wanting is a manifestation of the whole of life - that is, the whole of human life, including reason and various little itches. And though our life in this manifestation often turns out to be a bit of trash, still it is life and not just the extraction of a square root. I, for example, quite naturally want to live so as to satisfy my whole capacity for living, and not so as to satisfy just my reasoning capacity alone, which is some twentieth part of my whole capacity for living. What does reason know? Reason knows only what it has managed to learn (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is no consolation, but why not say it anyway?), while human nature acts as an entire whole, with everything that is in it, consciously and unconsciously, and though it lies, still it lives. I suspect, gentlemen, that you are looking at me with pity; you repeat to me that an enlightened and developed man, such, in short, as the future man will be, simply cannot knowingly want anything unprofitable for himself, that this is mathematics. I agree completely, it is indeed mathematics. But I repeat to you for the hundredth time, there is only one case, one only, when man may purposely, consciously wish for himself even the harmful, the stupid, even what is stupidest of all: namely, so as to have the right to wish for himself even what is stupidest of all and not be bound by an obligation to wish for himself only what is intelligent. For this stupidest of all, this caprice of ours, gentlemen, may in fact be the most profitable of anything on earth for our sort, especially in certain cases. And in particular it may be more profitable than all other profits even in the case when it is obviously harmful and contradicts the most sensible conclusions of our reason concerning profits - because in any event it preserves for us the chiefest and dearest thing, that is, our personality and our individuality. Now, some insist that this is indeed the dearest of all things for man; wanting may, of course, converge with reason, if it wants, especially if this is not abused but is done with moderation; it is both useful and sometimes even praiseworthy. But wanting is very often, and even for the most part, completely and stubbornly at odds with reason, and… and… and, do you know, this, too, is useful and sometimes even quite praiseworthy? Suppose, gentlemen, that man is not stupid. (Really, it is quite impossible to say he is, for the sole reason that if he is stupid, who then is intelligent?) But even if he isn't stupid, all the same he's monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. I even think the best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful. But that's still not all; that's still not his chief defect; his chiefest defect is his constant lack of good behavior - constant from the great flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period of man's destiny. Lack of good behavior and, consequently, lack of good sense; for it has long been known that lack of good sense comes from nothing else but the lack of good behavior. Try casting a glance at the history of mankind; well, what will you see? Majestic? Maybe it is majestic; the Colossus of Rhodes alone, for example, is worth something! Not without reason did Mr Anaevsky 17 testify that while some say it was the work of human hands, others insist it was created by nature itself. Colorful? Maybe it is colorful; one need only sort through the full-dress military and civil uniforms of all times and all peoples - that alone is worth something, and if you were to add the uniforms of the lower civil ranks, you could really break a leg; no historian would be left standing. Monotonous? Well, maybe also monotonous: they fight and fight, they fight now, and fought before, and fought afterwards - you'll agree it's even all too monotonous. In short, anything can be said about world history, anything that might just enter the head of the most disturbed imagination. Only one thing cannot be said - that it is sensible. You'd choke on the first word. And one even comes upon this sort of thing all the time: there constantly appear in life people of such good behavior and good sense, such sages and lovers of mankind, as precisely make it their goal to spend their entire lives in the best-behaved and most sensible way possible, to become, so to speak, a light for their neighbors, essentially in order to prove to them that one can indeed live in the world as a person of good behavior and good sense. And what then? It is known that sooner or later, towards the end of their lives, many of these lovers have betrayed themselves, producing some anecdote, sometimes even of the most indecent sort. Now I ask you: what can be expected of man as a being endowed with such strange qualities? Shower him with all earthly blessings, drown him in happiness completely, over his head, so that only bubbles pop up on the surface of happiness, as on water; give him such economic satisfaction that he no longer has anything left to do at all except sleep, eat gingerbread, and worry about the noncessation of world history- and it is here, just here, that he, this man, out of sheer ingratitude, out of sheer lampoonery, will do something nasty. He will even risk his gingerbread, and wish on purpose for the most pernicious nonsense, the most noneconomical meaninglessness, solely in order to mix into all this positive good sense his own pernicious, fantastical element. It is precisely his fantastic dreams, his most banal stupidity, that he will wish to keep hold of, with the sole purpose of confirming to himself (as if it were so very necessary) that human beings are still human beings and not piano keys, which, though played upon with their own hands by the laws of nature themselves, are in danger of being played so much that outside the calendar it will be impossible to want anything. And more than that: even if it should indeed turn out that he is a piano key, if it were even proved to him mathematically and by natural science, he would still not come to reason, but would do something contrary on purpose, solely out of ingratitude alone; essentially to have his own way. And if he finds himself without means - he will invent destruction and chaos, he will invent all kinds of suffering, and still have his own way! He will launch a curse upon the world, and since man alone is able to curse (that being his privilege, which chiefly distinguishes him from other animals), he may achieve his end by the curse alone - that is, indeed satisfy himself that he is a man and not a piano key! If you say that all this, the chaos and darkness and cursing, can also be calculated according to a little table, so that the mere possibility of a prior calculation will put a stop to it all and reason will claim its own - then he will deliberately go mad for the occasion, so as to do without reason and still have his own way! I believe in this, I will answer for this, because the whole human enterprise seems indeed to consist in man's proving to himself every moment that he is a man and not a sprig! With his own skin if need be, but proving it; by troglodytism if need be, but proving it. And how not sin after that, how not boast that this has still not come about, and that wanting so far still depends on the devil knows what…
You shout at me (if you do still honor me with your shouts) that no one is taking my will from me here; that all they're doing here is busily arranging it somehow so that my will, of its own will, coincides with my normal interests, with the laws of nature, and with arithmetic.
Eh, gentlemen, what sort of will of one's own can there be if it comes to tables and arithmetic, and the only thing going is two times two is four? Two times two will be four even without my will. As if that were any will of one's own!
IX
Gentlemen, I am joking, of course, and I myself know that I am not joking very successfully, but one really cannot take everything as a joke. Maybe I'm grinding my teeth as I joke.. Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; resolve them for me. You, for example, want to make man unlearn his old habits, and to correct his will in conformity with the demands of science and common sense. But how do you know that man not only can be but must be remade in this way? What makes you conclude that man's wanting so necessarily needs to be corrected? In short, how do you know that such a correction will indeed be profitable for man? And, if we're to say everything, why are you so certainly convinced that not to go against real, normal profits, guaranteed by the arguments of reason and arithmetic, is indeed always profitable for man and is a law for the whole of mankind? So far, it's still just your supposition. Suppose it is a law of logic, but perhaps not of mankind at all. Perhaps you think, gentlemen, that I am mad? Allow me an observation. I agree: man is predominantly a creating animal, doomed to strive consciously towards a goal and to occupy himself with the art of engineering - that is, to eternally and ceaselessly make a road for himself that at least goes somewhere or other. But sometimes he may wish to swerve aside, precisely because he is doomed to open this road, and also perhaps because, stupid though the ingenuous figure generally is, it still sometimes occurs to him that this road almost always turns out to go somewhere or other, and the main thing is not where it goes, but that it should simply be going, and that the well-behaved child, by neglecting the art of engineering, not give himself up to pernicious idleness, which, as is known, is the mother of all vice. Man loves creating and the making of roads, that is indisputable. But why does he so passionately love destruction and chaos as well? Tell me that! But of this I wish specially to say a couple of words myself. Can it be that he has such a love of destruction and chaos (it's indisputable that he sometimes loves them very much; that is a fact) because he is instinctively afraid of achieving the goal and completing the edifice he is creating? How do you know, maybe he likes the edifice only from far off, and by no means up close; maybe he only likes creating it, and not living in it, leaving it afterwards aux animaux domestiques, 18 such as ants, sheep, and so on and so forth. Now, ants have totally different tastes. They have a remarkable edifice of the same sort, forever indestructible - the
