in so far as one finds an analogous situation as an expression of the bondage of sin, sociability is not in evidence, because the dread is that of the evil.
I do not wish to follow this out further. My prime interest at this point is to have my classification in good order.
B. FREEDOM LOST PNEUMATICALLY (a). General observations. This formation of the demoniacal is very widespread, and here diverse phenomena are encountered. The demoniacal does not of course depend upon the diversity of intellectual content but upon the relation of freedom to the given content,* and to the possible content in proportion to the intellectuality, the demoniacal being able to express itself as indolence, putting the thing off till another time, as curiosity which comes to nothing more than curiosity, as dishonest self-deception, as effeminate softness which relies upon others, DREAD OF THE GOOD 123 as an affectation of aristocratic indifference, as stupid bustle, etc.
The content of freedom, intellectually regarded, is the truth which makes man free. But precisely for this reason is truth in such a sense the work of freedom that it is constantly engaged in producing truth. It is a matter of course that I am not thinking here of the clever conceit of modern philosophy 23 that the necessity of thought is also its liberty, which therefore when it talks of liberty of thought is only talking about the eternal immanent movement of thought. Such a conceit serves only to confuse, and to make more difficult communication between men. What I am talking about, on the other hand, is something quite simple and plain, that truth exists for the particular individual only as he himself produces it in action. If truth exists for him in any other way, and is prevented from existing for him in that way, we have there a phenomenon of the demoniacal. Truth has always had many loud preachers, but the question is whether a man is willing in the deepest sense to recognize truth, to let it permeate his whole being, to assume all the consequences of it, and not to keep in case of need a hiding place for himself, and a Judas-kiss as the consequence.
In modern times there has been talk enough about truth; now it is high time for certitude, inwardness, to be asserted, not in the abstract sense in which Fichte employed this word, 24 but in a perfectly concrete sense. Certitude, inwardness, which can only be attained by and exist * In the New Testament we find the expression <ro<t>ta datfiovtwdrts (James 3:15). In the way it is described in this passage the category is not clear. But on the other hand when one takes account of the passage in 2:19, Kalra dai/j.6vta iriaevovffiv Kal Qpiaaovoiv, one sees precisely in the demoniacal knowledge the relation of unfreedom to the knowledge here posited.
in action, determines whether the individual is demoniacal or not. One has only to hold the category fast, then everything gives way, and it becomes clear, for example, that willfulness, unbelief, mockery of religion, etc., are not, as is commonly believed, lacking in content, but evince lack of certitude, exactly in the same sense as does superstition, servility, devoteeism. The negative phenomena lack certitude precisely because they dread the content.
I have no desire to speak in strong terms about this age as a whole, but he who has observed the contemporary generation will surely not deny that the incongruity in it and the reason for its dread and restlessness is this, that in one direction truth increases in extent, in mass, partly also in abstract clarity, whereas certitude steadily decreases. What extraordinary metaphysical and logical efforts have been made to furnish a new and exhaustive proof of the immortality of the soul, an unimpeachable proof which would combine all other proofs; and 124 CHAPTER I curiously enough, while this is going on certitude decreases! The thought of immortality has a power and pith in its consequences, an implication of responsibility in the acceptance of it, which perhaps would transform the whole life in a way which one fears. One saves oneself, therefore, and tranquilizes one's soul by exerting one's mind in order to produce a new proof. What is a proof like that but a "good work" in the Catholic sense? Every such individual who knows how to produce a new proof of the immortality of the soul (to stick to this illustration), but is not himself convinced, will always be in dread of every phenomenon which forces upon him a more penetrating understanding of what is meant by saying that a man is immortal. It will disturb the man, he will feel uncomfortably affected when a perfectly simple man talks quite simply about immortality. — In an opposite direction inwardness may be lacking. A partisan of the most rigid orthodoxy may be demoniacal. He knows it all, he bows before the holy, truth is for him an ensemble of ceremonies, he talks about presenting himself before the throne of God, of how many times one must bow, he knows everything the same way as does the pupil who is able to demonstrate a mathematical proposition with the letters ABC, but not when they are changed to DEF. He is therefore in dread whenever he hears something not arranged in the same order. And yet how closely he resembles a modern speculative philosopher who found out a new proof for the immortality of the soul, then came into mortal danger and could not produce his proof because he had not his notebooks with him. And what is it both of them lack? Certitude. — Superstition and unbelief are both of them forms of unfreedom. In superstition there is conceded to objectivity a power like that of Medusa's head to turn subjectivity to stone, and unfreedom does not will to have the spell broken. The highest and apparently the freest expression of unbelief is mockery. But certitude is precisely what mockery lacks, therefore it mocks. But the mockery of so many mockers, if only one could look into it, would recall that dread of the demoniac who cried, rt i/iol teal aoL. It is therefore a curious phenomenon that there are perhaps few men so vain and so jealous of the applause of the instant as is a mocker.
With what industrious zeal, with what sacrifice of time, of diligence, of writing materials, the speculative philosophers in our time have labored to get a strong and complete proof of the existence of God! But in the same degree that the excellence of the proof increases, certitude seems to decrease. The thought of the existence of a God, so soon as it is placed as such before the freedom of the individual, has an omnipresence which for the sensitive individual has something embarrassing about it, even if one DREAD OF THE GOOD 125 does not want to behave badly. And in truth it requires inwardness to live a common life on beautiful and affectionate terms with this conception, it is a tour de force even greater than being a model husband. Therefore how uncomfortably such an individuality may be affected upon hearing perfectly naive and simple people talk about God's existence. The demonstration of God's existence is something one may occasionally be engaged in, learnedly and metaphysically, but the thought of God would intrude on every occasion. What is it such an individuality lacks? Inwardness. — Also in an opposite direction inwardness may be lacking. The so-called saints are often the object of the world's mockery. They themselves explain this by the consideration that the world is evil. This, however, is not the whole truth. When the "saint" is unfree with respect to his piety, i.e. lacks inwardness, he is, as seen from a purely aesthetic point of view, simply comic. To that extent the world is justified in laughing at him. In case a bow-legged man desired to act as dancing- master, without being able to execute a single step, he is comic. So it is too with the religious. One sometimes hears such a saint beat time as it were all by himself, exactly like one who cannot dance and yet knows enough to beat time, though he never succeeds in getting in step. So the "saint" knows that the religious is absolutely commensurable, that the religious is not something which belongs to certain occasions and instants, but that a man always can have it with him. But when he essays to make it commensurable, he is not free, and one notices how he is beating time softly by himself, and one sees how nevertheless he is out of time with the measure and comes in wrong with his heavenly glance and folded hands, etc. For this reason such an individuality is so much in dread of everyone who has not had this coaching that to fortify itself it must grasp at these supercilious reflections about the world hating the pious.
Certitude, inwardness, is indeed subjectivity, but not in an entirely abstract sense. In general it is the misfortune of the newest knowledge that it is so terribly supercilious. The abstract subjectivity is just as uncertain and just as much lacking in inwardness as is the abstract objectivity. When one talks of it in abstracto one cannot see this, and in that case it is correct to say that the abstract subjectivity lacks content. When one speaks of it in concrete the content clearly appears, for the individuality which would turn itself into an abstraction lacks inwardness precisely as does the individuality which turns itself into a mere master of ceremonies.
(a). The Schema for the exclusion or the lack of inwardness. The lack [non-presence] of inwardness is always a consequence of reflection; accordingly every form will be a double form. One may perhaps be the 126 CHAPTER I less inclined to perceive this for the reason that the spirit is commonly defined in perfectly abstract terms. It is customary to contrast immediacy and reflection (inwardness), and then comes the synthesis (or substantiality, subjectivity, identity — though they may call this identity "reason," "idea," "spirit"). But in the sphere of reality this is not true. There immediacy is also the immediacy of inwardness. The lack of inwardness is therefore in the first instance due to reflection.
Every form of the lack of inwardness is either activity-passivity or passivity-activity, and whether it be the one or the other is determined by self-reflection. The form itself runs through a considerable range of nuances in proportion as inwardness becomes more and more concrete. To understand and to understand are two things, is an old saying and a true one. Inwardness is an understanding, but in concreto the question is how this understanding is to be understood. To understand a speech is one thing, to understand the deitikose 25 implied in it is another; it is one thing for a man to understand what he himself says, to understand himself in what he says is another thing. The more concrete the content of consciousness is, the more concrete is the understanding, and when this understanding is lacking to consciousness we have a phenomenon of unfreedom which would shut itself off against freedom. If we take for example a fairly concrete religious consciousness which at the same time contains also a historical factor, understanding must have relation to that factor. In this example we can discover the two analogous forms of the demoniacal as they appear in this particular case. Thus when a rigidly orthodox man employs all his diligence and learning to prove that every word in the New Testament derives from the Apostle in question, inwardness then disappears little by little and gives place to understanding something quite different from what the man wished to understand. When a Freethinker employs all his acumen to show that the New Testament was not written until the second century, in that case it is precisely inwardness he is in fear of, and therefore he must have the New Testament put in the same class with all other books.* The most concrete content consciousness can have is consciousness of itself, not the pure self-con * Moreover, in the religious sphere the demoniacal may have a deceptive resemblance to the assault of doubt [Anfegtelse]. Its true nature can never be determined in abstracto. For example, a pious Christian believer may fall into the dread of being fearful of taking Communion. This is an assault of doubt — or rather, whether it is such will be shown by his attitude to the dread. On the other hand, a demoniacal nature may have gone so far, his religious consciousness may have become so concrete, that the inwardness of which he is in dread, and from the dread of which he tries to flee, is the purely personal understanding of the sacramental understanding. Only up to a certain point is he willing to go along with this understanding, there he breaks away and desires to maintain only an intellectual attitude, desires in one way or another to become more than the empirical, historically determined, finite individuality he is. He who is exposed to DREAD OF THE GOOD 127 the assault of doubt wills to go on to that from which the assault of doubt would keep him away; where as the demoniacal himself wills to be away, in accord with his stronger will (that of unfreedom), while a weaker will in him wills to go on to that point. To this consideration one must hold fast, for otherwise one goes on to think of the demoniacal as so abstract that no such thing has ever been met with — as though the will of unfreedom were constituted as such [i.e. were the whole reality] and the will of freedom were not constantly present, weak as it may be, in self-contradiction. — If anyone desires material concerning the temptations of religious doubts and scruples, he will find it superabundantly in Gorres' work on Mysticism. 2 * 1 However, I admit honestly that I have never had the courage to read it through, it is so full of dread. Yet this much I can perceive, that he has not always known how to discriminate between the demoniacal and the assaults of temptation, and hence he must be read with caution.
sciousness, but the self-consciousness which is so concrete that no author — not the most copious in his command of words, not the most consummate delineator of character — has ever been able to describe such a thing, although such a thing is what every man is. This self- consciousness is not contemplation; he who thinks that it is has not understood himself, for he sees that he himself is meanwhile in the process of becoming and so cannot be a finished product as the object of contemplation. This self-consciousness therefore is a deed, and this deed in turn is inwardness, and every time inwardness does not correspond to this consciousness, there is a form of the demoniacal as soon as the absence of inwardness expresses itself as dread of its acquisition.
In case the absence of inwardness were brought about by mechanical means, it would be a waste of time to talk about it. But this is not so, and therefore in every phenomenon of the absence of inwardness there is an activity, even if it has its beginning in passivity. The phenomena which begin in activity are more striking, therefore one sees them more easily, then forgets that in this activity there is manifested in turn a passivity and does not take into account the opposite phenomenon when talking about the demoniacal.
I will now glance at a few examples to show that the schema is correct. Incredulity — superstition. They correspond to one another perfectly: both lack inwardness, but incredulity is passive through an activity, and superstition active through a passivity; the one, if you will, is more masculine, the other more feminine; and the content of both is reflection upon oneself. Essentially regarded, they are completely identical. Incredulity and superstition are both of them dread of faith; but incredulity begins in the activity of unfreedom, superstition begins in the passivity of unfreedom. Commonly one has in mind only the passivity of superstition, consequently it seems less distinguished or more excusable, depending upon whether aesthetico-ethical or ethical categories are applied. In superstition there is a weakness which 128 CHAPTER I deceives, but surely there must always be enough activity in it to support its passivity. Superstition is incredulous of itself, incredulity is super- stitious in its regard for itself. The content of both is self-reflection [i.e. reflection upon oneself]. The indolence, cowardice and pusillanimity of superstition find it more comfortable to remain in it than to give it up; the defiance, pride, and arrogance of incredulity find it a hardier attitude to remain in it than to give it up.
DREAD OF THE GOOD 129 The most refined form of such self-reflection is always that which becomes interesting to oneself by wishing oneself out of this state while nevertheless one remains complacently in it.
Hypocrisy — offense at the religious. These correspond to one another. Hypocrisy begins through an activity, offense through a passivity. Commonly, offense is judged more mildly, but if the individual continues in it, there must after all be precisely enough activity to support the suffering involved in it and not be willing to give it up. There is a positive receptivity in offense (for a tree or a stone is not offended) which is made evident when the offense is removed. On the other hand, the passivity of offense finds it more comfortable and easy to go on sitting and let, as it were, the consequences of offense pile up at compound interest. Therefore hypocrisy is offense at oneself, offense is hypocrisy to oneself. Both lack inwardness and dare not come to themselves. Hence all hypocrisy ends by being hypocritical to oneself, because the hypocrite is offended at himself or is an offense to himself. Hence all offense, if it is not removed, ends in hypocrisy towards others, since the offended man, because of the vast activity by which he remains in offense, has made that original receptivity something different and therefore he must be hypocritical towards others. One may even encounter in real life the case of an offended individual who at last finds need of this offense as a fig leaf for what well might require a hypocritical cloak.
130 CHAPTER I 130 CHAPTER I Pride — cowardice. Pride begins through an activity, cowardice through a passivity; in other respects they are identical, for in cowardice there is precisely enough activity to maintain the dread of the good. Pride is a profound cowardice, for it is cowardly enough not to be willing to understand what pride truly is. So soon as this understanding is forced upon it, it is cowardly, disintegrates like a squib, bursts like a bubble. Cowardice is a profound pride, for it is cowardly enough not to be willing to understand the requirement of even a misunderstood pride, but by cringing as it does it manifests its pride, and also it knows how to allege in its favor the fact that it has never suffered a defeat, and is therefore proud of the negative expression of pride — that it has never suffered any loss. One may also encounter in real life the case of a proud individuality which was cowardly enough never to venture anything, cowardly enough to make itself as small as possible, precisely for the sake of saving its pride. If one were to put in juxtaposition an active- proud and a passive-proud individuality, one would have opportunity, precisely at the instant when the former fell, to convince oneself how proud essentially the cowardly man was.* (a). What is certitude and inwardness? It is not easy to give a definition of it. However, in this context I would say that it is seriousness. This is a word which everyone understands in a way, and yet strangely enough there are perhaps not many words upon which men more rarely reflect. When Macbeth had murdered the King he cried: 2T From this instant There's nothing serious in mortality All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. It is true, Macbeth was a murderer, and therefore in his mouth these words ring with a note of truth which is terrible and harrowing, and yet everyone who has lost inwardness can with good reason say, "The wine of life is drawn," and can say too, "There's nothing serious in mortality, all is but toys"; for inwardness is precisely the fountain which springeth up unto eternal life, and what issues from this fountain is precisely seriousness. When Ecclesiastes says that all is vanity, it is precisely seriousness the preacher has in mente. On the other hand, when, after seriousness has been lost, it is said that all is vanity, this is only an active- passive expression of the fact (defiance characteristic of melancholy), or a passive-active (defiance characteristic of frivolity and mockery); here then is an occasion either to laugh or weep, but inwardness is lost. So far as my knowledge extends, there exists no definition of DREAD OF THE GOOD 131 * In his treatise De affcctionibus™ Descartes calls attention to the fact that there is a passion corresponding to every other, except to the passion of wonder. His demonstration in detail is rather weak, but it is interesting to me that he made an exception of wonder, since, as everyone knows, this concept of wonder, according to both Plato and Aristotle, 29 is the passion of philosophy and the passion with which philosophy began. As a matter of fact, envy corresponds to wonder [in the sense of admiration], and modern philosophy would be inclined to talk of doubt as the opposite of wonder. Here precisely lies the fundamental error of modern philosophy, namely, that it wants to begin with the negative instead of with the positive, which always is the first, exactly as in affirming omnis affirmatio est negatio it is the affirmatio which is placed first. The question whether the positive or the negative is first is exceedingly important, and, so far as I know, the only modern philosopher who has pronounced in favor of the positive is Herbart. 30 DREAD OF THE GOOD 131 what seriousness is. I should be glad of this, if it be true; not because I am fond of the modern fluent way of thinking which has abolished definitions and lets everything coalesce, but because when it is a question of existential concepts it always is a sign of surer tact to abstain from definitions, because one does not like to construe in the form of a definition which so easily makes something else and something different out of a thought which essentially must be understood in a different fashion and which one has understood differently and has loved in an entirely different way. The man who really loves can hardly find pleasure and satisfaction, not to say increase of love, by busying himself with a definition of what love really is. The man who lives in daily and yet solemn familiarity with the thought that there is a God could hardly wish to spoil this thought for himself or to see it spoiled by piecing together a definition of what God is. So it is also with seriousness. It is so serious a matter that even to give a definition of it is frivolous. I do not say this, however, because my thought is vague, nor with the fear that some super-wise speculative philosopher might become suspicious of me as one who does not know what he is talking about — the sort of speculator who is as obstinate about the exposition of concepts as is the mathematician about proofs, and therefore would say, with regard to matters which cannot be reduced to logical concepts, as the mathematician says, "What does this prove?" To my mind, what I say here proves better than any exposition of concepts that I know seriously what the question is about.
Although I am not inclined to give a definition of seriousness or to talk about it with the jocosity of abstract thought, yet I will make some observations which may serve for orientation. In Rosenkrantz's Psychology^ 1 there is a definition* of Gemiith. He says on page 322 that Gemiith is a unity of feeling and self-con *I am always glad to assume that my reader has read just as much as I have. This assumption permits a great economy of time both for him who reads and for him who writes. So I assume that the reader knows this book. If such should not be the case, I counsel him to make himself acquainted with it, for it is really an able book, and if the author, who in other respects is distinguished for his sound sense and for his humane interest in human life, had been able to renounce the fanatical superstition he cherishes for an empty schema, he would sometimes have avoided being ridiculous. What he says in the text is for the most part very good, the only thing one now and again cannot understand is the pompous schema and how the perfectly concrete argument is relevant to it. (As an example I refer to pp. 209 ff., Das Selbst — und das Selbst: (1) Der Tod; (2) Der Gegensats von Herrschajt und Knechtschaft.) sciousness. In the exposition which precedes this he explains ad- mirably dass das Gejiihl sum Selbstbewitsstsein sich anfschliesse, itnd umgekehrt, dass der Inhalt des Selbstbewusstseins von dem Subject als der seinige gejiihlt zuird. Erst diese Einheit kann man Gemiith nennen. Denn jehlt die Klarheit der Erkenntniss, das Wissen vom Gejiihl, so existirt nnr der Drang des Naturgeistes, der Turgor der Unmittelbarkeit. Felilt aber das Gejiihl, so existirt nur ein abstracter Begriff, der nicht die letzte Innigkeit des geis- tigen Daseins erreichtnat, der nicht mit dem Selbst des Geistes Eines geworden ist (cf. pp. 320 f.). When in turn one turns back and follows his definition of Gejiihl as the spirit's unmittelbare Einheit seiner Seelenhajtigkeit und seines Bewusstseins (p. 242) and remembers that in the definition of Seelenhajtigkeit account has been taken of the unity with the immediate natural determinism, then when all this is taken together one has the conception of a concrete personality.
Now seriousness and Gemiith correspond in such a way that seriousness is a higher and deeper expression for what Gemiith is. Gemiith is a determinant of immediacy, whereas seriousness is the acquired originality of Gemiith, conserved in the responsibility of freedom, and raised to a higher order (aufgehoben) in the enjoyment of blessedness. The originality of seriousness in the course of its historical development evinces precisely its eternal character, and for this cause seriousness can never become habit. Rosenkrantz deals with habit only in his chapter on phenomenology, 32 not under pneumatology; but habit belongs also under this heading, and habit arises as soon as the eternal goes out of repetition. When originality in seriousness is acquired and conserved, then there is succession and repetition; but when originality is lacking in repetition we have habit. The serious man is serious precisely through the originality with which he comes back in repetition. It is true that a lively and heartfelt feeling conserves this originality; but the heartiness of feeling is a fire which may cool when seriousness no longer supports it; and on the other hand the heartiness of feeling is uncertain in its moods, i.e. it is at one time more hearty than at another. To make everything as clear as possible I will illustrate this by an example. A clergyman has to recite every Sunday the prescribed prayer, or he has to baptize several children every Sunday. Now suppose he is enthusiastic, etc. — the fire goes out; he will thrill and move people, but at one time more, at another less. Only seriousness is capable of coming back regularly every Sunday with the same originality to the same thing.* But this same thing to which seriousness must return with the same seriousness can only be seriousness itself, otherwise it becomes pedantry. In this sense seriousness means the personality itself, and only a serious personality is a real personality, and only a serious personality can do anything seriously, for to do something seriously one needs first of all to know what is the object to which seriousness is directed.
In common life there is a good deal of talk about seriousness: one man becomes serious about the national debt, another about the categories, a third about a performance at the theater, etc. Irony discovers that such is the case, and with that it has plenty to do, for everyone who becomes serious at the wrong place is eo ipso comic, even though our age and its DREAD OF THE GOOD 133 opinions which are ridiculed as burlesque may be exceedingly serious about it all. There is therefore no safer measuring rod to determine what a man is essentially worth than that which he furnishes by his own loquacity or which one gets by cunningly extracting his secret as to what it was that made him serious in life. For though one may be born with a Gemiith, one is not born with seriousness. The phrase, "what made him serious in life," must of course be understood pregnantly as that from which in the deepest sense the individual dates his seriousness. For after having become truly serious about that which is the proper object of seriousness, one can very well treat various things seriously, if you care to say so, but the question is about how one first became serious about the proper object of seriousness. This object every man has, for it is himself, and he who did not become serious about this but about something else, something big and noisy, is in spite of all his seriousness...a wag, and though for a while he may deceive irony, he shall deo volente end by being comic, for irony is jealous in behalf of seri- ousness. He, on the other hand, who became serious at the right place will show his soundness of mind by being able to treat everything else just as well sentimentally as he does jocosely, even though the serious- minded buffoons feel cold shivers run down their