and unknown world at the age of forty-five, then surely everything would seem terrible, and one would take the incorporeal morality for the arbiter of destiny. And one would plan to seduce her, if possible, with sweet words and false promises, as a lady of the world. But these were the first steps of a tyro. It was as hard for Napoleon to master philosophy as it was for Charlemagne at the end of his days to learn to write. But he knew why he had come to the new place, and neither Plato nor Spinoza nor Kant could dissuade him of this. Perhaps at the beginning, while he was as yet unused to the darkness, he would pretend to agree with the acknowledged authorities, thinking that here too, just as there where he lived before, exalted personages do not tolerate opposition; perhaps he would lie to them as he lied to morality, but his business he would not forget. He came to philosophy withdemands,and would not rest till he had received satisfaction. He had already seen how a Corsican lieutenant had become a French Emperor. Why should not the beaten Emperor fight his last fight?... And how shall he be reconciled with self-renunciation? Philosophy will surrender: it is only necessary not to surrender in one's self. So does a Napoleon come to philosophy, and so does he understand her. And until the contrary is proven, nothing can prevent us from thinking that the Napoleons are right, and therefore that academical philosophy is not the last nor even the penultimate word. For, perhaps, the last word is hidden in the hearts of the tongue-tied, but bold, persistent, implacable men.
VIII
Heinrich Heine
More than a hundred years have passed since the birth, and fifty years since the death, of this remarkable man, but the history of literature has not yet finally settled accounts with him. Even the Germans, perhaps the Germans above all, find it impossible to agree upon the valuation of his gift. Some consider him a genius, others a man devoid of talent and insipid. Moreover, his enemies still bring as much passion to their attacks upon him as they did before, as though they were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one. They hate him for the same things which made his contemporaries hate him. We know that it was principally for his insincerity that they did not forgive him. No one could tell when he was speaking seriously and when in jest, what he loved and what he hated, and finally it was quite impossible to determine whether or not he believed in God. It must be confessed that the Germans were right in many of their accusations. I value Heine extremely highly; in my opinion he is one of the greatest German poets; and yet I cannot undertake to say with certainty what he loved, what he believed, and often I cannot tell how serious he is in uttering one or another of his opinions. Nevertheless I find it impossible to detect any insincerity in his works. On the contrary, those peculiarities of his, which so irritated the Germans, are in my eyes so many proofs of his wonderful and unique sincerity. I think that if the Germans were mistaken and misunderstood Heine, hypertrophied self-love and the power of prejudice is the cause. Heine's usual method is to begin to speak with perfect seriousness, and to end with biting raillery and sarcasm. Critics and readers, who generally do not guess at the outset what awaits them in the event, have taken the unexpected laughter to their own account, and have been deeply offended. Wounded self-love never forgives; and the Germans could not forgive Heine for his jests. And yet Heine but rarely attacked others: most of his mockery is directed against himself, and above all in the work of his last creative period, of the years when he lived in theMatrazengrab.
With us in Russia many were offended with Gogol, believing that he was jeering at them. Later, he confessed that he had been describing himself. Nor does the inconstancy of Heine's opinions in any way prove him insincere. His intention was by no means always to fling at the Philistines. Indeed, he did not know what to believe; he changed his tastes and attachments, and did not even always know for certain what he preferred at the moment. Of course, had he wished, he might have pretended to be consequent and consistent. Or, had he been less eagle-eyed, he might with the vast majority of men have adopted a ceremonial dress once for all, he might have professed and invariably preached ideas which had no relation to his real emotions and moods. Many people think that one ought to act thus, that (particularly in literature) one must speak only officially and exhibit lofty ideas that have been proclaimed by wise men since time immemorial, without their having made the least inquiry whether they correspond to their own natures or not. Often cruel, vindictive, spiteful, selfish, mean people sincerely praise goodness, forgiveness, love to one's enemy, generosity and magnanimity in their books, while of their tastes and passions they speak not a single word. They are confident that passions exist only to be suppressed, and that convictions only are to be exhibited or displayed. A man rarely succeeds in suppressing his passions, but it is extremely easy to hide them, especially in books. And such dissimulation is not only not condemned, but recognised and even encouraged. The common and familiar programme is accepted: in life 'passions' judge 'convictions,' in books 'convictions,' or 'ideals,' as they are called, pass sentence upon 'passions.' I would emphasise the fact that most writers are convinced that their business is not to tell of themselves, but to praise ideals. Heine's sincerity was really of a different order. He told everything, or nearly everything, of himself. And this was thought so shocking that the sworn custodians of convention and good morals considered themselves wounded in their best and loftiest feelings. It seemed to them that it would be disastrous if Heine were to succeed in acquiring a great literary influence, and in getting a hold upon the minds of his contemporaries. Then would crumble the foundations, constructed through centuries of arduous labour by the united efforts of the most distinguished representatives of the nation. This is perhaps true: the lofty magnificence of life can be preserved only upon the indispensable condition of hypocrisy. In order that it should be beautiful, much must be hidden and thrust away as far and deep as possible. The sick and the mad must be herded into hospitals; poverty into cellars; disobedient passions into the depths of the soul. Truth and freedom are only allowed to obtrude upon the attention as far as is compatible with the interests of a life well arranged within and without. The Protestant Church understood this as well as the Catholic, perhaps better. Strict puritanism elevated spiritual discipline to the highest moral law, which ruled life with unrelenting and inexorable despotism. Marriage and the family, not love, must be the aim of man; and poor Gretchen, who gave herself to Faust without observing the established ceremonial, was forced to consider herself eternally damned. The inward discipline still more than the outward guarded the foundations and gave strength and force to the State as well as to the people. Men and women were not spared; they were not even taken into account. Hundreds and thousands of Gretchens, men and women, were sacrificed, and are being sacrificed still, without pity to 'the highest spiritual interests.'
Acknowledgment and respect for the prescribed order had become so deeply rooted in the German soul—I speak of Germany, because no other nation upon earth is so highly disciplined—that even the most independent characters yielded to it. The most dreadful sin is not the breaking of the law—a violation which like Gretchen's can be explained by weakness and weakness alone, though it was not forgiven, was less severely condemned—but rebellion against the law, the open and daring refusal to obey, even though it be expressed in the most insignificant act. Therefore every one tends to show his loyalty from that side first of all. In a greater or less degree all have transgressed the law, but the more one has violated it in act, the more imperative he considers its glorification in words. And this order of things aroused neither suspicion nor discontent. Therein could be seen acknowledged the superiority of spirit over body, of mind over passion. Nobody ever asked the question: 'Is it really true that the spirit must have the mastery over the body, and the mind over the passions?' And when Heine allowed himself to put the question and to answer it in his own way, the whole force of German indignation burst upon him. First of all they suspected his sincerity and truthfulness. 'It is impossible,' said the pious, 'that he really should not acknowledge the law. He is only pretending.' Such a supposition was the more natural because the ring of conviction was not always to be heard in Heine's tone: one of his poems ends with the following words: 'I seek the body, the body, the young and tender body. The soul you may bury deep in the ground—I myself have soul enough.' The poem is daring and provocative in the extreme, but in it, as in all Heine's daring and provocative poems, may be heard a sharp and nervous laugh, which must be understood as the expression of the divided soul, as a mockery of himself. It is he who tells of his meeting with two women, mother and daughter. Both please him: the mother by her much knowledge, the daughter by her innocence. And the poet stands between them, in his own words, like Buridan's ass between two bundles of hay. Again, daring, again, the laugh; and again the well-balanced German is irritated. He would prefer that no one should ever speak of such emotions, and if they are to be spoken of, then it must be at least in a penitent tone, with self-accusation. But Heine's misplaced laughter is indecent and quite uselessly disconcerting. I repeat that Heine himself was not always sure that his 'sincerity' was lawful. While he was still a youth he told how there suddenly ran through his soul, as through the whole earth, a rent which split asunder the unity of his former emotions. King David when he praised God and good did not remember his dark deeds—of which there were not a few—or, if he did remember them, it was only to repent. His soul was also divided, but he was able to preserve a sequence. When he wept, he could not and did not want to rejoice; when he repented, he was already far from sin; when he prayed, he did not scoff; when he believed, he did not doubt. The Germans, brought up on the great king's psalms, had come to think that these things were impossible and ought never to be possible. They admitted the succession of different, and even contradictory spiritual conditions, but their simultaneous existence appeared to them unintelligible and disgusting, in contradiction with divine commandments and the laws of logic. It seemed to them that everything which formerly existed as separate, had become confused, that the place of stringent harmony had been usurped by absurdity and chaos. They thought that such a state of things threatened innumerable miseries. They did not admit the idea that Heine himself might not understand it; in his creation they saw the manifestation of a false and evil will, and they invoked divine and human judgment upon it. The Philistine irritation reached the extreme when it became clear that Heine had not humbled himself even before the face of death. Stricken by paralysis, he lay in hisMatrazengrab,unable to stir a limb; he suffered the most intense bodily pains, with no hope of cure, or even of relief, yet he still continued to blaspheme as before. Worse still, his sarcasms every day became more ruthless, more poisonous, more refined. It might have been thought that it was left to him, crushed and destroyed, only to acknowledge his defeat and to commit himself utterly to the magnanimity of the victor. But in the weak flesh a strong spirit lived. All his thoughts were turned to God, the power of whose right hand, like every dying man, he could not but feel upon him. But his thoughts of God, his attitude to God, were so original that the serious people of the outer world could only shrug their shoulders. No one ever spoke thus to God, either aloud or to himself. The thought of death usually inspires mortals with fear or admiration; therefore they either kneel before him and implore forgiveness or sing his praises. Heine has neither prayer nor praise. His poems are permeated with a charming and gracious cynicism, peculiar and proper to himself alone. He does not want to confess his sins, and even now on the threshold of another life he remains as he was in youth. He desires neither paradise, nor bliss, nor heaven; he asks God to give him back his health, and to put his money affairs in order. 'I know there is much evil and many vices on earth. But I have grown used to all that now, and besides I seldom leave my room. O God, leave me here, but heal my infirmities, and spare me from want,' he writes in one of his last poems. He derides the legends of the blissful life of sinless souls in paradise. 'Sitting on the clouds and singing psalms is a pastime quite unsuited to me.' He remembers the beautiful Venus of the Louvre and praises her as in the days of youth. His poem,Das Hohelied,is a mixture of extreme cynicism, nobility, despair, and incredible sarcasm. I do not know whether dying men have had such thoughts as those which are expressed in this poem, but I am confident that no one has expressed anything like them in literature. In Goethe'sPrometheusthere is nothing of the provocative, unshakable, calm pride and the consciousness of his rights which inspired the author ofDas Hohelied.God, who created heaven and earth and man upon the earth, is free to torment my body and soul to his fill, but I myself know what I need and desire, I myself decide what is good and what is bad. That is the meaning of this poem, and of all that Heine wrote in the last years of his life. He knew as well as any one that according to the doctrines of philosophy, ethics, and religion, repentance and humility are the condition of the soul's salvation, the readiness even with the last breath of life to renounce sinful desires. Nevertheless, with his last breath he does not want to own the power over himself of the age-old authorities of the world. He laughs at morality, at philosophy, and at existing religions. The wise men think so, the wise men want to live in their own way; let them think, let them live. But who gave them the right to demand obedience from me? Can they have the power to compel me to obedience? Listening to the words of the dying man, shall we not repeat his question? Shall we not take one step further? Heine is crushed, and if we may believe, as we have every reason to believe what he tells us in his 'Song of Songs,' his painful and terrible illness was the direct effect and consequence of his manner of life. Does it mean that in the future, too (if future there is), new persecutions await him, until the day when of his own accord he will subscribe to the proclaimed and established morality? Have we the right to suppose that there are powers somewhere in the universe preoccupied with the business of cutting out all men, even down to the last, after the same pattern? Perhaps Heine's contumacy points to quite a different intention of the arbiters of destiny. Perhaps the illness and torture prepared for those who fight against collars and blinkers—experience demonstrates with sufficient certainty that any declination from the high road and the norm inevitably brings suffering and ruin in its train—are only the trial of the human spirit. Who will endure them, who will stand up for himself, afraid neither of God nor of the devil and his ministers, he will enter victoriously into another world. Sometimes I even think, in opposition to existing opinion, thattherethe stubborn and inflexible are valued above all others, and that the secret is hidden from mortals lest the weak and compliant should take it into their heads to pretend to be stubborn, in order to deserve the favour of the gods. But he who will not endure, but will deny himself, may expect the fate of which philosophers and metaphysicians generally dream. He will be united with theprimum mobile,he will be dissolved in the essence of being together with the mass of individuals like himself. I am tempted to think that the metaphysical theories which preach self-renunciation for the sake of love, and love for the sake of self-renunciation, are by no means empty and idle, as the positivists affirm. In them lies a deep, mysterious, and mystical meaning: in them is hidden a great truth. Their only mistake is that they pretend to be absolute. For some reason or other men have decided that empirical truths are many, but that metaphysical truth is one. Metaphysical truths are also many, but that does not in the least prevent them from living in harmony one with another. Empirical truths like all earthly beings are continually quarrelling, and cannot get on without superior authority. But metaphysical truths are differently arranged and know nothing whatsoever of our rivalry. There is no doubt that people who feel the burden of their individuality and thirst for self-renunciation are absolutely right. Every probability points to their at last attaining their purpose and being united to that to which they should be united, whether neighbour or remote, or perhaps, as the pantheists desire, even to inanimate nature. But it is just as probable that those who value their individuality and do not consent to renounce it either for the sake of their neighbours or of a lofty idea, will preserve themselves and will remain themselves, if not for ever and ever, at least for a sufficiently long while, until they are weary. Therefore the Germans must not be cross with Heine, at least those Germans who have judged him not from the utilitarian point of view—from this point of view I too utterly condemn him, and find for him no justification at all—but from the lofty, religious or metaphysical point of view, as it is called nowadays. He cannot possibly disturb them in any way. They will be united, down to the last they probably will be united in the Idea, the thing in itself, in Substance, or any other alluring unity; and not Heine with his sarcasms will keep them from their lofty aspirations. While if he and those like him continue to live in their own way in a place apart and even laugh at ideas—can that really be the occasion of serious annoyance?
The sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist, and the assertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind, that the only philosophy which has spread in our day is that of Kant, which takes scepticism for its point of departure. But read the preface to the first edition ofThe Critique of Pure Reasonattentively, and you will be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question: 'What is truth?' He only set himself to solve the problem, what should a man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the objective truth. The old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven assertions, which could not bear criticism, irritated Kant, and he decided to get rid, even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of scepticism, of the unscientific discipline which he, as a teacher of philosophy, had to represent. But the confidence of the sceptics and Kant's deference are not in the least binding upon us. And after all Kant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook. For if we do not know what is truth, what value have the postulates of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul? How can we justify or explain any one of the existing religions, Christianity included? Although the Gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions of the laws of nature, yet it does not in itself contain anything contrary to reason. We do not disbelieve in miracles because they are impossible. On the contrary, it is as clear as day to the most ordinary common sense that life itself, the foundation of the world, is the miracle of miracles. And if the task of philosophy had reduced to the mere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle, her business would have been splendidly accomplished long ago. The whole trouble is that visible miracles are not enough for people, and that it is impossible to deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place that other miracles, without which mere existence is often impossible, will also happen in due course. Men are being born—without doubt a great miracle; there exists a beautiful world—also a miracle of miracles. But does it follow that men will rise from the grave, and that paradise is made ready for them? The raising of Lazarus is not much believed nowadays even by those who revere the Gospel, not because they will not admit the possibility of miracles in general, but because they cannot decidea prioriwhich miracles are possible and which are not, and therefore they are obliged to judgea posteriori.They readily accept a miracle that has happened, but they doubt the miracle that has not happened, andthe more they doubt,the more passionately do they desire it. It costs nothing to believe in the final triumph of good upon the earth (though it would be an absolute miracle), in progress or the infallibility of the Pope (these too are miracles and by no means inconsiderable), for after all men are quite sufficiently indifferent to good, to progress, and to the virtues of the Pope. It is much harder, nay quite impossible, standing before the dead body of one who is near and dear, to believe that an angel will fly down from heaven and bring the dead to life again, although the world is full of happenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead.
Therefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no truth. Truth exists, but we do not know it in all its volume, nor can we formulate that which we do know: we cannot imagine why it happened thus and not otherwise, or whether that which happened had to happen thus, or whether something else quite different might have happened. Once it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity, but Hume explained that the notion of necessity is subjective, and therefore must be discarded as illusory. His idea was caught up (without the deduction) by Kant. All those of our judgments which have the character of universality and necessity, acquire it only by virtue of our psychological organisation. In those cases where we are particularly convinced of the objective value of our judgment, we have merely to do with a purely subjective certainty, though it is immutable and secure in the visible world. It is well known that Kant did not accept Hume's deduction: not only did he make no attempt to banish the false premisses from our intellectual economy, as Hume did with the conception of necessity, but, on the contrary, he declared that such an attempt was quite impracticable. The practical reason suggested to Kant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their source, yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world of phenomena, that is in the space between the birth and death of man. If a man has lived before birth (as Plato held), and will live after death, then his 'truths' were not, and will not be necessary there, in the other world. What truths arethere,and whether there are any truths at all, Kant only guesses, and he succeeds in his guesses only because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions. He suddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world, a right of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his special patronage by the philosopher himself. But why can faith do that which reason cannot? And a yet more insidious question: Are not all postulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights in the first Critique, but which subsequently obtained a verdict ofrestitutio in integrum,by changing the name of the firm? The last hypothesis is the most probable. And if so, then does it not follow that in the real world so carefully divided by Kant from the world of phenomena we will find much that is new, but not a little that is old.
In general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world of an instant, a brief dream, utterly unlike real life, is mistaken. This assumption, first enunciated by Plato, and afterwards elaborated and maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical thought, is based upon no data at all. There's no denying, it is very pleasant. But as often happens, as soon as the wish was invested with language, by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an expression, so that it lost all resemblance to itself. The essence of the true, primordial life beyond the grave appears to Plato as absolute good refined from all alloy, as the essence of virtue. But after all Plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness of the ideal existence, and constantly flavours it with elements which are by no means ideal, but which give interest and intensity to his dialogues. If you have never had the occasion to read Plato himself, acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching of any of his admirers and appreciators, and you will be struck by its emptiness. Read the thick volume of Natorp's well-known work, and you will see what value there is in Plato's 'purified' doctrine. And in passing I would recommend as a general rule, this method of examining the ideas of famous philosophers, by acquainting oneself with them not only in the original works, but in the expositions of their disciples, particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples. When the fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the naked, unadorned 'truth' remains—disciples always believe that the master had the truth, and they reveal it without any embellishment or fig leaf—only then does it become quite clear of how little value are the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers. Still more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins to draw conclusions from his master's proportions. The book of the aforesaid Natorp, a great Plato expert, is areductio ad absurdumof all his master's ideas. Plato is revealed as a logical Neo-Kantian, a narrow-minded savant, who had been put thoroughly through the mill at Freiburg or Heidelberg. It is also revealed that Plato's ideas, in the pure state, do not in the least express his real attitude to life and to the world. One must take the whole Plato with his contradictions and inconsequence, with his vices and virtues, and value his defects at least as much as his qualities, or even add one or two defects, and be blind to one or two virtues. For it is probable that he, as a man to whom nothing human was alien, tried to assume a few virtues which he did not possess, and to conceal a few failings. This course should be followed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines. Then 'the other world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our earthly vale. And perhaps, in spite of Kant, some empirical truths will be found common to both worlds. Then Pilate's question will lose much of its all-conquering certainty. He wished to wash his hands of the business, and he asked, 'What is truth?' After him and before him, many who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and taken their stand upon scepticism. But every one knows that truth does exist, and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the clarity and precision demanded by Descartes. Is the miraculous bounded by the miracles that have already been seen on earth, or are its limits set much wider? And if wider, then how much?
Perhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between men is impossible, at least the usual communication by means of language. Every one may know it in himself, but in order to enter into communication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept some conventional lie. Nevertheless the value and importance of truth is by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market valuation. If you were asked what is truth, you could not answer the question even though you had given your whole life to the study of philosophical theories. In yourself, if you have no one to answer, you know well what the truth is. Therefore truth does not by nature resemble empirical truth in the least, and before entering the world of philosophy, you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search, and to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge. In a word, you must be ready to accept something absolutely new, quite unlike what is traditional and old. That is why the tendency to discredit scientific knowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the inexperienced eye.
That is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the investigator. The most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has been, and always will be, inculcated habit. From the practical point of view it is much more important to a man to know the things which may help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his existence, than those which have a timeless value. The instinct of self-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for knowledge. Moreover, one must remember that the instinct has at its disposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence, that all human faculties without exception are under its command, from unconscious reflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness. Much and often has been said in this regard, and for once theconsensus sapientiumis on my side. True, this is treated as an undeniable perversion of human nature—and here I make my protest. I think that there is in this nothing undesirable. Our mind and consciousness must consider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of instinct, even if it be the instinct of self-preservation. They should not be conceited, and to tell the truth they are not conceited, but readily fulfil their official mission. They pretend to priority only in books, and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life. If by some accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad with terror, like children lost in a forest at night. Every time that the mind and consciousness begin to judge independently, they reach destructive conclusions. And then they see with surprise that this time too they were not acting freely, but under the dictation of the self-same instinct, which had assumed a different character. The human soul desired the work of destruction, and she loosed the slaves from their chains, and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their freedom by making great havoc, not in the least suspecting that they remained just as they were before, slaves who work for others.
Long ago Dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction is as natural to the human soul as that of creation. Beside these two instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological properties, required only under given, and accidental, conditions. Of truth—as not only the crass materialists now confess, but the idealists also have found in their metaphysic—nothing remains but the idea of the norm.—To speak in more expressive and intelligible language, truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time and space might establish between themselves some kind of communication at least. That is, a man must choose between absolute loneliness with truth, on the one side, and communion with his neighbours and falsehood, on the other. Which is the better, it will be asked. The question is idle, I reply. There is a third way still: to accept both, though it may at first appear utterly absurd, especially to people who have once for all decided that logic, like mathematics, is infallible. Whereas it is possible, and not merely possible—we would not be content with a possibility: only a German idealist can be satisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all—it is continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states do coexist. All men lie when they begin to speak: our language is so imperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes a readiness to speak untruth. The more abstract the subject is, the more does the disposition to lie increase, until, when we touch upon the most complicated questions, we have to lie incessantly, and the lie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are. For a sincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of contradictions, and in order to avoid all appearance of lie, he tries to make a logical agreement between his opinions: that is to raise his lie to Herculean heights. In his turn, when he receives the opinions of others, he applies the same criterion, and the moment he notices the smallest contradiction, he begins naively to cry out against the violation of the fundamental decencies. What is particularly curious is that all the learned students of philosophy—and it is strictly to them that I address myself here, as the reader has probably observed long ago—certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest philosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions from his system. How well armed was Spinoza! He spared no effort, and stuck at nothing, and yet his remarkable system will not bear logical criticism. That is a matter of common knowledge. So it appears that we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency, and whether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's conception of the world. And after Kant, his disciples and successors might have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of consistency, and that truth lives by contradictions. As a matter of fact, Hegel and Schopenhauer, each in his own way, partly attempted to make an admission of this kind, but they derived small profit from it.