One day when he had shut himself up he heard a visitor talking with his friend in the next room. They whispered as though they were near a sick person. "Now he is actually painting," said his friend in a depressed tone.
What did that mean? Did they consider him cracked? Yes. He began to think about himself, and like all brooders came to the conclusion that he was cracked. What was to be done? If they shut him up, he would certainly go quite mad. "Better anticipate them," he thought, and as he had heard of private asylums in the country, where the patients could walk about and work in the garden, he wrote to the director of one of them. After some time he received a friendly answer advising him to be quiet. His correspondent had received information about John through his friend and understood his state of mind. He told him it was only a crisis which all sensitive natures must pass through, etc.
Thatdanger, then, was over. But he wished to get out into active life when ever it might be.
One day he heard that a travelling theatrical company had come to the town. He wrote a letter to the manager and solicited an engagement, but he received no answer and did not call on the manager. Thus he was tossed to and fro, till at last fate intervened and set him free. Three months had passed and he had received no money from the court-treasurer. His companions advised him to write and make a polite inquiry. In reply he was told that it had never been his Majesty's intention to pay him a regular pension, but only a single donation. However, in consideration of his needy circumstances, by way of exception, he had made him a grant of 200 kronas, which would shortly be sent.
John at first felt glad, for he was free, but afterwards the turn which affairs had taken made him uneasy, for the papers had stated that he was the king's stipendiary, and the king had really promised him a stipend during the year that he must read for his degree. Besides this the court-marshal had given him a sort of half promise for the future which could hardly be considered as adequately fulfilled by a donation of 200 kronas. Different opinions were expressed on the matter. Some thought that the king had forgotten, others that the state of his finances did not allow of a further gift, or that his good wishes exceeded his powers. No one expressed disapproval, and John was secretly glad, had he not felt a certain disgrace in the withdrawal of the stipend, so that he might be suspected of having groundlessly boasted of it. Those who believed that John was in disfavour at court ascribed this to the fact that he had omitted to wait upon the king in person when he was in Stockholm at Christmas and the New Year. Others attributed it to the fact that he had not formally presented his tragedy,Sinking Hellas, but had simply sent it to the palace, instead of going with it, which his sense of independence forbade him to do. Ten years later he heard quite a new explanation of this disfavour. He was said to have composed a lampoon on the king. But this was a pure legend, probably the only one of its obscure fabricator which would reach posterity. Anyhow facts remained as they were and his resolve was quickly taken. He would go to Stockholm and become a literary man, an author if possible, should he prove to possess sufficient capacity for that calling.
The student who shared his room undertook to pay his return journey, and alleged as a pretext that John must wait some time in Stockholm lest the landlord should be uneasy. Meanwhile he could collect enough money to pay the rent which was due at the end of the term.
His friends gave John a farewell feast and John thanked them, acknowledging the obligations which each owes to those he meets in social intercourse. Every personality is not developed simply out of itself, but derives something from each with whom it comes in contact, just as the bee gathering her honey from a million flowers, appropriates it and gives it out as her own.
Thus he stepped into life, abandoning dreams and the past to live in reality and the present. But he was ill-prepared and the university is not the proper school for life. He felt also that the decisive hour had come. In a clumsy speech he called the feast a "svensexa,"i.e. a farewell supper for a bachelor on the eve of his marriage, for he was now to be a man and leave boyhood behind; he was to become a member of society, a useful citizen and eat his own bread.
So he believed at the time, but he soon discovered that his education had unfitted him for society, and as he did not wish to be an outlaw the doubt awoke in him whether society, of which after all school and university were a part, was not to blame for his education, and whether it had not serious defects which needed a remedy.
When John came to Stockholm, he borrowed money in order to hire a room near the Ladugärdslandet. Always under the sway of sentiment, he chose this quarter of the town because he always used to walk there in his childhood on the 1st of May, and the High Street especially had something of a holiday air about it. Moreover it soon opened into the Zoological Gardens, which became his favourite place for walks. The barracks with their drums and trumpets had something exhilarating about them, and there were fine views over the sea which was close at hand. There was plenty of light and air. When he went for his morning walk he could choose his route according to his mood. If he was sad and depressed, he went along the Sirishofsvägen; if he was cheerful he turned off to the level ground of Manilla, where the paradisial rose-valley exhaled joy and delight; if he was despairing and anxious to avoid people he went out to Ladugärdsgardet, where no one could disturb his self-communings and his prayers to God. Sometimes, when his soul was in a tumult, he remained standing by the cross-ways above the bridge near the Zoological Gardens, irresolute which way to take. On such occasion a thousand forces seemed to pull him in all directions.
His room was very simple and commanded no view. It smelt of poverty, as the whole house did, in which the only person of standing was the deputy-landlord, a policeman. John began his active career by painting, out of a sense of need to give his feelings shape and to express them in a palpable way, for the little letters huddled together on the paper were dead and could not express his mind so plainly and simultaneously. He did not think of being a painter in order to exhibit or sell pictures. To step to the easel was for him just like sitting down and singing. At the same time he renewed his acquaintance with his friend the sculptor, who introduced him to a circle of young painters. These were all discontent with the Academy and the antiquated methods which could not express their vague dreams. They still preserved the Bohemian type, so late did the waves of modern ideas beat on the far coasts of the North. They wore long hair, slouched hats, brilliant cravats, and lived like the birds of heaven. They read and quoted Byron and dreamt of enormous canvases and subjects such as no studio could contain. A sculptor and a Norwegian had conceived the idea of hewing a statue out of the Dovre rock; a painter wished to paint the sea not merely as a level, but with such a wide horizon as to show the convex curve of the globe.
This took John's fancy. One should give expression to one's inner feelings and not depict mere sticks and stones which are meaningless in themselves till they have passed through the alembic of a percipient mind. Therefore the artists did not make studies out of doors, but painted at home from their memory and imagination. John always painted the sea with a coast in the foreground, some gnarled pine-trees, a couple of rocky islets in the distance and a white-painted buoy. The atmosphere was generally gloomy, with a weak or strong light on the horizon; it was always sunset or moonlight, never clear daylight.
But he was soon woken out of this dream-life partly by hunger, partly by recollecting the reality which he had sought in order to save himself from his dreams.
Although John knew little of contemporary politics, he knew that the democracy or peasant-class had arrived at power, that they had declared war on the official and middle classes, and that they were hated in Upsala. And now he himself was to enter the ranks of the combatants and attack the old order of things. The only item of the knowledge which he had brought with him from Upsala which was likely to be useful here, was the small amount of political science which he had studied. Of what use were Astronomy, Philology, Æsthetics, Latin and Chemistry here? He knew something about the land-laws and communal-laws, but had no idea of political economy, finance or jurisprudence. When he now began to look about for a suitable paper to which to attach himself, it did not occur to him to make use of his old connection with theAftonbladet, but he wrote for a small evening paper which had lately appeared, which was regarded as radical and was issued by the New Liberal Union. The editor held receptions in the La Croix Café, and here John was introduced into the society of journalists. He felt ill at ease among them. They did not think as he did, seemed uncultivated, as indeed they were, and rather gossiped than discussed important matters. They certainly busied themselves with facts, but these were rather trifles than great questions. They were full of phrases, but did not seem to have a proper command of their material. John, though against his will, was too much of an academic aristocrat to sympathise with these democrats, who for the most part had not chosen their career, but been forced into it by the pressure of circumstances. He found the atmosphere stifling for his idealism, and came no more to the receptions after he had done his business, and been invited to write for the paper.
He made his début as an art-critic. His first criticism concerned Winge's "Thor with the giants" and Rosen's "Eric XIV and Karin Monsdotter." The young critic naturally wished to display his learning, though all he had was what he had picked up in lectures and books. Therefore his criticism of Winge was a mere eulogy. His remarks chiefly regarded the subject of the picture as a Norse one and treated in the grand style. The painters did not like this sort of criticism, as they considered the only point to be criticised in a work of art was the execution. "Eric the XIV" he judged from his monomaniacal point of view, "aristocrat or democrat," and found fault with the incorrect conception of Göran Persson, whom in his own tragedyEric XIV(subsequently burnt) he had represented as an enemy of the nobility and friend of the people.
Descended from his own height as a promising student, author and royal protégé to the then less regarded class of journalists, he felt himself again one of the lower orders.
After the editor had struck out his learned flourishes, the articles were printed. The editor told him they were piquant, but advised him to employ a more flowing style. He had not yet caught the journalistic knack.
Then John planned a series of articles in which, under the title "Perspective," he treated of social and economic questions. In these he attacked university life, the divisions of the classes, the injurious over-reading and the unfortunate position of the students. Since the labour-question at that time was not a burning one, he ventured on a comparison between the prospects of a student and that of a workman, declaring the latter to be far better off. The workman was generally in good health, could support himself at eighteen and marry at twenty, while the student could not think of marriage and making a livelihood before thirty. As a remedy he recommended doing away with the final examination as Jaabaek had already done in Norway, and the transference of the university to Stockholm in order that the students might have a chance of earning something during their course. As an example he adduced the case of modern students at Athens who learn a trade while they study. This was all clear to him as early as 1872, yet when he made similar suggestions twelve years later, he was thought to have conceived them on the spur of the moment.
At the same time he took an engagement on a small illustrated ladies' paper and wrote biographical notices and novelettes. The ladies were very kind, but let him work too hard, and gave him all kinds of commissions to execute. After he had spent two or three days in paying visits, dived into a publisher's place of business, read biographical romances in three or four volumes, made researches in the library, run to the printing-office and finally written his columns carefully, setting each person treated of in a proper historical light, and analysing his career, he received, for all that work, fifteen kronas. He calculated that this was less pay per hour than a servant earned. The bread of the literary man was certainty hardly earned, and that this is the common lot of authors does not make matters better. But the profession was also despised, and John felt that in social position he stood below his brothers who were tradesmen, below the actors, yes, even below the elementary school-teachers.
The journalists led a subterranean existence, but they styled themselves "we" and wrote as though they were sovereigns of God's appointment; they had men's weal or woe in their hand, since the chief weapon in the struggle for existence in our civilised days is social reputation. How was it that society had given these free lances such terrible power without taking any guarantees? But when one comes to think, what assurance is there for the capacity and insight of the law-givers in parliament, in the ministry, on the throne? None whatever! It is therefore the same all round. There were, however, two classes of newspapers; the conservative, which wished to preserve the social condition with all its defects, and the liberal, which wished to improve it. The former enjoyed a certain respect, the latter, none at all. John instinctively sided with the last, and at once felt that he was regarded as every one's enemy. A liberal journalist and a chronicler of scandals were synonymous terms. At home he had heard the usual phrase that "no one was honourable whose name had not appeared in the paperFatherland." In the street they had pointed out to him a man who looked like a bandit, with the mark of a dagger-stab between his eyes, and said, "There goes the journalist X." In the Café La Croix he felt depressed among his new colleagues, but none the less chose to associate with this unpopular group. Did he choose really? One does not choose one's impulses, and it is no virtue to be a democrat when one hates the upper classes and has no pleasure in their company.
Meanwhile for social intercourse he went to the artists. It was a strange world in which they lived. There was so much nature among these men who busied themselves with art. They dressed badly, lived like beggars—one of them lived in the same room with the servant—and ate what they could get; they could hardly read, and had no knowledge of orthography. At the same time they talked like cultivated people, they looked at things from an independent point of view, were keenly observant and unfettered by dogmas. One of them four years previously had minded geese, a second had wielded the smith's hammer, a third had been a farmer's servant and walked behind the dung-cart, and a fourth had been a soldier. They ate with knives, used their sleeves as napkins, had no handkerchiefs and only one coat in winter. However, John felt at home with them, though of late years he had been conversant only with cultivated and well-to-do young people. It was not that he was superior to them, for that they did not acknowledge, nor was it any use to quote books to them, for they accepted no authority. His doubts as regards books, especially text-books, began to be aroused, and he began to suspect that old books may injure a modern man's thinking powers. This doubt became a certainty when he met one of the group whom all regarded as a genius.
He was a painter about thirty years old, formerly a farmer's servant who had come to the Academy in order to become an artist. After he had spent some time in the painting school he came to the conclusion that art was insufficient as a medium for expressing his thoughts, and he lived now on nothing, while he busied himself by reflecting on the questions of the time. Badly educated at an elementary school, he had now flung himself on the most up-to-date books and had a start of John, since he had begun where the latter had left off. Between John and him there was the same difference as between a mathematician and a pilot. The former can calculate in logarithms, the latter can turn them to practical use. But Måns also was critically disposed and did not believe in books blindly. He had no ready-made scheme or system into which to fit his thoughts; he always thought freely, investigated, sifted and only retained what he recognised as tenable. More free from passions than John, he could draw more reckless inferences, even when they went against his own wishes and interests, though with certain matter-of-course limitations. He was more-over prudent, as indeed he must have been to have worked himself up from such a low position, and understood how to be silent as to certain conclusions, which, if expressed tactlessly and in the wrong place, might have injured him. As his literary adviser, he had a telegraph-assistant whose knowledge Mans knew better how to use than its owner himself; the latter had not a very lively intellect, although in his knowledge of languages he possessed the key to the three great modern literatures. Passionless and self-conscious, with a strong control over his impulses, he stood outside everything, contemplating and smiling at the free play of thought which he enjoyed as a work of art, with the accompanying certainly that it was after all only an illusion.
With both of these John had many friendly disputes. When he drew up his schemes for the future of men and society he could rouse Måns' enthusiasm and carry him along with him, but when he had taken his hearer a certain way with his emotional and passionate descriptions, the latter took out his microscope, found the weak spot where to insert his knife, and cut. On such occasions John was impatient and motioned his opponent away. "You are a pedant," he said, "and fasten on details." But sometimes it turned out that the "detail" was a premise the excision of which made the whole grand fabric of inference collapse. John was always a poet, and had he continued as such unhindered he might have brought it to something. The poet can speak to the point like the preacher, and that is an advantageous position. He can rattle on without being interrupted, and therefore he can persuade if not convince. It was through these two unlearned men that John learned a philosophy which was not known at Upsala. In the course of conversation, his opponents often referred to an authority whom they called "Buckle." John rejected an authority of whom he had heard nothing in Upsala. But the name continually recurred and worried him to such an extent that he at last asked his friends to lend him the book. The effect of reading it was such that John regarded his acquaintance with the book as the vestibule of his intellectual life. Here there was an atmosphere of pure naked truth. So it should be and so it was. Måns, like all other organised beings, was under the control of natural laws; all so-called spiritual qualities rest on a material basis, and chemical affinities are as spiritual as the sympathies of souls. The whole of speculative philosophy which wished to evolve laws from the inner consciousness was only a better kind of theology, and what was worse, an inquisition, which wished to confine the many-sidedness of the world-process within the limits of an individual system. "No system" is Buckle's motto. Doubt is the beginning of all wisdom, doubt means investigation and stimulates intellectual progress. The truth which one seeks is simply the discovery of natural laws. Knowledge is the highest, morality is only an accidental form of behaviour, which depends upon different social conventions. Only knowledge can make men happy, and the simple-minded or ignorant with their moral strivings, their benevolence and their philanthropy are only injurious or useless.
And now he drew the necessary conclusions. Heavenly love and its result, marriage, is conditioned as to that result by such a prosaic matter as the price of provisions; the rate of suicide varies with wages, and religion is conditioned by natural scenery, climate and soil. His mind was predisposed to receive the new doctrines, and now they made their triumphant entry. John had always planted his feet firmly on the earth, and neither the balloon-voyages of poetry nor the will-o'-the-wisps of German philosophy had found a sincere adherent in him. He had sat in despair over Kant'sKritik der reinen Vernunft, and asked himself with curiosity, whether it was he who was so stupid or Kant who was so obscure. The study of the history of philosophy, in which he had seen how each philosopher pointed to his system as the true one, and championed it against others, had left him amazed. Now it was clear to him that the idealists who mingle their obscure perceptions with dear presentations of facts were only savages or children, and that the realists, who were alone capable of clear perceptions, were the most highly developed in the scale of creation. The poets and philosophers are somnambulists, and the religious who always live in fear of the unknown are like animals in a forest who fear every rustic in the bushes, or like primitive men who sacrificed to the thunder instead of erecting lightning rods.
Now he had a weapon in his hand to wield against the old authorities and against the schools and universities which were enslaved by patronage. Buckle himself had run away from school, had never been at a university, and hated them. Apropos of Locke he remarks, "Were this deep thinker now alive, he would inveigh against our great universities and schools, where countless subjects are learnt which no one needs, and which few take the trouble to remember."
Accordingly Upsala had been wrong, and John right. He knew that there were ignorant savants there, and that it was on account of their own want of culture that the professors of philosophy could teach nothing but German philosophy. They neither knew English nor French philosophy for the simple reason that they only understood Latin and German. Buckle'sHistory of Civilisation in Englandwas written in 1857, but did not reach Sweden till 1871-72. Even then the soil was not ready for the seed. The learned critics were unfavourable to Buckle, and the seed took root only in some young minds who had no authoritative voice.
"No literature," says Buckle himself, "can be useful to a people, if they are not prepared to receive it." Thus it was with Buckle and his work, which preceded that of Darwin (1858) and contained all its inferences—a proof that evolution in the world of thought is not so strictly conditioned as has been believed. Buckle did not know Mill or Spencer, whose thoughts now rule the world, but he said most of what they said subsequently.
Now, if John had had a character,i.e. if he had been ruled by a single quiet purpose directed towards one object, he would have extracted from Buckle all that answered his purpose and left out all that told against it. But he was a truth-seeker and did not shrink from looking into the abyss of contradictions, especially as Buckle never asserted that he had found the truth, and because truth is relative and it is often found on both sides. Doubt, criticism, inquiry are the chief matter, and the only useful course to pursue, as they guarantee liberty. Sermons, programmes, certainty, system, "truth" are various forms of constraint and stupidity. But it is impossible to be a consistent doubter when one is crammed full with "complete evidence," and when one's judgment is swayed by class-prejudice, anxiety for a living and struggles for a position. John became calm when he learnt that all that was wrong in the world was wrong in accordance with necessary law, but he became furious when he made the further discovery that our social condition, our religion and morality were absurdities. He wished to understand and pardon his opponents, since in their actions they were no more free than he was, but he was in duty bound to strangle them since they hindered the evolution of society towards universal happiness, and that was the only and greatest crime that could be committed. But as there were no criminals, how could one get hold of the crime?
He was rejoiced that the mistakes had now been discovered, but despair oppressed him again when he saw that the discovery was premature. Nothing could be done for many years to come. Social evolution was a very slow process. Consequently he must lie at anchor in the roadstead waiting for the tide. But this waiting was too long for him; he heard an inner voice bidding him speak, for if one does not spread what light one has, how can popular views be changed? Yes, but a premature promulgation of new ideas can do no good. Thus he was tossed to and fro. Everything round him now seemed so old and out of date that he could not read a newspaper without getting an attack of cramp.Theyonly had regard to the present moment; no one thought of the future. His philosophical friend comforted and calmed him, through, among other sayings, a sentence of La Bruyère, "Don't be angry because men are stupid and bad, or you will have to be angry because a stone falls; both are subject to the same laws; one must be stupid and the other fall."
"That is all very well," said John, "but think of having to be a bird and live in a ditch! Air! light! I cannot breathe or see," he exclaimed; "I suffocate!"
"Write!" answered his friend.
"Yes, but what?"
Where should he begin? Buckle had already written everything, and yet it was as though it had not been written. The worst thing was that he felt he lacked the power. Hitherto he had only felt a very moderate degree of ambition. He did not wish to march at the head, to be a conqueror and so on. But to go in front with an axe as a simple pioneer, to fell trees, root up thickets, and let others build bridges and throw up redoubts, was enough for him. It is often observable that great ambition is only the sign of great power. John was moderately ambitious, because he was now only conscious of moderate powers. Formerly when he was young and strong he had great confidence in himself. He was a fanatic,i.e. his will was supported by powerful passions, but his awakened insight and healthy doubt had sobered his self-confidence. The work before him took the form of rock-walls which must be pulled down, but he was not so simple as to venture on the task.
Now he began to habituate himself forcibly to doubt in order to be patient and not to explode. He entrenched himself in doubt as in a fortress, and as a means of self-preservation he determined to depict his struggles and doubts in a drama. The subject matter which he had been turning over in his mind for a year he took from the history of the Reformation in Sweden. Thus was composed the drama later on known asThe Apostate.
In autumn occurred the death of Charles XV. With the mourning, which was fairly sincere and widespread, there mingled gloomy anxieties for the future. One of the young painters who belonged to John's circle of friends had just received a royal stipend and gone to Norway. He had now to return quite destitute and without any prospects for the future. John was accustomed to go with him into the Zoological Gardens in order to paint, and occupy his mind while he was waiting for an answer from the theatrical manager to whom he had sent his drama.
There is indeed no occupation which so absorbs all the thoughts and emotions so much as painting. John watched and enjoyed the delicate harmonies of the lines in the branch-formation of the trees, in the wave-like curves of the ground, but his paint-brush was too coarse to reproduce the contours as he wished. Then he took his pen and made a drawing in detail. But when he tried to transfer it to his canvas and paint it, the whole appeared but a smudge.
Pelle, on the other hand, was an impressionist and look no notice of details. He took up the landscape at a stroke, so to speak, and gave the colours their due value, but the various objects melted into uncertain silhouettes. John thought Pelle's landscapes more beautiful than the reality, although he cherished great reverence for the works of the Creator. After he had wiled away about a month in painting, he went one evening into the Café La Croix. The first person he met was his former editor, who said, "I have just heard from X." (a young author) "that the Theatre Royal has refusedThe Apostate."
"I know nothing about it," answered John. He did not feel well and left the company as soon as possible. The next day he went to his former instructor to find how the matter stood. The latter began first to praise, and then to criticise it, which is the right method. He said that the characters of Olaus Petri and Gustav Wasa had been brought down from their proper level and distorted. John, on the other hand, held that he had given a realistic representation of them as they probably were, before their figures had been idealised by patriotic considerations. His friend replied that that was no good; the public would never accept a new reading of their characters till critical inquiry had done its preliminary work.
That was true, but the blow was a heavy one, although dealt with as much consideration as possible, and the author was invited to remodel his drama. He had again been premature in his attempt. There was nothing left for him but to wait and wile away the time. To think of remodelling it now was not possible for him, for he saw, when he read it through again, that it was all cast in one piece and that the details could not be altered. He could not change it, unless he changed his thoughts, and therefore he must wait.
Now he took to reading again. Chance brought into his hand two of "the best books which one can read." They were De Tocqueville'sDemocracy in Americaand Prévost-Paradol'sThe New France.The former increased his doubts as to the possibility of democracy in an uncultivated community. Written with sincere admiration for the political institutions of America, which the author holds up as a pattern for Europe, this work points out so sincerely the dangers of democracy, as to make even a born hater of the aristocracy pause.
John's theories received terrible blows, but this time his good sense triumphed over his prejudices. His loss of faith in his own powers, however, had a demoralising effect upon him, and he was soon ripe for absolute scepticism. Sentences such as the following admitted at that time of no contradiction: "The moral power of the majority is based partly upon the conviction that a number of men have more understanding, intelligence and wisdom than an individual, and a great number of lawgivers more than a selection of them. That is the principle of equality applied to intellectual gifts. This doctrine attacks the pride of humanity in its innermost citadel."
An individualist like John did not perceive that this pride can and must be overcome. Nor did he see that wisdom and intelligence can be spread by means of good schools among the masses.
"When a man or a party in the United States suffers injustice, to whom shall he turn? To public opinion? That is the opinion of the majority. To the legislative officials? They are nominated by the majority and obey it blindly. To the executive power? That is chosen by the majority and serves it as a passive instrument. To the military forces of the State? They are simply the majority under arms. To juries? They are formed by a majority which possesses the right to judge." De Tocqueville goes on to say that the happiness of the majority which consists in maintaining its rights deserves recognition, and that it is better for a minority to suffer from pressure than a majority, but the sufferings which an intelligent minority suffer from an unintelligent majority are much greater than those which an intelligent minority inflict upon a majority. On the other hand, the minority understands much better than the majority what conduces to their own and the general happiness, and therefore the tyranny of the minority is not to be compared with that of the majority.
"Yes, but," thought John, "did not the European peoples generally suffer from the tyranny of a minority?" The mere fact that there were upper classes lay like a heavy cloud on the life of the masses. Nowadays the question may be raised, "Why should a different class-education result in an intelligent minority and an unintelligent majority?" But such questions were not raised then. Moreover had such a state really ever been seen in which an intelligent minority had the power to "oppress"? No, for sovereigns, ministers and parliaments had usually the due modicum of intelligence.
That which more than anything else inclined John to fear the power of the masses, was the fact noted by De Tocqueville that they tyrannised over freedom of thought.
"When one tries to ascertain," he says, "how much freedom of thought there is in the United States it becomes apparent how much the tyranny of the masses transcends any despotism known to Europe. I know no country where there is, generally speaking, less independence of opinion and real freedom of discussion than America. The majority draw a terribly narrow circle round all thought. Within that circle an author may say what he likes, but woe to him if he step across the limit. He has noauto-da-féto fear, but he is made the mark for all kinds of unpleasantness and daily persecutions. Every good quality is denied him, even honour. Before he published his views, he thought he had adherents; after he has made them known to all the world he sees that he no longer has any, for his critics have raised an outcry, and those who thought as he did, but lacked the courage to express themselves, are silent and withdraw. He gives way; he finally collapses under the strain of daily renewed effort, and resumes silence, as though he regretted having spoken the truth,
"In democratic republics, tyranny lets the body alone and attacks the soul. In them the dominant power does not say, 'You must think as I do, or die;' it says, 'You are free to differ from me in opinion; your life and property will remain untouched, but from the day that you express a different view from mine, you will be a stranger among us. You will retain your rights and privileges as a citizen, but they will be useless to you. You will remain among men, but be deprived of all a man's rights. When you approach your equals they will flee you as though you were a leper; even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be themselves abandoned. Go in peace! I grant you life, but a life which shall be harder and bitterer than death!'"
That is the true and credible picture which the noble De Tocqueville, friend of the people and tyrant-hater as he was, has drawn of the tyranny of the masses, those masses whose feet John had felt trampling on him at home, at school, in the steamer and the theatre, those masses whom he had satirised in the playSinking Hellas, and whom he had described as throwing the first stone at Olaus Petri just at the moment when he was preaching to them of freedom! If it is thus in America, how can one expect anything better in Europe. He found himself in a cul-de-sac. His hereditary disposition prevented his becoming an aristocrat, nor could he come to terms with the people. Had he not himself suffered lately from an ignorant theatre-management behind which stood the uncultivated public, and found the way blocked for his new and liberal ideas. There was then already a mob-despotism in Sweden, and the director of the Theatre Royal was only their servant.
It was all absurdity! And even suppose society were ruled by those who knew most. Then they would be under professors with their heads full of antiquarian ideas. Even if the director had put his drama on the stage, it would have certainly been hissed off by the tradesmen in the stalls, and no critics could have helped him!
His thoughts struggled like fishes in a net, and ended by being caught. It was not worth the trouble of thinking about and he tried to banish the thought, but could not. He felt a continual trouble and despair in his mind that the world was going idiotically, majestically and unalterably to the devil. "Unalterably," he thought, for as yet a large number of strong minds had not attacked the problem, which was soluble after all. Ten years later it was provisionally solved, when knowledge on the subject of this sphinx-riddle had been so widely spread that even a workman had obtained some insight into it, and in a public meeting had declared that equality was impossible, for the block-heads could not be equal to the sharp-sighted, and that the utmost one could demand was equality of position. This workman was more of an aristocrat than John dared to be in the year 1872, though he belonged to no party which claimed the right to muzzle him.
Prévost-Paradol had dealt with the same theme as Tocqueville, but he suggested a secret device against the tyranny of the masses—the cumulative vote or the privilege of writing the same name several times on the ballot-paper. But John considered this method, which had been tried in England, doubtful.
He had set great hopes on his drama, and borrowed money on the strength of them, and now felt much depressed. The disproportion between his fancied and his real value galled him. Now he had to adopt a rôle, learn it, and carry it out. He composed one for himself, consisting of the sceptic, the materialist and the liar, and found that it suited him excellently. This was for the simple reason that it was a sceptical and materialistic period, and because he had unconsciously developed into a man of his time. But he still believed that his earlier discarded personality, ruled indeed by wild passions, but cherishing ideals of a higher calling, love to mankind and similar imaginations, was his true and better self which he hid from the world. All men make similar mistakes when they value sickly sentimentality above strong thought, when they look back to their youth and think they were purer and more virtuous then, which is certainly untrue. The world calls the weaker side of men their "better self," because this weakness is more advantageous for the world and self-interest seems to dictate its judgment. John found that in his new rôle he was freed from all possible prejudices—religious, social, political and moral. He had only one opinion,—that everything was absurd, only one conviction,—that nothing could be done at present, and only one hope,—that the time would come when one might effectively intervene, and when there would be improvement. But from that time he altogether gave up reading newspapers. To hear stupidity praised, selfish acts lauded as philanthropic, and reason blasphemed,—that was too much for a fanatical sceptic. Sometimes, however, he thought that the majority were right in just being at the point of view where they were, and that it was unnecessary that some few individuals, because of a specialised education, should run far ahead of the rest. In quiet moments he recognised that his mental development which had taken place so rapidly, without his ever seeing an idea realised, could be a pattern for such a slowly-working machine as society is. Why did he run so far ahead? It was not the fault of the school or university, for they had held him back equally with the majority.
Yes, but those already out in the world, by their own hearths, had already reached the stage of Buckle's scepticism as regards the social order, so that he was not so far ahead after all. The slow rate of progress was enough to make one despair. What Schiller's Karl Moor had seen a hundred years previously, what the French Revolution had actually brought about were now regarded as brand-new ideas. After the Revolution, social development had gone backwards; religious superstitions were revived, belief in a better state of things lost, and economic and industrial progress was accompanied by sweating and terrible poverty. It was absurd! All minds that were awake at all had to suffer,—suffer like every living organism when hindered in growth and pressed backward. The century had been inaugurated by the destruction of hopes, and nothing has such a paralysing effect on the soul as disappointed hope, which, as statistics show, is one of the most frequent causes of madness. Therefore all great spirits were, vulgarly speaking, mad. Chateaubriand was a hypochondriac, Musset a lunatic, Victor Hugo a maniac. The automatic pygmies of everyday life cannot realise what such suffering means, and yet believe themselves capable of judging in the matter.
The ancient poet is psychologically correct in representing Prometheus as having his liver gnawed by a vulture. Prometheus was the revolutionary who wished to spread mental illumination among men. Whether he did it from altruistic motives, or from the selfish one of wishing to breathe a purer mental atmosphere, may be left undecided. John, who felt akin to this rebel, was aware of a pain which resembled anxiety, and a perpetual boring "toothache in the liver." Was Prometheus then a liver-patient who confusedly ascribed his pain to causes outside himself? Probably not! But he was certainly embittered when he saw that the world is a lunatic asylum in which the idiots go about as they like, and the few who preserve reason are watched as though dangerous to the public safety. Attacks of illness can certainly colour men's views, and every one well knows how gloomy our thoughts are when we have attacks of fever. But patients such as Samuel Oedmann or Olaf Eneroth were neither sulky nor bitter, but, on the contrary, mild, perhaps languid from want of strength. Voltaire, who was never well, had an imperturbably good temper. And Musset did not write as he did because he drank absinthe, but he drank from the same cause that he wrote in that manner,i.e. from despair. Therefore it is not in good faith that idealists who deny the existence of the body, ascribe the discontent of many authors to causes such as indigestion, etc., the supposition of which contradicts their own principles, but it must be against their better knowledge, or with worse knowledge. Kierkegaard's gloomy way of writing can be ascribed to an absurd education, unfortunate family relations, dreary social surroundings, and alongside of these to some organic defects, but not to the latter alone.
Discontent with the existing state of things will always assert itself among those who are in process of development, and discontent has pushed the world forwards, while content has pushed it back. Content is a virtue born of necessity, hopelessness or superfluity; it can be cancelled with impunity.
Catarrh of the stomach may cause ill temper, but it has never produced a great politician,i.e.a great malcontent. But sickliness may impart to a malcontent's energy a stronger colour and greater rapidity, and therefore cannot be denied a certain influence. On the other hand, a conscious insight into grievances can produce such a degree of mental annoyance as can result in sickness. The loss of dear friends through death, may in this way cause consumption, and the loss of a social position or of property, madness.
If every modern individual shows a geological stratification of the stages of development through which his ancestors passed, so in every European mind are found traces of the primitive Aryan,—class-feeling, fixed family ideas, religious motives, etc. From the early Christians we have the idea of equality, love to our neighbour, contempt for mere earthly life; from the mediæval monks, self-castigation and hopes of heaven. Besides these, we inherit traits from the sensuous cultured pagans of the Renaissance, the religious and political fanatics of the sixteenth century, the sceptics of the "illumination" period, and the anarchists of the Revolution. Education should therefore consist in the obliteration of old stains which continually reappear however often we polish them away.
John proceeded to obliterate the monk, the fanatic and the self-tormentor in himself as well as he could, and took as the leading principle of his provisional life (for it was only provisional till he struck out a course for himself) the well-understood one of personal advantage, which is actually, though unconsciously, employed by all, to whatever creed they belong.
He did not transgress the ordinary laws, because he did not wish to appear in a court of justice; he encroached on no one's rights because he wished his own not to be encroached upon. He met men sympathetically, for he did not hate them, nor did he study them critically till they had broken their promises and shown a want of sympathy to him. He justified them all so long as he could, and when he could not, well,—he could not, but he tried by working to place himself in a position to be able to do so. He regarded his talent as a capital sum, which, although at present it yielded no interest, gave him the right and imposed on him the duty to live at any price. He was not the kind of man to force his way into society in order to exploit it for his own purposes, he was simply a man of capacity conscious of his own powers, who placed himself at the disposal of society modestly, and in the first place to be used as a dramatist. The theatre, as a matter of fact, needed him to contribute to its Swedish repertory.
After a solitary day's work, it was his habit to go to a café to meet his acquaintances there. To seek "more elevated" recreations in family circles such as meaningless gossip, card playing and such like had no attraction for him. Whenever he entered a family circle he felt himself surrounded by a musty atmosphere like that exhaled from stagnant water. Married couples who had been badgering each other, were glad to welcome him as a sort of lightning conductor, but he had no pleasure in playing that part. Family life appeared to him as a prison in which two captives spied on each other, as a place in which children were tormented, and servant-girls quarrelled. It was something nasty from which he ran away to the restaurants. In them there was a public room where no one was guest and no one was host: one enjoyed plenty of space and light, heard music, saw people and met friends. John and his friends were accustomed to meet in a back room of Bern's great restaurant which, because of the colour of the furniture, was called the "red room." The little club consisted originally of John and a few artistic and philosophical friends. But their circle was soon enlarged by old friends whom they met again. They were first of all recruited by the presentable former scholars of the Clara School,—a postal clerk who was at the same time a bass singer, pianist and composer; a secretary of the Court treasurer; and the trump card of the society,—a lieutenant of artillery. To these were added later, the composer's indispensable friend, a lithographer, who published his music, and a notary who sang his compositions. The club was not homogeneous, but they soon managed to shake down together.
But since the laymen had no wish to hear discussions on art, literature and philosophy, their conversations were only on general subjects. John, who did not wish to discuss any more problems, adopted a sceptical tone, and baffled all attempts at discussion by a play upon words, a quibble or a question. His ultimate "why?" behind every penultimate assertion threw a light on the too-sure conclusions of stupidity, and let his hearer surmise that behind the usually accepted commonplaces there were possibilities of truths stretching out in endless perspective. These views of his must have germinated like seeds in most of their brains, for in a short time they were all sceptics, and began to use a special language of their own. This healthy scepticism in the infallibility of each other's judgments had, as a natural consequence, a brutal sincerity of speech and thought. It was of no use to speak of one's feelings as though they were praise worthy, for one was cut short with "Are you sentimental, poor devil? Take bi-carbonate."
If any one complained of toothache, all he received by way of answer was, "That does not rouse my sympathy at all, for I have never had toothache, and it has no effect upon my resolve to give a supper."
They were disciples of Helvetius in believing that one must regard egotism as the mainspring of all human actions, and therefore it was no use pretending to finer emotions. To borrow money or to get goods on credit without being certain of being able to pay, was rightly regarded as cheating, and so designated. For instance, if a member of the club appeared in a new overcoat which seemed to have been obtained on credit, he was asked in a friendly way, "Whom have you cheated about that coat?" Or on another occasion another would say, "To-day I have done Samuel out of a new suit."
Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, both overcoat and suit were generally paid for, but as the purchaser at the time he took them was not sure whether he would be able to pay, he regarded himself as a potential swindler. This was severe morality and stern self-criticism.
Once during such a conversation the lieutenant got up to go and attend church-parade with his company. "Where are you going?" he was asked. "To play the hypocrite," he answered truthfully.
This tone of sincerity sometimes assumed the character of a deep understanding of human nature and the nature of society. One day the company were leaving John's lodgings for the restaurant. It was winter, and Måns, who was generally ill-dressed, had no overcoat. The lieutenant, who wore his uniform, was, it is true, somewhat uneasy, but did not wish to hurt any one's feelings that day. When John opened the door to go out, Måns said, "Go in front; I will come afterwards; I do not want Jean to injure his position by going with me."
John offered to walk with Måns one way while the others should go by another, but Jean exclaimed, "Ah! don't pretend to be noble-minded! you feel as embarrassed at going with Måns as I do."
"True," replied John, "but...."
"Why, then, do you play the hypocrite?"
"I did not play the hypocrite; I only wished to try to be free from prejudice."
"The deuce! what is the good of being free from prejudice when no one else is, and it does you harm? It would really show more freedom from prejudice to tell Måns your mind than to deceive him."
Måns had already departed, and arrived about the same time at the restaurant as they did. He took part in the meal without betraying a trace of ill-humour. "Your health, Måns, because you are a man of sense," said the lieutenant to cheer him up.
The habit of speaking out one's inner thoughts without any regard to current opinion, resulted in the overthrow of all traditional verdicts. The terrible confusion of thought in which men live, since freedom of thought has been fettered by compulsory regulations, has made it possible for antiquated views of men and things to continue. Thus, to-day a number of works of art are considered unsurpassable in spite of the great progress made in technique and artistic conception. John considered that if in the nineteenth century he was to give his views on Shakespeare, he was not at all bound to give the opinion of the eighteenth century, but of his own nineteenth, as it had been modified by new points of view. This aroused a great deal of opposition, perhaps because people fear being regarded as uncultivated a great deal more than they fear being regarded as godless.
Every one attacked Christ, for He was thought to have been overthrown by learned criticism, but they were afraid of attacking Shakespeare. John, however, was not. Thoroughly understanding the works of the poet, whose most important dramas he had read in the original and whose chief commentators he had studied, he criticised the composition and meagre character drawing ofHamlet.It is noteworthy that the Swedish Shakespeare-worshipper, Shuck, through an inconsistency due to the current confusion of thought and compulsory cowardice, made just as severe criticisms ofHamletregarded as a work of art, though he had previously extolled it above the skies. If John had at that time been able to read the book of Professor Shuck, he would not have needed courage in order to subscribe such criticisms as the following: "Hamletis the most unsatisfactory of all ... the composition is superficial and incoherent. After the action of the play has reached its climax, it suddenly breaks off. Hamlet is suddenly sent to England, but this journey does not in any way arouse the spectator's interest. Still worse is the management of the catastrophe. It is a mere chance that Hamlet's revenge is executed at all, and a similar caprice of chance causes his overthrow. His killing Claudius just before his own death has more the appearance of revenge for the attempt on his own life, than that of a judgment executed in the name of injured morality."
And then the obscurity which envelops the motives of the principal persons in the play! "The spectator is left in uncertainty regarding such an important point as Ophelia's and Hamlet's madness. Moreover inKing Lear, Edward's treachery is so palpable that not the most ordinarily intelligent man could have been deceived by it!"
If then the drama was defective precisely in the chief elements of a drama, construction and characterisation, how could it be incomparable? The reverence for what is ancient and celebrated is rooted in the same instinct which creates gods; and pulling down the ancient has the same effect as attacking the divine. Why else should a sensible unprejudiced man fly in a rage when he hears some one express a different opinion to his own (or what he thinks his own) about some old classic? It ought to be a matter of indifference to him. The national and intellectual Pantheon can be as angrily defended by atheists as by monotheists, perhaps more so. People who are otherwise sincere, cringe before a well-established reputation, and John had heard a pietistic clergyman say that Shakespeare was a "pure" writer. In his mouth that was certainly false. A determinist, on the other hand, would not have used the words "pure" or "impure" because they would have been meaningless to him. But the poor Christ-worshipper did not dare to bear a cross for Shakespeare; he had enough already to bear for his own Master.
Meanwhile John's method of judging old things from the modern point of view seemed to be justified, for it gained him a following. That was the whole secret of what was so little understood later on by theistic and atheistic theologians—his irreverent handling of ancient things and persons; they thought in their simplicity quite innocently that it was what one calls in children a spirit of contradiction. His aim rather was to bring people's confused ideas into order, and to teach them to apply logically their materialistic point of view. If they were materialists, they should not borrow phrases from Christianity, nor think like idealists. This gave rise to a catchword, which showed how what was ancient was despised—"That is old!" As new men, they must think new thoughts, and new thoughts demanded a new phraseology. Anecdotes and old jokes were done away with; stereotyped phrases and borrowed expressions were suppressed. One might be plain-spoken and call things by their right names, but one might not be vulgar; the latest opera was not to be quoted, nor jokes from the newest comic paper repeated. Thereby each became accustomed to produce something from his own stock of original observation and acquired the faculty of judging from a fresh point of view.
John had discovered that men in general were automata. All thought the same; all judged in the same fashion; and the more learned they were, the less independence of mind they displayed. This made him doubt the whole value of book education. The graduates who came from Upsala had, one and all, the same opinions on Rafael and Schiller, though the differences in their characters would have led one to expect a corresponding difference in their judgments. Therefore these men did not think, although they called themselves free-thinkers, but merely talked and were merely parrots.
But John could not perceive that it was not booksquábooks which had turned these learned men into automata. He himself and his unlearned philosophical friends had been aroused to self-consciousness through books. The danger of the university education was that it was derived from inferior books published under sanction of the government, and written by the upper classes in the interest of the upper classes,i.e. with the object of exalting what was old and established, and therefore of hindering further development.
Meanwhile John's scepticism had made him sterile. He had perceived that art had nothing to do with social development, that it was simply a reflection or phenomena, and was more perfect as art the more it confined itself to this function. He still preserved the impulse to re-mould things and it found expression in his painting. His poetic art, on the other hand, went to pieces since it had to express thoughts or serve a purpose.
His failure to have his play accepted had an adverse effect on his pecuniary circumstances. The friends from whom he had borrowed money came one evening to John's rooms in order to hear the play read, but they were so tired after the day's work that, after hearing the first act, they asked him to put off the rest for another occasion. One of the audience who had kept more awake than the others thought that there were too many Biblical quotations in the piece, and that these were not suitable for the stage.
John's resources were dried up, and the spectre of want loomed upon him, unbribeable and stone-deaf. After he had gone without his dinners for a time, he began to feel weary of life, and looked about him for the means of subsistence. How should he get bread in the wilderness? The best means that suggested itself was to seek an engagement in a provincial theatre. There mere nobodies often played leading roles in tragedies, made themselves a name, and finished by getting an appointment at the Theatre Royal. He quickly made his resolve, packed his travelling bag, borrowed money for his fare, and went to Göteborg. It was just about the time of the great November storm of 1872.
Since the environment in which he had been living had had a great effect on him, he conceived a great dislike to this town. Gloomy, correct, expensive, proud, reserved it lay, pent in its circle of stone hills, and depressed the lively native of Upper Sweden, accustomed to the rich and smiling landscape of Stockholm. It was a copy of the capital but on a small scale, and John, as one of the upper class, felt alienated from its inhabitants, who were in a lower stage of development. But he noticed that there was something here that was wanting in the capital. When he went down to the harbour he saw ships which were nearly all destined for foreign parts, and large vessels kept up continual communication with the continent. The people and buildings did not look so exclusively Swedish, the papers took more account of the great movements which were going on in the world. What a short way it was from here to Copenhagen, Christiania, London, Hamburg, Havre! Stockholm should have been situated here in a harbour of the North Sea, whereas it lay in a remote corner of the Baltic. Here was in truth the nucleus of a new centre, and he now understood that that position was no longer occupied by Stockholm, but that Göteborg was about to be the centre of the north. At present, however, this reflection had no comfort for him since he was only in the insignificant position of an actor.
John sought out the theatre-director and introduced himself as a person who wished to do the theatre a service. The director, however, considered himself very well served by his present staff. But he allowed John to give a trial performance in the rôle in which he wished to make his début. This was Dietrichson'sWorkman, the great success of the day. John had discovered a certain likeness between Stephenson's first locomotive and his rejected play; he wished to show how he, like the engineer, had to face the ridicule of the ignorant crowd, the apprehensions of the learned, and the fears of a wasted life on the part of relatives. He gave his trial performance one evening by the light of a candle and between bare walls. Naturally he felt hampered and asked to repeat it in costume. But the director said it was not necessary; he had heard enough. John, in his opinion, possessed talent, but it was undeveloped. He offered him an engagement at twelve hundred kronas yearly, to commence from the first of January. John considered: Should he spend two months idly in Göteborg and then only have a supernumerary's part in a provincial theatre? No! He would not! What remained to be done? Nothing except to borrow money and return home, which he did.
Thus his efforts had again ended in failure. His friends had given him a farewell feast, lent him journey money, done all they could to help him, and now he came back without having settled anything. Again he had to hear the old too true accusation that he was unstable. To be unstable in an ordered society is the extreme of unpracticality. There persistent and exclusive cultivation of some special branch of industry or knowledge is necessary in order to outstrip competitors. Every orderly member of society feels a certain discomfort when he sees some one wandering from his proper place. This discomfort does not necessarily spring from excessive egotism, but possibly from a feeling of solidarity and solicitude for others. John saw that his countless changes of plan disquieted his friends; he felt ashamed and suffered on account of it, but could not act otherwise.
So he found himself at home, and spent the long evenings in the "Red Room," asking himself whether he really could find no place in a society which for others opened up so many rich possibilities of a career.
At Christmas time John travelled again to Upsala, for he had been invited thither as one of the contributors to a Literary Calendar which had just appeared. TheCalendar, which was received with universal disapprobation, was not without significance as an exponent of the state of literature. The reader who was desired to wade through these elegant extracts, might justifiably ask, "What have I got to do with them?" The poetry they contained, like that of Snoilsky and Björck, might have been written fifty or a hundred years before. It was of indifferent quality, and sometimes even bad,—bad because it gave no sign that the poet had developed any powers of perception, indifferent because it was not rooted in its own period. The date of the book was 1872, but it contained no echo of the Jubilee of 1865, no hint of 1870, not a whiff of the conflagration of 1871. Had these young versifiers been asleep? Yes, certainly. The great mass of students were realists, sceptics, mockers, as befitted the children of the time, but the poets were credulous fools with the ideals of Snoilsky and Björck in their hearts. Their poetry was that of superannuated idealists in form and thought, for the new views of things had not reached these isolated individualists who still lived the Bohemian life of the Romantics. Their poetry consisted of nothing but echoes. In fact it was a question whether Swedish poetry had hitherto been anything else, or could be anything else. Was Tegner's poetry anything but an echo of Schiller, Oehlenschläger, the Eddas and the old Norse sagas? Was Atterbom anything else than a musical box pieced together out of Tieck, Hoffmann, Wieland, Burger? And so on with all the Swedish poets. But this Literary Calendar was composed of echoes of echoes and dreams of dreams. Realism, which had already made a premature entry into Sweden with Kraemer'sDiamonds in Coal, and had subsequently triumphed in Snoilsky, had left no trace on these young poets. The poetry of Snoilsky's school had been the careless expression of a careless time, but these poems simply displayed the incapacity of their writers.
John had contributed to theCalendara free version of "An Basveig's Saga." In this he had glorified himself as a kind of male Cinderella, or ugly duckling of the family. He was moved to do this by the contempt which had been evinced towards him by his patrons and middle-class friends on account of his failure as an author. The language of the piece was marked by a certain bluntness of expression and an attempt to dignify low things, or at least to rub off the dirt from things which were not really so, but were called so. Since the word Naturalism had not yet come into fashion, his language was called coarse and vulgar.
But an acquaintance which John happened to make during his stay in Upsala was of greater importance than theCalendaror Christmas dinner. He lodged with a friend on whose writing-table he found one day a number of theSvensk Tidskriftcontaining a notice of Hartmann'sPhilosophy of the Unconscious. It was an exposition of Hartmann's system by a Finn, A.V. Bolin, and betrayed throughout a half-concealed admiration of it. But the editor, Hans Forssell, had appended to the essay a note written in his usual style when he came across something that his brain could not take in. Hartmann's doctrine was pessimism. Conscious life is suffering because unconscious will is the motive power of evolution and consciousness obstructs this unconscious will. It was the old myth of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was the kernel of the Buddhistic faith and the chief doctrine of Christianity,—"Vanitas, vanitatum vanitas."
Most of the greatest and conscious minds had been pessimists, and had seen through and unmasked the illusions of life. Only wild animals, children, and commonplace people could therefore be happy, because they were unconscious of the illusion, or because they held their ears when one wanted to tell them the truth and begged not to be robbed of their illusions.
John found all this quite natural, and had no important objection to make. It was true then, what he had so often dreamt, that everything was nothing! It was the suspicion of this which had governed his point of view and made all the great and all greatness appear on a reduced scale. This consciousness had lurked obscurely in him, when, as a child, although well-formed, healthy and strong, he wept over an unknown grief, the cause of which he could not find within him or without. That was the secret of his life, that he could not admire anything, could not hold to anything, could not live for anything; that he was too wide awake to be subject to illusions. Life was a form of suffering which could only be alleviated by removing as many obstacles as possible from the path of one's will; his own life in particular was so extremely painful because his social and economical position constantly prevented his will from expressing itself.
When he contemplated life and especially the course of history he saw only cycles of errors and mistakes repeating themselves.[1]The men of the present dreamt of a republic, as Greeks and Romans had done two thousand years before; the civilisation of the Egyptians had decayed when they perceived its futility; Asia was wrapped in an eternal sleep after it had been impelled by an unconscious will to conquer the world; all nations had invented narcotics and intoxicants in order to quench consciousness; sleep was blessedness and death the greatest happiness. But why not take the last step and commit suicide? Because the unconscious Will continually enticed men to live through the illusion of hope of a better life. Pessimism, regarded as a view of the world's order, is more consistent than meliorism, which sees in natural development a tendency which makes for men's happiness. This latter view seems to be a disguised relic of belief in divine providence. Can one believe that the mechanical blindly ruling laws of nature have any regard for the development of human society when they produce glacial periods, floods, and volcanic outbreaks? Must an intelligent man be called "conservative" in a contemptuous sense because he has brought under his yoke and rules the laws of nature as Stuart Mill facetiously expresses it? Have men devised any certain preventives against shipwreck, strokes of lightning, economic crises, losses of relatives by death and sickness? Can men control at pleasure the inclination of the earth's axis, and do away with cloud-formations which are likely to injure harvests? In spite of the present advanced state of science, have men been able to put an end to the grape pest, to stop floods, eradicate, superstitions, remove despots, prevent war? Is it not presumptuous or simple-minded to believe that man, himself governed by chemical, physical, and physiological laws of nature, stands above them because he understands how to use some of them to his own advantage, as birds use the wind for their progress or beavers the pressure of the stream in constructing their dams? Are not the wings of the falcon and the fly more perfect means of locomotion than railways and steamers? How can men be so simple as to think that they stand above nature when they are themselves so subordinate to nature that they cannot will or think freely? It looks like a residue of our primitive illusions. If the present development of European society ends in atheism, that has already been the case with the Buddhists; if in religious freedom, that has already been witnessed in the early history of China; if in polygamy, that already exists among the savages of Australia; if in community of goods, this prevailed among primitive peoples. The fact is that Europe has been the last of all the great ethnical groups to wake to consciousness. It is now in the act of waking and turning itself, not like some oriental nations, to torpid quietism, but to removing as far as possible the pains and unpleasantnesses of earthly existence, although the best way of doing so has not been yet discovered. The mistake of the industrial socialists is that they, according to the formula of the ambiguous evolution theory, wish to build upon existing conditions, which they regard as the product of necessity, and tending to the good of all. But existing conditions rather tend to the happiness of the few, and are therefore something abnormal to build on, which means erecting a house on ground from which the water has not been drained off. Probably the form of society which they desire, however absurd it is, is a necessary mistake through which men must pass to reach a better. Both the danger and the hope of progress consist in the fact that the socialistic system already has its programme drawn up and consequently works automatically,i.e. like a blind, irresistible mass. If it reconstitutes society after the pattern of the working-class who are a minority, and makes all men mechanics, one may venture to doubt, without being regarded as quite mad, whether that will be happiness. Socialism as a social reform is inevitable, for Europe in its self-idolatry has not perceived how far backward it is. Provided with an Asiatic form of government, which interferes in details, supporting ancient superstitions, living under the terrible tyranny of capital, which is maintained by force of arms, it sets on foot political and religious persecutions, it venerates embalmed monarchs like mummies of the Pharaohs, it civilises savages with waste goods and Krupp guns; it forgets that its civilisation came from the east, and was better then than it is now. Hartmann and the pessimists believe that the social reform which is called socialism will come, but that afterwards, it will be succeeded by something else.
The bourgeois is an optimist because he cannot see or think outside the narrow circle of everyday occurrences. That is his good fortune, but not his merit, for he has no choice in the matter. Nay, he does not even understand what pessimism is, but thinks it means the opinion that this is the worst of all worlds. How could any one have a well-grounded view on that? Voltaire, who was no pessimist, wrote a whole book to demonstrate that this world, at any rate, was not the best of worlds for us, as Leibnitz imagined. It is naturally the best for itself, although not for us, and the difference between the point of view of the hypochondriac and the pessimist consists in the fact that the former believes that the world is the worst possible for him, while the pessimist disregards what it may be for the individual. Hartmann is no hypochondriac as people have tried to make out, and he seeks to alleviate the pain of life as much as possible by placing himself in a state of unconsciousness.
The men of the younger generation of to-day are sad, because they have awoke to consciousness and lost many illusions. But they are not hypochondriacal, and work at bringing the world forward into the last stage of illusion or a new social system, as though hoping thereby to alleviate their pain, and they work the more fanatically, the deeper they feel it.
Meanwhile, supposing that Hartmann's philosophy may be a mistake, and a sceptic must be willing to entertain that possibility, although it has every probability on its side, since the instinct of self-preservation, the first condition of life, consists in the removal of pain, which is the first motive-power,—we must seek to explain historically how this philosophy has come to the birth and spread. Superficial observers like the mystic Caro, do not hesitate, inconsistently enough, to attribute it to bodily ill-health. The socialists, who wished to arouse the expectation that their teaching was practicable, explained it as the foreboding of overthrow in a class, of whom Hartmann was the representative. But Hartmann believes in socialism and the new social system, although only as transitional forms. He is not despairing, not even melancholy. He seems to be the first philosopher who, quite independently of Christianity, European culture and idealism, tries to explain the world's progress from the purely materialistic point of view. He states facts and processes exactly as they are. From unconscious minerals we have developed into globules of albumen, acquired conscious nerve-centres and finally brains with ever-increasing self-consciousness. The more highly organised the life, the greater the capacity for pain and susceptibility to impressions. Not till our time did the cosmic brain succeed in arriving at clear perception and, accordingly, at divining the order of the world. Hartmann can therefore be regarded as one who arrived at the highest degree of consciousness, and he will be remembered as the great unmasker before whose keen gaze the bandages fell away. It is consequently a mistake to call him "the prophet of despair." Idealists may feel empty and despairing when confronted by the naked truth, but the meliorist feels an inexpressible calm. Man will be modest when he takes the measure of his littleness as an atom of the cosmic dust. He will no longer build his happiness on a future life, but will be impelled by pessimism to order the only life he has as well as he can for himself and for others. He will see how useless it is to lament over the misery of existence; he will accept pain as a fact, and alleviate it as well as he can. Hartmann is a realist, and the title "pessimist" in its old significance has been fastened on him out of malice. He shudders at the misery of the world, but does not even call it misery. He only shows that life is not so great and beautiful as men like to make out, and pain in his view is not a mere bodily ailment, but an impelling motive. His is a sound and healthy view of things in contrast to which socialism may sometimes look like idealism, since it wishes to remodel society according to its desires, not according to the possibilities of the case.