Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
except for short periods), with his mind still busy on the problems
which were peculiarly his own. The tremendous impulse given by his
unfortunate engagement was sufficient to stimulate his sensitive mind
to a productivity without equal in Danish literature, to create a
"literature within a literature." The fearful inner collision
of motives had lit an inner conflagration which did not die down for
years. "My becoming an author is due chiefly to her, my melancholy,
and my money."
About a year afterwards (1843) there appeared his first great work,
"Either-Or," which at once established his fame. As in the case of most
of his works it will be impossible to give here more than the barest
outline of its plan and contents. In substance, it is a grand debate
between the æsthetic and the ethic views of life. In his dissertation
Kierkegaard had already characterized the æsthetic point of view. Now,
in a brilliant series of articles, he proceeds' to exemplify it with
exuberant detail.
The fundamental chord of the first part is struck in the _Diapsalmata_
aphorisms which, like so many flashes of a lantern, illuminate
the æsthetic life, its pleasures and its despair. The æsthetic
individual--this is brought out in the article entitled "The Art of
Rotation"--wishes to be the exception in human society, shirking its
common, humble duties and claiming special privileges. He has no fixed
principle except that he means not to be bound to anything or anybody.
He has but one desire which is, to enjoy the sweets of life--whether
its purely sensual pleasures or the more refined Epicureanism of the
finer things in life and art, and the ironic enjoyment of one's own
superiority over the rest of humanity; and he has no fear except that
he may succumb to boredom.
As a comment on this text there follow a number of essays in
"experimental psychology," supposed to be the fruit of the æsthete's
(A's) leisure. In them the æsthetic life is exhibited in its various
manifestations, in "terms of existence," especially as to its "erotic
stages," from the indefinite longings of the Page to the fully conscious
"sensual genius" of Don Juan--the examples are taken from Mozart's
opera of this name, which was Kierkegaard's favorite--until the
whole culminates in the famous "Diary of the Seducer," containing
elements of the author's own engagement, poetically disguised--a
seducer, by the way, of an infinitely reflective kind.
Following this climax of unrestrained æstheticism we hear in the
second part the stern demands of the ethical life. Its spokesman, Judge
William, rises in defense of the social institutes, and of marriage in
particular, against the slurs cast on them by his young friend A. He
makes it clear that the only possible outcome of the æsthetic life,
with its aimlessness, its superciliousness, its vague possibilities,
is a feeling of vanity and vexation of spirit, and a hatred of life
itself: despair. One floundering in this inevitable slough of despond,
who earnestly wishes to escape from it and to save himself from the
ultimate destruction of his personality, must choose and determine to
rise into the ethical sphere. That is, he must elect a definite calling,
no matter how humdrum, marry, if possible, and thus subject himself
to the "general law." In a word, instead of a world of vague
possibilities, however attractive, he must choose the definite
circumscription of the individual who is a member of society. Only
thus will he obtain a balance in his life between the demands of his
personality on the one hand, and of the demands of society on him.
When thus reconciled to his environment--his "lot"--all the
pleasures of the æsthetic sphere which he resigned will be his again
in rich measure, but in a transfigured sense.
Though nobly eloquent in places, and instinct with warm feeling,
this panegyric on marriage and the fixed duties of life is somewhat
unconvincing, and its style undeniably tame and unctious--at
least when contrasted with the Satanic verve of most of A's papers.
The fact is that Kierkegaard, when considering the ethical sphere, in
order to carry out his plan of contrasting it with the æsthetic sphere,
was already envisaging the higher sphere of religion, to which the
ethical sphere is but a transition, and which is the only true
alternative to the æsthetic life. At the very end of the book
Kierkegaard, flying his true colors, places a sermon as an "ultimatum,"
purporting to have been written by a pastor on the Jutish Heath. Its
text is that "as against God we are always in the wrong," and the tenor
of it, "only that truth which edifies is truth for you." It is not that
you must choose either the æsthetic or the ethical view of life; but
that neither the one nor the other is the full truth--God alone is the
truth which must be grasped with all inwardness. But since we recognize
our imperfections, or sins, the more keenly, as we are developed more
highly, our typical relation to God must be that of repentance; and by
repentance as by a step we may rise into the higher sphere of
religion--as will be seen, a purely Christian thought.
A work of such powerful originality, imposing by its very size, and
published at the anonymous author's own expense, could not but create
a stir among the small Danish reading public. And notwithstanding
Kierkegaard's consistent efforts to conceal his authorship in the
interest of his "indirect communication," it could not long remain a
secret. The book was much, and perplexedly, discussed, though no one
was able to fathom the author's real aim, most readers being attracted
by piquant subjects such as the "Diary of the Seducer," and regarding
the latter half as a feeble afterthought. As he said himself: "With my
left hand I held out to the world 'Either-Or,' with my right, 'Two
Edifying Discourses'; but they all--or practically all--seized
with their right hands what I held in my left."
These "Two Edifying Discourses[4]"--for thus he preferred to call
them, rather than sermons, because he claimed no authority to
preach--as well as all the many later ones, were published over
his own name, addressed to Den Enkelte "The Single Individual whom
with joy and gratitude he calls his reader," and were dedicated to the
memory of his father. They belong among the noblest books of
edification, of which the North has not a few.
During the following three years (1843-5) Kierkegaard, once roused
to productivity, though undoubtedly kept at his task by the exertion of
marvelous will-power, wrote in quick succession some of his most
notable works--so original in form, in thought, in content that
it is a well-nigh hopeless task to analyze them to any satisfaction.
All we can do here is to note the development in them of the one grand
theme which is fundamental to all his literary activity: how to become
a Christian.
If the second part of "Either-Or" was devoted to an explanation of
the nature of the ethical, as against the æsthetic, conduct of life,
inevitably the next task was, first, to define the nature of the
religious life, as against the merely ethical life; then, to show how
the religious sphere may be attained. This is done in the brilliant twin
books _Frygt og Baeven_ "Fear and Trembling" and _Gjentagelsen_
"Repetition." Both were published over pseudonyms.
"Fear and Trembling" bears as its subtitle "Dialectic Lyrics."
Indeed, nowhere perhaps is Kierkegaard's strange union of dialectic
subtlety and intense lyrical power and passion so strikingly in evidence
as in this panegyric on Abraham, the father of faith. To Kierkegaard
he is the shining exemplar of the religious life; and his greatest act
of faith, his obedience to God's command to slay Isaac. Nothing can
surpass the eloquence with which he depicts the agony of the father,
his struggle between the ethical, or general, law which, saith "thou
shalt no kill"! and God's specific command. In the end, Abraham by a
grand resolve transgresses the law; and lo! because he has faith,
against certainty, that he will keep Isaac, and does not merely resign
him, as many a tragic hero would have done, he receives all again, in
a new and higher sphere. In other words, Abraham chooses to be "the
exception" and set aside the general law, as well as does the æsthetic
individual; but, note well: "in fear and trembling," and at the express
command of God! He is a "knight of faith." But because this direct
relation to the divinity necessarily can be certain only to Abraham's
self, his action is altogether incomprehensible to others. Reason
recoils before the absolute paradox of the individual who chooses
to rise superior to the general law.
The rise into the religious sphere is always likely to be the outcome
of some severe inner conflict engendering infinite passion. In the
splendidly written _Gjentagelse_ "Repetition" we are shown _ad oculos_
an abortive transition into the religious sphere, with a corresponding
relapse into the æsthetic sphere. Kierkegaard's own love-story is again
drawn upon: the "Young Person" ardently loves the woman; but discovers
to his consternation that she is in reality but a burden to him since,
instead of having an actual, living relation to her, he merely
"remembers" her when she is present. In the ensuing collision of motives
his æsthetically cool friend Constantin Constantius advises him to act
as one unworthy of her--as did Kierkegaard--and to forget her. But
instead of following this advice, and lacking a deeper religious
background, he flees the town and subsequently transmutes his trials
into poetry--that is, relapses into the æsthetic sphere: rather than,
like Job, whom he apostrophises passionately, "receiving all again"
(having all "repeated") in a higher sphere. This idea of the resumption
of a lower stage into a higher one is one of Kierkegaard's most original
and fertile thoughts. It is illustrated here with an amazing wealth of
instances.
So far, it had been a question of religious feeling in general--how it
may arise, and what its nature is. In the pivotal work _Philosophiske
Smuler_ "Philosophic Trifles"--note the irony--Kierkegaard throws
the searching rays of his penetrating intellect on the grand problem
of revealed religion: can one's eternal salvation be based on
an historical event? This is the great stumbling block to the
understanding.
Hegel's philosophic optimism maintained that the difficulties of
Christianity had been completely "reconciled" or "mediated" in the
supposedly higher synthesis of philosophy, by which process religion
had been reduced to terms which might be grasped by the intellect.
Kierkegaard, fully voicing the claim both of the intellect and of
religion, erects the barrier of the paradox, impassable except by
the act of faith. As will be seen, this is Tertullian's _Credo
quia absurdum._[5]
In the briefest possible outline his argument is as follows:
Socrates had taught that in reality every one had the truth in him
and needed but to be reminded of it by the teacher who thus is
necessary only in helping the disciple to discover it himself. That is
the indirect communication of the truth. But now suppose that the
truth is not innate in man, suppose he has merely the ability to
grasp it when presented to him. And suppose the teacher to be of
absolute, infinite importance--the Godhead himself, directly
communicating with man, revealing the truth in the shape of man; in
fact, as the lowliest of men, yet insisting on implicit belief in Him!
This, according to Kierkegaard, constitutes the paradox of faith
_par excellence._ But this paradox, he shows, existed for the
generation contemporaneous with Christ in the same manner as it does
for those living now. To think that faith was an easier matter for