THE CONCEPT OF DREAD A simple psychological deliberation oriented in the direction of the dogmatic problem of original sin BY Vigilius Haufniensis Copenhagen To be had from the University Bookseller C. A. Reitzel Printed by Bianco Luno's Press 1844 [June 17.]
The age of distinctions is past and gone, the System has overcome it. He who in our age loves distinctions is an eccentric man whose soul clings to that which has long vanished. That may be so, and yet Socrates remains what he was, the simple wise man with the curious dis- tinction which he himself expressed by word and by his life, which after full two thousand years the eccentric Hamann reiterated, exclaiming with admiration, "Socrates was great for the fact that he 'distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand.'
TO THE LATE Professor Poul Martin MOller THE HAPPY LOVER OF HELLENIC CULTURE, HOMER'S ADMIRER, SOCRATES* INTIMATE FRIEND, THE INTERPRETER OF ARISTOTLE — Denmark's joy in "joy over Denmark," ALTHOUGH A "FAR-TRAVELED MAN," YET ALWAYS "REMEMBERED IN THE DANISH SUMMER" MY ADMIRATION, MY DEEP-FELT LOSS, THIS WORK IS DEDICATED The age of distinctions is past and gone, the System has overcome it. He who in our age loves distinctions is an eccentric man whose soul clings to that which has long vanished. That may be so, and yet Socrates remains what he was, the simple wise man with the curious distinction which he himself expressed by word and by his life, which after full two thousand years the eccentric Hamann reiterated, exclaiming with admiration, "Socrates was great for the fact that he 'distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand.' " TO THE LATE Professor Poul Martin MOller THE HAPPY LOVER OF HELLENIC CULTURE, HOMER'S ADMIRER, SOCRATES' INTIMATE FRIEND, THE INTERPRETER OF ARISTOTLE — Denmark's joy in "joy over Denmark," ALTHOUGH A "FAR-TRAVELED MAN," YET ALWAYS "REMEMBERED IN THE DANISH SUMMER" MY ADMIRATION, MY DEEP-FELT LOSS, THIS WORK IS DEDICATED PREFACE A ccordikg to my notion, he who would write a book does well A to think a good deal about the subject on which he would / \ write. Neither would he do ill to form acquaintance, so far as possible, with what has previously been written on the same subject. If along that road he should encounter an individual who has dealt exhaustively and adequately with one or another part of the subject, he does well to rejoice as does the friend of the bridegroom when he stands and gives ear to the bridegroom's.voice. When he has done that in perfect silence and with the enthusiasm of a lover, which always seeks solitude, then no more is needed — then he writes his book straightway as the bird sings its ditty, if there be one who profits by it and finds joy in it, so much the better; then he publishes it, carefree and unconcerned, without any self-importance, as though he had said the last word, or as though by his book all generations would be blessed. Every generation has its task and need not disturb itself overmuch to be everything for the preceding and the following generations. Every individual in each generation has likewise every day his own troubles and enough to do in taking care of himself, and does not need to embrace all the contemporary world with sovereign and parental concern, nor to make an era or an epoch 1 begin with his book, still less with the New Year's torch of his vow, 2 or with the far-seeing promises of his suggestive hints, or by reassuring indications with regard to a currency of doubtful value. Not everyone who is round-shouldered is therefore an Atlas or has become so by carrying a world; not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord," enters into the kingdom of heaven; not everyone who offers to go bond for the whole contemporary generation has thereby proved that he is able to vouch for himself; not everyone who cries "Bravo!" "Schwere Notli!" "Gottsblits!" "Bravissimol" has therefore understood himself in his admiration.
So far as concerns my humble person, I admit with all honesty that as an author I am a king without a country, but also that in fear and much trembling I am an author without pretensions. If to a noble envy, a jealous criticism, it seems too much that I bear a Latin name, I shall gladly assume the name of John Brown, preferring as I do to be regarded as a layman, one who speculates, it is true, but stands nevertheless far removed from Speculation, even 6 PREFACE though I am as much a devotee in my faith in authority as the Roman was tolerant in his fear of the gods. As for human authority, I am a fetish-worshiper and with equal piety adore whosoever it may be, if only it is adequately announced betimes by the beating of drums that it is to him I must pay adoration, that he is the Authority and the Imprimatur^ for the current year. It is beyond my understanding how the decision is made, whether this choice comes about by the casting of lots and ballots, or whether the dignity is passed around and the individual sits by turn as an authority just as does a citizen- representative in the Commission of Conciliation.* I have nothing further to add, except that to everyone who shares my view, as also to everyone who does not, to everyone who reads the book, as also to everyone who has enough in the Preface, I would wish a sincere LebewohV.
Respectfully, Vigilius Haufniensis 8 CONTENTS PAGE Preface ^ Introduction 9 Chapter I. Dread as the presupposition of original sin and as explaining it retrogressively by going back to its origin 23 1. Historical indications relative to the concept of original sin 23 2. The concept of the first sin 27 3. The concept of innocence 32 4. The concept of the Fall 34 5. The concept of dread 37 6. Dread as the presupposition of original sin and as explaining original sin retrogressively in the direction of its origin 41 Chapter II. Dread as original sin progressively 42 1. Objective dread 5° 2. Subjective dread 54 Chapter III. Dread as the consequence of that sin which is the default of the consciousness of sin 73 1. Dread owing to the default of spirit 83 2. Dread dialectically determined in view of fate 86 3. Dread dialectically defined in view of guilt 92 Chapter IV. The dread in sin, or dread as the consequence of sin in the particular individual 99 1. Dread of the evil 101 INTRODUCTION In what sense the subject of this deliberation is a theme of interest to psychol- ogy, and in what sense, after having interested psychology, it points precisely to dogmatics.
he notion that every scientific problem within the great field embraced by science has its definite place, its measure and its bounds, and precisely thereby has its resonance in the whole, its legitimate consonance in what the whole expresses — this notion, I say, is net merely a pium desiderium which ennobles the man of science by the visionary enthusiasm or melancholy which it begets, is not merely a sacred duty which employs him in the service of the whole, bidding him renounce lawlessness and the romantic lust to lose sight of land, but it is also in the interest of every more highly specialized deliberation, which by forgetting where its home properly is, forgets at the same time itself (a thought which the very language I use with its striking ambiguity expresses), becomes another thing, and attains a dubious perfectibility by being able to become anything at all. By thus failing to let the scientific call to order be heard, by not being vigilant to forbid the individual problems to hurry by one another as though it were a question of arriving first at the masquerade, one may indeed attain sometimes an appearance of brilliancy, may give sometimes the impression of having already comprehended, when in fact one is far from it, may sometimes by the use of vague words strike up an agreement between things that differ. This gain, however, avenges itself subsequently, like all unlawful acquisitions, which neither in civic life nor in the field of science can really be owned.
Thus when a person entitles the last section of his Logic "Reality," 1 he thereby gains the advantage of appearing to have already reached by logic the highest thing, or, if one prefers to say so, the lowest. The loss is obvious nevertheless, for this is not to the advantage either of logic or of reality. Not to that of reality, for the contingent, which is an integral part of reality, cannot be permitted to slip into logic. It is not to the advantage of logic, for if logic has conceived the thought of reality it has taken into its system something it cannot assimilate, it has anticipated what it ought merely to predispose. The punishment is clear: that every deliberation about what reality is must by this be made difficult, no! ftLJiftL/t v 10 INTRODUCTION yea, perhaps for a long time impossible, because this word "reality" will, as it were, require some time to recall to mind what it is, must have time to forget the mistake.
Thus when in dogmatics a person says that faith is the immediate, 2 without more precise definition, he gains the advantage of convincing everyone of the necessity of not stopping at faith, yea, he compels even the orthodox man to make this concession, because this man perhaps does not at once penetrate the misunderstanding and perceive that it is not due to a subsequent flaw in the argument but to this wp&TovyJrtvSos. The loss is indubitable, for thereby faith loses by being deprived of what legitimately belongs to it: its historical presupposition. Dogmatics loses for the fact that it has to begin, not where it properly has its beginning, within the compass of an earlier beginning. Instead of presupposing an earlier beginning, it ignores this and begins straightway as if it were logic 3; for logic in fact begins with the most volatile essence produced by the finest abstraction: the immediate. What then logically is correct, namely, that the immediate is eo ipso annulled, becomes twaddle in dogmatics; for to no one could it occur to want to stop with the immediate (not further defined), seeing that in fact it is annulled the instant it is mentioned, just as a sleepwalker awakes the instant his name is called.
Thus when sometimes in the course of investigations which are hardly more than propaedeutic 4 one finds the word "reconciliation" used to designate speculative knowledge, or the identity of the knowing subject and the thing known, the subjective-objective, etc., then one easily sees that the author is brilliant and that by the aid of his esprit he has explained all riddles, especially for those who do not even scientifically take the precaution, which yet one takes in everyday life, to listen carefully to the words of the riddle before guessing it. Otherwise one acquires the incomparable merit of having by one's explanation propounded a new riddle, namely, how it could occur to any man that this might be the explanation. That thought possesses reality was the assumption of all ancient philosophy as well as of the philosophy of the Middle Ages. With Kant this assumption became doubtful. Suppose now that the Hegelian school had really thought through Kant's scepticism (however, this ought always to remain a big question, in spite of all Hegel and his school 5 have done, by the help of the catchwords "Method and Manifestation," to hide what Schelling 8 recognized more openly by the cue "intellectual intuition and construction," the fact, namely, that this was a new point of departure) and then reconstructed the earlier view in a higher form, in such wise that thought does not possess reality by virtue INTRODUCTION 11 of a presupposition — is then this consciously produced reality of thought a reconciliation? In fact philosophy is merely brought back to the point where in old days one began, in the old days when precisely the word "reconciliation" had immense significance. We have an old and respectable philosophical terminology: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. They invent a newer one in which mediation occupies the third place. Is this to be considered such an extraordinary step in advance? Mediation is equivocal, for it designates at once the relation between the two terms and the result of the relation, that in which they stand related to one another as having been brought into relationship; it designates movement, but at the same time rest. Whether this is a perfection, only a far deeper dialectical test will decide; but for that unfortunately we are still waiting. They do away with synthesis and say "mediation." All right. But esprit requires more — so they say "reconciliation." What is the conse- quence? It is of no advantage to their propaedeutic investigations, for of course they gain as little as truth thereby gains in clarity, or as a man's soul increases in blessedness by acquiring a title. On the contrary, they have fundamentally confounded two sciences, ethics and dogmatics — especially in view of the fact that, having got the word "reconciliation" introduced, they now hint that logic is properly the doctrine about the Xoyo?. 7 Ethics and dogmatics contend in a fateful confinium about reconciliation. Repentance and guilt torture out reconciliation ethically, whereas dogmatics in its receptivity for the proffered reconciliation has the historically concrete immediateness with which it begins its discourse in the great conversation of science. What then will be the consequence? That language will presumably have to celebrate a great sabbatical year in which we let speech and thought rest, in order to be able to begin with the beginning.
In logic they use the negative as the motive power which brings movement into everything. And movement in logic they must have, any way they can get it, by fair means or foul. The negative helps them, and if the negative cannot, then quibbles and phrases can, just as the negative itself has become a play on words.* In logic no movement can come about, for logic is, and everything logical simply is,f and this impotence of logic is the transition to the sphere of becoming where existence and reality appear. So when logic is absorbed in the concretion of the categories it is constantly the same that it was from the beginning. In logic every movement (if for an instant one would use this expression) is an immanent movement, which in a deeper sense is no movement, as one will easily convince oneself if one reflects that the very concept of move- 12 INTRODUCTION 12 INTRODUCTION ment is a transcendence which can find no place in logic. The negative then is the immanence of movement, it is the vanishing factor, the thing that is annulled (aufgehoben). If everything comes to pass in that way, then nothing comes to pass, and the negative becomes a phantom. But precisely for the sake of getting something to come to pass in logic, the negative becomes something more, it becomes the producer of the opposition, and not a negation but a counterposition. The negative then is not the muteness of the immanent movement, it is the "necessary other," 8 which doubtless* must be very necessary to logic in order to set things going, but the negative it is not. Leaving logic to go on to ethics, one encounters here again the negative, which is indefatigably active in the whole Hegelian philosophy. Here too a man discovers to his amazement that the negative is the evil. 9 Now the confusion is in full swing; there is no bound to brilliancy, and what Mme. de Stael-Holstein said of Schelling's philosophy, 10 that it gave a * Exempli gratia- Wesen ist was ist gewesen; ist gewesen is the preterite tense of "to be," ergo Wesen is das aufgehoben being "the being which has been." This is a logical movement! If in the Hegelian logic (such as it is in itself and through the contributions of the School) one were to take the trouble to pick out and make a collection of all the fabulous hobgoblins and kobolds which like busy swains help the logical movement along, a later age would perhaps be astonished to discover that witticisms which then will appear superannuated once played a great role in logic, not as incidental explanations and brilliant observations, but as masters of movement which made Hegel's logic a miracle and gave the logical thoughts feet to walk on, without anybody noticing it, since the long cloak of admiration concealed the performer who trained the animals, just as Lulu [in a play] comes running without anybody seeing the machinery. Movement in logic is the meritorious service of Hegel, in comparison with which it is hardly worth the trouble of mentioning the never-to-be-forgotten merits which Hegel has, and has disdained in order to run after the uncertain — I mean the merit of having in manifold ways enriched the categorical definitions and their arrangement.
t The eternal expression of logic is that which the Eleatic School transferred by mistake to existence: Nothing comes into existence, everything is. man esprit for his whole life, applies in every respect to the Hegelian philosophy. One sees how illogical movements must be in logic since the negative is the evil, and how unethical they must be in ethics since the evil is the negative. In logic this is too much, in ethics too little; it fits nowhere if it has to fit both places. If ethics has no other transcendence, it is essentially logic; if logic is to have so much transcendence as after all has been left in ethics out of a sense of shame, then it is no longer logic.
What I have expounded is perhaps rather prolix for the place where it stands (in relation to the subject with which it deals it is far from being too long), but it is by no means superfluous, since the particular observations are selected with reference to the subject of this work.' The examples are taken from the greater world, but what occurs in the great may be repeated in the lesser, and the misunderstanding remains the INTRODUCTION 13 same, even if the injurious consequences are less. He who gives himself the airs of writing the System 11 has the great responsibility, but he who writes a monograph can be and ought to be faithful over a little.
The present work has taken as its theme the psychological treatment of "dread," in such a way that it has in mente and before its eye the dogma of original sin. It has therefore to take account, although tacitly, of the concept of sin. Sin, however, is not a theme for psychological interest, and it would only be to abandon oneself to the service of a misunderstood cleverness if one were to treat it thus. Sin has its definite place, or rather it has no place, and that is what characterizes it. By treating it in a place other than its own, one distorts it, in that one subjects it to an unessential reflective refraction. Its concept is altered, and at the same time the mood which properly corresponds to the correct concept* is confused, and instead of the endurance of the genuine mood one has the fleeting jugglery of the false mood. Thus when sin is drawn into aesthetics the mood becomes either frivolous or mel- ancholy; for the category under which sin lies is contradiction, and this is either comic or tragic. The mood is therefore falsified, * The fact that science, fully as much as poetry and art, assumes a mood both on the part of the producer and on the part of the recipient, that an error in modulation is just as disturbing as an error in the exposition of thought, has been entirely forgotten in our age, when people have altogether forgotten the nature of inwardness and appropriation in their joy over all the glory they believed they possessed, or through cupidity have lost it, like the dog 12 which preferred the shadow. However, every error begets its own enemy. An error of thought has outside cf it as its enemy, dialectics; the absence of mood or its falsification has outside of it its enemy, the comical.
for the mood corresponding to sin is seriousness. Its concept is altered, for whether it becomes comic or tragic, it is either an enduring thing, or a thing which as unessential is annulled [auf- gehoben], whereas properly its concept is, to be overcome. In a deeper sense the comical and the tragical have no enemies; the antagonist is either a bogy which makes one weep, or a bogy which makes one laugh.
If sin is dealt with in metaphysics, the mood is the dialectical indifference and disinterestedness which thinks sin through as something which cannot resist thought. The concept is altered; for it is true that sin has to be overcome, not however as that to which thought is unable to give life, but as that which exists. and as such is everybody's concern.
If sin is dealt with in psychology, the mood becomes the persistence of observation, the dauntlessness of the spy, not the ardent flight of seriousness away from and out of sin. The concept becomes a different one, for sin becomes a state. But sin is not a state. Its idea is that its concept is constantly annulled. As a state {de potentia) it is not, 14 INTRODUCTION whereas de actu or in actu it is and is again. The mood of psychology would be antipathetic curiosity, but the correct mood is the stouthearted opposition of seriousness. The mood of psychology is the dread corresponding to its discovery, and in its dread it delineates sin, while again and again it is alarmed by the sketch it produces. When sin is treated in such a way it becomes the stronger; for psychology is really related to it in a feminine way. Doubtless there is an element of truth in this state of mind, and doubtless it emerges in every man's life more or less before the ethical makes its appearance; but by such treatment sin becomes not what it is but more or less than it is.
As soon therefore as one sees the problem of sin treated, it is possible at once to see from the mood whether the concept is the right one. For example, as soon as sin is talked about as a sickness, an abnormality, a poison, a disharmony, then the concept too is falsified.
Sin does not properly belong in any science. It is the theme with which the sermon deals, where the individual talks as an individual to the individual. In our age scientific self-importance has turned the priests into professorial parish-clerks of a sort, who also serve science and think it beneath their dignity to preach. It is no wonder therefore that preaching has come to be regarded as a pretty INTRODUCTION 15 poor art. Nevertheless, preaching is the most difficult of all arts, and essentially it is the art which Socrates 13 extols: the art of being able to converse. From this of course it does not follow that there must be someone in the congregation to make answer, or that it might be a help to have someone regularly introduced to speak. When Socrates censured the Sophists by making the distinction that they were able to talk but not to converse, what he really meant was that they were able to say a great deal about everything, but lacked the factor of personal appropriation. Appropriation is precisely the secret of conversation.
To the concept of sin corresponds the mood of seriousness. The science in which sin might most plausibly find a place would surely be ethics. About this, however, there is a great difficulty. Ethics is after all an ideal science, and that not only in the sense that every other science is ideal. Ethics would bring ideality into reality; on the other hand its movement is not designed to raise reality up into ideality.* Ethics points to ideality as a task and assumes that man is in possession of the conditions requisite for performing it. Thereby ethics develops a contradiction, precisely for the fact that it makes the difficulty and the impossibility clear. What is said of the Law 14 applies to ethics, that it is a severe schoolmaster, which in making a demand, by its demand only condemns, does not give birth to life. Only the Greek ethics constituted an exception, due to the fact that it was not ethics in the proper sense but contained an aesthetic factor. This is evinced clearly in its definition of virtue 15 and in what Aristotle says often but also in Ethica Nicomacheci affirms with charming Greek naivete that, after all, virtue alone does not make a man happy and content, but he must have health, friends, earthly goods, be happy in his family. The more ideal ethics is, the better. It must not let itself be disturbed by the twaddle that it is no use requiring the impossible; for even to listen to such talk is unethical, is something for which ethics has neither time nor opportunity. Ethics does not have to chaffer, nor in that way does one reach reality. If that is to be reached, the whole movement must be reversed. This characteristic of ethics, namely, that it is so ideal, is what tempts one in the treatment of it to employ *If one will consider this more sharply, one will have opportunity to perceive how brilliant it was to entitle the last section of logic "Reality," inasmuch as not even ethics reaches that. The reality with which logic ends signifies therefore in the way of reality no more than that "being" with which it begins. now a metaphysical category, now an aesthetical, now a psychological. But of course ethics above all sciences must withstand temptations, but because there are these temptations no one can write an ethics without having entirely different categories up his sleeve.
Sin belongs to ethics only in so far as upon this concept it founders 16 INTRODUCTION by the aid of repentance.* If ethics must include sin, * With regard to this point one will find several observations by Johannes de silentio, author of Fear and Trembling (Copenhagen 1843). There the author several times allows the wishful ideality of the aesthetical to founder upon the exacting ideality of the ethical, in order by these collisions to let the religious ideality come to evidence, which is precisely the ideality of reality, and therefore is just as desirable as that of aesthetics and not impossible like that of ethics, yet to let it come to evidence in such a way that it breaks out in the dialectical leap and with the positive feeling, "Behold, all things have become new!" and in the negative feeling which is the passion of the absurd to which the concept of "repetition" corresponds. Either the whole of existence is locked up in the requirement of ethics, or the condition for its fulfillment must be provided — and with that the whole of life and of existence begins afresh, not through an immanent continuity with the foregoing (which is a contradiction), but by a transcendent fact which separates the repetition from the first existence by such a cleft that it is only a figure of speech to say that the foregoing and the sub- sequent state are related to one another as the totality of the living creatures in the sea are related to those in the air and on the land, although according to the opinion of some natural scientists the former is supposed to be the prototype which in its imperfection prefigures everything which becomes manifest in the latter. With regard to this category one may compare Repetition by Constantine Constantius (Copenhagen 1843). This book is in fact a whimsical book, as its author meant it to be, but nevertheless it is so far as I know the first which has energetically conceived repetition and let it be glimpsed in its pregnance to explain the relation between the ethnical and the Christian, by indicating the in- visible summit and the discritnen rerum where science breaks against science until the new science comes forth. But what he has discovered he has hidden again by arraying the concept in the form of jest which aptly offers itself as a mode of presentation. What has moved him to do this it is difficult to say, or rather it is difficult to understand; for he says himself that he writes this "so that the heretics might not be able to understand him." As he has only wished to employ himself with this subject aesthetically and psychologically, he had to plan it all humoristically, and the effect is produced by the fact that the word at one moment signifies everything, and the next moment the most insignificant thing, and the transition, or rather the perpetual falling from the stars, is justified as a burlesque contrast. However, he stated the whole thing pretty clearly on page 34: "Repetition is the interest of metaphysics and at the same time the interest upon which metaphysics founders. Repetition is the solution in every ethical view; repetition is a conditio sine qua non of every dogmatic problem." The first sentence contains an allusion to the thesis that metaphysics is disinterested, as Kant' 6 affirmed of aesthetics. As soon as the interest emerges, metaphysics steps to one side. For this reason the word interest is italicized. The whole interest of subjectivity emerges in real life, and then metaphysics founders. In case repetition is not posited, ethics remains a binding power; presumably it is for this reason he says that "it is the solution in every ethical view." If repetition is not posited, dogmatics cannot exist at all; for in faith repetition beits ideality is lost. The more it remains in its ideality, and yet never becomes inhuman enough to lose sight of reality, but corresponds with this by willing to suggest itself as a task for every man, in such a way as to make him the true man, the whole man, the man tear i A oxv v > the greater is the tension of the difficulty it proposes. In the fight to realize the task of ethics sin shows itself not as something which only casually belongs to a casual individual, but sin withdraws deeper and deeper as a deeper and deeper presupposition, as a presupposition which goes well beyond the individ- ual. Now all is lost for ethics, and ethics has contributed to the loss of all. There has come to the fore a category which lies entirely outside its INTRODUCTION 17 province. Original sin makes everything still more desperate — that is to say, it settles the difficulty, not, however, by the help of ethics but by the help of dogmatics. As all ancient thought and speculation were founded upon the assumption that thought had reality, so also all ancient ethics upon the assumption that virtue is realizable. Scepticism of sin is entirely foreign to paganism. For..the ethical consciousness, sin is what an error is in relation to knowledge, it is the particular exception which proves nothing.
gins, and faith is the organ for the dogmatic problems. — In the sphere of nature repetition exists in its immovable necessity. In the sphere of spirit the problem is not to get change out of repetition and find oneself comfortable under repetition, as though the spirit stood only in an external relation to the repetitions of the spirit (in consequence of which good and evil alternate like summer and winter), but the problem is to transform repetition into something inward, into the proper task of freedom, into freedom's highest interest, as to whether, while everything changes, it can actually realize repetition. Here the finite spirit falls into despair. This Constantine has indicated by stepping aside and letting repetition break forth in the young man by virtue of the religious. Therefore Constantine says several times that repetition is a religious category, too transcendent for him, that it is a movement by virtue of the absurd, and on page 144 it is said that eternity is the true repetition. All this Professor Heiberg' 7 has failed to observe, but he has very kindly wished by his knowledge (which like his New Year's gift-book is singularly elegant and up-to-date) to help this work to become a tasteful and elegant insignificance, by pompously bringing the question back to the point where (to recall a recent book) the aesthetic writer in Either/Or had brought it in "The