Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
altogether, and absolutely from the bottom up, by the help of--fishermen
and artisans? May not the fact that he is an illegitimate child
fitly characterize his entire relation to the existing order
of things? On the other hand, if he wishes to be only the Messiah,
why then his warning about putting a piece of new cloth unto an
old garment.[15] For these words are precisely the watchwords
of every revolution since they are expressive of a person's
discontent with the existing order and of his wish to destroy
it. That is, these words reveal his desire to remove existing
conditions, rather than to build on them and better them, if
one is a reformer, or to develop them to their highest possibility,
if one is indeed the Messiah. This is duplicity. In fact, it is
not feasible to be both judge and Messiah. Such duplicity will
surely result in his downfall.[16] The climax in the life of a
judge is his death by violence, and so the poet pictures it
correctly; but the climax in the life of the Messiah cannot
possibly be his death. Or else, by that very fact, he would
not be the Messiah, that is, he whom the existing order expects
in order to deify him. This duplicity has not as yet been recognized
by the people, who see in him their Messiah; but the existing
order of things cannot by any manner of means recognize him as
such. The people, the idle and loafing crowd, can do so only
because they represent nothing less than the existing order
of things. But as soon as the duplicity becomes evident to them,
his doom is sealed. Why, in this respect his predecessor was
a far more definitely marked personality, for he was but one
thing, the judge. But what confusion and thoughtlessness, to wish
to be both, and what still worse confusion, to acknowledge his
predecessor as the judge--that is, in other words, precisely to
make the existing order of things receptive and ripe for the
Messiah who is to come after the judge, and yet not wish to
associate himself with the existing order of things!"
And the philosopher would reason as follows: "Such dreadful
or, rather, insane vanity, that a single individual claims to
be God, is a thing hitherto unheard of. Never before have we
been witness to such an excess of pure subjectivity and sheer
negation. He has no doctrines, no system of philosophy, he knows
really nothing, he simply keeps on repeating, and making variations
on, some unconnected aphoristic sentences, some few maxims, and
a couple of parables by which he dazzles the crowd for whom he
also performs signs and wonders; so that they, instead of learning
something, or being improved, come to believe in one who in a
most brazen way constantly forces his subjective views on us.
There is nothing objective or positive whatever in him and in
what he says. Indeed, from a philosophical point of view, he
does not need to fear destruction for he has perished already,
since it is inherent in the nature of subjectivity to perish.
One may in all fairness admit that his subjectivity is remarkable
and that, be it as it may with the other miracles, he constantly
repeats his miracle with the five small loaves,[17] viz., by
means of a few lyric utterances and some aphorisms he rouses
the whole country. But even if one were inclined to overlook
his insane notion of affirming himself to be God, it is an
incomprehensible mistake, which, to be sure, demonstrates a
lack of philosophic training, to believe that God could reveal
himself in the form of an individual. The race, the universal,
the total, is God; but the race surely is not an individual!
Generally speaking, that is the impudent assumption of subjectivity,
which claims that the individual is something extraordinary.
But sheer insanity is shown in the claim of an individual to
be God. Because if the insane thing were possible, viz. that
an individual might be God, why, then this individual would
have to be worshipped, and a more beastly philosophic stupidity
is not conceivable."
The astute statesman would reason as follows: "That at present
this person wields great power is undeniable--entirely disregarding,
of course, this notion of his that he is God. Foibles like these,
being idiosyncrasies, do not count against a man and concern no
one, least of all a statesman. A statesman is concerned only
with what power a man wields; and that he does wield great power
cannot, as I have remarked, be denied. But what he intends to do,
what his aim is, I cannot make out at all. If this be calculation
it must be of an entirely new and peculiar order, not so altogether
unlike what is otherwise called madness. He possesses points of
considerable strength; but he seems to defeat, rather than to
use, it; he expends it without himself getting any returns. I
consider him a phenomenon with which--as ought to be one's rule
with all phenomena--a wise man should not have anything to do,
since it is impossible to calculate him or the catastrophe threatening
his life. It is possible that he will be made king. It is possible,
I say; but it is not impossible, or rather, it is just as possible,
that he may end on the gallows. He lacks earnestness in all his
endeavors. With all his enormous stretch of wings he only hovers
and gets nowhere. He does not seem to have any definite plan of
procedure, but just hovers. Is it for his nationality he is fighting,
or does he aim at a communistic revolution? Does he wish to establish
a republic or a kingdom? With which party does he affiliate
himself to combat which party, or does he wish to fight all
parties?
"I have anything to do with him?--No, that would be the very
last thing to enter my mind. In fact, I take all possible precautions
to avoid him. I keep quiet, undertake nothing, act as if I did
not exist; for one cannot even calculate how he might interfere
with one's undertakings, be they ever so unimportant, or at any
rate, how one might become involved in the vortex of his activities.
Dangerous, in a certain sense enormously dangerous, is this
man. But I calculate that I may ensnare him precisely by doing
nothing. For overthrown he must be. And this is done most; safely
by letting him do it himself, by letting him stumble over himself.
I have, at least at this moment, not sufficient power to bring
about his fall; in fact, I know no one who has. To undertake the
least thing against him now, means to be crushed one's self. No,
my plan is constantly to exert only negative resistance to him,
that is, to do nothing, and he will probably involve himself
in the enormous consequences he draws after him, till in the
end he will tread on his own train, as it were, and thus fall."
And the steady citizen would reason as follows (which would
then become the opinion of his family): "Now, let us be human,
everything is good when done in moderation, too little and too
much spoil everything, and as a French saying has it which I
once heard a traveling salesman use: every power which exceeds
itself comes to a fall--and as to this person, his fall is certainly
sure enough. I have earnestly spoken to my son and warned and
admonished him not to drift into evil ways and join that person.
And why? Because all people are running after him. That is to
say, what sort of people? Idlers and loafers, street-walkers and
tramps, who run after everything. But mightily few of the men
who have house and property, and nobody who is wise and respected,
none after whom I set my clock, neither councillor Johnson, nor
senator Anderson, nor the wealthy broker Nelson--oh no! they
know what's what. And as to the ministry who ought to know most
about such matters--ah, they will have none of him. What was it
pastor Green said in the club the other evening? 'That man will
yet come to a terrible end,' he said. And Green, he can do more
than preach, you oughtn't to hear him Sundays in church so much
as Mondays in the club--I just wished I had half his knowledge
of affairs! He said quite correctly, and as if spoken out of
my own heart: 'Only idlers and loafers are running after that
man.' And why do they run after him? Because he performs some
miracles. But who is sure they are miracles, or that he can
confer the same power on his disciples? And, in any case, a
miracle is something mightily uncertain, whereas the certain
is the certain. Every serious father who has grown-up children
must be truly alarmed lest his sons be seduced and join that
man together with the desperate characters who follow him--desperate
characters who have nothing to lose. And even these, how does
he help them? Why, one must be mad to wish to be helped in this
fashion. Even the poorest beggar is brought to a worse estate
than his former one, is brought to a pass he could have escaped
by remaining what he was, that is, a beggar and no more."
And the mocker, not the one hated on account of his malice, but
the one who is admired for his wit and liked for his good nature,
he would reason as follows: "It is, after all, a rich idea which
is going to prove useful to all of us, that an individual who
is in no wise different from us claims to be God. If that is
not being a benefactor of the race then I don't know what charity
and beneficence are. If we assume that the characteristic of
being God--well, who in all the world would have hit on that
idea? How true that such an idea could not have entered into
the heart of man[18]--but if we assume that it consists in looking
in no wise different from the rest of us, and in nothing else:
why, then we are all gods. Q. E. D. Three cheers for him, the
inventor of a discovery so extraordinarily important for mankind!
Tomorrow I, the undersigned, shall proclaim that I am God, and
the discoverer at least will not be able to contradict me without
contradicting himself. At night all cats are gray; and if to
be God consists in looking like the rest of us, absolutely and
altogether like the rest of mankind: why, then it is night and
we all are..., or what is it I wanted to say: we all are God,
every one of us, and no one has a right to say he isn't as well
off as his neighbor. This is the most ridiculous situation imaginable,
the contradiction here being the greatest imaginable, and a
contradiction always making for a comical effect. But this is
in no wise my discovery, but solely that of the discoverer:
this idea that a man of exactly the same appearance as the rest
of us, only not half so well dressed as the average man, that
is, a poorly dressed person who, rather than being God, seems
to invite the attention of the society for the relief of the
poor--that he is God! I am only sorry for the director of the
charitable society that he will not get a raise from this general
advancement of the human race but that he will, rather, lose
his job on account of this, etc."
Ah, my friend, I know well what I am doing, I know my responsibility,
and my soul is altogether assured of the correctness of my procedure.
Now then, imagine yourself a contemporary of him who invites.
Imagine yourself to be a sufferer, but consider well to what you
expose yourself in becoming his disciple and following him. You
expose yourself to losing practically everything in the eyes of
all wise and sensible and respected men. He who invites demands
of you that you surrender all, give up everything; but the common
sense of your own times and of your contemporaries will not give
you up, but will judge that to join him is madness. And mockery
will descend cruelly upon you; for while it will almost spare him,
out of compassion, you will be thought madder than a march-hare
for becoming his disciple. People will say: "That h e is a wrong-headed
enthusiast, that can't be helped. Well and good; but to become--in
all seriousness--his disciple, that is the greatest piece of