No More Learning

. but of the wall later. )

Well, such a direct person I regard as the real normal man, as his
tender mother nature wished to see him when she graciously brought him
into being on the earth. I envy such a man till I am green in the
face. He is stupid. I am not disputing that, but perhaps the normal
man should be stupid, how do you know? Perhaps it is very beautiful,
in fact. And I am the more persuaded of that suspicion, if one can
call it so, by the fact that if you take, for instance, the antithesis
of the normal man, that is, the man of acute consciousness, who has
come, of course, not out of the lap of nature but out of a retort (this
is almost mysticism, gentlemen, but I suspect this, too), this
retort-made man is sometimes so nonplussed in the presence of his
antithesis that with all his exaggerated consciousness he genuinely
thinks of himself as a mouse and not a man. It may be an acutely
conscious mouse, yet it is a mouse, while the other is a man, and
therefore, et caetera, et caetera. And the worst of it is, he himself,
his very own self, looks on himself as a mouse; no one asks him to do
so; and that is an important point. Now let us look at this mouse in
action. Let us suppose, for instance, that it feels insulted, too (and
it almost always does feel insulted), and wants to revenge itself, too.
There may even be a greater accumulation of spite in it than in L'HOMME
DE LA NATURE ET DE LA VERITE. The base and nasty desire to vent that
spite on its assailant rankles perhaps even more nastily in it than in
L'HOMME DE LA NATURE ET DE LA VERITE. For through his innate stupidity
the latter looks upon his revenge as justice pure and simple; while in
consequence of his acute consciousness the mouse does not believe in
the justice of it. To come at last to the deed itself, to the very act
of revenge. Apart from the one fundamental nastiness the luckless
mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastinesses in the
form of doubts and questions, adds to the one question so many
unsettled questions that there inevitably works up around it a sort of
fatal brew, a stinking mess, made up of its doubts, emotions, and of
the contempt spat upon it by the direct men of action who stand
solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators, laughing at it till their
healthy sides ache. Of course the only thing left for it is to dismiss
all that with a wave of its paw, and, with a smile of assumed contempt
in which it does not even itself believe, creep ignominiously into its
mouse-hole. There in its nasty, stinking, underground home our
insulted, crushed and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in
cold, malignant and, above all, everlasting spite. For forty years
together it will remember its injury down to the smallest, most
ignominious details, and every time will add, of itself, details still
more ignominious, spitefully teasing and tormenting itself with its own
imagination. It will itself be ashamed of its imaginings, but yet it
will recall it all, it will go over and over every detail, it will
invent unheard of things against itself, pretending that those things
might happen, and will forgive nothing. Maybe it will begin to revenge
itself, too, but, as it were, piecemeal, in trivial ways, from behind
the stove, incognito, without believing either in its own right to
vengeance, or in the success of its revenge, knowing that from all its
efforts at revenge it will suffer a hundred times more than he on whom
it revenges itself, while he, I daresay, will not even scratch himself.
On its deathbed it will recall it all over again, with interest
accumulated over all the years and . . .

But it is just in that cold, abominable half despair, half belief, in
that conscious burying oneself alive for grief in the underworld for
forty years, in that acutely recognised and yet partly doubtful
hopelessness of one's position, in that hell of unsatisfied desires
turned inward, in that fever of oscillations, of resolutions determined
for ever and repented of again a minute later--that the savour of that
strange enjoyment of which I have spoken lies. It is so subtle, so
difficult of analysis, that persons who are a little limited, or even
simply persons of strong nerves, will not understand a single atom of
it. "Possibly," you will add on your own account with a grin, "people
will not understand it either who have never received a slap in the
face," and in that way you will politely hint to me that I, too,
perhaps, have had the experience of a slap in the face in my life, and
so I speak as one who knows. I bet that you are thinking that. But
set your minds at rest, gentlemen, I have not received a slap in the
face, though it is absolutely a matter of indifference to me what you
may think about it. Possibly, I even regret, myself, that I have given
so few slaps in the face during my life. But enough . . . not another
word on that subject of such extreme interest to you.

I will continue calmly concerning persons with strong nerves who do not
understand a certain refinement of enjoyment. Though in certain
circumstances these gentlemen bellow their loudest like bulls, though
this, let us suppose, does them the greatest credit, yet, as I have
said already, confronted with the impossible they subside at once. The
impossible means the stone wall! What stone wall? Why, of course, the
laws of nature, the deductions of natural science, mathematics. As
soon as they prove to you, for instance, that you are descended from a
monkey, then it is no use scowling, accept it for a fact. When they
prove to you that in reality one drop of your own fat must be dearer to
you than a hundred thousand of your fellow-creatures, and that this
conclusion is the final solution of all so-called virtues and duties
and all such prejudices and fancies, then you have just to accept it,
there is no help for it, for twice two is a law of mathematics. Just
try refuting it.

"Upon my word, they will shout at you, it is no use protesting: it is a
case of twice two makes four! Nature does not ask your permission, she
has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or
dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently
all her conclusions. A wall, you see, is a wall . . . and so on, and so
on. "

Merciful Heavens! but what do I care for the laws of nature and
arithmetic, when, for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact
that twice two makes four? Of course I cannot break through the wall
by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to
knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because
it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.

As though such a stone wall really were a consolation, and really did
contain some word of conciliation, simply because it is as true as
twice two makes four. Oh, absurdity of absurdities! How much better
it is to understand it all, to recognise it all, all the
impossibilities and the stone wall; not to be reconciled to one of
those impossibilities and stone walls if it disgusts you to be
reconciled to it; by the way of the most inevitable, logical
combinations to reach the most revolting conclusions on the everlasting
theme, that even for the stone wall you are yourself somehow to blame,
though again it is as clear as day you are not to blame in the least,
and therefore grinding your teeth in silent impotence to sink into
luxurious inertia, brooding on the fact that there is no one even for
you to feel vindictive against, that you have not, and perhaps never
will have, an object for your spite, that it is a sleight of hand, a
bit of juggling, a card-sharper's trick, that it is simply a mess, no
knowing what and no knowing who, but in spite of all these
uncertainties and jugglings, still there is an ache in you, and the
more you do not know, the worse the ache.



IV

"Ha, ha, ha! You will be finding enjoyment in toothache next," you
cry, with a laugh.

"Well, even in toothache there is enjoyment," I answer. I had
toothache for a whole month and I know there is. In that case, of
course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not
candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole
point. The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans;
if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan. It is a good
example, gentlemen, and I will develop it. Those moans express in the
first place all the aimlessness of your pain, which is so humiliating
to your consciousness; the whole legal system of nature on which you
spit disdainfully, of course, but from which you suffer all the same
while she does not. They express the consciousness that you have no
enemy to punish, but that you have pain; the consciousness that in
spite of all possible Wagenheims you are in complete slavery to your
teeth; that if someone wishes it, your teeth will leave off aching, and
if he does not, they will go on aching another three months; and that
finally if you are still contumacious and still protest, all that is
left you for your own gratification is to thrash yourself or beat your
wall with your fist as hard as you can, and absolutely nothing more.
Well, these mortal insults, these jeers on the part of someone unknown,
end at last in an enjoyment which sometimes reaches the highest degree
of voluptuousness. I ask you, gentlemen, listen sometimes to the moans
of an educated man of the nineteenth century suffering from toothache,
on the second or third day of the attack, when he is beginning to moan,
not as he moaned on the first day, that is, not simply because he has
toothache, not just as any coarse peasant, but as a man affected by
progress and European civilisation, a man who is "divorced from the
soil and the national elements," as they express it now-a-days. His
moans become nasty, disgustingly malignant, and go on for whole days
and nights. And of course he knows himself that he is doing himself no
sort of good with his moans; he knows better than anyone that he is
only lacerating and harassing himself and others for nothing; he knows
that even the audience before whom he is making his efforts, and his
whole family, listen to him with loathing, do not put a ha'porth of
faith in him, and inwardly understand that he might moan differently,
more simply, without trills and flourishes, and that he is only amusing
himself like that from ill-humour, from malignancy. Well, in all these
recognitions and disgraces it is that there lies a voluptuous pleasure.
As though he would say: "I am worrying you, I am lacerating your
hearts, I am keeping everyone in the house awake. Well, stay awake
then, you, too, feel every minute that I have toothache. I am not a
hero to you now, as I tried to seem before, but simply a nasty person,
an impostor. Well, so be it, then! I am very glad that you see
through me. It is nasty for you to hear my despicable moans: well, let
it be nasty; here I will let you have a nastier flourish in a
minute. . . . " You do not understand even now, gentlemen? No, it seems
our development and our consciousness must go further to understand
all the intricacies of this pleasure. You laugh? Delighted. My
jests, gentlemen, are of course in bad taste, jerky, involved, lacking
self-confidence. But of course that is because I do not respect
myself. Can a man of perception respect himself at all?



V

Come, can a man who attempts to find enjoyment in the very feeling of
his own degradation possibly have a spark of respect for himself? I am
not saying this now from any mawkish kind of remorse. And, indeed, I
could never endure saying, "Forgive me, Papa, I won't do it again," not
because I am incapable of saying that--on the contrary, perhaps just
because I have been too capable of it, and in what a way, too. As
though of design I used to get into trouble in cases when I was not to
blame in any way. That was the nastiest part of it. At the same time
I was genuinely touched and penitent, I used to shed tears and, of
course, deceived myself, though I was not acting in the least and there
was a sick feeling in my heart at the time. . . . For that one could not
blame even the laws of nature, though the laws of nature have
continually all my life offended me more than anything. It is
loathsome to remember it all, but it was loathsome even then. Of
course, a minute or so later I would realise wrathfully that it was all
a lie, a revolting lie, an affected lie, that is, all this penitence,
this emotion, these vows of reform. You will ask why did I worry
myself with such antics: answer, because it was very dull to sit with
one's hands folded, and so one began cutting capers. That is really
it. Observe yourselves more carefully, gentlemen, then you will
understand that it is so. I invented adventures for myself and made up
a life, so as at least to live in some way. How many times it has
happened to me--well, for instance, to take offence simply on purpose,
for nothing; and one knows oneself, of course, that one is offended at
nothing; that one is putting it on, but yet one brings oneself at last
to the point of being really offended. All my life I have had an
impulse to play such pranks, so that in the end I could not control it
in myself. Another time, twice, in fact, I tried hard to be in love.
I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart
there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery, but
yet I did suffer, and in the real, orthodox way; I was jealous, beside
myself . . . and it was all from ENNUI, gentlemen, all from ENNUI;
inertia overcame me. You know the direct, legitimate fruit of
consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious
sitting-with-the-hands-folded. I have referred to this already. I
repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all "direct" persons and men of action
are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that?
I will tell you: in consequence of their limitation they take immediate
and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade
themselves more quickly and easily than other people do that they have
found an infallible foundation for their activity, and their minds are
at ease and you know that is the chief thing. To begin to act, you
know, you must first have your mind completely at ease and no trace of
doubt left in it. Why, how am I, for example, to set my mind at rest?
Where are the primary causes on which I am to build? Where are my
foundations? Where am I to get them from? I exercise myself in
reflection, and consequently with me every primary cause at once draws
after itself another still more primary, and so on to infinity. That
is just the essence of every sort of consciousness and reflection. It
must be a case of the laws of nature again. What is the result of it
in the end? Why, just the same. Remember I spoke just now of
vengeance. (I am sure you did not take it in. ) I said that a man
revenges himself because he sees justice in it. Therefore he has found
a primary cause, that is, justice. And so he is at rest on all sides,
and consequently he carries out his revenge calmly and successfully,
being persuaded that he is doing a just and honest thing. But I see no
justice in it, I find no sort of virtue in it either, and consequently
if I attempt to revenge myself, it is only out of spite. Spite, of
course, might overcome everything, all my doubts, and so might serve
quite successfully in place of a primary cause, precisely because it is
not a cause. But what is to be done if I have not even spite (I began
with that just now, you know). In consequence again of those accursed
laws of consciousness, anger in me is subject to chemical
disintegration. You look into it, the object flies off into air, your
reasons evaporate, the criminal is not to be found, the wrong becomes
not a wrong but a phantom, something like the toothache, for which no
one is to blame, and consequently there is only the same outlet left
again--that is, to beat the wall as hard as you can. So you give it up
with a wave of the hand because you have not found a fundamental cause.
And try letting yourself be carried away by your feelings, blindly,
without reflection, without a primary cause, repelling consciousness at
least for a time; hate or love, if only not to sit with your hands
folded. The day after tomorrow, at the latest, you will begin
despising yourself for having knowingly deceived yourself. Result: a
soap-bubble and inertia. Oh, gentlemen, do you know, perhaps I
consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have
been able neither to begin nor to finish anything. Granted I am a
babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to
be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is
babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?



VI

Oh, if I had done nothing simply from laziness! Heavens, how I should
have respected myself, then. I should have respected myself because I
should at least have been capable of being lazy; there would at least
have been one quality, as it were, positive in me, in which I could
have believed myself. Question: What is he? Answer: A sluggard; how
very pleasant it would have been to hear that of oneself! It would
mean that I was positively defined, it would mean that there was
something to say about me. "Sluggard"--why, it is a calling and
vocation, it is a career. Do not jest, it is so. I should then be a
member of the best club by right, and should find my occupation in
continually respecting myself. I knew a gentleman who prided himself
all his life on being a connoisseur of Lafitte. He considered this as
his positive virtue, and never doubted himself. He died, not simply
with a tranquil, but with a triumphant conscience, and he was quite
right, too. Then I should have chosen a career for myself, I should
have been a sluggard and a glutton, not a simple one, but, for
instance, one with sympathies for everything sublime and beautiful.
How do you like that? I have long had visions of it. That "sublime
and beautiful" weighs heavily on my mind at forty But that is at forty;
then--oh, then it would have been different! I should have found for
myself a form of activity in keeping with it, to be precise, drinking
to the health of everything "sublime and beautiful. " I should have
snatched at every opportunity to drop a tear into my glass and then to
drain it to all that is "sublime and beautiful. " I should then have
turned everything into the sublime and the beautiful; in the nastiest,
unquestionable trash, I should have sought out the sublime and the
beautiful. I should have exuded tears like a wet sponge. An artist,
for instance, paints a picture worthy of Gay. At once I drink to the
health of the artist who painted the picture worthy of Gay, because I
love all that is "sublime and beautiful. " An author has written AS YOU
WILL: at once I drink to the health of "anyone you will" because I love
all that is "sublime and beautiful. "

I should claim respect for doing so. I should persecute anyone who
would not show me respect. I should live at ease, I should die with
dignity, why, it is charming, perfectly charming! And what a good
round belly I should have grown, what a treble chin I should have
established, what a ruby nose I should have coloured for myself, so
that everyone would have said, looking at me: "Here is an asset! Here
is something real and solid! " And, say what you like, it is very
agreeable to hear such remarks about oneself in this negative age.



VII

But these are all golden dreams. Oh, tell me, who was it first
announced, who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty things
because he does not know his own interests; and that if he were
enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man
would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and
noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage,
he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else, and we all
know that not one man can, consciously, act against his own interests,
consequently, so to say, through necessity, he would begin doing good?
Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child! Why, in the first place,
when in all these thousands of years has there been a time when man has
acted only from his own interest? What is to be done with the millions
of facts that bear witness that men, CONSCIOUSLY, that is fully
understanding their real interests, have left them in the background
and have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger,
compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing, but, as it were,
simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, wilfully,
struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the
darkness. So, I suppose, this obstinacy and perversity were pleasanter
to them than any advantage. . . . Advantage! What is advantage? And will
you take it upon yourself to define with perfect accuracy in what the
advantage of man consists? And what if it so happens that a man's
advantage, SOMETIMES, not only may, but even must, consist in his
desiring in certain cases what is harmful to himself and not
advantageous. And if so, if there can be such a case, the whole
principle falls into dust. What do you think--are there such cases?
You laugh; laugh away, gentlemen, but only answer me: have man's
advantages been reckoned up with perfect certainty? Are there not some
which not only have not been included but cannot possibly be included
under any classification? You see, you gentlemen have, to the best of
my knowledge, taken your whole register of human advantages from the
averages of statistical figures and politico-economical formulas. Your
advantages are prosperity, wealth, freedom, peace--and so on, and so
on. So that the man who should, for instance, go openly and knowingly
in opposition to all that list would to your thinking, and indeed mine,
too, of course, be an obscurantist or an absolute madman: would not he?
But, you know, this is what is surprising: why does it so happen that
all these statisticians, sages and lovers of humanity, when they reckon
up human advantages invariably leave out one? They don't even take it
into their reckoning in the form in which it should be taken, and the
whole reckoning depends upon that. It would be no greater matter, they
would simply have to take it, this advantage, and add it to the list.
But the trouble is, that this strange advantage does not fall under any
classification and is not in place in any list. I have a friend for
instance . . . Ech! gentlemen, but of course he is your friend, too; and
indeed there is no one, no one to whom he is not a friend!
When he
prepares for any undertaking this gentleman immediately explains to
you, elegantly and clearly, exactly how he must act in accordance with
the laws of reason and truth. What is more, he will talk to you with
excitement and passion of the true normal interests of man; with irony
he will upbraid the short-sighted fools who do not understand their own
interests, nor the true significance of virtue; and, within a quarter
of an hour, without any sudden outside provocation, but simply through
something inside him which is stronger than all his interests, he will
go off on quite a different tack--that is, act in direct opposition to
what he has just been saying about himself, in opposition to the laws
of reason, in opposition to his own advantage, in fact in opposition to
everything . . . I warn you that my friend is a compound personality and
therefore it is difficult to blame him as an individual. The fact is,
gentlemen, it seems there must really exist something that is dearer to
almost every man than his greatest advantages, or (not to be illogical)
there is a most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which
we spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous than
all other advantages, for the sake of which a man if necessary is ready
to act in opposition to all laws; that is, in opposition to reason,
honour, peace, prosperity--in fact, in opposition to all those
excellent and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental,
most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all. "Yes, but
it's advantage all the same," you will retort. But excuse me, I'll
make the point clear, and it is not a case of playing upon words. What
matters is, that this advantage is remarkable from the very fact that
it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters every
system constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind. In
fact, it upsets everything. But before I mention this advantage to
you, I want to compromise myself personally, and therefore I boldly
declare that all these fine systems, all these theories for explaining
to mankind their real normal interests, in order that inevitably
striving to pursue these interests they may at once become good and
noble--are, in my opinion, so far, mere logical exercises! Yes,
logical exercises. Why, to maintain this theory of the regeneration of
mankind by means of the pursuit of his own advantage is to my mind
almost the same thing . . . as to affirm, for instance, following Buckle,
that through civilisation mankind becomes softer, and consequently less
bloodthirsty and less fitted for warfare. Logically it does seem to
follow from his arguments. But man has such a predilection for systems
and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth
intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to
justify his logic. I take this example because it is the most glaring
instance of it. Only look about you: blood is being spilt in streams,
and in the merriest way, as though it were champagne. Take the whole
of the nineteenth century in which Buckle lived. Take Napoleon--the
Great and also the present one. Take North America--the eternal union.
Take the farce of Schleswig-Holstein. . . . And what is it that
civilisation softens in us? The only gain of civilisation for mankind
is the greater capacity for variety of sensations--and absolutely
nothing more. And through the development of this many-sidedness man
may come to finding enjoyment in bloodshed. In fact, this has already
happened to him. Have you noticed that it is the most civilised
gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers, to whom the Attilas
and Stenka Razins could not hold a candle, and if they are not so
conspicuous as the Attilas and Stenka Razins it is simply because they
are so often met with, are so ordinary and have become so familiar to
us. In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more
bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty. In
old days he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peace
exterminated those he thought proper. Now we do think bloodshed
abominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energy
than ever. Which is worse? Decide that for yourselves. They say that
Cleopatra (excuse an instance from Roman history) was fond of sticking
gold pins into her slave-girls' breasts and derived gratification from
their screams and writhings. You will say that that was in the
comparatively barbarous times; that these are barbarous times too,
because also, comparatively speaking, pins are stuck in even now; that
though man has now learned to see more clearly than in barbarous ages,
he is still far from having learnt to act as reason and science would
dictate. But yet you are fully convinced that he will be sure to learn
when he gets rid of certain old bad habits, and when common sense and
science have completely re-educated human nature and turned it in a
normal direction. You are confident that then man will cease from
INTENTIONAL error and will, so to say, be compelled not to want to set
his will against his normal interests. That is not all; then, you say,
science itself will teach man (though to my mind it's a superfluous
luxury) that he never has really had any caprice or will of his own,
and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or the
stop of an organ, and that there are, besides, things called the laws
of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it,
but is done of itself, by the laws of nature. Consequently we have
only to discover these laws of nature, and man will no longer have to
answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him.
All human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to these
laws, mathematically, like tables of logarithms up to 108,000, and
entered in an index; or, better still, there would be published certain
edifying works of the nature of encyclopaedic lexicons, in which
everything will be so clearly calculated and explained that there will
be no more incidents or adventures in the world.

Then--this is all what you say--new economic relations will be
established, all ready-made and worked out with mathematical
exactitude, so that every possible question will vanish in the
twinkling of an eye, simply because every possible answer to it will be
provided. Then the "Palace of Crystal" will be built. Then . . . In
fact, those will be halcyon days. Of course there is no guaranteeing
(this is my comment) that it will not be, for instance, frightfully
dull then (for what will one have to do when everything will be
calculated and tabulated), but on the other hand everything will be
extraordinarily rational. Of course boredom may lead you to anything.
It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all that
would not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is that I
dare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then. Man is
stupid, you know, phenomenally stupid; or rather he is not at all
stupid, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another like
him in all creation. I, for instance, would not be in the least
surprised if all of a sudden, A PROPOS of nothing, in the midst of
general prosperity a gentleman with an ignoble, or rather with a
reactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, putting his
arms akimbo, say to us all: "I say, gentleman, hadn't we better kick
over the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply to
send these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once more
at our own sweet foolish will! " That again would not matter, but what
is annoying is that he would be sure to find followers--such is the
nature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one
would think, was hardly worth mentioning: that is, that man everywhere
and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose
and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated. And one may
choose what is contrary to one's own interests, and sometimes one
POSITIVELY OUGHT (that is my idea). One's own free unfettered choice,
one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at
times to frenzy--is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we
have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which
all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And
how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice?
What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally
advantageous choice? What man wants is simply INDEPENDENT choice,
whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And
choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.



VIII

"Ha! ha! ha! But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality,
say what you like," you will interpose with a chuckle. "Science has
succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and
what is called freedom of will is nothing else than--"

Stay, gentlemen, I meant to begin with that myself I confess, I was
rather frightened. I was just going to say that the devil only knows
what choice depends on, and that perhaps that was a very good thing,
but I remembered the teaching of science . . . and pulled myself up. And
here you have begun upon it. Indeed, if there really is some day
discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices--that is, an
explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they
develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on,
that is a real mathematical formula--then, most likely, man will at
once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who
would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed
from a human being into an organ-stop or something of the sort; for
what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if
not a stop in an organ? What do you think? Let us reckon the
chances--can such a thing happen or not?

"H'm! " you decide. "Our choice is usually mistaken from a false view
of our advantage. We sometimes choose absolute nonsense because in our
foolishness we see in that nonsense the easiest means for attaining a
supposed advantage. But when all that is explained and worked out on
paper (which is perfectly possible, for it is contemptible and
senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never
understand), then certainly so-called desires will no longer exist.
For if a desire should come into conflict with reason we shall then
reason and not desire, because it will be impossible retaining our
reason to be SENSELESS in our desires, and in that way knowingly act
against reason and desire to injure ourselves. And as all choice and
reasoning can be really calculated--because there will some day be
discovered the laws of our so-called free will--so, joking apart, there
may one day be something like a table constructed of them, so that we
really shall choose in accordance with it. If, for instance, some day
they calculate and prove to me that I made a long nose at someone
because I could not help making a long nose at him and that I had to do
it in that particular way, what FREEDOM is left me, especially if I am
a learned man and have taken my degree somewhere? Then I should be
able to calculate my whole life for thirty years beforehand. In short,
if this could be arranged there would be nothing left for us to do;
anyway, we should have to understand that. And, in fact, we ought
unwearyingly to repeat to ourselves that at such and such a time and in
such and such circumstances nature does not ask our leave; that we have
got to take her as she is and not fashion her to suit our fancy, and if
we really aspire to formulas and tables of rules, and well, even . . . to
the chemical retort, there's no help for it, we must accept the retort
too, or else it will be accepted without our consent. . . . "

Yes, but here I come to a stop! Gentlemen, you must excuse me for
being over-philosophical; it's the result of forty years underground!
Allow me to indulge my fancy. You see, gentlemen, reason is an
excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but
reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will
is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life
including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this
manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply
extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to
live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my
capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my
capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it
has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn;
this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly? ) and human nature
acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or
unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives. I suspect,
gentlemen, that you are looking at me with compassion; you tell me
again that an enlightened and developed man, such, in short, as the
future man will be, cannot consciously desire anything disadvantageous
to himself, that that can be proved mathematically. I thoroughly
agree, it can--by mathematics. But I repeat for the hundredth time,
there is one case, one only, when man may consciously, purposely,
desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid, very
stupid--simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even
what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to desire only
what is sensible. Of course, this very stupid thing, this caprice of
ours, may be in reality, gentlemen, more advantageous for us than
anything else on earth, especially in certain cases. And in particular
it may be more advantageous than any advantage even when it does us
obvious harm, and contradicts the soundest conclusions of our reason
concerning our advantage--for in any circumstances it preserves for us
what is most precious and most important--that is, our personality, our
individuality. Some, you see, maintain that this really is the most
precious thing for mankind; choice can, of course, if it chooses, be in
agreement with reason; and especially if this be not abused but kept
within bounds. It is profitable and sometimes even praiseworthy. But
very often, and even most often, choice is utterly and stubbornly
opposed to reason . . . and . . . and . . . do you know that that, too, is
profitable, sometimes even praiseworthy? Gentlemen, let us suppose
that man is not stupid. (Indeed one cannot refuse to suppose that, if
only from the one consideration, that, if man is stupid, then who is
wise? ) But if he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful!
Phenomenally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition
of man is the ungrateful biped. But that is not all, that is not his
worst defect; his worst defect is his perpetual moral obliquity,
perpetual--from the days of the Flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period.
Moral obliquity and consequently lack of good sense; for it has long
been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than
moral obliquity. Put it to the test and cast your eyes upon the
history of mankind. What will you see? Is it a grand spectacle?
Grand, if you like. Take the Colossus of Rhodes, for instance, that's
worth something. With good reason Mr. Anaevsky testifies of it that
some say that it is the work of man's hands, while others maintain that
it has been created by nature herself. Is it many-coloured? May be it
is many-coloured, too: if one takes the dress uniforms, military and
civilian, of all peoples in all ages--that alone is worth something,
and if you take the undress uniforms you will never get to the end of
it; no historian would be equal to the job. Is it monotonous? May be
it's monotonous too: it's fighting and fighting; they are fighting now,
they fought first and they fought last--you will admit, that it is
almost too monotonous. In short, one may say anything about the
history of the world--anything that might enter the most disordered
imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational. The
very word sticks in one's throat. And, indeed, this is the odd thing
that is continually happening: there are continually turning up in life
moral and rational persons, sages and lovers of humanity who make it
their object to live all their lives as morally and rationally as
possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their neighbours simply in
order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally
in this world. And yet we all know that those very people sooner or
later have been false to themselves, playing some queer trick, often a
most unseemly one. Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he
is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every
earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but
bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic
prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat
cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even
then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some
nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately
desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply
to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic
element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he
will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself--as though
that were so necessary--that men still are men and not the keys of a
piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that
soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that
is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if
this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then
he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something
perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if
he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will
contrive sufferings of all sorts, only to gain his point! He will
launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his
privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals), may
be by his curse alone he will attain his object--that is, convince
himself that he is a man and not a piano-key! If you say that all
this, too, can be calculated and tabulated--chaos and darkness and
curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand
would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself, then man would
purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point! I
believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems
to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a
man and not a piano-key! It may be at the cost of his skin, it may be
by cannibalism! And this being so, can one help being tempted to
rejoice that it has not yet come off, and that desire still depends on
something we don't know?

You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one
is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my
will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own
normal interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic.

Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to
tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make
four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant
that!



IX

Gentlemen, I am joking, and I know myself that my jokes are not
brilliant, but you know one can take everything as a joke. I am,
perhaps, jesting against the grain. Gentlemen, I am tormented by
questions; answer them for me. You, for instance, want to cure men of
their old habits and reform their will in accordance with science and
good sense. But how do you know, not only that it is possible, but also
that it is DESIRABLE to reform man in that way? And what leads you to
the conclusion that man's inclinations NEED reforming? In short, how
do you know that such a reformation will be a benefit to man? And to
go to the root of the matter, why are you so positively convinced that
not to act against his real normal interests guaranteed by the
conclusions of reason and arithmetic is certainly always advantageous
for man and must always be a law for mankind? So far, you know, this
is only your supposition. It may be the law of logic, but not the law
of humanity. You think, gentlemen, perhaps that I am mad? Allow me to
defend myself. I agree that man is pre-eminently a creative animal,
predestined to strive consciously for an object and to engage in
engineering--that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads,
WHEREVER THEY MAY LEAD. But the reason why he wants sometimes to go
off at a tangent may just be that he is PREDESTINED to make the road,
and perhaps, too, that however stupid the "direct" practical man may
be, the thought sometimes will occur to him that the road almost always
does lead SOMEWHERE, and that the destination it leads to is less
important than the process of making it, and that the chief thing is to
save the well-conducted child from despising engineering, and so giving
way to the fatal idleness, which, as we all know, is the mother of all
the vices. Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact
beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction
and chaos also? Tell me that! But on that point I want to say a
couple of words myself. May it not be that he loves chaos and
destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it)
because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and
completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps he only
loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love with it
at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does not want
to live in it, but will leave it, when completed, for the use of LES
ANIMAUX DOMESTIQUES--such as the ants, the sheep, and so on. Now the
ants have quite a different taste. They have a marvellous edifice of
that pattern which endures for ever--the ant-heap.

With the ant-heap the respectable race of ants began and with the
ant-heap they will probably end, which does the greatest credit to
their perseverance and good sense. But man is a frivolous and
incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the
process of the game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no
saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind
is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other
words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must
always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four,
and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of
death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical
certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing
but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices
his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I
assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing
for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at
least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to
the police-station--and there is occupation for a week. But where can
man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when
he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but
does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very
absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind
of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all,
something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a
piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands
with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice
two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything
its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the
normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to
welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as
regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides
well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering?