Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard

by Søren Kierkegaard

In order to prevent any misunderstanding about the manner of presentation in this remarkable book, it will be well to add Kierkegaard's own remark after reading a conscientious German review of his "Trifles": "Although the account given is correct, every one who reads it will obtain an altogether incorrect impression of the book; because the account the critic gives is in the ex cathedra style (docerende), which will produce on the reader the impression that the book is written in a like manner. But this is in my eyes the worst misconception possible." And as to its peculiar conversational, entertaining manner which in the most leisurely, legère fashion and in an all but dogmatic style treats of the profoundest problems, it is well to recall the similarly popular manner of Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales. Like him—and his grand prototype Socrates—Kierkegaard has the singular faculty of attacking the most abstruse matters with a chattiness bordering on frivolity, yet without ever losing dignity.

For four and a half years Kierkegaard had now, notwithstanding his feeble health, toiled feverishly and, as he himself states, without even a single day's remission. And "the honorarium had been rather Socratic": all of his books had been brought out at his own expense, and their sale had been, of course, small. (Of the "Final Postscript," e.g., which had cost him between 500 and 600 rixdollars, only 60 copies were sold). Hardly any one had understood what the purpose of this "literature" was. He himself had done, with the utmost exertion and to the best of his ability, what he set out to do: to show his times, which had assumed that being a Christian is an easy enough matter, how unspeakably difficult a matter it really is and what terribly severe demands it makes on natural man. He now longed for rest and seriously entertained the plan of bringing his literary career to a close and spending the remainder of his days as a pastor of some quiet country parish, there to convert his philosophy into terms of practical existence. But this was not to be. An incident which would seem ridiculously small to a more robust nature sufficed to inflict on Kierkegaard's sensitive mind the keenest tortures and thus to sting him into a renewed and more passionate literary activity.

As it happened, the comic paper Korsaren "The Corsair" was then at the heyday of its career. The first really democratic periodical in Denmark, it stood above party lines and through its malicious, brilliant satire and amusing caricatures of prominent personalities was hated, feared, and enjoyed by everybody. Its editor, the Jewish author Meir Goldschmidt, was a warm and outspoken admirer of the philosopher. Kierkegaard, on the other hand, had long regarded the Press with suspicion. He loathed it because it gave expression to, and thus subtly flattered, the multitude, "the public," "the mob"—as against the individual, and because it worked with the terrible weapon of anonymity; but held it especially dangerous by reason of its enormous circulation and daily repetition of mischievous falsehoods. So it seemed to him who ever doubted the ability of the "people" to think for themselves. In a word, the Press is to him "the evil principle in the modern world." Needless to say, the tactics of "The Corsair," in particular, infuriated him.

In a Christmas annual (1845) there had appeared a blundering review, by one of the collaborators on "The Corsair," of his "Stages on Life's Road." Seizing the opportunity offered, Kierkegaard wrote a caustic rejoinder, adding the challenge: "Would that I now soon appear in 'The Corsair.' It is really hard on a poor author to be singled out in Danish literature by remaining the only one who is not abused in it." We know now that Goldschmidt did his best in a private interview to ward off a feud, but when rebuffed he turned the batteries of his ridicule on the personality of his erstwhile idol. And for the better part of a year the Copenhagen public was kept laughing and grinning about the unequal trouser legs, the spindle shanks, the inseparable umbrella, the dialectic propensities, of "Either-Or," as Kierkegaard came to be called by the populace; for, owing to his peripatetic habits—acquired in connection with the Indirect Communication—he had long been a familiar figure on the streets of the capital. While trying to maintain an air of indifference, he suffered the tortures of the damned. In his Journal (several hundred of whose pages are given over to reflections on this experience) we find exclamations such as this one: "What is it to be roasted alive at a slow fire, or to be broken on the wheel or, as they do in warm climates, to be smeared with honey and put at the mercy of the insects—what is that in comparison with this torture: to be grinned to death!"

There could be no thought now of retiring to a peaceful charge in the country. That would have been fleeing from persecution. Besides, unbeknown perhaps to himself, his pugnacity was aroused. While under the influence of the "Corsair Feud" (as it is known in Danish literature) he completes the booklet "A Literary Review." This was originally intended as a purely æsthetic evaluation and appreciation of the (then anonymous) author[7] of the Hverdagshistorier "Commonplace Stories" that are praised by him for their thoughtful bodying forth of a consistent view of life which—however different from his own—yet commanded his respect. He now appended a series of bitter reflections on the Present Times, paying his respects to the Press, which he calls incomparably the worst offender in furnishing people with cheap irony, in forcibly levelling out and reducing to mediocrity all those who strive to rise above it intellectually—words applicable, alas! no less to our own times. To him, however, who in a religious sense has become the captain of his soul, the becoming a butt of the Press is but a true test. Looking up, Kierkegaard sees in his own fate the usual reward accorded by mankind to the courageous souls who dare to fight for the truth, for the ideal—for Christianity, against the "masses." In a modern way, through ridicule, he was undergoing the martyrdom which the blood witnesses of old had undergone for the sake of their faith. Their task it had been to preach the Gospel among the heathen. His, he reasoned, was in nowise easier: to make clear to uncomprehending millions of so-called Christians that they were not Christians at all, that they did not even know what Christianity is: suffering and persecution, as he now recognizes, being inseparable from the truly Christian life.

First, then, the road had to be cleared, emphatically, for the truth that Christianity and "the public" are opposite terms. The collection of "Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits" is thus a religious parallel to the polemic in his "Review." The first part of these meditations has for its text: "The purity of the heart consists in willing one thing"—and this one thing is necessarily the good, the ideal; but only he who lives his life as the individual can possibly will the good—else it is lived in duplicity, for the world will share his aspirations, he will bid for the rewards which the bowing before the crowd can give him. In the second part, entitled "What we may learn from the Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Air"—one of Kierkegaard's favorite texts—the greatest danger to the ethic-religious life is shown to be the uneasiness about our material welfare which insidiously haunts our thought-life, and, notwithstanding our best endeavors, renders us essentially slaves to "the crowd"; whereas it is given to man, created in the image of God, to be as self-contained, unafraid, hopeful as are (symbolically) the lily and the bird. The startlingly new development attained through his recent experiences is most evident in the third part, "The Gospel of Sufferings," in which absolute stress is laid on the imitation of Christ in the strictest sense. Only the "individual" can compass this: the narrow way to salvation must be traveled alone; and will lead to salvation only if the world is, literally, overcome in persecution and tribulation. And, on the other hand, to be happy in this world is equivalent to forfeiting salvation. Thus briefly outlined, the contents of this book would seem to be sheer monkish asceticism; but no synopsis, however full, can hope to give an idea of its lyrical pathos, its wealth of tender reflections, the great love tempering the stern severity of its teaching.

With wonderful beauty "The Deeds of Love" (Kjerlighedens Gjerninger) (1847) are exalted as the Christian's help and salvation against the tribulations of the world—love, not indeed of the human kind, but of man through God. "You are not concerned at all with what others do to you, but only with what you do to others; and also, with how you react to what others do to you—you are concerned, essentially, only with yourself, before God."

In rapid succession there follow "Christian Discourses"; "The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air"; "Sickness Unto Death" (with the sub-title "A Christian Psychological Exposition"); "Two Religious Treatises"; "The High Priest, the Publican, the Sinner"; "Three Discourses on the Occasion of Communion on Friday."

In the course of these reflections it had become increasingly clear to Kierkegaard that the self-constituted representative of Christ—the Church or, to mention only the organization he was intimately acquainted with, the Danish State Church—had succeeded in becoming a purely worldly organization whose representatives, far from striving to follow Christ, had made life quite comfortable for themselves; retort to which was presently made that by thus stressing "contemporaneousness" with its aspects of suffering and persecution, Kierkegaard had both exceeded the accepted teaching of the Church and staked the attainment of Christianity so high as to drive all existing forms of it ad absurdum.

In his lndövelse i Christendom "Preparation for a Christian Life" and the somber Til Selvprövelse "For a Self-Examination" Kierkegaard returns to the attack with a powerful re-examination of the whole question as to how far modern Christianity corresponds to that of the Founder. Simply, but with grandiose power, he works out in concrete instances the conception of "contemporaneousness" gained in the "Final Postscript"; at the same time demonstrating to all who have eyes to see, the axiomatic connection between the doctrine of Propitiation and Christ's life in debasement; that Christianity consists in absolutely dying to the world; and that the Christianity which does not live up to this is but a travesty on Christianity. We may think what we please about this counsel of perfection, and judge what we may about the rather arbitrary choice of Scripture passages on which Kierkegaard builds: no serious reader, no sincere Christian can escape the searching of heart sure to follow this tremendous arraignment of humanity false to its divine leader. There is nothing more impressive in all modern literature than the gallery of "opinions" voiced by those arrayed against Christ when on earth—and now—as to what constitutes the "offense."