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The attached file is the assigned reading.

Fear and Trembling

by

Johannes DE SILENTIO, 1843

(alias Søren Kierkegaard)

tr. Walter Lowrie, 1941

Table of Contents

Was Tarquinius Superbus in seinem Garten mit den
Mohnkopfen sprach, verstand der Sohn, aber nicht
der Bote. (What Tarquinius Superbus spoke in his

garden with the poppies was understood by his son,
but not by the messenger.)1 – Hamann.

Chapters Preface Prelude A Panegyric upon Abraham Problemata: Problem I Problem II Problem III Epilogue

An HTML Presentation by Siegfried

PREFACE2

Not merely in the realm of commerce but in the world of ideas as well our age is
organizing a regular clearance sale. Everything is to be had at such a bargain that it is
questionable whether in the end there is anybody who will want to bid. Every
speculative price-fixer who conscientiously directs attention to the significant march of
modern philosophy, every Privatdocent, tutor, and student, every crofter and cottar in
philosophy, is not content with doubting everything but goes further. Perhaps it would

individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute/or else faith never existed,
because it has always existed, or, to put it differently, Abraham is lost, or one must
explain the passage in the fourteenth chapter of Luke as did that tasteful exegete, and
explain in the same way the corresponding passages and similar ones.61

PROBLEM III

Was Abraham ethically defensible in keeping silent about his
purpose before Sarah, before Eleazar, before Isaac?

The ethical as such is the universal, again, as the universal it is the manifest, the
revealed. The individual regarded as he is immediately, that is, as a physical and
psychical being, is the hidden, the concealed. So his ethical task is to develop out of this
concealment and to reveal himself in the universal. Hence whenever he wills to remain
in concealment he sins and lies in temptation (Anfechtung), out of which he can come
only by revealing himself.

With this we are back again at the same point. If there is not a concealment
which has its ground in the fact that the individual as the individual is higher than the
universal, then Abraham’s conduct is indefensible, for he paid no heed to the
intermediate ethical determinants. If on the other hand there is such a concealment, we
are in the presence of the paradox which cannot be mediated inasmuch as it rests upon
the consideration that the individual as the individual is higher than the universal, but it
is the universal precisely which is mediation. The Hegelian philosophy holds that there is
no justified concealment, no justified incommensurability. So it is self-consistent when it
requires revelation, but it is not warranted in regarding Abraham as the father of faith
and in talking about faith. For faith is not the first immediacy but a subsequent
immediacy. The first immediacy is the aesthetical, and about this the Hegelian
philosophy may be in the right. But faith is not the aesthetical–or else faith has never
existed because it has always existed.

It will be best to regard the whole matter from a purely aesthetical point of
view, and with that intent to embark upon an aesthetic deliberation, to which I beg the
reader to abandon himself completely for the moment, while I, to contribute my share,
will modify my presentation in conformity with the subject. The category I would
consider a little more closely is the interesting, a category which especially in our age
(precisely because our age lives in discrimine rerum) [at a turning point in history] has
acquired great importance, for it is properly the category of the turning-point. Therefore
we, after having loved this category pro virili [with all our power], should not scorn it as
some do because we have outgrown it, but neither should we be too greedy to attain it,
for certain it is that to be interesting or to have an interesting life is not a task for
industrial art but a fateful privilege, which like every privilege in the world of spirit is
bought only by deep pain. Thus, for example, Socrates was the most interesting man
that ever lived, his life the most interesting that has been recorded, but this existence
was alloted to him by the Deity, and in so far as he himself had to acquire it he was not
unacquainted with trouble and pain. To take such a life in vain does not beseem a man
who takes life seriously, and yet it is not rare to see in our age examples of such an
endeavor. Moreover the interesting is a border-category, a boundary between
aesthetics and ethics. For this reason our deliberation must constantly glance over into
the field of ethics, while in order to be able to acquire significance it must grasp the
problem with aesthetic intensity and concupiscence. With such matters ethics seldom
deals in our age. The reason is supposed to be that there is no appropriate place for it
in the System. Then surely one might do it in a monograph, and moreover, if one would

not do it prolixly, one might do it briefly and yet attain the same end–if, that is to say, a
man has the predicate in his power, for one or two predicates can betray a whole world.
Might there not be some place in the System for a little word like the predicate?

In his immortal Poetics (Chapter 11) Aristotle says,62 dúo mèn oûn toû múqou
mérh perì taût’ e’stí, peripéteia kaì a’nagnw’risiv. I am of course concerned here only
with the second factor, a’nagnw’risiv, recognition. Where there can be question of a
recognition there is implied eo ipso a previous concealment. So just as recognition is the
relieving, the relaxing factor in the dramatic life, so is concealment the factor of tension.
What Aristotle has to say in the same chapter about the merits of tragedy which are
variously appraised in proportion as peripéteia and a’nagnw’risiv impinge63 upon one
another, and also what he says about the “individual” and the “double recognition,” I
cannot take into consideration here, although by its inwardness and quiet concentration
what he says is peculiarly tempting to one who is weary of the superficial omniscience
of encyclopedic scholars. A more general observation may be appropriate here. In
Greek tragedy concealment (and consequently recognition) is an epic survival grounded
upon a fate in which the dramatic action disappears from view and from which it derives
its obscure and enigmatic origin. Hence it is that the effect produced by a Greek tragedy
is like the impression of a marble statue which lacks the power of the eye. Greek
tragedy is blind. Hence a certain abstraction is necessary in order to appreciate it
properly. A son64 murders his father, but only afterwards does he learn that it was his
father. A sister65 wants to sacrifice her brother, but at the decisive moment she learns
who he is. This dramatic motive is not so apt to interest our reflective age. Modern
drama has given up fate, has emancipated itself dramatically, sees with its eyes,
scrutinizes itself, resolves fate in its dramatic consciousness. Concealment and
revelation are in this case the hero’s free act for which he is responsible.

Recognition and concealment are also present as an essential element in
modern drama. To adduce examples of this would be too prolix. I am courteous enough
to assume that everybody in our age, which is so aesthetically wanton, so potent and so
enflamed that the act of conception comes as easy to it as to the partridge hen, which,
according to Aristotle’s affirmation,66 needs only to hear the voice of the cock or the
sound of its flight overhead–I assume that everyone, merely upon hearing the word
“concealment” will be able to shake half a score of romances and comedies out of his
sleeve. Wherefore I express myself briefly and so will throw out at once a general
observation. In case one who plays hide and seek (and thereby introduces into the play
the dramatic ferment) hides something nonsensical, we get a comedy; if on the other
hand he stands in relation to the idea, he may come near being a tragic hero. I give
here merely an example of the comic. A man rouges his face and wears a periwig. The
same man is eager to try his fortune with the fair sex, he is perfectly sure of conquering
by the aid of the rouge and the periwig which make him absolutely irresistible. He
captures a girl and is at the acme of happiness. Now comes the gist of the matter: if he
is able to admit this embellishment, he does not lose all of his infatuating power; when
he reveals himself as a plain ordinary man, and bald at that, he does not thereby lose
the loved one.–Concealment is his free act, for which aesthetics also holds him
responsible. This science is no friend of bald hypocrites, it abandons him to the mercy of
laughter. This must suffice as a mere hint of what I mean–the comical cannot be a
subject of interest for this investigation.

It is incumbent upon me to examine dialectically the part played by concealment
in aesthetics and ethics, for the point is to show the absolute difference between the
aesthetic concealment and the paradox.

A couple of examples. A girl is secretly in love with a man, although they have
not definitely avowed their love to one another. Her parents compel her to marry

another (there may be moreover a consideration of filial piety which determines her),
she obeys her parents, she conceals her love, “so as not to make the other unhappy,
and no one will ever know what she suffers.”–A young man is able by a single word to
get possession of the object of his longings and his restless dreams. This little word,
however, will compromise, yea, perhaps (who knows?) bring to ruin a whole family, he
resolves magnanimously to remain in his concealment, “the girl shall never get to know
it, so that she may perhaps become happy by giving her hand to another.” What a pity
that these two persons, both of whom were concealed from their respective beloveds,
were also concealed from one another, otherwise a remarkable higher unity might have
been brought about.–Their concealment is a free act, for which they are responsible
also to aesthetics. Aesthetics, however, is a courteous and sentimental science which
knows of more expedients than a pawnbroker. So what does it do? It makes everything
possible for the lovers. By the help of a chance the partners to the projected marriage
get a hint of the magnanimous resolution of the other part, it comes to an explanation,
they get one another and at the same time attain rank with real heroes. For in spite of
the fact that they did not even get time to sleep over their resolution, aesthetics treats
them nevertheless as if they had courageously fought for their resolution during many
years. For aesthetics does not trouble itself greatly about time, whether in jest or
seriousness time flies equally fast for it.

But ethics knows nothing about that chance or about that sentimentality, nor
has it so speedy a concept of time. Thereby the matter receives a different aspect. It is
no good arguing with ethics for it has pure categories. It does not appeal to experience,
which of all ludicrous things is the most ludicrous, and which so far from making a man
wise rather makes him mad if he knows nothing higher than this. Ethics has in its
possession no chance, and so matters do not come to an explanation, it does not jest
with dignities, it lays a prodigious responsibility upon the shoulders of the puny hero, it
denounces as presumption his wanting to play providence by his actions, but it also
denounces him for wanting to do it by his suffering. It bids a man believe in reality and
have courage to fight against all the afflictions of reality, and still more against the
bloodless sufferings he has assumed on his own responsibility. It warns against
believing the calculations of the understanding, which are more perfidious than the
oracles of ancient times. It warns agtunst every untimely magnanimity. Let reality
decide–then is the time to show courage, but then ethics itself offers all possible
assistance. If, however, there was something deeper which moved in these two, if there
was seriousness to see the task, seriousness to commence it, then something will come
of them; but ethics cannot help, it is offended, for they keep a secret from it, a secret
they hold at their own peril.

So aesthetics required concealment and rewarded it, ethics required revelation
and punished concealment.

At times, however, even aesthetics requires revelation. When the hero ensnared
in the aesthetic illusion thinks by his silence to save another man, then it requires
silence and rewards it. On the other hand, when the hero by his action intervenes
disturbingly in another man’s life, then it requires revelation. I am now on the subject of
the tragic hero. I would consider for a moment Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis.
Agamemnon must sacrifice Iphigenia. Now aesthetics requires silence of Agamemnon
inasmuch as it would be unworthy of the hero to seek comfort from any other man, and
out of solicitude for the women too he ought to conceal this from them as long as
possible. On the other hand, the hero, precisely in order to be a hero, must be tried by
dreadful temptations which the tears of Clytemnestra and Iphigenia provide for him.
What does aesthetics do? It has an expedient, it has in readiness an old servant who
reveals everything to Clytemnestra. Then all is as it should be.

Ethics, however, has at hand no chance and no old servant. The aesthetical idea

contradicts itself as soon as it must be carried out in reality. Hence ethics requires
revelation. The tragic hero displays his ethical courage precisely by the fact that it is he
who, without being ensnared in any aesthetic illusion, himself announces to Iphigenia
her fate. If the tragic hero does this, then he is the beloved son of ethics in whom it is
well pleased. If he keeps silent, it may be because he thinks thereby to make it easier
for others, but it may also be because thereby he makes it easier for himself. However,
he knows that he is not influenced by this latter motive. If he keeps silent, he assumes
as the individual a serious responsibility inasmuch as he ignores an argument which
may come from without. As a tragic hero he cannot do this, for ethics loves him
precisely because he constantly expresses the universal. His heroic action demands
courage, but it belongs to this courage that he shall shun no argumentation. Now it is
certain that tears are a dreadful argumentum ad hominem, and doubtless there are
those who are moved by nothing yet are touched by tears. In the play Iphigenia had
leave to weep, really she ought to have been allowed like Jephthah’s daughter two
months for weeping, not in solitude but at her father’s feet, allowed to employ all her
art “which is but tears,” and to twine about his knees instead of presenting the olive
branch of the suppliant.

Aesthetics required revelation but helped itself out by a chance; ethics required
revelation and found in the tragic hero its satisfaction.

In spite of the severity with which ethics requires revelation, it cannot be denied
that secrecy and silence really make a man great precisely because they are
characteristics of inwardness. When Amor leaves Psyche he says to her, “Thou shalt
give birth to a child which will be a divine infant if thou dost keep silence, but a human
being if thou dost reveal the secret.” The tragic hero who is the favorite of ethics is the
purely human, and him I can understand, and all he does is in the light of the revealed.
If I go further, then I stumble upon the paradox, either the divine or the demoniac, for
silence is both. Silence is the snare of the demon, and the more one keeps silent, the
more terrifying the demon becomes; but silence is also the mutual understanding
between the Deity and the individual.

Before going on to the story of Abraham, however, I would call before the
curtain several poetic personages. By the power of dialectic I keep them upon tiptoe,
and by wielding over them the scourge of despair I shall surely keep them from
standing still, in order that in their dread they may reveal one thing and another.*

*These movements and attitudes might well be a subject for further aesthetic treatment.
However, I leave it undecided to what extent faith and the whole life of faith might be a fit
subject for such treatment. Only, because it is always a joy to me to thank him to whom I am
indebted, I would thank Lessing for some hints of a Christian drama which is found in his
Hamburgische Dramaturgie.69 He, however, fixed his glance upon the purely divine side of the
Christian life (the consummated victory) and hence he had misgivings; perhaps he would have
expressed a different judgment if he had paid more attention to the purely human side
(theologia viatorum).70 Doubtless what he says is very brief, in part evasive, but since I am
always glad to have the company of Lessing, I seize it at once. Lessing was not merely one of
the most comprehensive minds Germany has had, he not only was possessed of rare exactitude
in his learning (for which reason one can securely rely upon him and upon his autopsy without
fear of being duped by inaccurate quotations which can be traced nowhere, by half-understood
phrases which are drawn from untrustworthy compendiums, or to be disoriented by a foolish
trumpeting of novelties which the ancients have expounded far better) but he possessed at the
same time an exceedingly uncommon gift of explaining what he himself had understood. There
he stopped. In our age people go further and explain more than they have understood.

In his Poetics67 Aristotle relates a story of a political disturbance at Delphi which was
provoked by a question of marriage. The bridegroom, when the augurs68 foretell to him
that a misfortune would follow his marriage, suddenly changes his plan at the decisive
moment when he comes to fetch the bride–he will not celebrate the wedding. I have no
need of more.*

*According to Aristotle the historic catastrophe was as follows. To avenge themselves the family
of the bride introduced a temple-vessel among his household goods, and he is sentenced as a
temple-robber. This, however, is of no consequence, for the question is not whether the family
is shrewd or stupid in taking revenge. The family has an ideal significance only in so far as it is
drawn into the dialectic of the hero. Besides it is fateful enough that he, when he would shun
danger by not marrying, plunges into it, and also that his life comes into contact with the divine
in a double way: first by the saying of the augurs, and then by being condemned for sacrilege.

In Delphi this event hardly passed without tears; if a poet were to have adopted it as
his theme, he might have dared to count very surely upon sympathy. Is it not dreadful
that love, which in human life often enough was cast into exile, is now deprived of the
support of heaven? Is not the old proverb that “marriages are made in heaven” here put
to shame? Usually it is all the afflictions and difficulties of the finite which like evil spirits
separate the lovers, but love has heaven on its side, and therefore this holy alliance
overcomes all enemies. In this case it is heaven itself which separates what heaven
itself has joined together. And who would have guessed such a thing? The young bride
least of all. Only a moment before she was sitting in her chamber in all her beauty, and
the lovely maidens had conscientiously adorned her so that they could justify before all
the world what they had done, so that they not merely derived joy from it but envy,
yea, joy for the fact that it was not possible for them to become more envious, because
it was not possible for her to become more beautiful. She sat alone in her chamber and
was transformed from beauty unto beauty, for every means was employed that
feminine art was capable of to adorn worthily the worthy. But there still was lacking
something which the young maidens had not dreamed of: a veil finer, lighter and yet
more impenetrable than that in which the young maidens had enveloped her, a bridal
dress which no young maiden knew of or could help her to obtain, yea, even the bride
herself did not know how to obtain it. It was an invisible, a friendly power, taking
pleasure in adorning a bride, which enveloped her in it without her knowledge; for she
saw only how the bridegroom passed by and went up to the temple. She saw the door
shut behind him, and she became even more calm and blissful, for she only knew that
he now belonged to her more than ever. The door of the temple opened, he stepped
out, but maidenly she cast down her eyes and therefore did not see that his
countenance was troubled, but he saw that heaven was jealous of the bride’s loveliness
and of his good fortune. The door of the temple opened, and the young maidens saw
the bridegroom step out, but they did not see that his countenance was troubled, they
were busy fetching the bride. Then forth she stepped in all her maidenly modesty and
yet like a queen surrounded by her maids of honor, who bowed before her as the young
maiden always bows before a bride. Thus she stood at the head of her lovely band and
waited–it was only an instant, for the temple was near at hand–and the bridegroom
came … but he passed by her door.

But here I break off–I am not a poet, I go about things only dialectically. It must
be remembered first of all that it is at the decisive instant the hero gets this elucidation,
so he is pure and blameless, has not light-mindedly tied himself to the fiancée. In the

next place, he has a divine utterance for him, or rather against him,71 he is therefore
not guided like those puny lovers by his own conceit. Moreover, it goes without saying
that this utterance makes him just as unhappy as the bride, yea, a little more so, since
he after all is the occasion of her unhappiness. It is true enough that the augurs only
foretold a misfortune to him, but the question is whether this misfortune is not of such
a sort that in injuring him it would also affect injuriously their conjugal happiness. What
then is he to do? (1) Shall he preserve silence and celebrate the wedding?–with the
thought that “perhaps the misfortune will not come at once, at any rate I have upheld
love and have not feared to make myself unhappy. But keep silent I must, for otherwise
even the short moment is wasted.” This seems plausible, but it is not so by any means,
for in doing this he has insulted the girl. He has in a way made the girl guilty by his
silence, for in case she had known the truth she never would have consented to such a
union. So in the hour of need he would not only have to bear the misfortune but also
the responsibility for having kept silent and her justified indignation that he had kept
silent. Or (2) shall he keep silent and give up celebrating the wedding? In this case he
must embroil himself in a mystifictition by which he reduces himself to naught in
relation to her. Aesthetics would perhaps approve of this. The catastrophe might then
be fashioned like that of the real story, except that at the last instant an explanation
would be forthcoming–however, that would be after it was all over, since aesthetically
viewed it is a necessity to let him die … unless this science should see its way to annul
the fateful prophecy. Still, this behavior, magnanimous as it is, implies an offense
against the girl and against the reality of her love. Or (3) shall he speak? One of course
must not forget that our hero is a little too poetical for us to suppose that to sign away
his love might not have for him a significance very different from the result of an
unsuccessful business speculation. If he speaks, the whole thing becomes a story of
unhappy love in the style of Axel and Valborg.*

*Moreover, from this point one might conduct the dialectical movements in another direction.
Heaven foretells a misfortune consequent upon his marriage, so in fact he might give up the
wedding but not for this reason give up the girl, rather live with her in a romantic union which
for the lovers would be more than satisfactory. This implies, however, an offense against the girl
because in his love for her he does not express the universal. However, this would be a theme
both for a poet and for an ethicist who would defend marriage. On the whole, if poetry were to
pay attention to the religious and to the inwardness of personalities, it would find themes of far
greater importance than those with which it now busies itself. In poetry one hears again and
again this story: a man is bound to a girl whom he once loved–or perhaps never sincerely loved,
for now he has seen another girl who is the ideal. A man makes a mistake in life, it was in the
right street but it was in the wrong house, for opposite, on the second floor, dwells the
ideal–this people think a theme for poetry. A lover has made a mistake, he saw his fiancée by
lamplight and thought she had dark hair, but, lo, on closer inspection she is blonde–but her
sister, she is the ideal! This they think is a theme for poetry! My opinion is that every such man
is a lout who may be intolerable enough in real life but ought instantly to be hissed off the stage
when he would give himself airs in poetry. Only passion against passion provides a poetic
collision, not the rumpus of these particulars within the same passion. If, for example, a girl in
the Middle Ages, after having fallen in love, convinces herself that all earthly love is a sin and
prefers a heavenly, here is a poetic collision, and the girl is poetic, for her life is in the idea.

This is a pair which heaven itself separates.72 However, in the present case the
separation is to be conceived somewhat differently since it results at the same time
from the free act of the individuals. What is so very difficult in the dialectic of this case
is that the misfortune is to fall only upon him. So the two lovers do not find like Axel
and Valborg a common expression for their suffering, inasmuch as heaven levels its
decree equally against Axel and Valborg because they are equally near of kin to one
another. If this were the case here, a way out would be thinkable. For since heaven

does not employ any visible power to separate them but leaves this to them, it is
thinkable that they might resolve between them to defy heaven and its misfortune too.

Ethics, however, will require him to speak. His heroism then is essentially to be
found in the fact that he gives up aesthetic magnanimity, which in this case, however,
could not easily be thought to have any admixture of the vanity which consists in being
hidden, for it must indeed be clear to him that he makes the girl unhappy. The reality of
this heroism depends, however, upon the fact that he had had his opportunity [for a
genuine love] and annulled it; for if such heroism could be acquired without this, we
should have plenty of heroes in our age, in our age which has attained an unparalleled
proficiency in forgery and does the highest things by leaping over the intermediate
steps.

But then why this sketch, since I get no further after all than the tragic hero?
Well, because it is at least possible that it might throw light upon the paradox.
Everything depends upon how this man stands related to the utterance of the augurs
which is in one way or another decisive for his life. Is this utterance publici juris, or is it
a privatissimum? The scene is laid in Greece, the utterance of the augur is intelligible to
all. I do not mean merely that the ordinary man is able to understand its content
lexically, but that the ordinary man can understand that an augur announces to the
individual the decision of heaven. So the utterance of the augur is not intelligible only to
the hero but to all, and no private relationship to the deity results from it. Do what he
will, that which is foretold will come to pass, and neither by doing nor by leaving
undone does he come into closer relationship with the deity, or become either the
object of its grace or of its wrath. The result foretold is a thing which any ordinary man
will be just as well able as the hero to understand, and there is no secret writing which
is legible to the hero only. Inasmuch as he would speak, he can do so perfectly well, for
he is able to make himself intelligible; inasmuch as he would keep silent, it is because
by virtue of being the individual he would be higher than the universal, would delude
himself with all sorts of fantastic notions about how she will soon forget the sorrow, etc.
On the other hand, in case the will of heaven had not been announced to him by an
augur, in case it had come to his knowledge in an entirely private way, in case it had
put itself into an entirely private relationship with him, then we encounter the paradox
(supposing there is such a thing–for my reflection takes the form of a dilemma), then
he could not speak, however much he might wish to.73 He did not then enjoy himself in
the silence but suffered pain–but this precisely was to him the assurance that he was
justified. So the reason for his silence is not that he as the individual would place
himself in an absolute relation to the universal, but that he as the individual was placed
in an absolute relation to the absolute. In this then he would also be able to find repose
(as well as I am able to figure it to myself), whereas his magnanimous silence would
constantly have been disquieted by the requirements of the ethical. It is very much to
be desired that aesthetics would for once essay to begin at the point where for so many
years it has ended, with the illusory magnanimity. Once it were to do this it would work
directly in the interest of the religious, for religion is the only power which can deliver
the aesthetical out of its conflict with the ethical. Queen Elizabeth74 sacrificed to the
State her love for Essex by signing his death-warrant. This was a heroic act, even if
there was involved a little personal grievance for the fact that he had not sent her the
ring. He had in fact sent it, as we know, but it was kept back by the malice of a lady of
the court. Elizabeth received intelligence of this (so it is related, ni fallor), thereupon
she sat for ten days with one finger in her mouth and bit it without saying a word, and
thereupon she died. This would be a theme for a poet who knew how to wrench the
mouth open–without this condition it is at the most serviceable to a conductor of the
ballet, with whom in our time the poet too often confuses himself.

I will follow this with a sketch which involves the demoniacal. The legend of
Agnes and the Merman will serve my purpose. The merman is a seducer who shoots up

from his hiding-place in the abyss, with wild lust grasps and breaks the innocent flower
which stood in all its grace on the seashore and pensively inclined its head to listen to
the howling of the ocean. This is what the poets hitherto have meant by it. Let us make
an alteration. The merman was a seducer. He had called to Agnes, had by his smooth
speech enticed from her the hidden sentiments, she has found in the merman what she
sought, what she was gazing after down at the bottom of the sea. Agnes would like to
follow him. The merman has lifted her up in his arms, Agnes twines about his neck, with
her whole soul she trustingly abandons herself to the stronger one; he already stands
upon the brink, he leans over the sea, about to plunge into it with his prey–then Agnes
looks at him once more, not timidly, not doubtingly, not proud of her good fortune, not
intoxicated by pleasure, but with absolute faith in him, with absolute humility, like the
lowly flower she conceived herself to be; by this look she entrusts to him with absolute
confidence her whole fate.75 And, behold, the sea roars no more, its voice is mute,
nature’s passion which is the merman’s strength leaves him in the lurch, a dead calm
ensues–and still Agnes continues to look at him thus. Then the merman collapses, he is
not able to resist the power of innocence, his native element is unfaithful to him, he
cannot seduce Agnes. He leads her back again, he explains to her that he only wanted
to show her how beautiful the sea is when it is calm, and Agnes believes him.–Then he
turns back alone and the sea rages, but despair in the merman rages more wildly. He is
able to seduce Agnes, he is able to seduce a hundred Agneses, he is able to infatuate
every girl–but Agnes has conquered, and the merman has lost her. Only as a prey can
she become his, he cannot belong faithfully to any girl, for in fact he is only a merman.
Here I have taken the liberty of making a little alteration* in the merman; substantially
I have also altered Agnes a little, for in the legend Agnes is not entirely without
fault–and generally speaking it is nonsense and coquetry and an insult to the feminine
sex to imagine a case of seduction where the girl is not the least bit to blame.

*One might also treat this legend in another way. The merman does not want to seduce Agnes,
although previously he had seduced many. He is no longer a merman, or, if one so will, he is a
miserable merman who already has long been sitting on the floor of the sea and sorrowing.
However, he knows (as the legend in fact teaches),76 that he can be delivered by the love of an
innocent girl. But he has a bad conscience with respect to girls and does not dare to approach
them. Then he sees Agnes. Already many a time when he was hidden in the reeds he had seen
her walking on the shore.77 Her beauty, her quiet occupation with herself, fixes his attention
upon her; but only sadness prevails in his soul, no wild desire stirs in it. And so when the
merman mingles his sighs with the soughing of the reeds she turns her ear thither, and then
stands still and falls to dreaming, more charming than any woman and yet beautiful as a
liberating angel which inspires the merman with confidence. The merman plucks up courage, he
approaches Agnes, he wins her love, he hopes for his deliverance. But Agnes was no quiet
maiden, she was fond of the roar of the sea, and the sad sighing beside the inland lake pleased
her only because then she seethed more strongly within. She would be off and away, she would
rush wildly out into the infinite with the merman whom she loved–so she incites the memman.
She disdained his humility, now pride awakens. And the sea roars and the waves foam and the
merman embraces Agnes and plunges with her into the deep. Never had he been so wild, never
so full of desire, for he had hoped by this girl to find deliverance. He soon became tired of
Agnes, yet no one ever found her corpse, for she became a mermaid who tempted men by her
songs.

In the legend Agnes is (to modernize my expression a little ) a woman who craves “the
interesting,” and every such woman can always be sure that there is a merrnan in the
offing, for with half an eye mermen discover the like of that and steer for it like a shark
after its prey. It is therefore very stupid to suppose (or is it a rumor which a merman
has spread abroad?) that the so-called culture protects a girl against seduction. No,
existence is more righteous and fair: there is only one protection, and that is innocence.

We will now bestow upon the merman a human consciousness and suppose that
the fact of his being a merman indicates a human pre-existence in the consequences of
which his life is entangled. There is nothing to prevent him from becoming a hero, for
the step he now takes is one of reconciliation. He is saved by Agnes, the seducer is
crushed, he has bowed to the power of innocence, he can never seduce again. But at
the same instant two powers are striving for possession of him: repentance; and Agnes
and repentance. If repentance alone takes possession of him, then he is hidden; if
Agnes and repentance take possession of him, then he is revealed.

Now in case repentance grips the merman and he remains concealed, he has
clearly made Agnes unhappy, for Agnes loved him in all her innocence, she believed
that at the instant when even to her he seemed changed, however well he hid it, he
was telling the truth in saying that he only wanted to show her the beautiful calmness
of the sea. However, with respect to passion the merman himself becomes still more
unhappy, for he loved Agnes with a multiplicity of passions and had besides a new guilt
to bear. The demoniacal element in repentance will now explain to him that this is
precisely his punishment [for the faults of his pre-existent state], and that the more it
tortures him the better.

If he abandons himself to this demoniacal influence, he then perhaps makes still
another attempt to save Agnes, in such a way as one can, in a certain sense, save a
person by means of the evil. He knows that Agnes loves him. If he could wrest from
Agnes this love, then in a way she is saved. But how? The merman has too much sense
to depend upon the notion that an open-hearted confession would awaken her disgust.
He will therefore try perhaps to incite in her all dark passions, will scorn her, mock her,
hold up her love to ridicule, if possible he will stir up her pride. He will not spare himself
any torment; for this is the profound contradiction in the demoniacal, and in a certain
sense there dwells infinitely more good in a demoniac than in a trivial person. The more
selfish Agnes is, the easier the deceit will prove for him (for it is only very inexperienced
people who suppose that it is easy to deceive innocence; existence is very profound,
and it is in fact the easiest thing for the shrewd to fool the shrewd)–but all the more
terrible will be the merman’s sufferings. The more cunningly his deceit is planned, the
less will Agnes bashfully hide from him her suffering; she will resort to every means,
nor will they be without effect–not to shake his resolution, I mean, but to torture him.

So by help of the demoniacal the merman desires to be the individual who as
the individual is higher than the universal. The demoniacal has the same characteristic
as the divine inasmuch as the individual can enter into an absolute relation to it. This is
the analogy, the counterpart, to that paradox of which we are talking. It has therefore a
certain resemblance which may deceive one. Thus the merman has apparently the proof
that his silence is justified for the fact that by it he suffers all his pain. However, there is
no doubt that he can talk. He can thus become a tragic hero, to my mind a grandiose
tragic hero, if he talks. Some, perhaps, will only understand wherein this is grandiose.*

*Aesthetics sometimes treats a similar subject with its customary coquetry. The merman is
saved by Agnes, and the whole thing ends in a happy marriage. A happy marriage! That’s easy
enough. On the other hand, if ethics were to deliver the address at the wedding service, it would
be quite another thing, I imagine. Aesthetics throws the cloak of love over the merman, and so
everything is forgotten. It is also careless enough to suppose that at a wedding things go as
they do at an auction where everything is sold in the state it is in when the hammer falls. All it
cares for is that the lovers get one another, it doesn’t trouble about the rest. If only it could see
what happens afterwards–but for that it has no time, it is at once in full swing with the business
of clapping together a new pair of lovers. Aesthetics is the most faithless of all sciences.
Everyone who has deeply loved it becomes in a certain sense unhappy, but he who has never

loved it is and remains a pecus.

He will then be able to wrest from his mind every self-deceit about his being able to
make Agnes happy by his trick, he will have courage, humanly speaking, to crush
Agnes. Here I would make in conclusion only one psychological observation. The more
selfishly Agnes has been developed, the more dazzling will the self-deception be, indeed
it is not inconceivable that in reality it might come to pass that a merman by his
demoniac shrewdness has, humanly speaking, not only saved an Agnes but brought
something extraordinary out of her; for a demon knows how to torture powers out of
even the weakest person, and in his way he may have the best intentions toward a
human being.

The merman stands at the dialectical turning-point. If he is delivered out of the
demoniacal into repentance there are two paths open to him. He may hold back, remain
in his concealment, but not rely upon his shrewdness. He does not come as the
individual into an absolute relationship with the demoniacal but finds repose in the
counter-paradox that the deity will save Agnes. (So it is the Middle Ages would perform
the movement, for according to its conception the merman is absolutely dedicated to
the cloister.) Or else he may be saved along with Agnes. Now this is not to be
understood to mean that by the love of Agnes for him he might be saved from being
henceforth a deceiver (this is the aesthetic way of performing a rescue, which always
goes around the main point, which is the continuity of the merman’s life); for so far as
that goes he is already saved, he is saved inasmuch as he becomes revealed. Then he
marries Agnes. But still he must have recourse to the paradox. For when the individual
by his guilt has gone outside the universal he can return to it only by virtue of having
come as the individual into an absolute relationship with the absolute. Here I will make
an observation by which I say more than was said at any point in the foregoing
discussion.*

*In the foregoing discussion I have intentionally refrained from any consideration of sin and its
reality. The whole discussion points to Abraham, and him I can still approach by immediate
categories–in so far, that is to say, as I am able to understand him. As soon as sin makes its
appearance ethics comes to grief precisely upon repentance; for repentance is the highest
ethical expression, but precisely as such it is the deepest ethical self-contradiction.

Sin is not the first immediacy, sin is a later immediacy. By sin the individual is already
higher (in the direction of the demoniacal paradox) than the universal, because it is a
contradiction on the part of the universal to impose itself upon a man who lacks the
conditio sine qua non. If philosophy among other vagaries were also to have the notion
that it could occur to a man to act in accordance with its teaching, one might make out
of that a queer comedy. An ethics which disregards sin is a perfectly idle science; but if
it asserts sin, it is eo ipso well beyond itself. Philosophy teaches that the immediate
must be annulled (aufgehoben). That is true enough; but what is not true in this is that
sin is as a matter of course the immediate, for that is no more true than that faith as a
matter of course is the immediate.

As long as I move in these spheres everything goes smoothly, but what is said
here does not by any means explain Abraham; for it was not by sin Abraham became

the individual, on the contrary, he was a righteous man, he is God’s elect. So the
analogy to Abraham will not appear until after the individual has been brought to the
point of being able to accomplish the universal, and then the paradox repeats itself.

The movements of the merman I can understand, whereas I cannot understand
Abraham; for it is precisely through the paradox that the merman comes to the point of
realizing the universal. For if he remains hidden and initiates himself into all the
torments of repentance, then he becomes a demon and as such is brought to naught. If
he remains concealed but does not think cunningly that being himself tormented in the
bondage of repentance he could work Agnes loose, then he finds peace indeed but is
lost for this world. If he becomes revealed and allows himself to be saved by Agnes,
then he is the greatest man I can picture to myself; for it is only the aesthetic writer
who thinks lightmindedly that he extols the power of love by letting the lost man be
loved by an innocent girl and thereby saved, it is only the aesthetic writer who sees
amiss and believes that the girl is the heroine, instead of the man being the hero. So
the merman cannot belong to Agnes unless, after having made the infinite movement,
the movement of repentance, he makes still one more movement by virtue of the
absurd. By his own strength he can make the movement of repentance, but for that he
uses up absolutely all his strength and hence he cannot by his own strength return and
grasp reality. If a man has not enough passion to make either the one movement or the
other, if he loiters through life, repenting a little, and thinks that the rest will take care
of itself, he has once for all renounced the effort to live in the idea–and then he can
very easily reach and help others to reach the highest attainments, i.e. delude himself
and others with the notion that in the world of spirit everything goes as in a well-known
game of cards where everything depends on haphazard. One can therefore divert
oneself by reflecting how strange it is that precisely in our age when everyone is able to
accomplish the highest things doubt about the immortality of the soul could be so
widespread, for the man who has really made even so much as the movement of
infinity is hardly a doubter. The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones, that
is, the only convincing conclusions. Fortunately existence is in this instance more kindly
and more faithful than the wise maintain, for it excludes no man, not even the lowliest,
it fools no one, for in the world of spirit only he is fooled who fools himself.

It is the opinion of all, and so far as I dare permit myself to pass judgment it is
also my opinion, that it is not the highest thing to enter the monastery; but for all that
it is by no means my opinion that in our age when nobody enters the monastery
everybody is greater than the deep and earnest souls who found repose in a monastery.
How many are there in our age who have passion enough to think this thought and then
to judge themselves honestly? This mere thought of taking time upon one’s conscience,
of giving it time to explore with its sleepless vigilance every secret thought, with such
effect that, if even, instant one does not make the movement by virtue of the highest
and holiest there is in a man, one is able with dread and horror to discover* and by
dread itself, if in no other way, to lure forth the obscure libido78 which is concealed after
all in even, human life, whereas on the contrary, when one lives in society with others
one so easily forgets, is let off so easily, is sustained in so many ways, gets opportunity
to start afresh–this mere thought, conceived with proper re spect, I would suppose,
must chasten many an individual in our age which imagines it has already reached the
highest attainment.

*People do not believe this in our serious age, and yet it is remarkable that even in paganism,
more easy-going and less given to redection, the two outstanding representatives of the Greek
gnôqi sautón [know thyself] as a conception of existence intimated each in his way that by
delving deep into oneself one would first of all discover the disposition to evil. I surely do not
need to say that I am thinking of Pythagoras and Socrates.

But about this people concern themselves very little in our age which has reached the
highest attainment, whereas in truth no age has so fallen victim to the comic as this
has, and it is incomprehensible that this age has not already by a generatio acquivoca
[breeding without mating] given birth to its hero, the demon who would remorselessly
produce the dreadful spectacle of making the whole age laugh and making it forget that
it was laughing at itself. Or what is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their
twenties have already attained the utmost? And for all that, what loftier emotion has
the age found since men gave up entering the monastery? Is it not a pitiable prudence,
shrewdness, faintheartedness, it has found, which sits in high places and cravenly
makes men believe they have accomplished the greatest things and insidiously
withholds them from attempting to do even the lesser things? The man who has
performed the cloister-movement has only one movement more to make, that is, the
movement of the absurd. How many in our age understand what the absurd is? How
many of our contemporaries so live that they have renounced all or have gained all?
How many are even so honest with themselves that they know what they can do and
what they cannot? And is it not true that in so far as one finds such people one finds
them rather among the less cultured and in part among women? The age in a kind of
clairvoyance reveals its weak point, as a demoniac always reveals himself without
understanding himself, for over and over again it is demanding the comic. If it really
were this the age needed, the theater might perhaps need a new play in which it was
made a subject of laughter that a person died of love–or would it not rather be salutary
for this age if such a thing were to happen among us, if the age were to witness such an
occurrence, in order that for once it might acquire courage to believe in the power of
spirit, courage to stop quenching cravenly the better impulses in oneself and quenching
enviously the better impulses in others … by laughter? Does the age really need a
ridiculous exhibition by a religious enthusiast in order to get something to laugh at, or
does it not need rather that such an enthusiastic figure should remind it of that which
has been forgotten?

If one would like to have a story written on a similar theme but more touching
for the fact that the passion of repentance was not awakened, one might use to this
effect a tale which is narrated in the book of Tobit. The young Tobias wanted to marry
Sarah the daughter of Raguel and Edna. But a sad fatality hung over this young girl.
She had been given to seven husbands, all of whom had perished in the bride-chamber.
With a view to my plan this feature is a blemish in the narrative, for almost irresistibly a
comic effect is produced by the thought of seven fruitless attempts to get married
notwithstanding she was very near to it–just as near as a student who seven times
failed to get his diploma. In the book of Tobit the accent falls on a different spot,
therefore the high figure is significant and in a certain sense is contributary to the tragic
effect, for it enhances the courage of Tobias, which was the more notable because he
was the only son of his parents (6:14) and because the deterrent was so striking. So
this feature must be left out. Sarah is a maiden who has never been in love, who
treasures still a young maiden’s bliss, her enormous first mortgage upon life, her
Vollmachtbrief zum Glücke,79 the privilege of loving a man with her whole heart. And
yet she is the most unhappy maiden, for she knows that the evil demon who loves her
will kill the bridegroom the night of the wedding. I have read of many a sorrow, but I
doubt if there is anywhere to be found so deep a sorrow as that which we discover in
the life of this girl. However, if the misfortune comes from without, there is some
consolation to be found after all. Although existence did not bring one that which might
have made one happy, there is still consolation in the thought that one would have
been able to receive it. But the unfathomable sorrow which time can never divert, which
time can never heal: To be aware that it was of no avail though existence were to do
everything! A Greek writer conceals so infinitely much by his simple naïveté when he
says: pántov gàr ou’deís erota efugen h feúxetai, mécriv an kállov h kaì o’fqalmoì

bléposin (cf. Longi Pastoralia).80 There has been many a girl who became unhappy in
love, but after all she became so, Sarah was so before she became so. It is hard not to
find the man to whom one can surrender oneself devotedly, but it is unspeakably hard
not to be able to surrender oneself. A young girl surrenders herself, and then they say,
“Now she is no longer free”; but Sarah was never free, and yet she had never
surrendered herself. It is hard if a girl surrendered herself and then was cheated,81 but
Sarah was cheated before she surrendered herself. What a world of sorrow is implied in
what follows, when finally Tobias wishes to marry Sarah! What wedding ceremonies!
What preparations! No maiden has ever been so cheated as Sarah, for she was cheated
out of the most sacred thing of all, the absolute wealth which even the poorest girl
possesses, cheated out of the secure, boundless, unrestrained, unbridled devotion of
surrender–for first there had to be a fumigation by laying the heart of the fish and its
liver upon glowing coals. And think of how the mother had to take leave of her
daughter, who having herself been cheated out of all, in continuity with this must cheat
the mother out of her most beautiful possession. Just read the narrative. “Edna
prepared the chamber and brought Sarah thither and wept and received the tears of her
daughter. And she said unto her, Be of good comfort, my child, the Lord of heaven and
earth give thee joy for this thy sorrow! Be of good courage, my daughter.” And then the
moment of the nuptials! Let one read it if one can for tears. “But after they were both
shut in together Tobias rose up from the bed and said, Sister, arise, and let us pray that
the Lord may have mercy upon us” (8:4).

In case a poet were to read this narrative, in case he were to make use of it, I
wager a hundred to one that he would lay all the emphasis upcn the young Tobias. His
heroic courage in being willing to risk his life in such evident danger–which the narrative
recalls once again, for the morning after the nuptials Raguel says to Edna, “Send one of
the maidservants and let her see whether he be alive; but if not, that we may bury him
and no man know of it” (8:12)–this heroic courage would be the poet’s theme. I take
the liberty of proposing another. Tobias acted bravely, stoutheartedly and chivalrously,
but any man who has not the courage for this is a molly-coddle who does not know
what love is, or what it is to be a man, or what is worth living for; he had not even
comprehended the little mystery, that it is better to give than to receive, and has no
inkling of the great one, that it is far more difficult to receive than to give–that is, if one
has had courage to do without and in the hour of need did not become cowardly. No, it
is Sarah that is the heroine. I desire to draw near to her as I never have drawn near to
any girl or felt tempted in thought to draw near to any girl I have read about. For what
love to God it requires to be willing to let oneself be healed when from the beginning
one has been thus bungled without one’s fault, from the beginning has been an abortive
specimen of humanity!82 What ethical maturity was required for assuming the
responsibility of allowing the loved one to do such a daring deed! What humility before
the face of another personl What faith in God to believe that the next instant she would
not hate the husband to whom she owed everything!

Let Sarah be a man, and with that the demoniacal is close at hand. The proud
and noble nature can endure everything, but one thing it cannot endure, it cannot
endure pity. In that there is implied an indignity which can only be inflicted upon one by
a higher power, for by oneself one can never become an object of pity. If a man has
sinned, he can bear the punishment for it without despairing; but without blame to be
singled out from his mother’s womb as a sacrifice to pity, as a sweet-smelling savor in
its nostrils, that he cannot put up with. Pity has a strange dialectic, at one moment it
requires guilt, the next moment it will not have it, and so it is that to be predestinated
to pity is more and more dreadful the more the individual’s misfortune is in the direction
of the spiritual. But Sarah had no blame attaching to her, she is cast forth as a prey to
every suffering and in addition to this has to endure the torture of pity–for even I who
admire her more than Tobias loved her, even I cannot mention her name without
saying, “Poor girl.” Put a man in Sarah’s place, let him know that in case he were to
love a girl a spirit of hell would come and murder his loved one–it might well be possible

that he would choose the demoniacal part, that he would shut himself up within himself
and say in the way a demoniacal nature talks in secret, “Many thanks, I am no friend of
courteous and prolix phrases, I do not absolutely need the pleasure of love, I can
become a Blue Beard, finding my delight in seeing maidens perish during the night of
their nuptials.” Commonly one hears little about the demoniacal, notwithstanding that
this field, particularly in our time, has a valid claim to be explored, and notwithstanding
that the observer, in case he knows how to get a little in rapport with the demon, can,
at least occasionally, make use of almost every man for this purpose. As such an
explorer Shakespeare is and constantly remains a hero. That horrible demon, the most
demoniacal figure Shakespeare has depicted and depicted incomparably, the Duke of
Gloucester (afterwards to become Richard III)–what made him a demon? Evidently the
fact that he could not bear the pity he had been subjected to since childhood. His
monologue in the first act of Richard III is worth more than all the moral systems which
have no inkling of the terrors of existence or of the explanation of them.

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarse half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.

Such natures as that of Gloucester one cannot save by mediating them into an
idea of society. Ethics in fact only makes game of them, just as it would be a mockery
of Sarah if ethics were to say to her, “Why dost thou not express the universal and get
married?” Essentially such natures are in the paradox and are no more imperfect than
other men, but are either lost in the demoniacal paradox or saved in the divine. Now
from time out of mind people have been pleased to think that witches, hobgoblins,
gnomes etc. were deformed, and undeniably every man on seeing a deformed person
has at once an inclination to associate this with the notion of moral depravity. What a
monstrous injustice! For the situation must rather be inverted, in the sense that
existence itself has corrupted them, in the same way that a stepmother makes the
children wicked. The fact of being originally set outside of the universal, by nature or by
a historical circumstance, is the beginning of the demoniacal, for which the individual
himself however is not to blame. Thus Cumberland’s Jew83 is also a demon
notwithstanding he does what is good. Thus too the demoniacal may express itself as
contempt for men–a contempt, be it observed, which does not cause a man to behave
contemptibly, since on the contrary he counts it his forte that he is better than all who
condemn him.–In view of such cases the poets ought to lose no time in sounding the
alarm. God knows what books are read now by the younger generation of verse
makers! Their study likely consists in learning rhymes by rote. God knows what
significance in existence these men have! At this moment I do not know what use they
are except to furnish an edifying proof of the immortality of the soul, for the fact that
one can say of them as Baggesen says84 of the poet of our town, Kildevalle, “If he is
immortal, then we all are.”–What has here been said about Sarah, almost as a sort of
poetic production and therefore with a fantastic presupposition, acquires its full
significance if one with psychological interest will delve deep into the meaning of the old
saying: Nullum unquam exstitit magnum ingenium sine aliqua dementia.85 For this
dementia is the suffering allotted to genius in existence, it is the expression, if I may
say so, of the divine jealousy, whereas the gift of genius is the expression of the divine
favor. So from the start the genius is disoriented in relation to the universal and is
brought into relation with the paradox–whether it be that in despair at his limitation
(which in his eyes transforms his omnipotence into impotence) he seeks a demoniacal
reassurance and therefore will not admit such limitation either before God or men, or
whether he reassures himself religiously by love to the Deity. Here are implied

psychological topics to which, it seems to me, one might gladly sacrifice a whole
life–and yet one so seldom hears a word about them.86 What relation has madness to
genius? Can we construct the one out of the other? In what sense and how far is the
genius master of his madness? For it goes without saying that to a certain degree he is
master of it, since otherwise he would be actually a madman. For such observations,
however, ingenuity in a high degree is requisite, and love; for to make observation
upon a superior mind is very difficult. If with due attention to this difficulty one were to
read through the works of particular authors most celebrated for their genius, it might
in barely a single instance perhaps be possible, though with much pains, to discover a
little.

I would consider skill another case, that of an individual who by being hidden
and by his silence would save the universal. To this end I make use of the legend of
Faust.87 Faust is a doubter,* an apostate against the spirit, who takes the path of the
flesh.

*If one would prefer not to make use of a doubter, one might choose a similar figure, an ironist,
for example, whose sharp sight has discovered fundamentally the ludicrousness of existence,
who by a secret understanding with the forces of life ascertains what the patient wishes. He
knows that he possesses the power of laughter if he would use it, he is sure of his victory, yea,
also of his good fortune. He knows that an individual voice will be raised in resistance, but he
knows that he is stronger, he knows that for an instant one still can cause men to seem serious,
but he knows also that privately they long to laugh with him; he knows that for an instant one
can still cause a woman to hold a fan before her eyes when he talks, but he knows that she is
laughing behind the fan, that the fan is not absolutely impervious to vision, he knows that one
can write on it an invisible inscription, he knows that when a woman strikes at him with her fan
it is because she has understood him, he knows without the least danger of deception how
laughter sneaks in, and how when once it has taken up its lodging it lies in ambush and waits.
Let us imagine such an Aristophanes, such a Voltaire, a little altered, for he is at the same time
a sympathetic nature, he loves existence, he loves men, and he knows that even though the
reproof of laughter will perhaps educate a saved young race, yet in the contemporary generation
a multitude of men will be ruined. So he keeps silent and as far as possible forgets how to
laugh. But dare he keep silent? Perhaps there are sundry persons who do not in the least
understand the difficulty I have in mind. They are likely of the opinion that it is an admirable act
of magnanimity to keep silent. That is not at all my opinion, for I think that every such
character, if he has not had the magnanimity to keep silent, is a traitor against existence. So I
require of him this magnanimity, but when he possesses it, dare he then keep silent? Ethics is a
dangerous science and it might be possible that Aristophanes was determined by purely ethical
considerations in resolving to reprove by laughter his misguided age. Aesthetical magnanimity
does not help [to solve the question whether one ought to keep silent], for on the credit of that
one does not take such a risk. If he is to keep silent, then into the paradox he must go.–I will
suggest still another plan for a story. Suppose e.g. that a man possessed a explanation of a
heroic life which explained it in a sorry way, and yet a whole generation reposes securely in an
absolute belief in this hero, without suspecting anything of the sort.

This is what the poets mean by it, and whereas again and again it is repeated that
every age has its Faust, yet one poet after another follows indefatigably the same
beaten track. Let us make a little alteration. Faust is the doubter par excellence, but he
is a sympathetic nature. Even in Goethe’s interpretation of Faust I sense the lack of a
deeper psychological insight into the secret conversations of doubt with itself. In our
age, when indeed all have experienced doubt, no poet has yet made a step in this
direction. So I think I might well offer them Royal Securities88 to write on, so that they
could write down all they have experienced in this respect–they would hardly write
more than there is room for on the left hand margin.

Only when one thus deflects Faust back into himself, only then can doubt
appear poetic, only then too does he himself discover in reality all its sufferings. He
knows that it is spirit which sustains existence, but he knows then too that the security
and joy in which men live is not founded upon the power of spirit but is easily explicable
as an unreflected happiness. As a doubter, as the doubter, he is higher than all this,
and if anyone would deceive him by making him believe that he has passed through a
course of training in doubt, he readily sees through the deception; for the man who has
made a movement in the world of spirit, hence an infinite movement, can at once hear
through the spoken word whether it is a tried and experienced man who is speaking or
a Münchhausen. What a Tamberlane is able to accomplish by means of his Huns, that
Faust is able to accomplish by means of his doubt: to frighten men up in dismay, to
cause existence to quake beneath their feet, to disperse men abroad, to cause the
shriek of dread to be heard on all sides. And if he does it, he is nevertheless no
Tamberlane, he is in a certain sense warranted and has the warranty of thought. But
Faust is a sympathetic nature, he loves existence, his soul is acquainted with no envy,
he perceives that he is unable to check the raging he is well able to arouse, he desires
no Herostratic honor89–he keeps silent, he hides the doubt in his soul more carefully
than the girl who hides under her heart the fruit of a sinful love, he endeavors as well
as he can to walk in step with other men, but what goes on within him he consumes
within himself, and thus he offers himself a sacrifice for the universal.

When an eccentric pate raises a whirlwind of doubt one may sometimes hear
people say, “Would that he had kept silent.” Faust realizes this idea. He who has a
conception of what it means to live upon spirit knows also what the hunger of doubt is,
and that the doubter hungers just as much for the daily bread of life as for the
nutriment of the spirit. Although all the pain Faust suffers may be a fairly good
argument that is was not pride possessed him, yet to test this further I will employ a
little precautionary expedient which I invent with great ease. For as Gregory of Rimini
was called tortor infantium90 because he espoused the view of the damnation of infants,
so I might be tempted to call myself tortor heroum; for I am very inventive when it is a
question of putting heroes to the torture. Faust sees Marguerite–not after he had made
the choice of pleasure, for my Faust does not choose pleasure–he sees Marguerite, not
in the concave mirror of Mephistopheles but in all her lovable innocence, and as his soul
has preserved love for mankind he can perfectly well fall in love with her. But he is a
doubter, his doubt has annihilated reality for him; for so ideal is my Faust that he does
not belong to these scientific doubters who doubt one hour every semester in the
professorial chair, but at other times are able to do everything else, as indeed they do
this, without the support of spirit or by virtue of spirit. He is a doubter, and the doubter
hungers just as much for the daily bread of joy as for the food of the spirit. He remains,
however, true to his resolution and keeps silent, and he talks to no man of his doubt,
nor to Marguerite of his love.

It goes without saying that Faust is too ideal a figure to be content with the
tattle that if he were to talk he would give occasion to an ordinary discussion and the
whole thing would pass off without any consequences–or perhaps, and perhaps. …
(Here, as every poet will easily see, the comic is latent in the plan, threatening to bring
Faust into an ironical relation to these fools of low comedy who in our age run after
doubt, produce an external argument, e.g. a doctor’s diploma, to prove that they really
have doubted, or take their oath that they have doubted everything, or prove it by the
fact that on a journey they met a doubter–these express-messengers and foot-racers in
the world of spirit, who in the greatest haste get from one man a little hint of doubt,
from another a little hint of faith, and then turn it to account as best they can,
according as the congregation wants to have fine sand or coarse sand.)91 Faust is too
ideal a figure to go about in carpet-slippers. He who has not an infinite passion is not
the ideal, and he who has an infinite passion has long ago saved his soul out of such
nonsense. He keeps silent and sacrifices himself/or he talks with the consciousness that
he will confound everything.

If he keeps silent, ethics condemns him, for it says, “Thou shalt acknowledge
the universal, and it is precisely by speaking thou dost acknowledge it, and thou must
not have compassion upon the universal.” One ought not to forget this consideration
when sometimes one judges a doubter severely for talking. I am not inclined to judge
such conduct leniently, but in this case as everywhere all depends upon whether the
movements occur normally. If worse comes to worst, a doubter, even though by talking
he were to bring down all possible misfortune upon the world, is much to be preferred
to these miserable sweet-tooths who taste a little of everything, and who would heal
doubt without being acquainted with it, and who are therefore usually the proximate
cause of it when doubt breaks out wildly and with ungovernable rage.–If he speaks,
then he confounds everything–for though this does not actually occur, he does not get
to know it till afterwards, and the upshot cannot help a man either at the moment of
action or with regard to his responsibility.

If he keeps silent on his own responsibility, he may indeed be acting
magnanimously, but to his other pains he adds a little temptation (Anfechtung), for the
universal will constantly torture him and say, “You ought to have talked. Where will you
find the certainty that it was not after all a hidden pride which governed your
resolution?”

If on the other hand the doubter is able to become the particular individual who
as the individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute, then he can get a
warrant forhis silence. In this case he must transform his doubt into guilt. In this case
he is within the paradox, but in this case his doubt is cured, even though he may get
another doubt.

Even the New Testament would approve of such a silence. There are even
passages in the New Testament which commend irony–if only it is used to conceal
something good. This movement, however, is as properly a movement of irony as is any
other which has its ground in the fact that subjectivity is higher than reality. In our age
people want to hear nothing about this, generally they want to know no more about
irony than Hegel has said about it92–who strangely enough had not much understanding
of it, and bore a grudge against it, which our age has good reason not to give up, for it
had better beware of irony. In the Sermon on the Mount it is said, “When thou fastest,
anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou be not seen of men to fast.” This passage
bears witness directly to the truth that subjectivity is incommensurable with reality,
yea, that it has leave to deceive. If only the people who in our age go gadding about
with vague talk about the congregational idea93 were to read the New Testament, they
would perhaps get other ideas into their heads.

But now as for Abraham–how did he act? For I have not forgotten, and the
reader will perhaps be kind enough to remember, that it was with the aim of reaching
this point I entered into the whole foregoing discussion–not as though Abraham would
thereby become more intelligible, but in order that the unintelligibility might become
more desultory.94 For, as I have said, Abraham I cannot understand, I can only admire
him. It was also observed that the stages I have described do none of them contain an
analogy to Abraham. The examples were simply educed in order that while they were
shown in their own proper sphere they might at the moment of variation [from
Abraham’s case] indicate as it were the boundary of the unknown land. If there might
be any analogy, this must be found in the paradox of sin, but this again lies in another
sphere and cannot explain Abraham and is itself far easier to explain than Abraham.

So then, Abraham did not speak, he did not speak to Sarah, nor to Eleazar, nor
to Isaac, he passed over three ethical authorities; for the ethical had for Abraham no

higher expression than the family life.

Aesthetics permitted, yea, required of the individual silence, when he knew that
by keeping silent he could save another. This is already sufficient proof that Abraham
does not lie within the circumference of aesthetics. His silence has by no means the
intention of saving Isaac, and in general his whole task of sacrificing Isaac for his own
sake and for God’s sake is an offense to aesthetics, for aesthetics can well understand
that I sacrifice myself, but not that I sacrifice another for my own sake. The aesthetic
hero was silent. Ethics condemned him, however, because he was silent by virtue of his
accidental particularity. His human foreknowledge was what determined him to keep
silent. This ethics cannot forgive, every such human knowledge is only an illusion, ethics
requires an infinite movement, it requires revelation. So the aesthetic hero can speak
but will not.

The genuine tragic hero sacrifices himself and all that is his for the universal, his
deed and every emotion with him belong to the universal, he is revealed, and in this
self-revelation he is the beloved son of ethics. This does not fit the case of Abraham: he
does nothing for the universal, and he is concealed.

Now we reach the paradox. Either the individual as the individual is able to
stand in an absolute relation to the absolute (and then the ethical is not the highest)/or
Abraham is lost–he is neither a tragic hero, nor an aesthetic hero.

Here again it may seem as if the paradox were the easiest and most convenient
thing of all. However, I must repeat that he who counts himself convinced of this is not
a knight of faith, for distress and anguish are the only legitimations that can be thought
of, and they cannot be thought in general terms, for with that the paradox is annulled.

Abraham keeps silent–but he cannot speak. Therein lies the distress and
anguish. For if I when I speak am unable to make myself intelligible, then I am not
speaking–even though I were to talk uninterruptedly day and night. Such is the case
with Abraham. He is able to utter everything, but one thing he cannot say, i.e. say it in
such a way that another understands it, and so he is not speaking. The relief of speech
is that it translates me into the universal. Now Abraham is able to say the most
beautiful things any language can express about how he loves Isaac. But it is not this
he has at heart to say, it is the profounder thought that he would sacrifice him because
it is a trial. This latter thought no one can understand, and hence everyone can only
misunderstand the former. This distress the tragic hero does not know. He has first of
all the comfort that every counter-argument has received due consideration, that he
has been able to give to Clytemnestra, to Iphigenia, to Achilles, to the chorus, to every
living being, to every voice from the heart of humanity, to every cunning, every
alarming, every accusing, every compassionate thought, opportunity to stand up
against him. He can be sure that everything that can be said against him has been said,
unsparingly, mercilessly–and to strive against the whole world is a comfort, to strive
with oneself is dreadful. He has no reason to fear that he has overlooked anything, so
that afterwards he must cry out as did King Edward the Fourth at the news of the death
of Clarence:95

Who su’d to me for him? who, in my wrath,
Kneel’d at my feet and bade me be advised?
Who spoke of brotherhood? who spoke of love?

The tragic hero does not know the terrible responsibility of solitude. In the next
place he has the comfort that he can weep and lament with Clytemnestra and

Iphigenia–and tears and cries are assuaging, but unutterable sighs are torture.
Agamemnon can quickly collect his soul into the certainty that he will act, and then he
still has time to comfort and exhort. This Abraham is unable to do. When his heart is
moved, when his words would contain a blessed comfort for the whole world, he does
not dare to offer comfort, for would not Sarah, would not Eleazar, would not Isaac say,
“Why wilt thou do it? Thou canst refrain?” And if in his distress he would give vent to his
feelings and would embrace all his dear ones before taking the final step, this might
perhaps bring about the dreadful consequence that Sarah, that Eleazar, that Isaac
would be offended in him and would believe he was a hypocrite. He is unable to speak,
he speaks no human language. Though he himself understood all the tongues of the
world, though his loved ones also understood them, he nevertheless cannot speak–he
speaks a divine language … he “speaks with tongues.”

This distress I can well understand, I can admire Abraham, I am not afraid that
anyone might be tempted by this narrative light-heartedly to want to be the individual,
but I admit also that I have not the courage for it, and that I renounce gladly any
prospect of getting further–if only it were possible that in any way, however late, I
might get so far. Every instant Abraham is able to break off, he can repent the whole
thing as a temptation (Anfechtung), then he can speak, then all could understand
him–but then he is no longer Abraham.

Abraham cannot speak, for he cannot utter the word which explains all (that is,
not so that it is intelligible), he cannot say that it is a test, and a test of such a sort, be
it noted, that the ethical is the temptation (Versuchung). He who is so situated is an
emigrant from the sphere of the universal. But the next word he is still less able to
utter. For, as was sufficiently set forth earlier, Abraham makes two movements: he
makes the infinite movement of resignahon and gives up Isaac (this no one can
understand because it is a private venture); but in the next place, he makes the
movement of faith every instant. This is his comfort, for he says: “But yet this will not
come to pass, or, if it does come to pass, then the Lord will give me a new Isaac, by
virtue viz. of the absurd.” The tragic hero does at last get to the end of the story.
Iphigenia bows to her father’s resolution, she herself makes the infinite movement of
resignation, and now they are on good terms with one another. She can understand
Agamemnon because his undertaking expresses the universal. If on the other hand
Agamemnon were to say to her, “In spite of the fact that the deity demands thee as a
sacrifice, it might yet be possible that he did not demand it–by virtue viz. of the
absurd,” he would that very instant become unintelligible to Iphigenia. If he could say
this by virtue of human calculation, Iphigenia would surely understand him, but from
that it would follow that Agamemnon had not made the infinite movement of
resignation, and so he is not a hero, and so the utterance of the seer is a sea-captain’s
tale and the whole occurrence a vaudeville.

Abraham did not speak. Only one word of his has been preserved, the only reply
to Isaac, which also is sufficient proof that he had not spoken previously. Isaac asks
Abraham where the lamb is for the burnt offering. “And Abraham said, God will provide
Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

This last word of Abraham I shall consider a little more closely. If there were not
this word, the whole event would have lacked something; if it were to another effect,
everything perhaps would be resolved into confusion.

I have often reflected upon the question whether a tragic hero, be the
culmination of his tragedy a suffering or an action, ought to have a last rejoicer. In my
opinion it depends upon the life-sphere to which he belongs, whether his life has
intellectual significance, whether his suffering or his action stands in relation to spirit.

It goes without saying that the tragic hero, like every other man who is not
deprived of the power of speech, can at the instant of his culmination utter a few words,
perhaps a few appropriate words, but the question is whether it is appropriate for him
to utter them. If the significance of his life consists in an outward act, then he has
nothing to say, since all he says is essentially chatter whereby he only weakens the
impression he makes, whereas the ceremonial of tragedy requires that he perform his
task in silence, whether this consists in action or in suffering. Not to go too far afield, I
will take an example which lies nearest to our discussion. If Agamemnon himself and
not Calchas had had to draw the knife against Iphigenia, then he would have only
demeaned himself by wanting at the last moment to say a few words, for the
significance of his act was notorious, the juridical procedure of piety, of compassion, of
emotion, of tears was completed, and moreover his life had no relation to spirit, he was
not a teacher or a witness to the spirit. On the other hand, if the significance of a hero’s
life is in the direction of spirit, then the lack of a rejoinder would weaken the impression
he makes. What he has to say is not a few appropriate words, a little piece of
declamation, but the significance of his rejoinder is that in the decisive moment he
carries himself through. Such an intellectual tragic hero ought to have what in other
circumstances is too often striven for in ludicrous ways, he ought to have and he ought
to keep the last word. One requires of him the same exalted bearing which is seemly in
every tragic hero, but in addition to this there is required of him one word. So when
such an intellectual tragic hero has his culmination in suffering (in death), then by his
last word he becomes immortal before he dies, whereas the ordinary tragic hero on the
other hand does not become immortal till after his death.

One may take Socrates as an example. He was an intellectual tragic hero. His
death sentence was announced to him. That instant he dies–for one who does not
understand that the whole power of the spirit is required for dying, and that the hero
always dies before he dies, that man will not get so very far with his conception of life.
So as a hero it is required of Socrates that he repose tranquilly in himself, but as an
intellectual tragic hero it is required of him that he at the last moment have spiritual
strength sufficient to carry himself through. So he cannot like the ordinary tragic hero
concentrate upon keeping himself face to face with death, but he must make this
movement so quickly that at the same instant he is consciously well over and beyond
this strife and asserts himself. If Socrates had been silent in the crisis of death, he
would have weakened the effect of his life and aroused the suspicion that in him the
elasticity of irony was not an elemental power but a game, the flexibility of which he
had to employ at the decisive moment to sustain him emotionally.*

*Opinions may be divided as to which rejoinder of Socrates is to be regarded as the decisive
one, inasmuch as Socrates has been in so many ways volatilized by Plato. I propose the
following. The sentence of death is announced to him, the same instant he dies, the same
instant he overcomes death and carries himself through in the famous reply which expresses
surprise that he had been condemned by a majority of three votes.96 With no vague and idle
talk in the marketplace, with no foolish remark of an idiot, could he have jested more ironically
than with the sentence which condemned him to death.

What is briefly suggested here has to be sure no application to Abraham in case
one might think it possible to find out by analogy an appropriate word for Abraham to
end with, but it does apply to this extent, that one thereby perceives how necessary it
is that Abraham at the last moment must carry himself through, must not silently draw
the knife, but must have a word to say, since as the father of faith he has absolute

significance in a spiritual sense. As to what he must say, I can form no conception
beforehand; after he has said it I can maybe understand it, maybe in a certain sense
can understand Abraham in what he says, though without getting any closer to him
than I have been in the foregoing discussion. In case no last rejoinder of Socrates had
existed, I should have been able to think myself into him and formulate such a word; if
I were unable to do it, a poet could, but no poet can catch up with Abraham.

Before I go on to consider Abraham’s last word more closely I would call
attention to the difficulty Abraham had in saying anything at all. The distress and
anguish in the paradox consisted (as was set forth above) in silence–Abraham cannot
speak.*

*If there can be any question of an analogy, the circumstance of the death of Pythagoras
fumishes it, for the silence which he had always maintained he had to carry through in his last
moment, and therefore [being compelled to speak] he said, “It is better to be put to death than
to speak” (cf. Diogenes Laertius, viii. 39).

So in view of this fact it is a contradiction to require him to speak, unless one would
have him out of the paradox again, in such a sense that at the last moment he
suspends it, whereby he ceases to be Abraham and annuls all that went before. So then
if Abraham at the last moment were to say to Isaac, “To thee it applies,” this would only
have been a weakness. For if he could speak at all, he ought to have spoken long
before, and the weakness in this case would consist in the fact that he did not possess
the maturity of spirit and the concentration to think in advance the whole pain but had
thrust something away from him, so that the actual pain contained a plus over and
above the thought pain. Moreover, by such a speech he would fall out of the role of the
paradox, and if he really wanted to speak to Isaac, he must transform his situation into
a temptation (Anfechtung), for otherwise he could say nothing, and if he were to do
that, then he is not even so much as a tragic hero.

However, a last word of Abraham has been preserved, and in so far as I can
understand the paradox I can also apprehend the total presence of Abraham in this
word. First and foremost, he does not say anything, and it is in this form he says what
he has to say. His reply to Isaac has the form of irony, for it always is irony when I say
something and do not say anything. Isaac interrogates Abraham on the supposition that
Abraham knows. So then if Abraham were to have replied, “I know nothing,” he would
have uttered an untruth. He cannot say anything, for what he knows he cannot say. So
he replies, “God will provide Himself the lamb for the bumt offering, my son.” Here the
double movement in Abraham’s soul is evident, as it was described in the foregoing
discussion. If Abraham had merely renounced his claim to Isaac and had done no more,
he would in this last word be saying an untruth, for he knows that God demands Isaac
as a sacrifice, and he knows that he himself at that instant precisely is ready to sacrifice
him. We see then that after making this movement he made every instant the next
movement, the movement of faith by virtue of the absurd. Because of this he utters no
falsehood, for in virtue of the absurd it is of course possible that God could do
something entirely different. Hence he is speaking no untruth, but neither is he saying
anything, for he speaks a foreign language. This becomes still more evident when we
consider that it was Abraham himself who must perform the sacrifice of Isaac. Had the
task been a different one, had the Lord commanded Abraham to bring Isaac out to
Mount Moriah and then would Himself have Isaac struck by lightning and in this way
receive him as a sacrifice, then, taking his words in a plain sense, Abraham might have

been right in speaking enigmatically as he did, for he could not himself know what
would occur. But in the way the task was prescribed to Abraham he himself had to act,
and at the decisive moment he must know what he himself would do, he must know
that Isaac will be sacrificed. In case he did not know this definitely, then he has not
made the infinite movement of resignation, then, though his word is not indeed an
untruth, he is very far from being Abraham, he has less significance than the tragic
hero, yea, he is an irresolute man who is unable to resolve either on one thing or
another, and for this reason will always be uttering riddles. But such a hesitator is a
sheer parody of a knight of faith.

Here again it appears that one may have an understanding of Abraham, but can
understand him only in the same way as one understands the paradox. For my part I
can in a way understand Abraham, but at the same time I apprehend that I have not
the courage to speak, and still less to act as he did–but by this I do not by any means
intend to say that what he did was insignificant, for on the contrary it is the one only
marvel.

And what did the contemporary age think of the tragic hero? They thought that
he was great, and they admired him. And that honorable assembly of nobles, the jury
which every generation impanels to pass judgment upon the foregoing generation,
passed the same judgment upon him. But as for Abraham there was no one who could
understand him. And yet think what he attained! He remained true to his love. But he
who loves God has no need of tears, no need of admiration, in his love he forgets his
suffering, yea, so completely has he forgotten it that afterwards there would not even
be the least inkling of his pain if God Himself did not recall it, for God sees in secret and
knows the distress and counts the tears and forgets nothing.

So either there is a paradox, that the individual as the individual stands in an
absolute relation to the absolute/or Abraham is lost.

EPILOGUE

One time in Holland when the market was rather dull for spices the merchants had
several cargoes dumped into the sea to peg up prices. This was a pardonable, perhaps a
necessary device for deluding people. Is it something like that we need now in the world
of spirit? Are we so thoroughly convinced that we have attained the highest point that
there is nothing left for us but to make ourselves believe piously that we have not got
so far–just for the sake of having something left to occupy our time? Is it such a self-
deception the present generation has need of, does it need to be trained to virtuosity in
self-deception, or is it not rather sufficiently perfected already in the art of deceiving
itself? Or rather is not the thing most needed an honest seriousness which dauntlessly
and incorruptibly points to the tasks, an honest seriousness which lovingly watches over
the tasks, which does not frighten men into being over hasty in getting the highest
tasks accomplished, but keeps the tasks young and beautiful and charming to look upon
and yet difficult withal and appealing to noble minds. For the enthusiasm of noble
natures is aroused only by difficulties. Whatever the one generation may learn from the
other, that which is genuinely human no generation learns from the foregoing. In this
respect every generation begins primitively, has no different task from that of every
previous generation, nor does it get further, except in so far as the preceding
generation shirked its task and deluded itself. This authentically human factor is
passion, in which also the one generation perfectly understands the other and
understands itself. Thus no generation has learned from another to love, no generation
begins at any other point than at the beginning, no generation has a shorter task

assigned to it than had the preceding generation, and if here one is not willing like the
previous generations to stop with love but would go further, this is but idle and foolish
talk.

But the highest passion in a man is faith, and here no generation begins at any
other point than did the preceding generation, every generation begins all over again,
the subsequent generation gets no further than the foregoing–in so far as this remained
faithful to its task and did not leave it in the lurch. That this should be wearisome is of
course something the generation cannot say, for the generation has in fact the task to
perform and has nothing to do with the consideration that the foregoing generation had
the same task–unless the particular generation or the particular individuals within it
were presumptuous enough to assume the place which belongs by right only to the
Spirit which governs the world and has patience enough not to grow weary. If the
generation begins that sort of thing, it is upside down, and what wonder then that the
whole of existence seems to it upside down, for there surely is no one who has found
the world so upside down as did the tailor in the fairy tale97 who went up in his lifetime
to heaven and from that standpoint contemplated the world. If the generation would
only concern itself about its task, which is the highest thing it can do, it cannot grow
weary, for the task is always sufficient for a human life. When the children on a holiday
have already got through playing all their games before the clock strikes twelve and say
impatiently, “Is there nobody can think of a new game?” does this prove that these
children are more developed and more advanced than the children of the same
generation or of a previous one who could stretch out the familiar games, to last the
whole day long? Or does it not prove rather that these children lack what I would call
the lovable seriousness which belongs essentially to play?

Faith is the highest passion in a man. There are perhaps many in every
generation who do not even reach it, but no one gets further. Whether there be many in
our age who do not discover it, I will not decide, I dare only appeal to myself as a
witness who makes no secret that the prospects for him are not the best, without for all
that wanting to delude himself and to betray the great thing which is faith by reducing it
to an insignificance, to an ailment of childhood which one must wish to get over as soon
as possible. But for the man also who does not so much as reach faith life has tasks
enough, and if one loves them sincerely, life will by no means be wasted, even though it
never is comparable to the life of those who sensed and grasped the highest. But he
who reached faith (it makes no difference whether he be a man of distinguished talents
or a simple man) does not remain standing at faith, yea, he would be offended if
anyone were to say this of him, just as the lover would be indignant if one said that he
remained standing at love, for he would reply, “I do not remain standing by any means,
my whole life is in this.” Nevertheless he does not get further, does not reach anything
different, for if he discovers this, he has a different explanation for it.

“One must go further, one must go further.” This impulse to go further is an
ancient thing in the world. Heraclitus the obscure, who deposited his thoughts in his
writings and his writings in the Temple of Diana (for his thoughts had been his armor
during his life, and therefore he hung them up in the temple of the goddess),98
Heraclitus the obscure said, “One cannot pass twice through the same stream.” [Plato’s
Cratyllus, §402.] Heraclitus the obscure had a disciple who did not stop with that, he
went further and added, “One cannot do it even once.” [Cf. Tennemann, Geschichte der
Philosophie, I, p. 220.] Poor Heraclitus, to have such a disciple! By this amendment the
thesis of Heraclitus was so improved that it became an Eleatic thesis which denies
movement, and yet that disciple desired only to be a disciple of Heraclitus … and to go
further–not back to the position Heraclitus had abandoned.

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  • Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling

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Order Tracking

You don’t have to wait for an update for hours; you can track the progress of your order any time you want. We share the status after each step.

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Areas of Expertise

Although you can leverage our expertise for any writing task, we have a knack for creating flawless papers for the following document types.

Areas of Expertise

Although you can leverage our expertise for any writing task, we have a knack for creating flawless papers for the following document types.

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Trusted Partner of 9650+ Students for Writing

From brainstorming your paper's outline to perfecting its grammar, we perform every step carefully to make your paper worthy of A grade.

Preferred Writer

Hire your preferred writer anytime. Simply specify if you want your preferred expert to write your paper and we’ll make that happen.

Grammar Check Report

Get an elaborate and authentic grammar check report with your work to have the grammar goodness sealed in your document.

One Page Summary

You can purchase this feature if you want our writers to sum up your paper in the form of a concise and well-articulated summary.

Plagiarism Report

You don’t have to worry about plagiarism anymore. Get a plagiarism report to certify the uniqueness of your work.

Free Features $66FREE

  • Most Qualified Writer $10FREE
  • Plagiarism Scan Report $10FREE
  • Unlimited Revisions $08FREE
  • Paper Formatting $05FREE
  • Cover Page $05FREE
  • Referencing & Bibliography $10FREE
  • Dedicated User Area $08FREE
  • 24/7 Order Tracking $05FREE
  • Periodic Email Alerts $05FREE
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Our Services

Join us for the best experience while seeking writing assistance in your college life. A good grade is all you need to boost up your academic excellence and we are all about it.

  • On-time Delivery
  • 24/7 Order Tracking
  • Access to Authentic Sources
Academic Writing

We create perfect papers according to the guidelines.

Professional Editing

We seamlessly edit out errors from your papers.

Thorough Proofreading

We thoroughly read your final draft to identify errors.

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Delegate Your Challenging Writing Tasks to Experienced Professionals

Work with ultimate peace of mind because we ensure that your academic work is our responsibility and your grades are a top concern for us!

Check Out Our Sample Work

Dedication. Quality. Commitment. Punctuality

Categories
All samples
Essay (any type)
Essay (any type)
The Value of a Nursing Degree
Undergrad. (yrs 3-4)
Nursing
2
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It May Not Be Much, but It’s Honest Work!

Here is what we have achieved so far. These numbers are evidence that we go the extra mile to make your college journey successful.

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Happy Clients

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Words Written This Week

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Ongoing Orders

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Customer Satisfaction Rate
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Process as Fine as Brewed Coffee

We have the most intuitive and minimalistic process so that you can easily place an order. Just follow a few steps to unlock success.

See How We Helped 9000+ Students Achieve Success

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We Analyze Your Problem and Offer Customized Writing

We understand your guidelines first before delivering any writing service. You can discuss your writing needs and we will have them evaluated by our dedicated team.

  • Clear elicitation of your requirements.
  • Customized writing as per your needs.

We Mirror Your Guidelines to Deliver Quality Services

We write your papers in a standardized way. We complete your work in such a way that it turns out to be a perfect description of your guidelines.

  • Proactive analysis of your writing.
  • Active communication to understand requirements.
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We Handle Your Writing Tasks to Ensure Excellent Grades

We promise you excellent grades and academic excellence that you always longed for. Our writers stay in touch with you via email.

  • Thorough research and analysis for every order.
  • Deliverance of reliable writing service to improve your grades.
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