All Things are Possible - Lev Shestov

Evolution.—In recent years we see more and more change in the philosophies of writers and even of non-literary people. The old men are beside themselves—such shiftiness seems indecent. After all, convictions are not gloves. But the young carelessly pass on from one idea to another. Irresolute men are somewhat timid, and although they abandon their former convictions they do not declare the change openly. Others, however, plainly announce, as if it were nothing, how far they now are from the beliefs they held six months ago. One even publishes whole volumes relating how he passed on from one philosophy to another, and then to a third. People see nothing alarming in that kind of "evolution." They believe it is in the ordering of things. But not so at all! The readiness to leave off one set of convictions in order to assume another set shows complete indifference to convictions altogether. Not for nothing do the old sound the alarm. But to us who have fought so long against all kinds of constancy, the levity of the young is a pleasant sight. They will don materialism, positivism, Kantianism, spiritualism, and so on, one after the other, till they realise that all theories, ideas and ideals are as of little consequence as the hoop-skirts and crinolines of our grandmothers. Then they will begin to live without ideals and pre-arranged purposes, without foresight, relying on chance and their own ready wit. This way, too, must be tried. Perhaps we shall do better by it.... Anyhow, it will be more fun.

Strength of will.—Weakness and paralysis of the will, a very dangerous disease in our times, and in most other times, consists not in the absolute loss of desire, such as takes place in the very old, but in the loss of the capacity to translate desire into deed. A diseased will is often met in violently passionate men, so that the proverb—"Say I will not, not I cannot"—does not always hold good. Man often would, but cannot. And then the force of desire instead of moving to outward creation, works inwardly. This is justly considered the most dangerous effect of the weakening of the will. For inward working is destructive working. Man does not only, to put it scientifically, fail to adapt nature to his needs, but he loses his own power of adaptability to outward circumstances. The most ordinary doctor, or even anybody, decides that he has before him a pathological case which must be treated with care. The patient is of the same opinion, whilst he still hopes. But when the treatment has had no results, the doctor draws back and speaks of the inadequacy of his science. Then what is the patient to retire upon? It is disgusting to speak of an incurable disease. So he begins to think, think, think—all the time about things of which nobody thinks. He is gradually forgotten, and gradually he forgets everything—but first of all, that widespread truth which asserts that no judgments are valid save those that are accepted and universal. Not that he disputes the truth: he forgets it, and there is none to remind him. To him all his judgments seem valid and important. Of course he cannot advance the principle: let all men turn from the external world into themselves. But why advance a principle at all? One can simply say: I am indifferent to the destinies of the external world. I do not want to move mountains or turn rivers aside or rearrange the map of Europe. I don't even want to go to the tobacconist to buy cigarettes. I don't want to do anything. I want to think that my inaction is the most important thing on earth, that any "disease" is better than health, and so on and so on without end. To what thought's will not a man abandoned by medicine and doctors sink down! His judgments are not binding on us, that is as clear as day. But are they uninteresting? And is that paralysis, that weakness of will, a disease only?

Death and metaphysics.—A superficial observer knows that the best things in life are hard to attain. Some psychologists even consider that the chief beauty of the highest things consists in their unattainability. This is surely not true—yet there is a grain in it. The roads to good things are dangerous to travel. Is it because nature is so much poorer than we imagine, so she must lock up her blessings, or is there some greater meaning in it, that we have not guessed? For the fact is, the more alluring an end we have in view, the more risks and horrors we must undertake to get there. May we not also make a contrary suggestion: that behind every danger something good is hidden, and that therefore danger serves as an indication, a mark to guide us onwards, not as a warning, as we are taught to believe. To decide this would be to decide that behind death, the greatest of dangers, must lie the most promising things. It is as well not to speculate further. We had best stop lest we quarrel even with metaphysics. Traditional metaphysics has always been able to illumine our temporal existence with the reflected beams of eternity. Let us follow the example. Let us make no attempt to know the absolute. If you have discovered a comforting hypothesis, even in the upper transcendental air, drag it quickly to earth where labouring men forever await even an imaginary relief from their lot. We must make use of everything, even of death, to serve the ends of this life of ours.

The future.—A clever, reasonable boy, accustomed to trust his common sense, read in a book for children a description of a shipwreck which occurred just as the passengers were eating their sweets at dessert. He was astonished to learn that everyone, women and children as well, who could give no assistance-whatever in saving the ship, left their dessert and rushed on deck with wailing and tears. Why wail, why rush about, why be stupidly agitated? The crew knew their business and would do all that could be done. If you are going to perish, perish you will, no matter how you scream. It seemed to the boy that if he had been on the ship he would just have gone on eating his sweets to the last moment. Justice should be done to this judicious and irreproachable opinion. There remained only a few minutes to live—would it not have been better to enjoy them? The logic is perfect, worthy of Aristotle. And it was found impossible to prove to the boy that he would have left his sweets, even his favourite sweets, under the same circumstances, and rushed, and screamed with the rest. Hence a moral—do not decide about the future. To-day common sense is uppermost, and sweets are your highest law. But to-morrow you will get rid of normality and sense, you will link on with nonsense and absurdity, and probably you will even get a taste for bitters. What do you think?

A priori synthetic judgments.—Kant, as we know, found in mathematics and the natural sciences a priori synthetic judgments. Was he right or wrong? Are the judgments he indicated a priori or a posteriori? Anyhow, one thing is certain: they are not accepted as absolutely, but only as relatively indisputable. In metaphysics, where the only curious and important truths are hidden, the case is different. Kant was compelled to admit that just where metaphysics begin the capacity of our human reason to judge a priori ends. But since we cannot dispense with metaphysical judgments, he proposed to substitute for them postulates. At the same time he admitted the optimistic presupposition that in the domain of the transcendental we shall find all that we miss in the world of phenomena. So that, because he could not invent a truly scientific metaphysics, he contrived to present us with a non-scientific sort. Which is to say, after many round-about journeys he brings his readers along the opposite way right back to the very spot from which he led them off. Surely non-scientific metaphysics existed before Kant: the mediaeval philosophers had plenty of phantasies and speculations, all supported by "moral" proofs. If Kant wanted to reform metaphysics, he should have got rid of its favourite method of obtaining truths through inferential "conclusions." Men are greedy, they want to learn much, and get their knowledge cheap. So they think that every truth they have paid for with experience and loss of energy entitles them to a few more truths gratis: or, in philosophic language, a priori, by deduction. They are not ashamed to speculate with a gift that has been given them. Instead of looking, listening, touching, seeking, they want to infer and conclude. Certainly if they could wring any secret out of nature, no matter by what means, cunning, impudence, fraud, we would forgive them—conquerors are not judged. But nothing comes of their "conclusions" save metaphysical systems and empty prattle. It is surely time to give up conclusions, and get truth a posteriori, as did Shakspeare, Goethe, Dostoevsky; that is, every time you want to know anything, go and look and find out. And if one is lazy, or horrified at a new experiment, let him train himself to look on ultimate questions with indifference, as the positivists do. But moral, ontological and such like arguments!—really, it is disgusting to talk about them. Every new experiment is interesting; but our conclusions, i.e., synthetic judgments a priori, are mostly pompous lies, not worth the scrap of paper on which they are recorded.