 Seren Kruckegaard, Various Readings The Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge and Gazette, edited by Talbot Wilson Chambers, Frank Hugh Foster, Samuel Macaulay Jackson, in 1889, pages 473-475. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Kruckegaard, Seren Aube, by C.H.A. Zürichard, born at Copenhagen, May 5, 1818, died the same place, November 11, 1855, having never left his native city for more than a few days at a time, excepting once, when he went to Germany to study Schelling's philosophy. He was the most original thinker and theological philosopher the North ever produced. His fame has been steadily growing since his death, and he bids fair to become the leading religious philosophical light of Germany. Not only his theological, but also his ascetic works, as of late, become the subject of universal study in Europe. As a boy, Seren Kruckegaard was weak in health, rather morbid and precocious. From his father, a Jutland peasant and will handler in Copenhagen, he inherited a sharp wit and keen insight, together with a large amount of melancholy, traits that led him into much trouble and laid him in an early grave. In 1830 he graduated from the University of Copenhagen, and ten years later he re-passed the theological examination, but neither sought nor ever filled any public ministry. His degree of MA he earned by an essay on irony, the main concept of his future philosophy. His father left him a fortune, which enabled him to live in independent and elegant retirement, but he was most literally alone in the world, as he said himself, In quote, knowing all, I am known by nobody, in quote. He was never married, though for a few months engaged. Seren Kruckegaard's writings abound in psychological observations and experiences, great penetration and dexterous experimentation, all of which enable him to speak of that which but few know and fewer still can express. His diction is noble. His dialectics refined and brilliant, scarcely a page of his can be found which is not rich in poetic sentiment and passionate, though pure enthusiasm. It is generally conceded that his literary productions overflow with intellectual wonders. Still, it must be said that he is often more fascinating and seductive than convincing. He defined his task to be, quote, to call attention to Christianity, unquote, to make himself an instrument to summon people to the truly human. Ideal or true Christianity, so little known as he claimed, and to which he wanted to call attention, is neither a theory, scientific or otherwise, but a life in a mode of existence, a life which nature can neither define nor teach. It is an existence rooted wholly in the beyond, though it must be realized in actual life. Christian truth is not and cannot be the subject of science, for it is not objective, but purely subjective. He does not deny the value of objective science. He admits its use and necessity in the real world, but he utterly discards any claims it may lay to the spiritual relations of the Christian, relations which are and can be only subjective, personal, and individual. Defined, his perception is this, quote, subjectivity is the truth, unquote, a doubtful proposition and only true with regard to the one who could say about himself, quote, I am the truth, unquote. Rightly understood, it is the speculative principle of Protestantism, but wrongly conceived it leads to a denial of the church idea. However, the main element of this philosophy would not have met with any determined opposition had Kierkegaard moderated his language. As it was, he defiantly declared war against all speculation as a source of Christianity and opposed those who seek to speculate on faith, as was the case in his day and before, thereby striving to get an insight into the truths of revelation. Speculation, he claimed, leads to, quote, a fall, unquote, into a falsification of the truth. He would protect faith from speculation by declaring it to be beyond reasoning, because it is, quote, absurd, unquote, or even, quote, divinely absurd, unquote. Kretow key absurdum est, as he said. Again, he declared that Christianity is, quote, the absolute paradox, unquote, which must be believed in defiance of all reason, quote, in virtue of the absurd, unquote. Here he gave offense. And so he did, too, when he propounded his method of arriving at Christian truth. In answering that to him, momentous question, how do I become a Christian? He does not point directly to faith and the imitation of Christ, but proposes the Socratic method of, quote, betrayal into truth, unquote, quote. It is just the Socrates of which this world, perplexed by its great knowledge, stands in need, unquote, to help it to turn against speculation, quote, to make difficulties, unquote, to disperse all imaginary knowledge and to evoke soberness. He was right enough when he insisted upon the category of, quote, the individual, unquote, in opposition to pantheism and the dead churchism of his day, without personal relationship, the cause of Christianity falls to the ground, quote, everyone must navigate the sea of this world in his own little kayak, unquote, to be saved, quote, one must embark in the vessel of his own individuality, unquote. But he denies the church idea and leads us astray when he says, quote, every human being of earnest mind who knows what edification means, everyone, whatever else they may be, high or low, wise or simple, man or woman, everyone who has felt the power of edification, or God present with them, will grant me unconditionally that it is impossible to edify or to be edified en masse. Edification, yet more than love, can only bear relation to the individual, the individual, not in the sense of the distinguished and specially endowed, but the individual in the sense in which everyone ought and can be such, in which he must place his honor, nay, his salvation, on attaining, unquote. He destroys all ministry and makes Christ the savior of the individual only, overlooking both the church and the world, when he says, quote, the individual, this category has only been employed once before, the first time in a decidedly dialectic manner by Socrates, in order to overthrow paganism. In Christianity, on the other hand, it is to be employed this second time to make men, i.e., nominal Christians, real followers of Christ. It is not the category of the missionary in regard to the heathen, which he announces to the Christian world, but it is the missionary's category within Christendom itself to reintroduce Christianity into Christendom, unquote. His one-sided interest in, quote, the individual, unquote, led him to a false position in regard to the established state church, or as he called it, quote, official Christianity, unquote, which was, as he repeatedly declared, quote, a vast deception, unquote. It also made him antagonistic to church people at large, unquote, the thousands of people who call themselves Christians, but have their lives in entirely different categories, unquote. During the last few years of his life, he became quite violent in his denunciations, particularly so after the funeral of Bishop Minster, a man and a minister of no remarkable qualities, whom Bishop Martinson extravagantly characterized as, quote, witness of truth, unquote. In a periodical, the moment established and owned by the Church of God, he overdid himself and made himself the laughing stock of many. In the most extraordinary language, he abused the clergy for their easygoing ways, for making a, quote, living out of the wounds and bruises of Christ, unquote, and took them to task for their hypocrisy and betrayal of the cause of Christ. In the same paper, he also frequently wrote about, quote, the dreadful air, unquote, to suppose that, unquote, because one outwardly is within the vessel of the Church, outwardly belongs to the community of the true Church, he therefore has an insurance upon eternal bliss, unquote. Sir and Kierkegaard's influence was good in many ways, but he never had the effect he expected and died a disappointed man. He did cause many to ask about Christ and the living ways. He also influenced the clergy for the better, but it can be said, on good evidence, that he did a great deal of harm, too. His characterizations of Christianity as a paradox and an absurdity and of the Church as a vast deception became the stumbling block for many and caused much suffering and offense. The use of one of his followers and a teacher in the university, the late Professor Rasmus Nielsen, made of his phraseology, set an absolute barrier against belief in many a student's heart, and much of modern Danish infidelity and blasphemy may be laid at the door of both teacher and pupil. Many of his works have been translated into German. For example, Christenthum U. Kirche, Hamburg, 1861, Delelin, etc., Halle, 1877, Hohoor Priester, 1877, Ein Ubund in Christenthum, 1878, Zuntore, 1881, Furt U. Zittern Erlingen, 1882, and Veder Oder, Leipzig, 1885, Stadien auf dem Liebensfeige, 1886, Zür Saikolaici der Sonde, 1890, Lieben und Welten der Liebe, 1890, C. H. A. Gerigord, End of Recording, Körkegord, Søren Aube, by C. H. A. Gerigord, the Concised Dictionary of Religious Knowledge and Gazette, 1889, pages 473-475, Searin Körkegord, Various Readings, Christian Ethics, General Part, by Dr. H. Martenson, translated by C. Spence, 1891, pages 302-305. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Imitation of Christ and Justifying Faith. In another form, the setting aside of the Redeemer and of justification by faith, as here described, is to be found in recent times in the religious writings of S. Körkegord. Here the example is set forth, not with a contemplative, nor with a mystic bearing, but in relation to practical asceticism, in relation to the works of Christianity, and more especially to the sufferings connected with these. The demand to Christ's human and divine personality is here represented as a demand to believe the divine paradox, that God became man, to believe against reason by virtue of the absurd. But the significance of this divine miracle is to Körkegord entirely merged in Christ's manifestation as the example. To follow Christ is with him all in awe. When first through a miracle we have attained the perception of the fact, imperceptible to the multitude, in his form of a servant, Körkegord desires, as we have explained in the foregoing part of this work, to break down the monstrous illusion of nominal Christianity, that all, without further conditions, are Christians. He desires, in opposition to the cheap Christianity of the multitude, to set it at a higher price, to make its demands valid, because men have too long contented themselves with Christ's benefits. His fundamental idea is that what concerns a man is to live his life as the individual, and that the individual who is to become a Christian must find himself alone, alone in the whole world, alone face to face with God. While stymistic at times allows the individual pantheistically to be swallowed up in the depth of divinity, and thereby denies the principle of personality and the ethical, which he in other moments acknowledges, but from the barb of which he escapes by plunging for a time into the pantheistic ocean. Körkegord's ethical tendency shows itself in this, that in full earnestness he maintains the individual in his validity, face to face with the personal God. He discovers this principle by not, like the mystics, fixing his contemplation merely on man's finiteness and misery, but also seeking in the most earnest manner to awaken not only consciousness of sin, but moreover, consciousness of guilt. Religious consciousness of guilt is the strongest practical evidence of the infinite value of human personality. For although man, in the consciousness of his guilt, feels himself to be absolutely unworthy, he is at the same time aware that his guilt has infinite significance to God himself who appointed him to everlasting bliss. In this combination of the consciousness of guilt with the anticipation of eternal salvation is just the infinite pain of this consciousness. But the more Körkegord thus exalts the importance of the individual, the more earnestly he sets forth the principle of personality and personal relation to God, the more determinately he aims at leading the individual to Christ in order that the individual, by the imitation of Christ, may attain the eternal bliss which by sin and guilt is lost. The more he urges the consciousness of guilt in the demands of the law, the more must it be felt as a misguiding air that he only leads the individual with the oppressive consciousness of his sin and his guilt to the example, but not to the redeemer. The example is torn apart from the ground of reconciliation and appropriation is therefore entirely set aside by Körkegord whilst he impatiently hastens on to aesthetic exercises and deeds of love and in indignation over the many who call themselves Christians without being really so, does not give himself time for the due consideration of Christ's work of love, of atonement by Christ, of justification by faith, of the sacraments as a means of divine grace for the sinner's forgiveness, nourishment and spiritual growth, of the influence of the Holy Ghost through the church, of the sustaining and supporting power of church fellowship for the individual. There is little or nothing to be heard in this system of Christian instruction. Where some glimpses of this do appear as it were in passing, they are not wrought out or digested. The results are not brought forward so that thus they receive no determining, no absorbing significance. With power the example only is brought forth and the demand springing from this, especially the demand to follow Christ in his sufferings. With power is only brought forth what he calls the paradox of faith, namely that God became man in the midst of time, and that eternal bliss is joined to the imitation of this marvelous example who by his revelation awakens the offense of the world and of our own hearts. But of Christ's work a very imperfect explanation is given. Christ's work, according to Kierkegaard, is essentially merged in his prophetic office, in the revelation of the absolute witness of truth who, though he addresses himself to all, will have nothing to do with the multitude, who only desires to be what he is, the truth to the individual, who is therefore rejected by the multitude, mocked and crucified. But of Christ's sufferings as high priest of the great sacrifice which he offered for the sin of the world in order to satisfy divine justice, which we cannot do, whilst the consciousness of guilt craves a satisfaction, a alleviation of transgression, scarcely any mention is made. Again and again we are told of the sacrifice we ourselves should bring, of the sufferings we ourselves must endure, because in our sufferings we imitate the sufferings of Christ. But in this manner we are led back more and more to the ascetic errors of the Middle Ages from which the Reformation has delivered us. Although Kierkegaard is opposed to the inner life and self-imposed penances of the Middle Ages, yet it is not manifest that his own system, which unquestionably sharpens the consciousness of guilt, yet without admitting the propitiation of Christ as a determining factor in the work of salvation, is odd else but a repetition of the same in the midst of the Protestant world of the nineteenth century. A life carried out on the views of Kierkegaard in which consciousness of sin and consciousness of guilt are essential ingredients in which the believer exists, without this believer having found justifying faith can only become a life of penitence. And as consciousness of sin creates propitiation, but the propitiation of Christ as absent, we return to the self-accomplished propitiation, because eternal salvation must be attained by a continued exercise of suffering and self-denial. Undoubtedly we also hear that eternal salvation is a gift of God's free grace and compassionate love, but this grace only comes afterwards in the future life in heaven, when the man, first on earth by his own exertion, has achieved all necessary preparations. Christianity, on the other hand, teaches us not a grace which only comes afterwards, but a grace which is far in advance for man, an anticipating grace which comes to meet him, which from his birth receives man in its arms in baptism, which Kierkegaard ended by rejecting, a grace which step-by-step accompanies him to the grave, and which to him who in faith devotes himself to it becomes sustaining grace, which alone makes it possible for the man to strive after likeness to Christ. Doubtless Kierkegaard also speaks of a guidance in the life of the individual, by which in his own concerns he is brought to admire the goodness of God, and what the impotence of man can accomplish by divine assistance, but this guidance is without any connection with the appointments of God's grace in his church, and it must certainly appear paradoxical to us that this same guidance which according to Kierkegaard's own expression, must have so great a share in his authorship, should through more than 18 centuries have been completely inactive and indifferent in regard to the greatest phenomenon in history, the Christ Church on Earth, which throughout these centuries must have appeared as an institution which had failed in essentials, which had admitted the multitude. For us the question can only be if even this authorship has pointed out to us God's saving grace which is revealed to all men, has revealed to us the way of salvation by which God will lead all men, whilst he at the same time in his word all self-elected and self-discovered ways is this which we must deny. We do not deny that his religious teaching may exert a preparing and awakening influence, in many respects may serve to arouse anxiety and earnestness, but in so far as this hermit sentiment is intended to give us a right view of what it is to become a Christian and right views of the imitation of Christ we consider its tenets as containing a deep and perilous mistake. End of Recording Christian Ethics General Part by Dr. H. Martenson Translated by C. Spence, 1891 Pages 302-305 Surin Crookagord, Various Readings The New Shaff Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Volume 6 Article by F. Nielsen Edited by Johann Jacob Herzog, Philip Shaff, Albert Hock, Samuel McCauley Jackson Published in 1910, Page 330 This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Crookagord, Surin Au Bay Danish philosopher and religious author born in Copenhagen, May 6, 1813 died there, November 11, 1855. He was matriculated at the University of Copenhagen in 1830 and took up the study of theology, devoting also considerable time to philosophy and aesthetics. His first literary product was a small pamphlet in which he attacked Hans Christian Andersen, contending that the latter was mistaken in making the hero of his only a fiddler of a peevish nature and maintaining that genius can know of no defeat, but that, like a thundershower, it will force itself against the wind. This utterance may serve as a specimen of Crookagord's thought. In 1840 he obtained his first degree in theology and in the following year the master's degree for a dissertation on the concept of irony with special reference to Socrates. He wished to demonstrate the truth of Christianity but not, like other apologists, by explaining its dogmas. On February 20, 1843 the first part of his large work, whether or appeared pseudonymously, rapidly followed by the second part entitled neither, in which he answers the question propounded by himself as to whether the estetical or the ethical type of life ought to be chosen. Between 1843 and 1846 numerous other works appeared from his pen, of which may be mentioned fear and trembling, bits of philosophy, what is fear, and stations on the path of life, in all of which he conceals his identity behind various alleged contemporary authors, representing himself as merely the publisher of their pseudonymous literature. Only his sermons were published over his own name. The first part of these works endeavors to impress the solemnity of Christianity upon an age which lived either without Christianity or with a Christianity founded on custom only. The theme, only the truth which builds is worth having, forms the substance of the entire pseudonymous literature published by Kierkegaard. And by his treatment of this theme he became a religious follower of great importance. His positive construction of Christianity, however, did not fail to find opponents. Dogmatically he defined Christianity as a paradox, ethically as unmixed suffering, psychologically as a passionate departure from the ways of the world. He rejected the ideas of creed, church, priest, etc. and according to his conception a Christian isolated individual, alone with God, and in contact with the world only through suffering. When this part of his literary activity was completed he felt as though he had fulfilled his mission and desired to retire to a secluded parsonage. The attacks of which he now became the subject in the press, however, led his activity in a new channel and the mental suffering which he had endured led him to consider the influence which mental agony exerts upon the life of a Christian. The fundamental idea of his subsequent writings became more religious, more Christian. His sermons treated of the Gospel of Suffering. From his early childhood Kierkegaard had regarded the old Bishop of Zeeland, J. P. Minster, with great reference, for the latter had been his father's pastor. But now that he had come to consider it the duty of a Christian to lead a life of suffering he asked himself if Minster's preaching was not rather an aesthetic misrepresentation of the paradox and the Gospel of Suffering than true Christianity and was Minster's life a martyrdom. For a long time Kierkegaard hoped that Minster would admit that the Christian ideal had been correctly defined in his writing and also that he, the primate of the Danish church, did not live according to this ideal. Minster, however, maintained silence and as Kierkegaard did not wish to disturb the old prelate tranquility of mind he also refrained from uttering his opinions. On the death of Minster, however, a sermon preached by Martinson in which the latter designated the late Bishop as a faithful witness of truth, aroused Kierkegaard's ire and he wrote a protest, the publication which however he delayed for some time. But when Martinson, nine months later, was appointed Minster's successor as a Bishop of Zeeland, this protest appeared in the periodical Fa'orlan, fatherland of December 18, 1854. Under the title was Bishop Minster a witness of truth, a faithful witness of truth, is this truth? Martinson practically ignored his attack, simply stigmatizing Kierkegaard as a thristies who danced upon the tombs of heroes. This, however, enraged Kierkegaard all the more and he returned to the attack with various articles and brochures in all of which he censured official Christendom, its divine services, its religious acts, and its adherents. As an advocate of individualism Kierkegaard had no sympathy for the multitude or for the awakening tendency to organization. The enormous mental strain which his attack on organized Christianity had necessitated left him physically weak and hastened his death. Kierkegaard's works have established in Denmark a literature so rich, so original, and so complete in form that it is absolutely without parallel in that country. End of Recording Kierkegaard saw an Abey by F. Nielsen, published in 1910, page 330. Searing Kierkegaard various readings. Norway and the Norwegians Volume 2 Chapter 13 Tretjull by Robert Gordon Latha, 1840. Pages 149 to 157. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Niles Tretjull Tretjull is writings, anthropology, also national morality. Niles or Nicholas Tretjull was born in Drammen about ninety and died in Christiania about five years ago. Had I belonged to the worshipful body of Freemasons, I should have had the honor of dining with him in July, and of attending him to his grave in the September following, as it was I merely saw him when he paid his visit to Olenslager. A venerbal old man he was with hair white as snow of a spare and thin make. Such men live long. He was in the fullest possession of his faculties to the very last. Indeed, the latest year of his life was spent in writing. He was his own biographer. An account of the even tenor of his life precedes his latest work, to which it serves as an introduction. Every demonstration of respect was shown at his funeral, which was attended by a long line of mourners, consisting of the most respectable inhabitants of the city. He was the Stotzred and Knight of the Dennenbrog. Like most of the continental officials, he wore his orders about him on appearing in public. Such was the chief philosopher of the North. Holberg and his countrymen of the last chapter were Norwegians only by birth, they wrote in Denmark and as Danes. Now Tretjol is a representative of a different class, this, namely, of those who, born and educated in Denmark, eventually returned back again to their fatherland. They lived at the time of the Union of Sweden and so doing transferred their allegiance. Tretjol, for instance, was a lecturer in Copenhagen before he was connected with the University of Christiania. Such writers are scarcely through and through Norwegians. I call these men intermediates. The works of Tretjol are the class books of the northern positions. I am not in possession of the whole of them. The titles of such I know are as follows. One, Anthropology, Copenhagen, 80 1808. Two, Philosophical Inquiry, Ibit, in the same place, 80 1805. Three, National Morality, Ibit, 1810. Four, On the Nature of Philosophy, Ibit, 80 1811. Five, Elements of the Philosophy of History, Ibit, 80 1811. Six, On the Nature of Man, especially in a spiritual point of view, Ibit, 80 1812. Seven, Universal Logic, Ibit, 1818. All these were originally lectures given in the University of Copenhagen. Like all eclectic metaphysicians, Tretjol was more acute than original and critical than creative. No man was more familiar with the writings of his predecessors. Hence the German, French, and English trains of reasoning were equally well known to him. The style is clear and elegant. Towards the end of his life he is said to have thought with the ancients more than with the moderns, to have been Greek rather than either German or English. Like the views of all men who profess called many-sightedness, for example the power of finding truth and paradoxes, and air in received notions, his politics were passive and expected rather than active and anticipating. Such being the case, he is to the ultra-liberals of Norway, as Gertie was to those of Germany, and as Coleridge is to those of England, Viz, namely a man that puts indifferentism on higher grounds than those whereon sanguine men love to see it placed. His favorite subject is a question which is very well understood abroad, but not much considered here, anthropology. His elements of the philosophy of history is a purely anthropological work. He calls himself physical rather than material. He disclaims the notions of Lamarck. Man has not been developed out of a monad, but he has been developed out of some condition inferior to his present one. There was once a time when he could neither speak plainly nor walk uprightly, just as certainly as there was once a time when he could neither read nor write. The primeval state of man lay within certain limitations. It was never infinitely low in the scale of creation, in as much as nature produces parallel types subject to parallel developments. Man grew out of an aquatic, or I speak as a quinarian, natotorial type. In the inferior stages of his organization he was not a monkey but a walrus. The history of the individual is the history of the species. The humankind in general, like the human being in particular, has its ages of childhood, youth, manhood, etc. etc., with their characteristic virtues and vices. The uterus is to the embryo as the tohu vavohu was to the world. Our nature proceeds gradually towards perfection. I mentioned this last position of trecho to show that he was none of those philosophers that degrade mankind, con amore. If he thought lowly of our primary origin, he hoped highly for our final destination. If he sunk us lower than the beasts in our infancy, he raised us to the angels in our manhood. There is no frustration of our nature in the works of trecho. To those who are familiar with the anthropology of the continental philosophers, his creed will contain nothing extraordinary. I believe that as he grew older he mollified his notions. The work from which the above dognota have been taken was published, A.D. 1811. The Age of Material Physiologists and of Imperfect Geology. The name of the writer who, above all others, formed the philosophical terminology of the Danish language was Ilschel. He died at the age of 25, E.D. 1750, having studied philosophy under Wolf. He was a purist and as such translated Greek words into Danish as often as he was enabled to do. Like other purists he coined a multiplicity of new words, some of which died with him, whilst others, for example, bevegrund, inkelfed, self-evisted, etc., etc., became incorporated in the language. Here follows an abstract of trecho's national morality by way of a specimen of his mode of thinking. Law is not arbitrary, but grounded upon certain and eternal principles. Habs, Spinoza, and Helvetius were two wise men not to know this. Habs, however, saw at the clearest of the three. Nations have their duties as well as individuals and those duties are not nearly negative, consisting in the propriety of not injuring each other, but they are positive also and consist in the performance of certain mutual good offices. Many of these good offices are determinable and evident, where the selfish principle coincides in its effects with the dictates of a higher morality, it is an accidental circumstance. The old classification of laudable actions and the reduction of them into points of a, wisdom, b, courage, c, justice, and d, moderation is preferable to the modern mode of bringing all things under the heads of a, duty towards one's self, b, duty towards one's neighbor, and c, duty towards one's maker. Morality is a matter of reason in its highest sense, and not in that of the benthamites, who make it synonymous with calculation. But what is the end and aim of reason? Is it happiness? Is it enjoyment? Is it perfection, truth, harmony, unity, tranquility, union with God? Any of these are all. No matter what may be the particular aim, reason is striving after a higher and a nobler state, where the excitement of the operation is its own great reward. Individuals are mortal, and as such need religion to assure them of a higher existence. But nations are immortal, though only in a certain degree. This limitation imposes upon them also the necessity of religion, of which the hierarchy are the conservators, and the ruling powers, the defenders and encouragers. No national morality absolute, but traversed by the national character. National character formed by no single accident, such as language, position, climate, etc., etc., but by a variety of them, most naturally divided into selfish and unselfish. Commerce and conquest, coincidence with selfish national characters. Unselfish national characters, either non-existent or found only in small districts, as the Pulu islands, or isolated sects, as the Essenes. National character may be influenced for better or worse by causes within and by causes beyond our control. Causes beyond our control are the revolutions of nature and the inroads of conquering armies. Causes within our control are government, religion and education. Tokens of honor, the only political means that a state possesses of forwarding the progress of improvement. Influence of traditional maxims, nations moral or immoral in proportion to their enlightenment. A people in the lowest grade of civilization, no more moral or immoral than an infant. Virtue in the sense of the ancients, a mental operation. Physical courage, as well in war, as in other cases reducible to an operation of the mind, and that, not because it arises, as shown in a contempt of death from a belief in a forthcoming immortality since many of the heroes of old Ruf, Crocker, Frithjolf and Mezenchus were infidels, nor yet from a consciousness of our comparatively superior strength since the antagonists of the old heroes were proportionable, peuiscent, but from our obedience to the voice of honor. Courage arising from anything but a moral principle is no virtue. Courage, fortitude and patience that are forced upon us by the order of nature, such as the sick man's resignation, the esquimox, eskimos, contempt of cold, and the savages endurance of hunger are no true virtues. Readiness to receive impressions from others and to accommodate ourselves to their example is no true virtue. Energy hungers and thirsts after operation, it works but it works after its own fashion and with its own instruments. In this it must not be let or hindered, it must be free of external restraints. Thus the love of freedom is a national duty and it must go hand in hand with strength and a proud consciousness of strength encroaching ambition less the vice of nations than of individuals. Virtue is modified by such external accidents as produced selfishness. Selfishness is not natural to man but arising from the pressure of his necessities. At subsistence B. Enjoyment C. Possession of property National selfishness exhibited in those cases where one nation makes war upon another solely on the plea that that nation may become a dangerous enemy this can arise only from one of two causes. A. The notion that the nation in point is of paramount importance whilst the others are but as dust in the balance B. Exaggerated ideas of the importance of self-protection As the selfish aims are triple so are the unselfish feelings reducible to three heads justice, benevolence and religion. Justice referable to the love of order what is not beneficial to the whole cannot be truly so to an individual. Nations cannot make over their country as individuals can their property thus far then national and individual rights and the rules applicable there too do not coincide. International law undefined love of one's country limited on one side by selfish feelings and on the other by the more general one of universal benevolence grounded either upon our feelings or our duties. No man can live without receiving either directly or indirectly good offices in the hands of his neighbors these he will owe rather to his fellow citizens than to anyone else hence the sense of gratitude or the moral grounds of love of one's country considered as a duty. Security and well-being are not the soul and whole objects of nations neither are the injunctions of international justice purely negative hence nations owe to each other something more than the mere abstinence from mutual injury that is the reciprocity of good offices the means of working improvements in national characters are intellectual and spiritual cultivation. Add to the above the names of Schwag, Sturm, Wulf, Pram, Zitzlitz and Georgurt all Northmen and all Poets End of Recording Norway and the Norwegians Volume 2 Chapter 13 Trecho by Robert Gordon Latha 1840 Pages 149 to 157 Sir and Kierkegaard Various Readings The Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge and Gazette edited by Talbot Wilson Chambers Frank Hugh Foster Samuel Macaulay Jackson in 1889 Article by C.P. Pages 544 to 545 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Hans Lassen Martinsen Licensate Theology Copenhagen 1837 Doctor of Divinity Kiel 1840 Lutheran Bishop Born at Flinsburg in the Duchy of Slesvig August 19, 1808 Died in Copenhagen February 3, 1884 He studied Theology and Philosophy in Copenhagen 1827 to 1832 Traveled 1834 to 1836 Began to lecture on Philosophy in the University of Copenhagen in 1838 Was appointed Professor of Theology in 1840 and became Bishop of Zealand, that is, primate of the Danish Church in 1854 He grew up and developed in close contact with and yet entirely independent of the various movements in the Danish Church and the representatives Minster, Klassen, Gruntwig, etc. And though he never became a leader himself of any party, he brought into the Danish Church a strong but thoroughly digested influence from Hegel and Schelling on the one side and Father Bader and the Mystics on the other which leavened its whole life. His first lectures in the University created great enthusiasm the natural result of the novelty of his standpoint and the charm of his talent. Later on he met with sharp opposition on account of the delusiveness of this very standpoint of his talent. But neither the one circumstance nor the other seems to have had any effect upon him personally. In his quiet and reserved way he continued uninterrupted and undisturbed to unfold his ideas and as he reached onward the attention widened and deepened around him he is one of the most remarkable representatives of what is called speculative theology a natural and inborn connection between faith and science theology and philosophy he absolutely denied and where a discrepancy actually occurred he proposed a mistake and air as its origin. Science he said can never reach a complete all encompassing conception of existence, of nature and history unless it starts from the divine revelation in holy scripture as its center and faith though in its innermost kernel a simple movement of conscience the relation between God and man feels itself with necessity driven toward a scientific and systematic demonstration of its contents. But holy scripture is and must always remain the authoritative guide an absolute norm for such a demonstration and in spite of its many resplendent novelties and details his dogmatics published in Danish in 1849 German translations keep strictly within the pale of the doctrinal system of the old Lutheran church in Denmark this book and the standpoint it represents this complete union between faith and science between theology and philosophy and the speculative principle on which it was founded was vehemently attacked by Sir and Kierkegaard to whom every and any scientific conception was utterly indifferent as it has and can have a sense of belonging whatsoever upon man's relation to God and by Rasmus Nielsen who protested that it was not the union but on the contrary the opposition between faith and science which made it possible for the human consciousness to hold them both by the same grip but upon Martinson those attacks continued through years seem to have made only a very slight impression with his speculative standpoint he connected several elements of the system and theosophy while traveling as a young man in Germany he studied the mystics with great enthusiasm and the result of those studies was a publication in 1840 of his Meister Eckhart translated into German in 1842 they are also quite conspicuous in his dogmatics in his idea of Christ as a new Adam whose apparition is not only of spiritual but also of cosmic import of the miracle as the key to the sacraments on the natural part of man as building up within him the body of resurrection etc and they are even recognizable in his last great work Christian Ethics 1871-78 in 8 volumes immediately translated into German and often reprinted more especially in volume 2 individual Ethics the theosophical elements developed later under the influence of Schelling's last writing though he received the first impulse in that direction from Bader they are principally met with in his faith and science published in 1867 against Rasmus Nielsen translated into German in 14 1869 and Jacob Bomi translated into German 1882 physical and ethical idea of God in his idea of the glory of God as the uncreated heavens etc his mysticism and theosophy were however very far from drawing him away from the world in which he lived on the contrary some of the best things which come from his are a number of memoirs on Minster, Gruntwig, Rasmus Nielsen etc not seldom of a polemic character and always intended for some practical instantaneous effect by the sharp just a noble light which they throw both on persons and problems they have proved invaluable contributions to Danish culture of a somewhat similar character are also his sermons of which he published several collections they are more contemplative than stirring they instruct without exciting shortly before he died he published his autobiography also translated into German in 1888 condensed translation of the article of P. Madsen in supplement to 2nd edition of Herzog in English of a period of Martinsen's works his Christian dogmatics 1866 Christian Ethics 1873-1882 8 volumes in German besides those mentioned above his correspondence with Dorner, Brie Fitchell, Berlin 1888 2 volumes article by C. P. End of recording Hans Lassen Martinsen by C. P. pages 544-545 Shearing Kruegergaard various readings Reminiscences of My Childhood and Youth by George Brondes chapters 14-18 pages 98-108 1906 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Hegel V. Kruegergaard chapter 14 about the same time as my legal studies were thus beginning I planned out a study of philosophy and aesthetics on a large scale as well My day was systematically filled up from early morning to late at night and there was time for everything for ancient and modern languages for law lessons from the coach for the lectures in philosophy which professors H. Brokner and R. Nielsen were holding for more advanced students and for independent reading of a literary, scientific and historic description One of the masters who had taught me at school a very erudite philologian now Dr. Oskar Siezbe offered me gratuitous instruction and with his help several of the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides various things of plateaus and comedies by Plotus and Terence were carefully studied Frederick Knutsorn read the Edda and the Nibelogen lead with me in the originals with Jens Paul de Moulier I went through the New Testament in Greek and with Julius Lang Aeschylus, Sophocles Pindor, Horace and Ovid and a little of Aristotle and Theocritas Catalyst, Marshall and Caesar I read for myself but I did not find any positive inspiration in my studies until I approached my 19th year In philosophy I had hitherto mastered only a few books by Søren Kierkegaard but now I began a conscientious study of Heiberg's philosophical writing and honestly endeavored to make myself familiar with his speculative logic As Heiberg's prose writings came out in the 1861 edition they were studied with extreme care Heiberg's death in 1860 was a great grief to me as a thinker I had loved and revered him The clearness of form and the internal obscurity of his adaptation of Hegel's teachings made one a certain artistic satisfaction at the same time that it provoked an effort really to understand But in the nature of things Heiberg's philosophical life work could not to a student be other than an admission into Hegel's train of thought and an introduction to the master's own works I was not aware that by 1860 Europe had long passed as works by in favor of more modern thinking with a passionate desire to reach a comprehension of the truth I grappled with the system began with the encyclopedia read the three volumes of aesthetics the philosophy of law the philosophy of history the phenomenology of the mind then the philosophy of law again and finally the logic the natural philosophy and the philosophy of the mind and a veritable intoxication of comprehension and delight One day when a young girl attracted had asked me to go and say goodbye to her before her departure I forgot the time her journey and my promise to her over my Hegel as I walked up and down my room I changed to pull my watch out of my pocket and realized that I had missed my appointment and that the girl must have started long ago Hegel's philosophy of law had a charm for me as a legal student partly on account of the superiority with which the substantial quality of Hegel's mind is there presented and partly on account of the challenge in the attitude of the book to accepted opinions and expressions morality here being almost the only thing Hegel objects to but it was the book of aesthetics that charmed me most of all it was easy to understand and yet weighty super abundantly rich again and again while reading Hegel's works I felt carried away with delight in the world of thought opening out before me and when anything that for a long time had been incomprehensible to me at last after tedious reflection became clear I felt what I called myself an unspeakable bliss Hegel's system of thought anticipatory of experience his German style overburdened with arbitrarily constructed technical words from the year 1810 which one might think would daunt a young student of another country and another age only meant to meet difficulties which it was a pleasure to overcome sometimes it was not Hegelianism itself that seemed the main thing the main thing was that I was learning to know a world embracing mind I was being initiated into an attempt to comprehend the universe which was half wisdom and half poetry I was obtaining an insight into a method which if scientifically unsatisfying and on that ground already abandoned by investigators was fruitful and based upon a clever ingenious highly intellectual conception of the essence of truth I felt myself put to school to a great intellectual leader and in this school I learned to think I might, it is true, have received my initiation in a school built up in modern foundations it is true that I should have saved much time been spared many detours and have reached my goal more directly had I been introduced to an empirical philosophy or if fate had placed me in a school in which historical sources were examined more critically but not less intelligently and in which respect for individuality was greater but such as a school was I derived from it all the benefit it could afford to my ego and I perceived with delight that my intellectual progress was being much accelerated consequently it did not specially take from my feeling of having attained a measure of scientific insight when I learned what I had not known at first that my teachers Hans Brokner as well as Rasmus Nielsen were agreed not to remain satisfied with the conclusions of the German philosopher had got beyond Hegel at the altitude to which the study of philosophy had now lifted me I saw that the questions with which I had approached science were incorrectly formulated and they fell away of themselves even without being answered words that had filled men's minds for thousands of years God, infinity, thought nature and mind freedom and purpose all these words acquired another were stamped with a new character acquired a new value and the decorated ideas which they now expressed opposed each other and combined with each other until the universe was pierced by a plexus of thoughts and resting calmly within it viewed from these heights the petty and the everyday matters which occupied the human herd seemed so contemptible of what account for instance was a wrangling in the senate in the parliament of a little country Denmark compared with Hegel's vision of the mighty march inevitable and determined by spiritual laws of the idea of freedom through the world's history and of what account was the daily gossip of the newspapers compared with the possibility now thrown open of a life of eternal ideals lived in and for them 15 I had an even deeper perception of my initiation when I went back from Hegel to Spinoza and filled with awe and enthusiasm read the ethical for the first time here I stood at the source of modern pantheistic philosophy here philosophy was even more distinctly religion since it took religion's place though the method applied was very artificial purely mathematical at least philosophy had here the attraction of a more original type of mind the effect of being much the same as that produced by primitive painting compared with a more developed stage this very expression God or Nature had a fascinating mysticism about it the chapter in the book which is devoted to the natural history of passions, surprised and enriched one by its simple but profound explanation of the conditions of the human soul and although his fight against superstition's views of life is conducted with a keenness of attention whereas in modern philosophy the contention is merely implied it seemed as though his thoughts traveled along less stormy paths in Hegel it had been exclusively the comprehensiveness of the thoughts and the mode of the thoughts procedure that held my attention with Spinoza it was different it was his personality that attracted a great man in him one of the greatest that history with him a new type had made its entrance into the world's history he was the calm thinker looking down from above on this earthly light reminding one by the purity and strength of his character of Jesus but a contrast to Jesus in as much as he was a worshipper of nature and necessity and a pantheist his teaching was a basis of the faith of the new age seditious and pious at the same time 16 still while I was in this way making a purely mental endeavor to penetrate into as many intellectual domains as I could and to become master of one subject after another I was very far from being at peace with regard to my intellectual acquisitions or from feeling myself in incontestable possession of them while I was satisfying my desire for insight or knowledge and by glimpses felt my supremist happiness in the delight of comprehension and ever more violent struggle was going on in my emotions as my being grew and developed within me and I slowly emerged from the double state of which I had been conscious in other words the more I became one an individual and strove to be honest and true yes I felt myself to be a mere individual the more I realized that I was bound up with humanity one link in the chain one organ belonging to the universe the philosophical pantheism I was absorbed by itself worked counter to the idea of individualism inherent in me taught me and presented to me the union of all beings in nature the all divine but it was not from pantheism the basis of my spiritual life proceeded it was from the fountains of emotion which now shot out and filled my soul with their steady flow a love for humanity came over me and watered and fertilized the fields of my inner world which had been lying fallow and this love of humanity vented itself in a vast compassion this gradually absorbed me till I could hardly bear the thought of the suffering the poor, the oppressed the injustice I always saw them in my mind's eye and it seemed to be my duty to work for them and to be disgraceful of me to enjoy the good things of life while so many were being starved and tortured often as I walked along the streets at night I brooded over these ideas till I knew nothing of what was passing around me but only felt how all the forces of my brain drew me towards those who suffered there were warm hearted and benevolent men and my near relatives the man whom my mother's younger sister had married had his heart in the right place so much indeed that he no sooner saw or heard of distress than his hand was in his pocket although he had little from which to give my father's brother was a genuinely philanthropic man who founded one beneficent institution or society after the other had an unusual power of inducing his well-to-do fellow townsmen to carry his schemes through in the elaboration of them showed a perception and practical sense that almost amounted to genius this was a more surprising since his intelligence was not otherwise remarkable for its keenness and his reasoning methods were confused but what I felt was quite different my feelings were not so easily roused as those of the first mentioned I was not so good natured or so quick to act as he neither did they resemble those of my other uncle who merely represented compassion for those unfortunately situated but was without the least vestige of rebellious feeling against the conditions or the people responsible for the misery my uncle was always content with life as it was saw the hand of a loving providence everywhere and was fully and firmly convinced that he himself was led and helped by this same providence which specially watched over the launching of his projects for the welfare of mankind no my feeling was quite another kind nothing was farther removed for me than this sometimes quiet childish optimism it was not enough for me to advertise the sufferings of a few individuals and when possible alleviate them I sought the causes of them in brutality and injustice neither could I recognize the finger of a universal ruler in a confusion of coincidences conversations newspaper articles and advice by prudent men the outcome of all which was the founding of a society for seamstresses or the erection of a hospital to counteract the misery that the controlling power had itself occasioned I was a child no longer and in that sense never had been childish but my heart played nonetheless with sympathy for society's unfortunates selfishness which is self-assertion and I felt oppressed and tormented by all that I in my comparatively advantageous position as a non-proletarian enjoyed while many others did not then another mood with other promptings asserted itself I felt an impulse to step forward as a preacher to the world around me to the thoughtless and the hard-hearted under the influence of strong emotion edifying discourse the profitable fear I began to regard it as my duty so soon as I was fitted for it to go out into the town and preach at every street corner regardless of whether a lay preacher like myself should encounter indifference or harvest scorn this course attracted me because it presented itself to me under the guise of the most difficult thing and with the perversity of youth I thought difficulty the only criterion of duty I only needed to hit upon something which seemed to me to be the right thing and then say to myself you dare not do it for all the youthful strength and daring that was in me all my deeper feelings of honor and of pride all my love of grappling with the apparently insurmountable to unite and in face of this you dare not satisfy myself that I did dare as provisionally self-abnegation humility and asceticism seemed to me to be the most difficult things for a time my whole spiritual life was concentrated into an endeavor to attain them just at this time I was nineteen my family was in a rather difficult pecuniary position and I, quite a poor student was cast upon my own resources I had consequently not much of this world's goods from a comfortable residence in Crown Princess Street my parents had moved to a more modest flat in the exceedingly un-aristocratic Solomon Street where I had an attic of limited dimensions with outlook over roofs by day and a view of the stars by night quiet the nights were not in as much as the neighboring houses re-eckled with screams and shrieks from poor women whom their late returning husbands or lovers thrashed in their cups but never had I felt myself so raised, so exhilarated so blissfully happy as in that room my days slipped by in ecstasy I felt myself consecrated and combatant in the service of the highest I used to test my body in order to get it wholly under my control eat as little as possible slept as little as possible lay many a night outside my bed on the bare floor gradually to make myself as hardy as I required to be I tried to crush the youthful sensuality that was awakening in me and by degrees acquired complete mastery over myself so that I could be what I wished to be a strong and willing instrument in the fight for the victory of truth and I plunged afresh into the study with a passion and a delight that prevented my perceiving any lack but month after month carried me along increasing in knowledge and in mental power growing from day to day 17 this frame of mind however was crossed by another the religious transformation in my mind could not remain clear and unmoddy placed as I was in a society furled through and through by different religious currents issued as I was from the European races that for thousands of years followed by religious ideas all the edivism all the spectral repetition of the thoughts and ideas of the past that can lie dormant in the mind of the individual leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without it was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me all my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians but the attempts which various ones like William Julius Lange and Jens Pauludin Muller had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought without making any impression I was made of much harder metal than they and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my height to set my mind in vibration there was needed a brain that I felt superior to my own and I did not find it in them I found it in the philosophical and religious writings of Sir and Krugergaard in such works for instance as sickness on to death the struggle within me began faintly as I approached my 19th year my point of departure was this one thing seemed to me requisite to live in and for the idea as the expression for the highest at that time was all that rose up inimical to the idea or ideal to be lashed with scorn or felled with indignation and one day as I penned this outburst heiny wept over Don Coyote yes he was right I could weep tears of blood when I think of the book but the first thing needed was to acquire a clear conception of what must be understood by the ideal Heiberg had regarded the uneducated as those devoid of ideals but I was quite sure myself that education afforded no criteria and no other criterion of devotion to the ideal and a willingness to make sacrifices if I said I proved myself less self-sacrificing than any one of the wretches I am fighting I shall myself incur well-merited scorn but if self-sacrifice were the criterion then Jesus according to the teachings of tradition was the ideal for who was as self-sacrificing as he this was an inclined plane leading to the Christian spiritual life and a year later when I was nearly 20 I had proceeded so far on this plane that I felt myself in all essentials in agreement with the Christian mode of feeling in as much as my life was ascetic and my searching, striving incessantly working mind not only found reposed but rapture in prayer and was elated and fired at the idea of being protected but just as I was about to complete my 20th year the storm broke out over again and during the whole of the ensuing six months raged with unintermittent violence was I at this stage of my development a Christian or not and if not was it my duty to become a Christian the first thought that arose was this it is a great effort a constant effort sometimes a minutely recurring effort to attain moral mastery over one self and though this certainly need not bring with it a feeling of self satisfaction much less art to do so it does bring with it a recognition of the value of this self mastery how strange then that Christianity which commands its attainment at the same time declares it to be a matter of indifference to the revealed God whether a man has lived morally or not since faith or lack of faith one condition upon which so called salvation depends the next thought was this it is only in the writings of Kierkegaard in his teachings concerning paradox that Christianity appears so definite that it cannot be confused with any other spiritual trend whatever but when one has to make one's choice between pantheism and Christianity then the question arises are Kierkegaard's teachings really historic Christianity and not rather a rational adaptation and this question must be answered in the negative since it is possible to assimilate it without touching upon the question of the revelation of the Holy Ghost in the shape of a duck to the voice from the clouds and the whole string of miracles and dogmas the next thought again was this pantheism does not place anyone unconditional goal in front of man the unbeliever passes his life interested in the many aims that man as man has the pantheist will therefore have difficulty in living a perfect ethical life there are many cases in which by deviating from the strictly ethical code you do not harm anyone you only injure your own soul the non-believer will in this case only hardly for the sake of impersonal truth make up his mind to the step which the God-fearing man will take accentuated by his passionate fear in God thus I was tossed backwards and forwards in my reflections 18 what I dreaded most was that if I reached a recognition of the truth a lack of courage would prevent me decisively making it my own courage was needed as much to undertake the burdens entailed by being a Christian as to undertake those entailed by being a pantheist when thinking of Christianity the distinction between the cowardice that shrunk from renunciation and the doubt that placed under discussion the very question as to whether renunciation were duty and it was clear to me that on the road which led to Christianity doubt must be overcome before cowardice not the contrary as Kierkegaard maintains in his for self-examination where he says that none of the martyrs doubted but my doubt would not be overcome Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness for me it was sometimes both I concluded therefrom that I had no consciousness of sin and found this idea confirmed when I looked into my own heart for however violently at this period I reproached myself and condemned my failings they were always in my eyes weaknesses that ought to be combatted or defects that could be remedied never sins that necessitated forgiveness and for the obtaining of this forgiveness a savior that God had died for me as my savior I could not understand what it meant it was an idea that conveyed nothing to me and I wondered whether the inhabitants of another planet would be able to understand how on the earth that which was contrary to all reason was considered the highest truth end of Recording Reminisances of My Childhood in Youth by George Bondes 1906 chapters 14 through 18 pages 98 through 108 Serene Kruegergaard various readings from Punitive Righteousness Christian Ethics Second Part Second Division Social Ethics Published in 1899 Pages 135 to 137 This is a LibriVox Recording All LibriVox Recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Punitive Righteousness For the Infliction of Punishment it is necessary that the man come to recognize it as a deserved punishment because that he acknowledged his sin and likewise recommended to him as his guilt. Sooner or later this acknowledgement of sin and guilt, that is not only of this or that sin and guilt but of the whole sinful guilty state will come for every man be it in this life, at the hour of death or in the future life. When such a moment occurs the man stands face to face with a great alternative. This knowledge in which each one who has not been reconciled to his God will necessarily feel himself unworthy of communion with God must either lead to repentance, to godly sorrow in which he then lays hold of grace in faith in the forgiveness of sins or it must pass into despair into an absolute renunciation of all hope, desperation. Despair is the last result of sin except an escape from this hell can be gained by means of repentance. Despair is the essence and the proper meaning of hell wherefore the inferno indonte bears that inscription all hope abandoned, ye who enter here. That sin is not repented of must lead to despair is evident in those men who have made greater progress in the path of sin. The farther a man proceeds in this path the more a secret despair moves within him. Note 1 Inserting Kierkegaard's practical utterance in his book The Sickness Onto Death that all men are in a state of despair even though they do not know it themselves we can only acknowledge the general truth that in every human heart in consequence of the state of sin there exists a germ of despair but it may also with as good reason be said that in every human heart a germ of hope is present and that man's hope, his hope however indefinite of salvation is only fully extinguished in the extreme stages of sin and guilt. The conception of despair can, as we apprehend only be set forth with the definiteness belonging to it when it is fully defined in its relation to the conceptions of hope and futurity. End of note however many false prospects and hopes the guilt laden one may conjure up there yet lies at the bottom of his soul a secret hopelessness not merely regarding the event of his special egoistic efforts but above all a hopelessness in regard of his own person, his future despite all his lies and all his defiance yet the power of God the power of good so asserts itself for him that he fears the truth and reality of it that he, this presupposed feels himself overcome rejected and excluded from the communion into a starless night. In secret we say this despair is present but if the moment occurs when the consciousness of guilt emerges in full clearness it becomes manifested in despair the sinner may yet with the abyss of hopelessness and darkness before his eyes abide in his defiance in order to perish with heroism but the history of sin shows us that even to the most defiant and arrogant sinners there yet come moments when they sink down feel a deep horror of themselves despond and despair and it may perhaps be said that in hell there occurs a constant alternation an incessant change of despair now into defiance now into despondency in single instances both together compare Jeremiah 17 verse 9 the desponding hopelessness in which the sinner loses courage becomes cowardly and breaks down must not, as one is often inclined to do, be confounded with repentance or godly sorrow 2 Corinthians 7 verse 10 not with a feeling of repentance whichever includes a hope however anxious and along but in boundless despair in horror of himself Judas declares I have betrayed innocent blood and cast from him the 30 pieces of silver that it is no godly sorrow which is clearly proved by his suicide that follows and to take an example from another sphere not in repentance but in despair King Richard III speaks while his fate is overtaking him and after he had dreamed his darker dreams of conscience which have made his heart despondent my conscience hath a thousand several tongues and every tongue brings in a several tail and every tail condemns me for a villain perjury, perjury in the highest degree murder stern murder in the dirst degree all several sins all used in each degree throng to the bar crying all guilty, guilty I shall despair there is no creature loves me and if I die no soul shall pity me nay wherefore should they since that I myself find in myself no pity to myself Shakespeare is Richard III act 5 scene 3 such sinners cannot believe in the article of forgiveness of sins we see too how soon after his outburst of his despondency and despair he calls himself again to defiance let not our babbling dreams affright our souls conscience is but a word that cowards use devised at first to keep the strong in awe and in the last words that we hear from him on the battleground where he vanishes from our eyes a horse my kingdom for a horse we hear both the terrific anguish of despair the terror of death in more than a mere bodily sense and also the demoniacally raving defiance that will not give up its cause end of recording from punitive righteousness Christian ethics Hans Martinson pages 135 to 137 published in 1899 seren Kierkegaard various readings a brief history of modern philosophy 6 books the philosophy of romanticism by Harold Hofting translated by Charles Finley Sanders 1912 pages 200 to 205 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org biographical the romantic philosophy made a profound impression in the Scandinavian north differing according to the different character of the northern peoples in Sweden the romantic opposition to empirical philosophy is particularly evident the fundamental principle of philosophy in the artistic of Sweden was this namely that truth must be a perfect inherently consistent totality and since experience merely presents fragments and such for sooth as are constantly undergoing change a constant antithesis of idea and empirical truth must follow after this idea had been elaborated by a number of thinkers the most noteworthy of whom are Benjamin Hoyer and Eric Gustav the school attained its systematic culmination in the philosophy of Christopher Jacob Boestrup 1797 to 1866 professor of the university of Uppsala according to whom time, change and evolution are illusions of the senses whilst true reality consists of a world of ideas which differ from Platonism by the fact that the ideas are construed by personal ideas. Denmark reveals the influence of Schelling and Hegel to a marked degree especially among the writers in aesthetics and the theologians the more independent thinkers however have devoted themselves almost exclusively to the problems of psychology ethics and epistemology and assumed an attitude of decided opposition to abstract speculation Frederick Christian Siburd 1885 to 1872 who labored at Copenhagen in the capacity of professor of philosophy for more than 50 years in opposition to Hegel and Boestrup placed great stress on a real evolution in time. Experience reveals that evolution has a number of starting points and the contact of the various evolution series with each other gives rise to strike a stupendous debate of everything which in turn accounts for progress. This idea of sporadic evolution has likewise an important bearing on the theory of knowledge. Each cognizing being has the viewpoint of one of these beginnings and hence cannot survey the entire process. Siburd devoted himself more particularly to psychology for which he was specially adapted by his gift of observation and his enthusiastic interest in human life. We shall consider Seren Kierkegaard 1813 to 1855 only as a philosopher, leaving out of account his ascetic and religious activities which have taken such deep hold on the life of the North. The author of this textbook has given a general description of this thinker in his book Seren Kierkegaard as Philas in Fromman's Classicar. Kierkegaard is a subjective thinker in the sense in which he used that word in the book Unwiesen Schachtlich-Nachschrift on scientific postscript 1846. Kierkegaard's chief philosophical work. The ideas of the subjective thinker are determined by the interplay of all the elements of psychic life, by emotion and reflection, by hope and fear, by tragic and comic moods. And this thinking takes place in the midst of the stream of life, whose boundaries we cannot see and whose direction we can never know, at least not in the fantastical and impersonal world of abstraction. Kierkegaard is the Danish Pascal and his position in relations to the philosophy of his age possesses a certain analogy to Pascal's relation to Cartesianism. This predominantly personal character of his thought, however, does not preclude the possibility of his making valuable contributions to epistemology and ethics, or better, to a comparative philosophy of life, as he has actually done. Siburn had already observed that the fruitful ideas of Kant had not received their just dues at the hands of his successors. Kierkegaard renews the problem of knowledge with still greater definiteness, and declares that Hegel had not solved the Kantian problem. We can arrange our thoughts in logical order and elaborate a consistent system. It is possible to elaborate a logical system, but a finite thinker will never be able to realize a complete system of reality. We deduce the fundamental ideas from experience, and experience remains forever imperfect. We understand only what has already taken place. Knowledge comes after experience. We cognize towards the past, but we live towards the future. This opposition between the past and the future accounts for the tension of life and impresses us with the irrationality of being. The denial of the reality of time by abstract speculation is the thing that constitutes the thorn in the problem of knowledge. What is thus true of scientific thought is even more so in the reflections on the problems of practical life. In this case, it is personal truth that takes first rank. For example, the important matter to be considered here is the fact that the individual has acquired his characteristic ideas by his own efforts, and that they constitute an actual expression of his personality. Subjectivity constitutes the truth. Whoever prays to an idol with his whole heart and soul prays to the true God, whilst he who prays to the true God from mere force of habit, and without having his heart in it is really worshiping an idol. Kierkegaard shows his romanticism in the fact that he sharply contrasts the heart of life as it is actually experienced and entirely disregards intellectual integrity, which is an essential condition if personal truth is to escape identification with blindness. Kierkegaard outlined a kind of comparative theory of life, partly in poetic form, int-waiter, order, either-or, stadium, off-dem, lebensweg, stages on life's way, partly in philosophical form in his chief philosophical treaties mentioned above. He distinguishes various stadia, which however do not constitute stages in a continuous line of evolution but sharply severed types. The transition from the one to the other does not follow with logical necessity, nor by means of an evolution explainable by psychological processes, but by elite and inexplicable act of will. Kierkegaard maintains the qualitative antithesis of life in sharp contrast to the quantitative continuity of the speculative systems. According to Kierkegaard, the principle of evaluation and construction of theories of life consists in the degree of opposition which spiritual life is capable of comprehending. The particular moment of the possibility of life, time and eternity, reality and the ideal, nature and God constitute such antithesis. The tension of life increases in direct proportion to the increasing sharpness of the manifestation of these antithesis and the energy which is supposed to constitute life must therefore likewise be correspondingly greater. The professional artist who is present represents the lowest degree. The writer of irony already discerns an element of the inner life which is incapable of expression in a single moment or in a single act. The moralist develops this inner life positively by real influence on the family and in the state. The humorous regards all the vicissitudes of life as evanescent as compared with eternity and assumes an attitude of melancholy resignation which he preferably makes the subject of jest. The devotees of religion regard the temporal life as a constant pain because finite and temporal existence is incommensurable with eternal truth. The Christian finally regards his pain as the effect of his own sense and the antithesis of time and eternity can only be annulled by the fact that the everlasting itself is scaled in time and apprehended in the paradox of faith. Kirkwood Lord wanted to show by this scale how comprehensive and ideal of life was possible even outside of Christianity. He likewise wanted to put an end to the amalgamation of Christianity and speculation in theology. But the anguish occasioned by the tension finally became his standard for the sublimity of life and sufficient courage of consistency to draw the inference that the sufferings of no one are equal to those endured by God. This brings him into direct conflict with the romantic theory of the reconciliation of all antithesis in the higher unity as well as with the accepted conception of Christianity. This furnished the motive for the deplorable controversy with the state church which occupied the later years of his life. End of Recording Biographical by Harold Hoffting translated by Charles Finley Sanders Pages 200-205 Searing Kierkegaard Various Readings On the Dedication to That Single Individual Note 1 This, which is now considerably revised and enlarged, was written and intended to meet the dedication to that single individual which is found in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits Copenhagen Spring 1847 End of Note by Seren Kierkegaard translated by Charles K. Bellinger 1846 This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org on the dedication to that single individual. My dear, accept this dedication. It is given over as it were, blindfolded, but therefore undisturbed by any consideration in sincerity. Who you are, I know not. Where you are, I know not. What your name is, I know not. Yet you are my hope, my joy, my pride, my unknown honor. It comforts me that the right occasion is now there for you, which I have honestly intended during my labor and in my labor. For if it were possible that reading what I write became worldly custom, or even to give oneself out as having read it in the hope of thereby winning something in the world, that then would not be the right occasion. Since, on the contrary, it would not have happened, and it would have also deceived me if I had not striven to prevent such a thing from happening. This, in part, is a possible change in me, something I even wish for, basically a mood of soul and mind which does not produce change by being more than change and therefore produces nothing less than change. It is rather an admission, in part a thoroughly and well-thought-out and of the way. There is a view of life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on its side. Note 2 Perhaps, however, it is right to note once and for all that which follows of itself and which I have never denied that in relation to all temporal, earthly, worldly ends, the crowd can have its validity, even its validity as a decisive court of last resort. But I am not speaking about such things, which I pay so little attention to. I speak of the ethical, the ethical religious of the truth, and seeing ethical religiously the crowd is untruth when it is taken as a valid court of last resort for what the truth is. End of note. There is another view of life which holds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that for a moment to carry the matter out to its farthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd so that the crowd received any decisive voting no easy audible importance, untruth would at once be let in. Note 3 however it is right to note, although it seems to me to be almost superfluous, that it naturally could not occur to me to object to something, for example, that there is preaching, or that the truth is proclaimed, even though it was to an assembly of a hundred thousand. No, but even if it were to an assembly of just ten, and if there should be balloting, that is, if the assembly were the court of last resort, if the crowd received any decisive factor, then there is untruth. End of note for the crowd is untruth. Eternally, godly, christianly, what Paul says is valid, only one receives the prize 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24, not by way of comparison, for in the comparison the others are still present. That is to say everyone can be that one with God's help, but only one receives the prize. Again, that is to say everyone should cautiously have dealings with the others, and essentially only talk with God and with himself, for only one receives the prize. Again, that is to say the human being is in kinship with, or to be a human is to be in kinship with the divinity. The worldly, busy, socially friendly person says this, how unreasonable that only one should receive the prize. It is far more probable that several combined receive the prize. And if we become many, then it becomes more certain, and also easier for each individually. Certainly it is far more probable and it is also true in relation to all earthly and sensuous prizes and it becomes the only truth if it is allowed to rule. For this point of view abolishes both God and the eternal and the human beings kinship with the divinity. It abolishes it or changes it into a fable and sets the modern, as a matter of fact, the old heathen in its place. So that to be a human being is like being a specimen which belongs to a race gifted with reason. So that the race, the species is higher than the individual or so that there are only specimens, not individuals but the eternal which vaults high over the temporal quiet as the night sky and God in heaven, who from this exalted state of bliss without becoming the least bit dizzy looks out over these innumerable millions and knows each single individual. He, the great examiner, he says only one receives the prize. That is to say, everyone can receive it and everyone ought to become this by oneself but only one receives the prize where the crowd is therefore or where a decisive importance is attached to the fact that there is a crowd there no one is working, living and striving for the highest end but only for this or that earthly end since the eternal the decisive can only be worked for where there is one and to become this by oneself which all can do is to will to allow God to help you. The crowd is untruth. A crowd not this or that, one now living or long dead, a crowd of the lowly or of nobles of rich or poor, etc. but in its very concept note 4 the reader will therefore recall that here by crowd the crowd is understood as a purely conceptual definition not what one otherwise understands by the crowd when it supposedly is also a qualification when human selfishness irreligiously divides human beings into the crowd and the nobles and so forth God in heaven how would the religious arrive at such inhuman equality? No crowd is the number, the numerical a number of noblemen millionaires, high dignitaries etc. as soon as the numerical is at work the crowd is the crowd end of note is untruth since a crowd either renders the single individual wholly unrepentant and irresponsible or weakens his responsibility by making it a fraction of his decision. Observe there was not a single soldier who dared lay a hand on Caius Marius this was the truth but given three or four women with the consciousness or idea of being a crowd with a certain hope in the possibility that no one could definitely say who it was or who started it then they had the courage for it what untruth? the untruth is first that it is the crowd which does either what only the single individual in the crowd does or in every case what each single individual does for a crowd is an abstraction which does not have hands each single individual on the other hand normally has two hands and when he as a single individual lays his two hands on Caius Marius then it is the two hands of this single individual not after all his neighbors even less the crowds which has no hands in the next place the untruth is that the crowd had the courage for it since never any time was even the most cowardly of all single individuals so cowardly as the crowd always is for every single individual who escapes into the crowd and thus flees and cowardice from being a single individual who either had the courage to lay his hand on Caius Marius or the courage to admit that he did not have it contributes his share of cowardice to the cowardice which is the crowd take the highest think of Christ and the whole human race all human beings which were ever born and ever will be born the situation is the single individual as an individual in solitary surroundings alone with him as a single individual he walks up to him and spits on him the human being has never been born and never will be who would have the courage or the impotence for it this is the truth they remain in a crowd they have the courage for it but frightening untruth the crowd is untruth there is therefore no one who has more contempt for what it is to be a human being than those who make it their profession to lead the crowd that's someone some individual human being certainly approach such a person but does he care about him that is much too smaller thing he proudly sends him away and if there are thousands then he bends before the crowd he bows and scrapes what untruth no, when there is an individual human being then one should express the truth by respecting what it is to be a human being and if perhaps as one cruelly says it was a poor needy human being then especially should one invite him into the best room and if one has several voices he should use the kindness and friendliest that is the truth when on the other hand it was an assembly of thousands or more and the truth became the object of balloting then especially one should God fearingly if one prefers not to repeat in silence the our father deliver us from evil one should God fearingly express that a crowd as the court of last resort ethically and religiously is the untruth whereas it is eternally truth that everyone can be the one this is the truth the crowd is untruth therefore was Christ crucified because he even though he addressed himself to all would not have to do with the crowd because he would not in any way let a crowd help him because he in this respect absolutely pushed away would not found a party or allowed balloting but would be what he was the truth to the single individual and therefore everyone who in truth will serve the truth is ill ipso in some way or other a martyr if it were possible that a human being in his mother's womb could make a decision to will to serve the truth in truth so he also is ill ipso a martyr however his martyrdom comes about even while in his mother's womb for to win a crowd is not so great a trick one only needs some talent a certain dose of untruth and a little acquaintance with the human passions but no witness for the truth alas in every human being you and I should be one dares have dealing with a crowd the witness for the truth who naturally will have nothing to do with politics or to the utmost of his ability is careful not to be confused with the politician the God fearing work of the witness to have dealings with all if possible but always individually to talk with each privately on the streets and laying to split up the crowd or to talk to it not to form a crowd but so that one or another individual might go home from the assembly and become a single individual the crowd on the other hand when it is treated as the court of last resort in relation to the truth its judgment as the judgment is detested by the witness to the truth more than a virtuous young woman detests the dance hall and they who address the crowd as the court of last resort he considers to be instruments of untruth for to repeat that which in politics and similar domains has its validity sometimes holy sometimes in part becomes untrue when it is transferred to the intellectual spiritual and religious domains and at the risk of a possibly exaggerated caution I add just this by truth I always understand eternal truth a politics in the like has nothing to do with eternal truth a politics which in the real sense of eternal truth made a serious effort to bring eternal truth into real life would in the same second show itself to be in the highest degree the most impolitic thing imaginable the crowd is untruth and I could weep in every case I can learn to long for the eternal whenever I think about our ages misery even compared with the ancient world's greatest misery in that the daily press and anonymity make our age even more insane without from the public which is really an abstraction which makes a claim to be the court of last resort in relation to the truth for assemblies which make this claim surely do not take place that an anonymous person with help from the press day in and day out can speak however he pleases even with respect to the intellectual the ethical the religious things which he perhaps did not in the least have the courage to say personally in a particular situation every time he opens up his gullet one cannot call it a mock he can all at once address himself to thousands upon thousands he can get ten thousand times ten thousand to repeat after him and no one has to answer for it in ancient times the relatively unrepentant crowd was the almighty but now there is the absolutely unrepentant thing no one an anonymous person the author an anonymous person the public sometimes even anonymous subscribers therefore no one no one god in heaven states even call themselves Christian states one cannot say that again with the help of the press the truth can overcome the lie and the air oh you who say this ask yourself do you dare to claim that human beings in a crowd are just as quick to reach for truth which is not always palatable as for untruth which is always deliciously prepared when in addition this must be combined as let oneself be deceived or do you dare to claim that the truth is just as quick to let itself be understood as is untruth which requires no previous knowledge no schooling, no discipline no abstinence, no self-denial no honest self-concern no patient labor no the truth which detests this untruth the only goal of which is to desire its increase does not so quick on its feet firstly it cannot work through the fantastical which is the untruth its communicator is only a single individual and its communication relates itself once again to the single individual for in this view of life the single individual is precisely the truth the truth can neither be communicated nor be received without being as it were before the eyes of god nor without god's help nor without god being involved as the middle term since he is the truth it can therefore only be communicated by and received by the single individual which for that matter every single human being who lives could be this is the determination of the truth in contrast to the abstract the fantastical, impersonal the crowd, the public which excludes god as the middle term cannot be the middle term in an impersonal relation and also thereby the truth for god is the truth and its middle term and to honor every individual human being unconditionally every human being that is the truth and fear of god and love of the neighbor but ethical religiously viewed to recognize the crowd as the court of last resort in relation to the truth that is to deny god to be to love the neighbor and the neighbor is the absolutely true expression for human equality if everyone in truth loved the neighbor as himself then would perfect human equality be unconditionally attained everyone who in truth loves the neighbor expresses unconditionally human equality everyone who is really aware even if he admits like I that his effort is weak and imperfect his task is to love the neighbor he is also aware of what human equality is but never have I read in the holy scriptures this command you shall love the crowd even less you shall, ethical religiously recognize in the crowd the court of last resort in relation to the truth it is clear that to love the neighbor is self-denial that to love the crowd or to act as if one loved it to work for the truth that is the way to truly gain power the way to all sorts of temporal and worldly advantage yet it is untruth for the crowd is untruth but he who acknowledges this view which is seldom presented for it often happens that a man believes that the crowd is in untruth but when it, the crowd merely accepts his opinion in mass then everything is all right he admits to himself how would a single individual be able to stand against the many who have the power and he could not then want to get the crowd on his side to carry through the view that the crowd ethical religiously as the court of last resort is untruth that would be to mock himself but although this view was from the first an admission of weakness and powerlessness and since it seems therefore so uninviting and is therefore heard so seldom yet it has the good feature that it is fair that it offends no one not a single one that it does not distinguish between persons not a single one a crowd is indeed made up of single individuals it must therefore be in everyone's power to become what he is a single individual no one is prevented from being a single individual no one unless he prevents himself by becoming many to become a crowd to gather a crowd around oneself is on the contrary to distinguish life from life even the most well meaning one who talks about that can easily offend a single individual but it is the crowd which has the power influence, reputation and domination this is the distinction of life from life which tyrannically overlooks the single individual as the weak and powerless one in a temporal, worldly way overlooks the eternal truth the single individual no, the reader will recall that this, the beginning of which is marked by the atmosphere of its moment when I voluntarily exposed myself to the brutality of literary vulgarity was originally written in 1846 and later revised and considerably enlarged existence almighty as it is has since that time shed light on the proposition that the crowd seen ethical religiously as the court of last resort is on truth truly I am well served by this I am even helped by it to better understand myself since I will now be understood in a completely different way than I was at the time as a ridiculous exaggeration whereas it can now scarcely be heard at all on account of existence's loud voice which says the same thing end of recording Seren Kierkegaard on the dedication to that single individual translated by Charles K. Bellinger