Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
ignorant of the fact that the Danish Law permits a man to castigate
his wife[58]--a pity only that the law does not indicate on
which occasions it is permitted." His wife smiled at his threat
and continued: "Now why can I never get you to be serious when
I touch on this matter? You do not understand me: believe me, I
mean it sincerely, it seems to me a very beautiful thought. Of
course, if you weren't my husband I would not dare to entertain
it; but now I have done so, for your sake and for my sake; and
now be nice and serious, for my sake, and answer me frankly."
"No, you can't get me to be serious, and a serious answer you
won't get; I must either laugh at you, or make you forget it, as
before, or beat you; or else you must stop talking about it, or I
shall have to make you keep silent about it some other way. You
see, it is a joke, and that is why there are so many ways out."
He arose, pressed a kiss on her brow, laid her arm in his, and
then disappeared in a leafy walk which led from the arbor.
The arbor was empty; there was nothing else to do, so the hostile
corps of occupation withdrew without making any gains. Still, the
others were content with uttering some malicious remarks. The
company returned but missed Victor. He had rounded the corner
and, in walking along the garden, had come up to the country
home. The doors of a garden-room facing the lawn were open, and
likewise a window. Very probably he had seen something which
attracted his attention. He leapt into the window, and leapt
out again just as the party were approaching, for they had been
looking for him. Triumphantly he held up some papers in his hand
and exclaimed: "One of the judge's manuscripts![59] Seeing
that I edited his other works it is no more than my duty that
I should edit this one too." He put it into his pocket; or,
rather, he was about to do so; for as he was bending his arm
and already had his hand with the manuscript half-way down in
his pocket I managed to steal it from him.
But who, then, am I? Let no one ask! If it hasn't occurred to you
before to ask about it I am over the difficulty; for now the worst
is behind me. For that matter, I am not worth asking about, for
I am the least of all things, people would put me in utter confusion
by asking about me. I am pure existence, and therefore smaller,
almost, than nothing. I am "pure existence" which is present
everywhere but still is never noticed; for I am ever vanishing.
I am like the line above which stands the summa summarum--who
cares about the line? By my own strength I can accomplish nothing,
for even the idea to steal the manuscript from Victor was not my
own idea; for this very idea which, as a thief would say, induced
me to "borrow" the manuscript, was borrowed from him. And now,
when editing this manuscript, I am, again, nothing at all; for
it rightly belongs to the judge. And as editor, I am in my nothingness
only a kind of nemesis on Victor, who imagined that he had the
prescriptive right to do so.
[Footnote 1: _Cf._ Luke XIV, 19-20.]
[Footnote 2: Words used in the banns.]
[Footnote 3: Which in Latin means both "from the temple" and "at once."]
[Footnote 4: The omission of the negative particle in the original is
no doubt unintentional.]
[Footnote 5: Pious wish.]
[Footnote 6: Kings 20, 1; Isaiah 38, 1.]
[Footnote 7: An allusion to the plight of Aristophanes in Plato's
_Symposion._]
[Footnote 8: Haggai 1, 6 (inexact).]
[Footnote 9: May it be fortunate and favorable.]
[Footnote 10: _Symposion_, ch. 9.]
[Footnote 11: This ironic sally refers, not to Descartes' principle
of skepsis, but to the numerous Danish followers of Hegel and his
"method"; _cf._ Fear and Trembling.]
[Footnote 12: _Symposion_, ch. 24.]
[Footnote 13: _Ibid._, ch. 15-16.]
[Footnote 14: _Cf._ Matthew 13, 31 etc.]
[Footnote 15: A quotation from Musæus, _Volksmärchen der Deutschen_,
III, 219.]
[Footnote 16: The reference is to a situation in Richard Cumberland's
(1732-1811) play of "The Jew," known to Copenhagen playgoers in an
adaptation.]
[Footnote 17: I relate what I have been told.]
[Footnote 18: A character in the Danish playwright Overskou's vaudeville
of "Capriciosa" (Comedies III, 184).]
[Footnote 19: The glutton in Oehlenschlœger's vaudeville of
"Sovedrikken."]
[Footnote 20: Supplied by the translator to complete the sense.]
[Footnote 21: Dejection. _Cf._ the maxim: _omne animal post coïtun
triste._]
[Footnote 22: This statement is to be found, rather, in Aristotle's
Ethics II, 6.]
[Footnote 23: There is a pun here in the original.]
[Footnote 24: In Holberg's comedy of "Erasmus Montanus," III, 6.]
[Footnote 25: _Cf._ "The Banquet."]
[Footnote 26: "Eccles, 3, 7."]
[Footnote 27: "Comical power."]
[Footnote 28: "In uncertain battle."]
[Footnote 29: According to the development of these terms in Kierkegaard's
previous works, the "absolute" belongs to the ethic, the "relative"
to the æsthetic sphere.]
[Footnote 30: Heroine of Mozart's "Don Juan."]
[Footnote 31: Quotation from Wessel's famous comedy of "Love without
Stockings," III, 3.]
[Footnote 32: Viz besides the eggs she duly furnishes; Holberg, "The
Busy-body," II, 1.]
[Footnote 33: This figure is said by Diogenes Lærtios II, 37 to have
been used by Socrates himself about his relation to Xanthippe.]
[Footnote 34: The following sentences are not as clear in meaning as
is otherwise the case in Kierkegaard.]
[Footnote 35: Poetics, chap. 15.]
[Footnote 36: _Cf._ "The Banquet"]
[Footnote 37: They are, that he had been created a man and not an
animal, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a Barbarian (Lactantius,
Instit. III, 19, 17).]
[Footnote 38: Thales of Miletos (Diogenes Lærtios I, 33).]
[Footnote 39: German poet of the Romantic School (1773-1853).]
[Footnote 40: Reasoning against the rules of logic.]
[Footnote 41: "The Lying-in Room," II, 2.]
[Footnote 42: A quotation from Oehlenschläager's "Aladdin."]
[Footnote 43: Scattered members.]
[Footnote 44: See Diogenes Lærtios, VI, 37.]
[Footnote 45: By the immortal gods.]
[Footnote 46: I adjure you by the gods.]
[Footnote 47: Therefore those tears.]
[Footnote 48: I concede.]
[Footnote 49: It can hardly be seen, it is but for lips which
understand each other exactly.]
[Footnote 50: Christiansfeld, a town in South Jutland, was the
seat of a colony of Herrhutian Pietists.]
[Footnote 51: The reference is to the "Diary of the Seducer"
(in "Either-Or," part I). Edward is the scorned lover of Cordelia
who is seduced by John.]
[Footnote 52: I concede. I have conceded.]
[Footnote 53: Reference to a comedy by Farquhar, which enjoyed a
moderate popularity in Copenhagen.]
[Footnote 54: i.e., evidently, she docs not exist because of herself;
hence she is in a "negative" relation to herself. The center of this
relation is "what attracts all the world."]
[Footnote 55: In Oehlenschläger's "Aladdin."]
[Footnote 56: In the Danish, a pun on the homonyms _en brud_ and _et
brud._]
[Footnote 57: Job 2, 10.]
[Footnote 58: According to the Jutland Laws (A. D. 1241) a man is
permitted to punish his wife, when she has misbehaved, with stick and
with rod, but not with weapon. In the Danish Law (1683) this right is
restricted to children and servants. S. V.]
[Footnote 59: Containing the second part of "Stages on Life's Road,"
entitled "Reflections on Marriage in Refutation of Objections."]
FEAR AND TREMBLING
INTRODUCTION II
Not only in the world of commerce but also in the world of ideas
our age has arranged a regular clearance-sale. Everything may be
had at such absurdly low prices that very soon the question will
arise whether any one cares to bid. Every waiter with a speculative
turn who carefully marks the significant progress of modern
philosophy, every lecturer in philosophy, every tutor, student,
every sticker-and-quitter of philosophy--they are not content with
doubting everything, but "go right on." It might, possibly, be
ill-timed and inopportune to ask them whither they are bound; but
it is no doubt polite and modest to take it for granted that they
have doubted everything--else it were a curious statement for them
to make, that they were proceeding onward. So they have, all of
them, completed that preliminary operation and, it would seem, with
such ease that they do not think it necessary to waste a word about
how they did it. The fact is, not even he who looked anxiously and
with a troubled spirit for some little point of information, ever
found one, nor any instruction, nor even any little dietetic
prescription, as to how one is to accomplish this enormous task.
"But did not Descartes proceed in this fashion?" Descartes, indeed!
that venerable, humble, honest thinker whose writings surely no
one can read without deep emotion--Descartes did what he said,
and said what he did. Alas, alas! that is a mighty rare thing
in our times! But Descartes, as he says frequently enough, never
uttered doubts concerning his faith....
In our times, as was remarked, no one is content with faith,
but "goes right on." The question as to whither they are proceeding
may be a silly question; whereas it is a sign of urbanity and
culture to assume that every one has faith, to begin with, for
else it were a curious statement for them to make, that they are
proceeding further. In the olden days it was different. Then,
faith was a task for a whole life-time because it was held that
proficiency in faith was not to be won within a few days or weeks.
Hence, when the tried patriarch felt his end approaching, after
having fought his battles and preserved his faith, he was still
young enough at heart not to have forgotten the fear and trembling
which disciplined his youth and which the mature man has under
control, but which no one entirely outgrows--except insofar as
he succeeds in "going on" as early as possible. The goal which
those venerable men reached at last--at that spot every one
starts, in our times, in order to "proceed further."...
PREPARATION
There lived a man who, when a child, had heard the beautiful Bible
story of how God tempted Abraham and how he stood the test, how
he maintained his faith and, against his expectations, received
his son back again. As this man grew older he read this same story
with ever greater admiration; for now life had separated what had
been united in the reverent simplicity of the child. And the older
he grew, the more frequently his thoughts reverted to that story.
His enthusiasm waxed stronger and stronger, and yet the story grew
less and less clear to him. Finally he forgot everything else in
thinking about it, and his soul contained but one wish, which was,
to behold Abraham: and but one longing, which was, to have been
witness to that event. His desire was, not to see the beautiful
lands of the Orient, and not the splendor of the Promised Land,
and not the reverent couple whose old age the Lord had blessed
with children, and not the venerable figure of the aged patriarch,
and not the god-given vigorous youth of Isaac--it would have been
the same to him if the event had come to pass on some barren
heath. But his wish was, to have been with Abraham on the three
days' journey, when he rode with sorrow before him and with Isaac
at his side. His wish was, to have been present at the moment when
Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw Mount Moriah afar off; to have
been present at the moment when he left his asses behind and wended
his way up to the mountain alone with Isaac. For the mind of this
man was busy, not with the delicate conceits of the imagination,
but rather with his shuddering thought.
The man we speak of was no thinker, he felt no desire to go beyond