Dostoevsky
“You seem to be very happy, Kirillov?”
“Yes, very happy,” he answered, as though making the ordinary reply.
“But you were distressed so lately, angry with Liputin?”
“H’m!... I’m not scolding now. I did not know then that I was
happy.”[115]
Do not draw a mistaken conclusion from this seeming ferocity which is
frequent in Dostoevsky. It is an integral part of his quietism, as of
Blake’s. You remember my saying that Dostoevsky’s Christianity had
closer affinities with Asia than with Rome? Yet his acceptance of the
doctrine of energy, a doctrine positively glorified by Blake, is rather
of the West than of the East.
But for Blake and Dostoevsky both, the truth of New Testament teaching
is too radiantly clear for them to deny this ferocity as but a
transitory phase, the short-lived consequence of a passing blindness.
And to reveal to you only the vision of his cruelty would be an act
of treachery towards Blake. I wish I could counter my quotations from
his terrible _Proverbs of Hell_ by reading one of the loveliest of his
_Songs of Innocence_--alas! its aëry form eludes translation--the poem
where he foretells the time when the lion in his strength will lie down
with the lamb and watch over the fold.
But let us continue with our reading from _The Possessed_.
“They’re bad because they don’t know they’re good; when they find out
they won’t outrage a little girl. They’ll find out that they’re good
and they’ll all become good, every one of them,” declares Kirillov.[116]
And so the conversation continues until we stumble across the singular
conception of the man-God.
“Here you’ve found it out! So you’ve become good then?”
“I am good.”
“That I agree with, though,” muttered Stavrogin, frowning.
“He who teaches that all are good will end the world.”
“He who taught it was crucified.”
“He will come, and his name will be the man-God.”
“The God-man?”
“The man-God! That’s the difference.”[117]
The notion of a man-God succeeding the God-man brings us round again
to Nietzsche. À propos of the _superman_ theory, I should like to
contribute one emendation in protest against an opinion which is only
too current and too easily accepted. Nietzsche’s _superman_ (observe,
pray, wherein he differs from the _superman_ of Raskolnikov’s or
Kirillov’s vision), though _ruthlessness_ is his motto, is ruthless not
to others but to himself. The humanity he aspires to outstrip is his
own. In short: to one and the same problem Nietzsche and Dostoevsky
propose different, radically opposed solutions. Nietzsche advocates the
affirmation of the personality--for him it is the one possible aim in
life: Dostoevsky postulates its surrender. Nietzsche presupposes the
heights of achievement where Dostoevsky prophesies utter ruin.
At the darkest hour of the War, I read in the letters of a Red Cross
orderly (his modesty forbids me to name him), living in the midst of
agonizing sufferings and hearing but the voice of despair, “Ah, if
only they could make a sacrifice of their sufferings!”--a thought so
luminous that all commentary were a matter for reproach. I shall only
compare it with this sentence from _The Possessed_:
“Every earthly woe and every earthly tear is a joy for us. And when
you water the earth with your tears a foot deep, you will rejoice at
everything at once, and your sorrow will be no more, such is the
prophecy.”[118] Are not we very near to Pascal’s “_sweet and perfect
resignation_” and his cry of “_Joy! Joy! Tears of joy!_”?
Is not this state of bliss depicted by Dostoevsky the very one exalted
by the Gospel, a state into which we are born anew, the joy whose
fulfilment is possible only through renunciation of self, for it
is love of self which prevents us from leaping into Eternity, from
entering into the Kingdom of God and communing in the mystery of life
universal?
The first consequence of such regeneration is that man becomes as a
little child. “_Except ye be converted, and become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven._” In the words of La
Bruyère, “_Little children have neither past nor future, for they live
in the present_,” which man has lost the power to do.
“At that moment,” said Prince Myshkin to Rogozhin--“at that moment I
seem somehow to understand the extraordinary saying that _there shall
be no more time_.”[119]
This direct participation is, as I have earlier indicated, taught by
the Gospel, unwearying in its insistence upon these words, “_Et nunc_”
... “_And now_.” The perfect joy Christ means is not of the future, but
of the immediate present.
“You’ve begun to believe in future eternal life?”
“No, not in a future eternal life, but in eternal life here. There are
moments, you reach moments, and time suddenly stands still and it will
become eternal.”[120]
And towards the end of _The Possessed_ Dostoevsky reverts once more to
Kirillov’s uncanny rapture. Let us read the passage in question. It
will help us to appreciate Dostoevsky’s idea, and prepare the way for
one of the most essential truths I have left to discuss.
“There are seconds--they come five or six at a time--when you
suddenly feel the presence of the eternal harmony perfectly attained.
It’s something not earthly--I don’t mean in the sense that it’s
heavenly--but in that sense that man cannot endure it in his earthly
aspect. He must be physically changed or die. This feeling is clear and
unmistakable; it’s as though you apprehend all nature and suddenly say,
‘Yes, that’s right.’ God, when He created the world, said at the end of
each day of creation, ‘Yes, it’s right, it’s good.’ It--it’s not being
deeply moved, but simply joy. You don’t forgive anything, because there
is no more need of forgiveness. It’s not that you love--oh, there’s
something in it higher than love--what’s most awful is that it’s
terribly clear and such joy. If it lasted more than five seconds, the
soul could not endure it and must perish. In those five seconds I live
through a lifetime, and I’d give my whole life for them, because they
are worth it. To endure ten seconds one must be physically changed.
I think man ought to give up having children--what’s the use of
children, what’s the use of evolution when the goal has been attained?
In the Gospel it is written that there will be no child-bearing in the
resurrection, but that man will be like the angels of the Lord....”[121]
“‘Kirillov, does this often happen?’
“‘Once in three days, or once a week.’
“‘Don’t you have fits, perhaps?’
“‘No.’
“‘Well, you will. Be careful, Kirillov. I’ve heard that’s just how fits
begin. An epileptic described exactly that sensation before a fit,
word for word as you’ve done. He mentioned five seconds too, and said
that more could not be endured. Remember Mahomet’s pitcher from which
no drop of water was spilt while he circled Paradise on his horse.
That was a case of five seconds too; that’s too much like your eternal
harmony, and Mahomet was an epileptic. Be careful, Kirillov, it’s
epilepsy.’
“‘It won’t have time.’ Kirillov smiled gently.”[122]
In _The Idiot_ we hear Prince Myshkin connect this condition of
euphoria, familiar to him too, with the epileptic attacks to which he
is subject.
So there we have Prince Myshkin an epileptic, Kirillov an epileptic,
Smerdiakov an epileptic. There is an epileptic in each of Dostoevsky’s
great works. We know Dostoevsky himself was thus afflicted, and his
persistence in making epilepsy intervene as a factor in his novels
sufficiently indicates the rôle he assigned this disease in moulding
his ethical conceptions and directing the course of his thought.
If we seek far enough, we shall invariably find the genesis of
every serious moral reform in some physiological enigma, some
non-satisfaction of the flesh, irritation, or anomaly. Forgive me for
quoting myself again, but if I am to express my idea as explicitly as
before, I must use the same phraseology as on that previous occasion.
“It is natural that every important moral change, or, as Nietzsche
would say, _transmutation of values_, should be due to some
physiological disturbance. With physical well-being, mental activity
is in abeyance, and as long as conditions continue to be satisfactory,
no change can possibly be contemplated. By conditions I mean spiritual
circumstance, for where the external and material are implicated,
the reformer’s motive is utterly different: the one readjustment
involved is chemical, the other mechanical. There lies at the root
of every reform a distemper. The reformer is a sick man by reason of
some ill-adjustment in his spiritual balance. Densities, ratios, and
moral values present themselves to him in different perspectives,
so he exerts himself to establish a fresh accord. He aims at a new
co-ordination. His work is nothing but an attempt to reorganize, in the
light of his logic and reasoning, the elements of confusion he senses
within himself, for the unsystematic he cannot tolerate. Of course I
do not suggest that lack of balance is the necessary condition for the
making of a reformer, but I do contend that every reformer starts out
with a lack of balance.”[123]
So far as I know, it would be impossible to find, amongst the reformers
who have held up to humanity a new measure of values, one single
instance where we could fail to discern what Dr. Binet-Sanglé is
pleased to qualify a _hereditary taint_.[124]
Mahomet was an epileptic. Epileptics, too, the Prophets of Israel,
and Luther, and Dostoevsky. Socrates had his demon, Saint Paul his
mysterious “thorn in the flesh,” Pascal his abyss, Nietzsche and
Rousseau their mania.
I can hear you say, “But what is there new in this theory? It belongs
properly to Lombroso and Max Nordau. Genius is a neurosis.” No, not so
fast! I must insist on this point, for it is extraordinarily important.
There do exist geniuses, Victor Hugo for example, sane and whole.
Their perfect spiritual poise precludes the possibility of any fresh
problem. Rousseau, without his leaven of madness, would, I am sure,
be no better than an undigested Cicero. It is pointless to lament the
infirmity but for which he would never have sought to analyse the
problem raised by his own anomaly or find a harmony which would not
reject his discord. Sound and healthy reformers do undoubtedly exist,
but such are lawgivers. The man whose inner balance is perfect can
well contribute reforms--reforms which touch the outer man: he draws up
new constitutions. But the individual who is abnormal refuses to submit
to laws already established.
From knowledge of his own case, Dostoevsky supposes a pathological
condition which, for a space, imposes and suggests to one or other of
his characters a new formula of existence. To take a concrete instance,
let us consider Kirillov, who carries on his shoulders the entire plot
of _The Possessed_. We are aware he intends to take his life, but not
that his suicide is imminent: self-destruction is, however, certainly
in his mind. Why? The motive is withheld almost till the very end of
the book.
“I don’t understand what fancy possesses you to put yourself to death,”
says Pyotr Stepanovitch to him. “It wasn’t my idea; you thought of
it yourself before I appeared, and talked of your intention to the
committee abroad before you said anything to me. And you know, no one
has forced it on you; no one of them knew you, but you came to confide
in them yourself, from sentimentalism. And what’s to be done if a plan
of action here, which can’t be altered now, was founded upon that
with your consent and upon your suggestion?--_your_ suggestion, mind
that!”[125]
Kirillov’s suicide is absolutely gratuitous. I mean to say there is an
absence of outward motivation. We shall presently see what absurdities