Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
Not only did Kierkegaard feel kinship with Socrates. It did not
escape him that there was an ominous similarity between Socrates'
times and his own--between the period of flourishing Attica,
eminent in the arts and in philosophy, when a little familiarity with
the shallow phrases of the Sophists enabled one to have an opinion
about everything on earth and in heaven, and his own Copenhagen in the
thirties of the last century, when Johan Ludvig Heiberg had popularized
Hegelian philosophy with such astonishing success that the very cobblers
were using the Hegelian terminology, with "Thesis, Antithesis, and
Synthesis," and one could get instructions from one's barber, while
being shaved, how to "harmonize the ideal with reality, and our wishes
with what we have attained." Every difficulty could be "mediated,"
according to this recipe. And just as the great questioner of Athens
gave pause to his more naïve contemporaries by his "know thyself,"
so Kierkegaard insisted that he must rouse his contemporaries from
their philosophic complacency and unwarranted optimism, and move,
them to realize that the spiritual life has both mountain and valley,
that it is no flat plain easy to travel. He intended to show difficulties
where the road had been supposedly smoothed for them.
Central, both in the theory and in the practice of Socrates
(according to Kierkegaard), is his irony. The ancient sage would
stop old and young and quizz them skilfully on what they regarded as
common and universally established propositions, until his interlocutor
became confused by some consequence or contradiction arising
unexpectedly, and until he who had been sure of his knowledge was made
to confess his ignorance, or even to become distrustful of the
possibility of knowledge. Destroying supposedly positive values, this
method would seem to lead to a negative result only.
Kierkegaard makes less (and rather too little) of the positive side
of Socrates' method, his _maieutic_, or midwifery, by which we
are led inductively from trivial instances to a new definition of a
conception, a method which will fit all cases. Guided by a lofty
personality, this Socratic irony becomes, in Kierkegaard's definition,
merely "the negative liberation of subjectivity"; that is, not the
family, nor society, nor the state, nor any rules superimposed from
outside, but one's innermost self (or subjectivity) is to be the
determining factor in one's life. And understood thus, irony as a
negative element borders on the ethical conception of life.
Romantic irony, on the other hand, laying main stress on subjective
liberty, represents the æsthetic conduct of life. It was, we remember,
the great demand of the Romantic period that one live poetically. That
is, after having reduced all reality to possibilities, all existence to
fragments, we are to choose _ad libitum_ one such possible existence,
to consider that one's proper sphere, and for the rest to look
ironically on all other reality as philistine. Undeniably, this license,
through the infinitude of possibilities open to him, gives the ironist
an enthusiastic sense of irresponsible freedom in which he "disports
himself as does Leviathan in the deep." Again, the "æsthetical
individual" is ill at ease in the world into which he is born. His
typical ailment is a Byronesque _Weltschmerz._ He would fain mould
the elements of existence to suit himself; that, is, "compose" not
only himself but also his surroundings. But without fixed task and
purpose, life will soon lose all continuity ("except that of boredom")
and fall apart into disconnected moods and impulses. Hence, while
supposing himself a superman, free, and his own master, the æsthetic
individual is, in reality, a slave to the merest accidents. He is not
self-directed, self-propelled; but--drifts.
Over against this attitude Kierkegaard now sets the ethical,
Christian life, one with a definite purpose and goal beyond itself.
"It is one thing to compose one's own life, another, to let one's life
be composed. The Christian lets his life be composed; and insofar a
simple Christian lives far more poetically than many a genius." It
would hardly be possible to characterize the contents of Kierkegaard's
first great book, _Enten-Eller_ "Either-Or," more inclusively
and tersely.
Very well, then, the Christian life, with its clear directive, is
superior to the æsthetic existence. But how is this: are we not all
Christians in Christendom, children of Christians, baptized and
confirmed according to the regulations of the Church? And are we
not all to be saved according to the promise of Our Lord who died for
us? At a very early time Kierkegaard, himself desperately struggling to
maintain his Christian faith against doubts, had his eyes opened to this
enormous delusion of modern times and was preparing to battle against
it. The great idea and task for which he was to live and to die--here
it was: humanity is in apparent possession of the divine truth, but
utterly perverts it and, to cap injury with insult, protects and
intrenches the deception behind state sanction and institutions. More
appalling evil confronted not even the early protagonists of
Christianity against heathendom. How was he, single-handed,
magnificently gifted though he was, to cleanse the temple and restore
its pristine simplicity?
Clearly, the old mistake must not be repeated, to try to influence
and reform the masses by a vulgar and futile "revival," preaching to
them directly and gaining disciples innumerable. It would only lead
again, to the abomination of a lip service. But a ferment must be
introduced which--he hoped--would gradually restore Christianity to
its former vigor; at least in individuals. So far as the form of his
own works is concerned he was thus bound to use the "indirect method"
of Socrates whom he regards as his teacher. In conscious opposition to
the Sophists who sold their boasted wisdom for money, Socrates not
only made no charges for his instruction but even warned people of his
ignorance, insisting that, like a midwife, he only helped people to
give birth to their own thoughts. And owing to his irony Socrates'
relation to his disciples was not in any positive sense a personal one.
Least of all did he wish to found a new "school" or erect a philosophic
"system."
Kierkegaard, with Christianity as his goal, adopted the same
tactics. By an attractive æsthetic beginning people were to be "lured"
into envisaging the difficulties to be unfolded presently, to think for
themselves, to form their own conclusions, whether for or against. The
individual was to be appealed to, first and last--the individual,
no matter how humble, who would take the trouble to follow him and
be his reader, "my only reader, the single individual. So the
religious author must make it his first business to put himself in touch
with men. That is to say, he must begin æsthetically. The more brilliant
his performance, the better." And then, when he has got them to follow
him "he must produce the religious categories so that these same men
with all the impetus of their devotion to æsthetic things are suddenly
brought up sharp against the religious aspect." The writer's own
personality was to be entirely eliminated by a system of pseudonyms;
for the effect of his teaching was not to be jeopardized by a
distracting knowledge of his personality. Accordingly, in conscious
imitation of Socrates, Kierkegaard at first kept up a semblance of his
previous student life, posing as a frivolous idler on the streets of
Copenhagen, a witty dog incapable of prolonged serious activity; thus
anxiously guarding the secret of his feverish activity during the lonely
hours of the night.
His campaign of the "indirect communication" was thus fully
determined upon; but there was still lacking the impetus of an elemental
passion to start it and give it driving force and conquering persistence.
This also was to be furnished him.
Shortly before his father's death he had made the acquaintance of
Regine Olson, a beautiful young girl of good family. There followed one
of the saddest imaginable engagements. The melancholy, and essentially
lonely, thinker may not at first have entertained the thought of a
lasting attachment; for had he not, on the one hand, given up all
hope of worldly happiness, and on the other, begun to think of himself
as a chosen tool of heaven not to be bound by the ordinary ties of
human affection? But the natural desire to be as happy as others and to
live man's common lot, for a moment hushed all anxious scruples. And
the love of the brilliant and promising young man with the deep,
sad eyes and the flashing wit was ardently returned by her.
Difficulties arose very soon. It was not so much the extreme youth
and immaturity of the girl--she was barely sixteen--as against his
tremendous mental development, or even her "total lack of religious
pre-suppositions"; for that might not itself have precluded a happy
union. Vastly more ominous was his own unconquerable and overwhelming
melancholy. She could not break it. And struggle as he might, he
could not banish it. And, he reasoned, even if he were successful
in concealing it from her, the very concealment were a deceit. Neither
would he burden her with his melancholy by revealing it to her.
Besides, some mysterious ailment which, with Paul, he terms the "thorn
in his flesh," tormented him. The fact that he consulted a physician
makes it likely that it was bodily, and perhaps sexual. On the other
hand, the manner of Kierkegaard's multitudinous references to woman
removes the suspicion of any abnormality. The impression remains that
at the bottom of his trouble there lay his melancholy, aggravated
admittedly by an "insane education," and coupled with an exaggerated
sense of a misspent youth. That nothing else prevented the union
is clear from his own repeated later remarks that, with more faith,
he would have married her.
Though to the end of his life he never ceased to love her, he
feels that they must part. But she clings to him with a rather maudlin
devotion, which, to be sure, only increased his determination. He
finally hit on the desperate device of pretending frivolous indifference
to her affections, and acted this sad comedy with all the dialectic
subtleness of his genius, until she eventually released him. Then,
after braving for a while the philistine indignation of public opinion
and the disapproval of his friends, in order to confirm her in her bad
opinion of him, he fled to Berlin with shattered nerves and a bleeding
heart.
He had deprived himself of what was dearest to him in life. For
all that, he knew that the foundations of his character remained
unshaken. The voluntary renunciation of a worldly happiness which
was his for the taking intensifies his idea of being one of the "few
in each generation selected to be a sacrifice." Thereafter, "his thought
is all to him," and all his gifts are devoted to the service of God.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, more than at any
other time, Denmark was an intellectual dependency of Germany. It
was but natural that Kierkegaard, in search for the ultimate verities,
should resort to Berlin where Schelling was just then beginning his
famous course of lectures. In many respects it may be held deplorable
that, at a still formative stage, Kierkegaard should have remained in
the prosaic capital of Prussia and have been influenced by bloodless
abstractions; instead of journeying to France, or still better, to
England whose empiricism would, no doubt, have been an excellent
corrective of his excessive tendency to speculation. In fact he was
quickly disappointed with Schelling and after four months returned
to his beloved Copenhagen (which he was not to leave thereafter