LEO SHESTOV

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY S. S. KOTELIANSKY WITH A FOREWORD BY D. H. LAWRENCE

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER

1920

NOTE

Leo Shestov is one of the living Russians. He is about fifty years old. He was born at Kiev, and studied at the university there. His first book appeared in 1898, since which year he has gradually gained an assured position as one of the best critics and essayists in Russia. A list of his works is as follows:—

1898. Shakespeare and his Critic, Brandes.

1900. Good in the Teaching of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: Philosophy and Preaching.

1903. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy.

1905. The Apotheosis of Groundlessness (here translated under the title "All Things are Possible").

1908. Beginnings and Ends.

1912. Great Vigils.

FOREWORD

In his paragraph on The Russian Spirit, Shestov gives us the real clue to Russian literature. European culture is a rootless thing in the Russians. With us, it is our very blood and bones, the very nerve and root of our psyche. We think in a certain fashion, we feel in a certain fashion, because our whole substance is of this fashion. Our speech and feeling are organically inevitable to us.

With the Russians it is different. They have only been inoculated with the virus of European culture and ethic. The virus works in them like a disease. And the inflammation and irritation comes forth as literature. The bubbling and fizzing is almost chemical, not organic. It is an organism seething as it accepts and masters the strange virus. What the Russian is struggling with, crying out against, is not life itself: it is only European culture which has been introduced, into his psyche, and which hurts him. The tragedy is not so much a real soul tragedy, as a surgical one. Russian art, Russian literature after all does not stand on the same footing as European or Greek or Egyptian art. It is not spontaneous utterance. It is not the flowering of a race. It is a surgical outcry, horrifying, or marvellous, lacerating at first; but when we get used to it, not really so profound, not really ultimate, a little extraneous.

What is valuable, is the evidence against European culture, implied in the novelists, here at last expressed. Since Peter the Great Russia has been accepting Europe, and seething Europe down in a curious process of katabolism. Russia has been expressing nothing inherently Russian. Russia's modern Christianity even was not Russian. Her genuine Christianity, Byzantine and Asiatic, is incomprehensible to us. So with her true philosophy. What she has actually uttered is her own unwilling, fantastic reproduction of European truths. What she has really to utter the coming centuries will hear. For Russia will certainly inherit the future. What we already call the greatness of Russia is only her pre-natal struggling.

It seems as if she had at last absorbed and overcome the virus of old Europe. Soon her new, healthy body will begin to act in its own reality, imitative no more, protesting no more, crying no more, but full and sound and lusty in itself. Real Russia is born. She will laugh at us before long. Meanwhile she goes through the last stages of reaction against us, kicking away from the old womb of Europe.

In Shestov one of the last kicks is given. True, he seems to be only reactionary and destructive. But he can find a little amusement at last in tweaking the European nose, so he is fairly free. European idealism is anathema. But more than this, it is a little comical. We feel the new independence in his new, half-amused indifference.

He is only tweaking the nose of European idealism. He is preaching nothing: so he protests time and again. He absolutely refutes any imputation of a central idea He is so afraid lest it should turn out to be another hateful hedge-stake of an ideal.

"Everything is possible"—this is his really central cry. It is not nihilism. It is only a shaking free of the human psyche from old bonds. The positive central idea is that the human psyche, or soul, really believes in itself, and in nothing else.

Dress this up in a little comely language, and we have a real new ideal, that will last us for a new, long epoch. The human soul itself is the source and well-head of creative activity. In the unconscious human soul the creative prompting issues first into the universe. Open the consciousness to this prompting, away with all your old sluice-gates, locks, dams, channels. No ideal on earth is anything more than an obstruction, in the end, to the creative issue of the spontaneous soul. Away with all ideals. Let each individual act spontaneously from, the forever-incalculable prompting of the creative well-head within him. There is no universal law. Each being is, at his purest, a law unto himself, single, unique, a Godhead, a fountain from the unknown.

This is the ideal which Shestov refuses positively to state, because he is afraid it may prove in the end a trap to catch his own free spirit. So it may. But it is none the less a real, living ideal for the moment, the very salvation. When it becomes ancient, and like the old lion who lay in his cave and whined, devours all its servants, then it can be despatched. Meanwhile it is a really liberating word.

Shestov's style is puzzling at first. Having found the "ands" and "buts" and "becauses" and "therefores" hampered him, he clips them all off deliberately and even spitefully, so that his thought is like a man with no buttons on his clothes, ludicrously hitching along all undone. One must be amused, not irritated. Where the armholes were a bit tight, Shestov cuts a slit. It is baffling, but really rather piquant. The real conjunction, the real unification lies in the reader's own amusement, not in the author's unbroken logic.

D. H. LAWRENCE.

PART I

Zu fragmentarisch ist Welt und Leben.

H. HEINE.

1

The obscure streets of life do not offer the conveniences of the central thoroughfares: no electric light, no gas, not even a kerosene lamp-bracket. There are no pavements: the traveller has to fumble his way in the dark. If he needs a light, he must wait for a thunderbolt, or else, primitive-wise, knock a spark out of a stone. In a glimpse will appear unfamiliar outlines; and then, what he has taken in he must try to remember, no matter whether the impression was right or false. For he will not easily get another light, except he run his head against a wall, and see sparks that way. What can a wretched pedestrian gather under such circumstances? How can we expect a clear account from him whose curiosity (let us suppose his curiosity so strong) led him to grope his way among the outskirts of life? Why should we try to compare his records with those of the travellers through brilliant streets?

2

The law of sequence in natural phenomena seems so plausible, so obvious, that one is tempted to look for its origin, not in the realities of actual life, but in the promptings of the human mind. This law of sequence is the most mysterious of all the natural laws. Why so much order? Why not chaos and disorderliness? Really, if the hypothesis of sequence had not offered such blatant advantages to the human intelligence, man would never have thought of raising it to the rank of eternal and irrefutable truth. But he saw his opportunity. Thanks to the grand hypothesis, man is forewarned and forearmed. Thanks to this master-key, the future is at his mercy. He knows, in order that he may foreknow: savoir pour prévoir. Here, is man, by virtue of one supreme assumption, dictator henceforward of all nature. The philosophers have ever bowed the knee to success. So down they went before the newly-invented law of natural sequence, they hailed it with the title of eternal truth. But even this seemed insufficient. L'appétit vient en mangeant. Like the old woman in the fairy-tale about the golden

fish, they had it in their minds that the fish should do their errands. But some few people at last could not stand this impudence. Some very few began to object....

3

The comfortable settled man says to himself: "How could, one live without being sure of the morrow; how could one sleep without a roof over one's head?" But misfortune turns him out of house and home. He must perforce sleep under a hedge. He cannot rest, he is full of terrors. There may be wild beasts, fellow-tramps. But in the long run he gets used to it. He will trust himself to chance, live like a tramp, and sleep his sleep in a ditch.

4

A writer, particularly a young and inexperienced writer, feels himself under an obligation to give his reader the fullest answers to all possible questions. Conscience will not let him shut his eyes to tormenting problems, and so he begins to speak of "first and ultimate things." As he cannot say anything profitable on such subjects—for it is not the business of the young to be profoundly philosophical—he grows excited, he shouts himself to hoarseness. In the end he is silent from exhaustion. And then, if his words have had any success with the public, he is astonished to find that he has become a prophet. Whereupon, if he be an average sort of person, he is filled with an insatiable desire to preserve his influence till the end of his days. But if he be more sensitive or gifted than usual, he begins to despise the crowd for its vulgar credulity, and himself for having posed in the stupid and disgraceful character of a clown of lofty ideas.

5

How painful it is to read Plato's account of the last conversations of Socrates! The days, even the hours of the old man are numbered, and yet he talks, talks, talks.... Crito comes to him in the early morning and tells him that the sacred ships will shortly return to Athens. And at once Socrates is ready to talk, to argue.... It is possible, of course, that Plato is not altogether to be trusted. It is said that Socrates observed, of the dialogues already written down by Plato. "How much that youth has belied me!" But then from all sources we have it, that Socrates spent the month following his verdict in incessant conversations with his pupils and friends. That is what it is to be a beloved master, and to have disciples. You can't even die quietly.... The best death is really the one which is considered the worst: to die alone, in a foreign land, in a poor-house, or, as they say, like a dog under a hedge. Then at least one may spend one's last moments honestly, without dissembling or ostentation, preparing oneself for the dreadful,

or wonderful, event. Pascal, as his sister tells us, also talked a great deal before his death, and de Musset cried like a baby. Perhaps Socrates and Pascal talked so much, for fear they should start crying. It is a false shame!

6

The fact that some ideas, or some series of ideas, are materially unprofitable to mankind cannot serve as a justification for their rejection. Once an idea is there, the gates must be opened to it. For if you close the gates, the thought will force a way in, or, like the fly in the fable, will sneak through unawares. Ideas have no regard for our laws of honour or morality. Take for example realism in literature. At its appearance it aroused universal indignation. Why need we know the dirt of life? And honestly, there is no need. Realism could give no straightforward justification for itself. But, as it had to come through, it was ready with a lie; it compared itself to pathology, called itself useful, beneficial, and so obtained a place. We can all see now that realism is not beneficial, but harmful, very harmful, and that it has nothing in common with pathology. Nevertheless, it is no longer easy to drive it from its place. The prohibition evaded, there is now the justus titulus possessions.

7

Count Tolstoy preached inaction. It seems he had no need. We "inact" remarkably. Idleness, just that idleness Tolstoy dreamed of, a free, conscious idling that despises labour, this is one of the chief characteristics of our time. Of course I speak of the higher, cultured classes, the aristocracy of spirit—"We write books, paint pictures, compose symphonies"—But is that labour? It is only the amusement of idleness. SO that Tolstoy is much more to the point when, forgetting his preaching of inaction, he bids us trudge eight hours a day at the tail of the plough. In this there is some sense. Idleness spoils us. We were returning to the most primitive of all the states of our forefathers. Like paradisal Adam and Eve, having no need to sweat for our bread, we were trying to pilfer the fruit from the forbidden tree. Truly we received a similar punishment. Divine laws are inscrutable. In Paradise everything is permitted, except curiosity. Even labour is allowed, though it is not obligatory, as it is outside. Tolstoy realised the dangers of the paradisal state. He stooped to talk of

inaction for a moment—and then he began to work. Since in regular, smooth, constant, rhythmical labour, whether it is efficient or whether it merely appears efficient, like Tolstoy's farming, there is peace of mind. Look at the industrious Germans, who begin and who end their day with a prayer. In Paradise, where there is no labour, and no need for long rest and heavy sleep, all temptations become dangerous. It is a peril to live there.... Perhaps present-day people eschew the paradisal state. They prefer work, for where there is no work there is no smoothness, no regularity, no peacefulness, no satisfaction. In Eden, even the well-informed individuals Cannot tell what will come next, savoir pour prévoir does not answer, and everlasting laws are exposed to ridicule. Amongst ourselves also a few of the work-abjurors, the idlers, are beginning to question our established knowledge. But the majority of men, and particularly Germans, still defend a priori judgments, on the ground that without these, perfect knowledge would

be impossible, there could be no regulation of the course of natural phenomena, and no looking ahead.

8

To escape from the grasp of contemporary ruling ideas, one should study history. The lives of other men in other lands in other ages teach us to realise that our "eternal laws" and infallible ideas are just abortions. Take a step further, imagine mankind living elsewhere than on this earth, and all our terrestial eternalities lose their charm.

9

We know nothing of the ultimate realities of our existence, nor shall we ever know anything. Let that be agreed. But it does not follow that therefore we must accept some or other dogmatic theory as a modus vivendi, no, not even positivism, which has such a sceptical face on it. It only follows that man is free to change his conception of the universe as often as he changes his boots or his gloves, and that constancy of principle belongs only to one's relationships with other people, in order that they may know where and to what extent they may depend on us. Therefore, on principle man should respect order in the external world and complete chaos in the inner. And for those who find it difficult to bear such a duality, some internal order might also be provided. Only, they should not pride themselves on it, but always remember that it is a sign of their weakness, pettiness, dullness.

10

The Pythagoreans assumed that the sun is motionless and that the earth turns round. What a long time the truth had to wait for recognition!

11

In spite of Epicurus and his exasperation we are forced to admit that anything whatsoever may result from anything whatsoever. Which does not mean, however, that a stone ever turned into bread, or that our visible universe was ever "naturally" formed from nebulous puffs. But from our own minds and our own experience we can deduce nothing that would serve us as a ground for setting even the smallest limit to nature's own arbitrary behaviour. If whatever happens now had chanced to happen quite differently, it would not, therefore, have seemed any the less natural to us. In other words, although there may be an element of inevitability in our human judgments concerning the natural phenomena, we have never been able and probably never shall be able to separate the grain of inevitable from the chaff of accidental and casual truth. Moreover, we do not even know which is more essential and important, the inevitable or the casual. Hence we are forced to the conclusion that philosophy must give up her attempt at finding the veritates aeternae. The business of philosophy is to teach man to

live in uncertainty—man who is supremely afraid of uncertainty, and who is forever hiding himself behind this or the other dogma. More briefly, the business of philosophy is not to reassure people, but to upset them.

12

When man finds in himself a certain defect, of which he can by no means rid himself, there remains but to accept the so-called failing as a natural quality. The more grave and important the defect, the more urgent is the need to ennoble it. From sublime to ridiculous is only one step, and an ineradicable vice in strong men is always rechristened a virtue.

13

On the whole, there is little to choose between metaphysics and positivism. In each there is the same horizon, but the composition and colouring are different. Positivism chooses grey, colourless paint and ordinary composition; metaphysics prefers brilliant colouring and complicated design, and always carries the vision away into the infinite; in which trick it often succeeds, owing to its skill in perspective. But the canvas is impervious, there is no melting through it into "the other world." Nevertheless, skilful perspectives are very alluring, so that metaphysicians will still have something to quarrel about with the positivists.

14

The task of a writer: to go forward and share his impressions with his reader. In spite of everything to the contrary, he is not obliged to prove anything. But, because every step of his progress is dogged by those police agents, morality, science, logic, and so forth, he needs always to have ready some sort of argument with which to frustrate them. There is no necessity to trouble too deeply about the quality of the argumentation. Why fret about being "inwardly right." It is quite enough if the reasoning which comes handiest will succeed in occupying those guardians of the verbal highways whose intention it is to obstruct his passage.

15

The Secret of Poushkin's "inner harmony."—To Poushkin nothing was hopeless. Nay, he saw hopeful signs in everything. It is agreeable to sin, and it is just as delightful to repent. It is good to doubt, but it is still better to believe. It is jolly "with feet shod in steel" to skate the ice, it is pleasant to wander about with gypsies, to pray in church, to quarrel with a friend, to make peace with an enemy, to swoon on waves of harmony, to weep over a passing fancy, to recall the past, to peep into the future. Poushkin could cry hot tears, and he who can weep can hope. "I want to live, so that I may think and suffer," he says; and it seems as if the word "to suffer," which is so beautiful in the poem, just fell in accidentally, because there was no better rhyme in Russian for "to die." The later verses, which are intended to amplify to think and to suffer, prove this. Poushkin might repeat the words of the ancient hero: "danger is dangerous to others, but not to me." Therein lies the secret of his harmonious moods.

16

The well-trodden field of contemporary thought should be dug up. Therefore, on every possible occasion, in season and out, the generally-accepted truths must be ridiculed to death, and paradoxes uttered in their place. Then we shall see....

17