Against Cowardliness
AGAINST COWARDLINESS342
II TIMOTHY 1:7
God did not give us a spirit of cowardliness but a spirit of power and of love and of self-control.
If it is really so that there is something in life that has or can have such power over a person that it little by little makes him forget everything that is noble and sacred and makes him a slave in the service of the world, of the moment; if it is really so that time has or can gain such power over a person that while it adds days to his life it also every passing day measures the greater distance of his life from the divine, until he, trapped in everydayness and habit, becomes alienated from the eternal and the original; if experience has taught us that this has also happened to someone who once had a strong sense of the presence of the eternal—then it certainly would be beneficial to recommend every means against this and desirable that the recommending be done in an earnest but also winsome way. God be praised, there are many means, just as the dangers are many, and every one of these means is trustworthy and tested. One such means is resolution or coming to a resolution, because resolution joins a person with the eternal, brings the eternal into time for him, jars him out of the drowsiness of uniformity, breaks the spell of habit, cuts off the tedious bickering of troublesome thoughts, and pronounces a benediction upon even the weakest beginning, when it is indeed a beginning. Resolution is a waking up to the eternal, and someone who has lacked the rejuvenation of resolution for a long time may very well feel, when he does [V 125] make a resolution, as did the widow’s son from Nain when he woke up on the bier—alas, previously he was even more like the widow’s son when he was carried out dead.343 Therefore, we praise resolution. But the discourse on this has no intention of tickling the ears of youth or of sounding like something sensuously and titillatingly different to the sentimental ears of the soft, as is the case with talk occasionally heard, with this effect even if not intended, when it shouts to the world, “The whole thing takes only a moment, just come to a resolution; like the bold swimmer dare to dive into the sea; dare to believe that a person is lighter than all his sufferings, that the swimmer’s path goes through all the currents, through the foaming waves, straight to the goal. Observe him, the undaunted swimmer: he climbs to a high place, his eyes delight in the danger, his body rejoices in a shudder of terror—then he dives boldly into the waves; he vanishes as if swallowed by the sea but quickly emerges and has triumphed, triumphed in one single moment. Just so does resolution stand on the mount of transfiguration,344 rejoices in the danger, then dives into the sea, and in the same moment emerges with the victory!” If this is how the discourse in honor of coming to a resolution sounded, then it surely would make an impression—how the listener would praise the speaker’s enthusiasm, admire his eloquence, and how changed the listener would be on returning home: he would sit there surrounded by lofty resolutions, doubtful only about which heroic figure would suit him best, 345and soon he would long to hear a discourse like that again, and until then he would do what he could—extol the speaker, whose powerful excitement, whose bold imitative gestures as he described the swimmer, were so vivid to him. Alas, let the theater keep what belongs to the theater and the juggling heroes: pretentious words, bold gestures, and the applause of an appraising crowd. Anyone who wants to praise the benefit of making a resolution certainly does not want to be guilty of a deception by which he would delay the listener in acting and give him enough to do in admiring, because admiring, too, is a means of distraction, and to assist in evoking it is—an assassination, or foolishness.
Therefore, the discourse must begin in a different way and above all forswear deception; the devil uses many arts346 to tempt a human being, and it is always a dangerous assault when the devil, by means of high-minded resolutions, or rather by talk about them and admiration of them, together [V 126] with the subsequent distaste when a person sees how little he can do, wants to induce him to give up everything. No, we creep before we learn to walk, and to want to fly is always precarious. To be sure, there are great decisions, but even in regard to them the main thing is to activate one’s resolution, lest one become so high-flying in the resolution that one forgets to walk.
The deception in that talk was that it seemed as if a person was supposed to deliberate on whether he wanted to dive into the sea. This is already wasted effort, a delay in carrying out something, a nourishment for pride that a person fancies or allows himself to fancy that life is like that, that danger is a celebration to which one is invited, a proposal that is made, whether one wants to or not. This is far from the case. The pompous platitude makes a person forget that he is indeed in danger, that it is a question not of boldly leaping out but of saving himself. Neither has he entered into danger by diving down from high places in the manner of the swimmer or that extolled resolution; on the contrary, it quite simply and naturally has come to pass by his having been conceived in transgression and born in sin,347 since at birth he was exposed to the danger there where he now is. What thoughtlessness to remain ignorant of the existence of danger, but what perversity to encourage someone with big words and promises of a hero’s fame to venture out where he is! 348Yet even to have dived into danger oneself is a proud thing; it is somewhat more humble for a person to admit that he is there, to confess to himself that he is where circumstance and providence have placed him, without daring to leave this place either to flee or to climb to a high place from which he will dive down into danger. The danger is there; to discover it is not so extraordinary that it would tempt to pride if one considers that the terror of the danger increases in proportion to the pride over discovering it—indeed, that the terror easily gets out of hand if all such deliberation is not in turn cut off by the simple observation that all one has to do is save oneself. It is a proud thing to dive into danger, and it is a proud thing to battle with untold horrors, but it is also wretched (how wretched it is one sometimes learns from the same person) to have an abundance of intentions and a poverty of action, to be rich in truths and poor in virtues.
The danger is there; this is no secret for the wise or for the courageous—the simple person knows it also. We shall not, instead of calling the danger by its true name, speak of the sea and the storm and the thundering roar, which easily tempts the power of the imagination to imagined conceptions and imagined exploits. There is indeed danger to fortune and welfare: that you will lose them and along with them, perhaps, your courage and your faith. There is indeed the danger of soul: that the world will come to be empty and everything a matter of indifference to you, life without taste and nourishment, truth itself a toilsome fabrication, and death a vague thought that neither alarms nor beckons. There is indeed the danger of sin: that you will forget your duty or at least forget that it should be done with joy, forget that one is to endure one’s sufferings or at least forget that one should bear them devotedly, the danger that you will fall into sin and lose your bold confidence, go despondent through life and despair in death, so that not even repentance can be a support to you. There is indeed the danger of death, which has its spies everywhere, although it knows that no human being will evade it. Is there, then, no danger, or are you unaware of it, you who perhaps want to climb to the mountain peak in order to throw yourself into it? Do you not know that you are under indictment, and if no earthly court of law accuses you, then you are accused in heaven, where the judgment will be? Do you not know that you are in prison, even if the prison is as spacious as the wide world? But try this: go to the farthest limits of the world, conceal yourself in the abyss,349 and then see whether the justice that imprisoned you does not know how to go and fetch you out. Do you not know that the witnesses are there (even though far from witnessing against you they are at the moment your most intimate confidants), that these witnesses are your thoughts, that this eyewitness is you yourself, whom the day of reckoning will compel to be your own informer, without being able to hide the most secret counsel or forget the most fleeting thought or keep a single thought so well concealed inside you that your conscience would not know how to wrench open your inclosing reserve [Indesluttethed]350 and the involuntary self-appraisal would not know how to tear it from you? Human justice is very prolix, and yet at times quite mediocre; 351divine justice is more concise and needs no information from the prosecution, no legal papers, no interrogation of witnesses, but makes the guilty one his own informer and helps him with eternity’s memory.
But it was just as much a mirage whereby that deceptive talk made it seem as if everything were decided, everything won, on the battle day of resolution. It is certainly true that much is already won by making a good beginning, but in the same moment the point is to come into stride at the beginning, because there perhaps is nothing more demoralizing for a person than having a good and glorious beginning promptly stand in his way instead of helping him to go on. It is a proud thing to concentrate all the threatening dangers and terrors in one place, to charge forth where the enemy’s hosts are most numerous; those are proud words that want to make the sun [V 128] stand still352 so that twilight may not fall before all the enemies are overcome. On the other hand, it is humble to admit that the struggle, even through no fault of one’s own, drags out so that every day has its evening, and because of one’s fault drags out in such a way that twilight sometimes falls on a defeat. It is humble to admit that even the progress through life of the most honest contender is difficult, that even the person who walks his way with firm steps353 nevertheless does not walk with a hero’s pace, indeed, that when the evening of life cools the contender after the long day there still is no opportunity for fanfare, since even the person who came closest to the goal does not arrive with the qualifications or the disposition for the rigors of a victory celebration but, weary and worn, desires a grave in which to rest and a blessed departure from here in peace. To be sure, such a person’s life was not unfamiliar with great decisions, but he nevertheless admits that his entire life was a struggle, and in conversation with others he is not tempted to mention proudly the great decisions he has had the honor of helping to make; he is well aware that his telling about the daily struggle would be wearisome to the inquisitive. And yet this was his life; he perhaps experienced the changeableness of life, perhaps that of people, but danger followed him constantly. But as the danger recurred, he renewed his resolution, and in that way he carried through his battle. Although his step was weak, his gait vacillating, at times going backward instead of forward, resolution helped him again, little by little; he still exhorted himself with a beautiful saying, “Do what you can for God, and he will do for you what you cannot do,” until again he came to a resolution, even though his resolution seems to be of humble origin, a cripple compared with that highborn resolution.
If making a resolution is understood in this way to be the constant renewal of a crucial resolution (an apparent contradiction akin to reminding someone to act as if this were the last day of his life and then pointing out that a long life lies ahead of him), then it remains fixed that resolution is a saving means. But if this does remain fixed, then it is in turn worthwhile to be aware of the hereditary enemy of resolution, cowardliness, which, tenacious of life as it is, always contemplates cutting off or harming the good understanding of resolution with the eternal, gnawing asunder the chain of resolution, which is easy to carry and becomes heavy only when it is broken. Therefore, the discourse, as it relates to the apostle’s brief [V 129] words, will be directed against cowardliness. Even though it is sometimes said that fear of God, that religion, that Christianity makes a person cowardly, the opposite certainly cannot be declared more emphatically than here, where the apostle specifically says that God does not give a spirit of cowardliness, which consequently must come from somewhere else and presumably was already present in that objection. No one should plead, therefore, that it is his piety, his humility under the powerful hand of God,354 that makes him cowardly; no one should fear to entrust himself to God with the idea that this relationship would deprive him of his power and make him cowardly. It is just the reverse. Anyone upon whom God does not confer knighthood with his powerful hand is and remains cowardly in his deepest soul, if for no other reason than that he was too proud to bear the accolade, inasmuch as it, like every accolade that confers knighthood, requires the confession of one’s own unworthiness. We shall now, therefore, speak:
Against Cowardliness.
It is supposed to be a sign of a sophisticated age that the inadmissible, the forbidden, and sin are given an absolving, an almost honorable name. Sometimes the falsification is continued so long that the old, earnest, and explicit word is forgotten and goes out of use. If it happens to be heard on occasion, it almost evokes laughter, because it is assumed that the speaker either is a man from the country who speaks an archaic, stilted language that totally lacks the flexibility of the vernacular or is a wag who is using such a word simply to evoke laughter, either at the word itself or at its mimicking of others, of whom it prompts recollection. A similar falsification is perpetrated when someone chooses to use one of two words, both of which refer to something reprehensible, indeed, equally reprehensible, because in the general view it has a connotation of something that in the eyes of the world is not bad.
This is the case with the two words “cowardliness” and “pride.” If a preacher, whose work it is to attend to people’s lives and to call them to the good, wanted to warn against pride, he probably would find many listeners, and yet the effect of what he said on all of them might be far from what he intended—indeed, there might even be someone who without paying attention to the admonition heard the flattering recognition implied in using this word. But if he wanted to warn against cowardliness, then his listeners would no doubt look around to see whether any such wretch was present, a cowardly soul, the most contemptible of all, the most intolerable, for even a degenerate person can still be tolerated if he is proud—but a coward . . . . . A person really must be without [V 130] an ear for the thieves’ slang of the passions if he does not perceive that there must be something wrong with cowardliness, since it has become so repulsive, so fearful of being named—indeed, has so completely vanished from life. And yet anyone who was much inclined to assume that the polite warning against pride applied to him can be sure that the insulting words about cowardliness apply to him also, because cowardliness and pride are one and the same; he can be sure that the words applied especially to him, that is, if he was very eager to seem proud, since that is precisely cowardliness.
Pride and cowardliness are one and the same. This must not, however, be misunderstood; what is meant in particular here is that what is spoken of under the name of pride is ordinarily cowardliness. Even false pride is rarely to be seen, and if the preacher were to adapt his discourse to the conditions manifest in life, he would rarely warn against pride. False pride requires a high conception of one’s own worth and of the responsibility the proud person has for himself, which he fears more than he fears the whole world. The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing, and he is actually struggling not with people but with God, because he wants to do it with his own power; he does not want to sneak out of something—no, what he wants is to set the task as high as possible and then to finish it by himself, satisfied with his own consciousness and his own approval. Therefore, even the falsely proud person must be able to be proud in solitariness, must be able to renounce and reject all reward in the world,355 the favor of people, and not a living soul, not the defiance of the proudest, not the pleas of the most lovable, may disturb him. No gain, not the whole world, not the most insignificant and secret thing may tempt him. He must concentrate all his thought in order to see the right; he must will it, because he is too proud to admit that people could be in the right in opposition to him, even though no one could convince him of that. But such an existence is sleepless, very exhausting, and pursued by many terrors. Therefore, if we take this requirement out among the people, how rarely is there anyone who has met it. Yes, many have taken pride’s first leap into life, many fatuously enough, but when it comes to the next step, then the proud person goes begging to the very same person he proudly disdained; he who tossed his head proudly now bends his knees, he who proudly rejected is now contented; he who wanted to flout everything now begs for life; he who proudly wanted to be unto himself enough is looking around for like-minded people; he who has cunningly altered pride’s task lies a little to himself and procures the opinion of others that this [V 131] is indeed the proudest thing of all—then they band together and are proud in a solidarity that is vanity and cowardliness. We certainly do not say this in order to extol that false pride, but its way nevertheless is terrible and therefore is seldom trodden, which is fine, of course, because the devil lies in wait for false pride, and it becomes his victim, since it is cowardliness. In other words, someone who stands alone this way is bound to discover that there is a God, and if he then is unwilling to understand that it is too little to be alone with a secret, if he is too proud to have an almighty God as co-knower, then he is indeed cowardly. Even though the world and all the terrors that earthly and human life conceal do not succeed in exposing his solitariness as a mirage, the Almighty will quickly do it, and this he cannot bear; consequently he is cowardly.
Since, then, even false pride is very rare in the world and nevertheless pride is so frequently mentioned, it can be concluded that cowardliness must be very common—indeed, this conclusion can be drawn without offending anyone; and without being a judge and a prober of hearts, one can take it for granted that everyone is somewhat cowardly, and in particular it can safely be assumed that anyone who seeks to know himself better will be willing to acknowledge that he has not infrequently caught himself in it, and for that reason he is always a bit dubious about even his boldest enterprise. That the confounding can occur is not difficult to understand, and the discourse will continually call attention to it, because, although it deals with cowardliness, it continually aims at pride. If the subject is to be approached fundamentally, that first lie must be prevented first of all. Even when cowardliness is mistaken for sagacity, with a generally esteemed common sense that secretly is selfishness, even then it is at first mistaken for pride—that is, in the sense that being wise about the world and one’s own advantage in this way is something great. If a warning is given against such sagacity, then take great care that the admonition does not become tempting, for there just might be someone who would like to hear such an admonition, and not exactly for the sake of the admonition. Only a religious view can speak honestly about and against such a thing, because the religious view knows the one thing needful and knows that it is the one thing needful,356 and therefore it is not busy with the multifarious or does not become seductive in describing the differences.
Now if it so happened that, just as there is a curse on cowardliness, there was also a curse on it of such a nature that it could not appear in any form other than its actual form, that it [V 132] could not deceive anyone with any disguise—then it surely would soon become homeless in the world, because who would live in the same house with this contemptibleness! Indeed, it would soon be compelled to flee to the most remote places, and then not even the most degraded and despicable would call it out. But such is not the case. Cowardliness is precisely the most flexible, the most adroit, the most pleasant, so to speak, of all the passions; it is not noisy and strident, but, quiet and suggestive and yet lustful, it attracts all the passions to itself, since in its association with them it is extremely engaging, knows how to maintain a friendship with them, and buries itself deep in the soul like somnolent vapor of stagnant water, from which pestiferous breezes and deceptive phantoms rise, while the vapor still remains. What cowardliness fears most is the making of a resolution, because a resolution always disperses the vapor for a moment. The power cowardliness prefers to conspire with is time, because neither time nor cowardliness finds that there is any reason to hurry. Is it not curious that it is God and the eternal and not time that say: 357this very day.358 Then let each day have its own trouble and toil,359 and also its own pleasures and rewards. This is resolution’s ceaseless refrain, its most ceremonious and its most everyday request, its first and its last word, that which it wants every day to signify and wants to give significance to every day: this very day.
But in the first place, cowardliness keeps a person from acknowledging what is the good, the truly great and noble, which ought to be the goal of his striving and his diligence early and late. If cowardliness had to reveal itself at this point as the wretched vermin it is or come forth in all its grossness, then there would be no danger, but it never appears in this way, or in any case not until later, inasmuch as evil always tempts with a winsome form and then throws off the mask and allows its victim to sink into the abyss with the thought that it is too late. Cowardliness merely wants to prevent the decision of resolution; therefore it gives its conduct a grand name. It zealously opposes precipitousness, immaturity, and haste—no, the continued striving360 is the great thing; it is a proud task. The continued striving—a marvelous phrase—how disappointing if cowardliness were not to capture one soul for itself! That the continued striving still must have a beginning, especially in view of its presumably coming to an end—this neither cowardliness nor time wants to know about; only resolution knows this, as the phrase indicates, since the resolution [Beslutning] is the beginning, and yet it takes its name from its knowing that a conclusion [Slutning] is coming. If cowardliness has come along this far with a person, then it can be said [V 133] to be nicely and cozily settled. What a proud thing to stare constantly into the clouds in this way without ever needing to bend its head to see its feet! If God is to be praised for forming man upright, how much more should cowardliness be praised, because it raised him up even more splendidly! A person such as that now lives with the far-off great goal before his eyes; if he should have misgivings for a moment, then cowardliness is promptly prepared with the explanation that it has to be this way because the goal [Maal] is so infinitely far off. He lives in the continued striving; if the concern should awaken about whether it was a striving, whether it was ongoing, then cowardliness dispels every doubt and immediately smooths out the furrowed brow by explaining that the single day, the single week, is too small a category to gauge [udmaale] such a striving. In truth, is he not striving? Cowardliness calmly goes on with its striving and can see very well that week by week, yes, day by day, it is not striving in vain, and neither is it striving toward an infinitely far-off goal.
But the good, the truly great and noble, is, of course, not just something general and as such the general object of knowledge; it is also something particular in relation to the individual’s particular talent, so that one person is capable of more than another, so that one person is capable of it in one way, another in another. The talent itself is not the good, as if exceptional capability were the good and limited capability the bad (what a bane for the fortunate, what despair for the unfortunate!)—no, talent is the indifferent that nevertheless has its importance.361 If the capability is exceptional, then cowardliness says, “When one is so equipped, there certainly is no rush about beginning. This is much too easy, take your time, take a little loss: the expert player likes to begin when the game is half lost. I know it so well; right now I am idly hanging fire, but shortly, soon now, I will really get under way.” How proudly cowardliness does talk! What does it mean to say that the task is too easy—it means that it is difficult, and by calling something more difficult, cowardliness has brought the person choosing to choose that which in the eyes of the world seems to be hardest but is the easier task. In other words, it is more difficult to begin quietly because it is less prestigious, and this bit of humiliation is precisely the difficulty. Consequently, it was not pride but cowardliness that was the counselor. Everyone knows that the moment of danger gives a person greater strength, but note well to what extent and in what way one is thereby greater. Is it such a great thing, after all, to need to have the terror of danger in order to [V 134] muster one’s strength, not to mention that the opposite could also occur, that the terror would certainly be there, but the strength would vanish. It was so easy that he could not resolve to begin. It was proud, but it was cowardly, because actually he was afraid that what he had let himself call a trifle might not turn out to be exactly that, and then he would be in the awkward position of being obliged to feel his own weakness without confronting the colossal name of the supreme terror, of being obliged to stand there in disgrace, deprived of every brilliant exit.
Or the capability is slight. Then cowardliness says, “This is too little to begin with.” It is very fatuous, indeed, even foolish, to say this, because if one does not have more to begin with, it must indeed always be enough, and the less one begins with, the greater one becomes; but cowardliness, you see, has won sagacity over to its side, and sagacity declares that this is absolutely right, because the person who begins nothing does not lose anything either. Sagacity of that sort is certainly something of which to be proud, and pride has already discerned that rejecting everything is a much prouder thing than beginning with little, and this the person can do who rejects the little offered to him and in addition everything that was not offered to him at all. It seems proud, but cowardliness was, after all, the original inventor. [V 135]
Besides all its other good qualities, the good, the truly great and noble, has the quality of not allowing the observer to be indifferent. It elicits a pledge, as it were, from the person who has once caught a vision of it. However deep that person sinks, he never actually forgets it completely; even in his reprobate state, this recollection is certainly a torment to him, but also at times a deliverance. But just as it lifts a person up, so also it humbles him, because it requires of him all his power and yet retains the authority to call him an unworthy servant362 even when he has done his utmost. Now it is extremely important for cowardliness to prevent this loving understanding, resolution’s solemn agreement with the good on such humiliating terms. In that case, pride is promptly on the spot; in agreement with cowardliness, it explains that it is much prouder to be conscious that one could be somewhat more than one is if one only wanted to be. From time to time, this indefinite greatness may be rated as high as one wishes, and one must not let oneself be upbraided as an unworthy servant. Sagacity also supports cowardliness and teaches that one ought to be a little mistrustful at all times, never to devote oneself altogether. This is indeed very sagacious, but just suppose it were foolishness with regard to something in which there is nothing at all to win if one does not stake everything. 363Moreover, would it be sagacious in daily life to haggle with a merchant who had fixed prices and to offer him a little bit less; would it also be sagacious if he had absolutely fixed prices and one urgently needed what he had to sell? And yet it is indeed sagacious, and cowardliness smiles at the rashly proud one who forces his way to the front to take part in the competition for honor, smiles at him when he stumbles and consoles itself. Yet the cowardly proud one is more sagacious than the rashly proud one only for a moment and is more despicable, or, to put it more accurately, since it is useless to dwell on such differences, they have both lost everything.
If this is what happens, then a person has himself and his cowardliness to thank for it, because God does not give a spirit of cowardliness but a spirit of power and of love and of self-control, such as is necessary in order to know what is the good, what is truly great and noble, what significance it has for him and in relation to him; in order to love the good with the unselfish love that desires only to be an unworthy servant, which is always love’s delight, and the opposite of it is a violation that pollutes love for him by making it profitable; and in order to maintain constancy, lest everything become unfruitful without the self-control that tempers the effort and the decision of resolution. This acknowledgment, this assent of resolution, is the first dedication. Alas, how rarely a person experiences this in such a way that even merely in the moment of dedication he renounces all dreams and fancies, every mirage that wants to inflate him and cause him to be amazed at himself, and instead receives the power to envision it as it is, the power to embrace it with self-denying love, the power to make the pact of self-control with it! How rarely a person experiences this in such a way that even merely in the hour of dedication he has the power to hold to the good, which seemingly wants to destroy him, the love not to shrink from it, the self-control not to falsify himself!
Cowardliness does not come from God, but it knows how to assume the appearance of a spirit of power and of love and of self-control. Now it is certainly true, as cowardliness also teaches, that everyone ought to strive for a high and far-off goal—it is high, because it is heaven; it is far off, and who does not know that, far off especially if a person’s merit is supposed to reach it. But from the very beginning God himself has divided time, has separated day and night,364 and in the same way the self-control of resolution will also promptly divide [V 136] time for a human being, so that morning’s renewed resolution and evening’s thanksgiving and the quiet celebration of the day of rest—or however resolution has otherwise divided time for you, my listener—will each acquire its significance as division and as goal. If someone is unwilling to understand this in the beginning, he will not actually come to a resolution, and this will actually make his life meaningless, indeed, as suspect as the friendship that continually rejects every opportunity life provides to express itself, meaningless, yes, unlived, like the speech that is never heard, that in its superiority disdained every word and phrase the language offered. Who does not see this? Even the most cowardly would perhaps smile at this discourse as superfluous, because the rendering of the account will show what ought to have been done; but perhaps he does not bear in mind that if the resolution is not the beginning and the beginning the resolution, then the final account can never be rendered, because in a certain sense there is none.
Now it is certainly true that the good, the truly great and noble, is different for different people, but resolution, which is the true acknowledgment, is still the same. This is a very upbuilding [opbyggelig] thought. Someone who wants to erect [opføre] a tower sits down and roughly estimates how high he can erect the tower.365 Alas, how different it appears at the time of the rough estimate, but how similar in the moment of resolution, and if there is no resolution, there will be no tower, however imaginary or however really splendid the estimate was! The good resolution, which corresponds to the acknowledgment of the good, is indeed to will to do everything in one’s power, to serve it to the utmost of one’s capability. To do everything one is capable of doing—what blessed equality, since every human being is indeed capable of that. Only in the moment of the rough estimate is there a difference. Or consider someone who wants to do an act of mercy—can he do more than give all that he possesses—and did not the widow give infinitely more than the rich man who gave out of his abundance!366 At times the circumstances can determine that a penny signifies little more than it usually signifies, but if someone wants to do something marvelous, he can make the one penny signify just as much as all the world’s gold put together if he gives it out of compassion and the penny is the only one he has. Indeed, someone who has an ear for judging how large the gift is detects the difference just by hearing the jingle of the coins, but compassion and the temple box understand it differently. 367Someone who has only an ear for hearing the whisper of the possibilities in the rough estimate makes an enormous distinction, but resolution understands it differently. When someone who enjoys health and strength and who possesses the best gifts of the spirit enters the service of the good with all that he has, with the range of years that seem to stretch out before him, with expectancy’s every demand upon life, every claim expected and demanded only for the sake of the good—and when, on the other hand, someone who sadly sees his earthly frailty and the day of disintegration so close that he is tempted to speak of the time granted him as the pastor speaks of it, when in the hour of resolution a person like that promises with the pastor’s words “to dedicate these moments” to the service of the good—whose tower then becomes higher? Or when one person joyfully feels like someone who is going to become a mighty instrument for the winning of many and another sadly considers himself only a burden to others—when they both nevertheless resolve to will to be everything, and altogether nothing, for the good, whose tower then becomes higher? Do they not both reach to heaven? Or when one person, a stranger to internal enemies, aggressively directs his mind and thought toward humankind in the service of the good and wins thousands, and when another, retreating to internal battles, in the moment of resolution saves himself, whose tower then becomes higher? If cowardliness could understand this, it would not be so opposed to resolution, because this is the secret of resolution. It demands everything, that is true; it does not allow itself to be deceived, it tolerates no dishonesty, it is close-fisted down to the last penny368 toward the person who wants to give almost everything. But it is not petty; it relishes the sight of someone who gives away the little he has and is angry only if he wants to hold back, if he wants to put the blame on his poverty, if he sophistically wants to delude himself into thinking that it is impossible for him to give away everything since he 369possesses nothing, if he wants to divert himself by wishing that he had much to give away, if he wants to entertain himself by thinking how magnanimous he then would be, wants to satisfy his urge for resolution with dreams until the urge passes. All this is cowardliness and concealed pride, which desires to become in obscurity a little more than one is and to put off the resolution with feigned approval. [V 137]
In the next place, cowardliness prevents a person from doing the good, from accomplishing the truly great and noble to which he has attached himself in a resolution. In the foregoing, we have already directed attention to a kind of superstition that makes a person think that everything is settled by a [V 138] resolution, which he then is not averse to making, perhaps even in the opinion that through resolutions his life has a superiority that excuses him from being concerned about lesser things. Only on solemn and crucial occasions will he venture everything; lesser things do not occupy him. Alas, but wanting, as it were, merely to dress up in life this way is a glittering delusion. For anyone who allows himself to nourish such ideas about it, the resolution itself becomes a seducer and deceiver instead of a trustworthy guide. It is certainly true and right that the splendor of eternity shines upon the resolution, that in the resolution everything seems decided for eternity, but this is only the first step. Then the resolution changes its clothes and now wants to concern itself specifically with the most everyday matters, and thus in its everyday or, if I may put it this way, in its house clothes the resolution does not appear as divine, but in its innermost nature it is entirely the same. In other words, it is the meaning of resolution for human life that it wants to give it coherence, an even and calm progress. For this, resolution has the winsome faculty of concerning itself with little things, so that one neither disregards them nor is lost in them; so that life goes forward in the resolution, strengthened, refreshed, and invigorated by the resolution.
Now resolution is something else. Perhaps it is to be sparing of what poverty alone needs to care about, to hold back a little word of anger, to bring oneself to submit to a minor unpleasantness, to keep on working a little longer, to forget a little insult. How changed! Is it not unfaithfulness on the part of resolution to behave in this way, or is this actually what the resolution was? After all, the resolution was to will not to need earthly things, in contentment to will to become carefree like a bird of the air.370 Indeed, the resolution was to will to be victorious over one’s disposition and over one’s enemies by reconciliation; the resolution was that the evening of life should witness that there had been work during the day; the resolution was to lift up one’s soul over everything that was petty in life.
Yes, that was the resolution; it is not forgotten. But now this . . . . . Good Lord, are we so close to poverty 371that we need to be sparing of the little we have; are we so irritable that we have to be so afraid of a little outburst; does half an hour have the power to make one a loafer; are we perhaps mad the minute we are a little depressed; are we irreconcilable when we are willing to forget the greater insults and remember only the lesser ones? Oh, anyone who knows anything about resolution will not deny how beautifully it knows how to speak, almost to plead, for itself, plead that we will simply do what [V 139] it says, and above all not contaminate ourselves by believing that we entrusted ourselves to a faithless one in entrusting ourselves to the resolution. It admits that what it wants is a trifle, that it should be done precisely as a trifle, since otherwise it is compelled to make life strenuous for a person in an opposite way in that a trifle becomes the most important; therefore that which is a trifle and as such can be disregarded is no trifle when resolution has laid claim to it, and to become unfaithful to one’s resolution on the occasion of a trifle is indeed unfaithfulness and no trifle. Finally it becomes jealous of itself and wants to help the person for a time by nagging him and giving him no peace.
Where does the fault lie if the person and the resolution no longer live together in harmony?372 It lies with his cowardliness. It is quite true that a person’s soul can become confused if the trivial continually becomes for him the important. The resolution does not want this either; it wants him to do it as a trifle, do it as an additional consequence of the resolution. Cowardliness, however, always wants to deal with the important, not simply in order to carry out something properly but because it is flattering to be tried in the more important things and because, when one fails, it is consoling that it was something important. It is presumably very rare that a person actually stops making an attempt or at least stops believing that he could accomplish something great and thereby admit his cowardliness (if in other respects the great is something that in its universal validity pertains to every human being, since in relation to the external and the accidental it may very well be wise and sober not to venture too much); no, he first cheats the task, calls it a trifle, and then he abstains from accomplishing it. But the deception is that of cowardliness, and the satisfaction is that of pride—so here again cowardliness is what lies at the base.
If the resolution does not prevail in this struggle, if it more frequently comes to grief in this way, it finally becomes exhausted, and things become worse and worse until the resolution becomes a half-forgotten, aimless thought, a whim of former days that once in a while visits the one who has changed. Instead of the steady progress envisioned by the resolution, there is regression. Deliverance, however, is to be sought again only in the resolution, but the conditions are not the same as at first. Now cowardliness is in opposition; powerless as it is, it nevertheless directs its hatred at the resolution, in its heart thinks baleful thoughts373 about it, and satisfies itself through the deception of pride. Who could ever count all [V 140] the evasions, the sophistries, that cowardliness is able to find in such circumstances, all the fraudulent suggestions it knows how to make in order to prove itself right over against the resolution, in order to become assured that the decision is a snare in which one is caught, a self-torturing in which the prisoner scourges himself, a deceiver who still does not help. Did it really help earlier, or have there not been particular moments when one was almost willing to conclude a bargain with it, but see whether it helped right away! Even though the resolution is again victorious in a person, oh, how seldom he really regains his strength. Cowardliness lies in wait everywhere, and if it is capable of nothing else, it sees to it that there is a little discrepancy in the renewal of the resolution. If the resolution is to be truly renewed and to some purpose, it must begin precisely where it left off. This is very painful. Then cowardliness and time help with false friendship. The intervening time places the regression at a distance, distances it in less definite contours; the intervening space deceives the eyes; as past, the wasted time does not seem so long or so empty and barren. Moreover, the weeds sometimes bear magnificent flowers. Then when forgetfulness has provided a little relief, the resolution finally comes again. 374Alas, but cowardliness has indeed been involved; even though it is not the father of the resolution, which it never is, it nevertheless stood by and in part prevented the resolution from bringing into life a coherence in the deeper sense. Perhaps pride comforts with the bold thought of beginning over again, of letting the past be forgotten and beginning more bravely than ever. But who is it that pride comforts? Such comfort can only violate the resolution. It is cowardliness that is grasping for it; consequently, here again it is cowardliness that lies at the base. If this happens, a person can thank himself and cowardliness for it, because God gives a spirit of power, of love, and of self-control.
Yet perhaps it did not happen this way. Perhaps mention is made of someone who, humanly speaking, dared to resolve to erect the tower high. If the resolution was great, then the implementing of it was also great; the resolution triumphantly steers as if under full sail straight to the goal. But there is still a discrepancy, a little trifle beyond his capability; he knows it, he knew it, he gradually perceives it more and more clearly. If his resolution was the good, then it was to sacrifice everything in the service of the good; if this is not his resolution, then no matter how great it was, all his admired power, his perseverance, his triumphant advance are only of superfluous and self-invented importance—the good and God do not need him. Even someone adequately equipped to transform the world—if he wants to do it on his own account—is not even as important in the eyes of God as a sparrow of the air,375 which God [V 141] really does not need. But if it was the good resolution, then it is jealous of itself and scrupulous with a person. What does it mean that he, although actually capable of something great, is incapable of something insignificant? However great he may be, he is still only a servant; when he has promised everything to the good, this has a far more sacred and authentic meaning than the great-in-the-eyes-of-the-world thing he is able to perform. Even if he were capable of teaching all people the truth, if upon discovering weakness and discrepancies in himself he nevertheless concentrated all his might upon himself, then he would really be true to himself and more important to God than if he did the opposite, although people probably would swoon if they could see a world-moving power occupied with what they call a trifle, even if it were not so, since the opposite would be to become a riddle to himself and in the process to do his utmost to make life meaningless.
But how is this little discrepancy to be explained; why is it there? It is a trifle—hence it is a matter of pride not to be concerned about it. It is a trifle—how strange that life is such that the great men are unable to do the lesser things ordinary people are able to do. It is a trifle—how close the ridiculous is to the most profound earnestness! That the greatest thing and the least thing are connected in this way, that a trifle mocks the great in this way, tags after it like a teasing nisse376—how strange this is (really something for the soul expert to ponder), something that could be called life’s envy of the prominent, which mockingly indicates to him that he is still a human being like everyone else, like the lowliest, that the human demands its rights!
Of course, every such explanation probably has its significance, especially for the uninvolved, but if the one involved is satisfied with it, then he really will only be diverted and is fundamentally cowardly and does not dare to come to himself in order to endure the contradiction that awaits him, in order to learn what every human being should not just learn by rote but learn very particularly, that he is nothing—which some learn by recognizing that what they are capable of is as good as nothing, others by recognizing that what they are not capable of is as good as nothing but is sufficient to make all their capability essentially nothing. The extensive enterprise can often be dazzling enough, especially when it is not only glorious and lauded by men but beneficial for many, and yet it is only a mirage; the resolution is still not the good resolution, since a person such as that does not completely give himself along with everything to the good, namely, along with his [V 142] weakness, and leave it up to God whether he wills that through a long life this abundance of power is to work itself weary on a little weakness such as this or whether the one gloriously equipped is to have importance for others. The mirage is due to such a person’s becoming a worthy servant in his own eyes, an important instrument, but this is not the good resolution, which is satisfied with being willing to be an unworthy servant. Therefore every person is to test himself.377 Possibly there has been someone in this world who was admired by men, extolled in his lifetime, missed in death, honored as a benefactor, commemorated with memorials, to whom God nevertheless was obliged to say: Unhappy man, you did not choose the better part.378 But if this was the case, then a person such as this certainly also noticed time and again the discrepancy, which, properly understood, either merely wanted to be an unremitting disciplinarian379 to him, and as such also requested access to him at all times, or insisted that he transform this extensive enterprise and renew the good resolution, because God does not give a spirit of cowardliness but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-control. Do what you can for God, and God will do for you what you cannot do. But is this doing what you can an unwillingness to be humbly aware of the weakness in which he perhaps will become understandable to you? Yes, it is hard when it seems as if one could do so very much for the good, but it nevertheless is certain that the only thing and the greatest—something the greatest and the lowliest of men are capable of doing for God—is to give oneself completely, consequently one’s weakness also, for obedience is dearer to God than the fat of rams.380
There is a foolishness in youth’s high-flying resolutions, but in reliance on God one dares to venture everything. Venture it, then, you who became unfaithful to yourself and to your resolution, you who, thereby enfeebled like a childish old man, now drag along without ever trusting in the restitution of the resolution; venture to renew your resolution—it will certainly raise you up again in trust in God, who gives a spirit of power and of love and of self-control! Venture it, you who threw off the chain of resolution and now may be boasting of your freedom like a released prisoner. Venture to understand that this pride of yours is cowardliness; turn yourself in again so that justice may again bind you in the service of the resolution; venture it in trust in God, who will give a spirit of power and of love and of self-control! Venture it, you who [V 143] once humbled yourself under God in the good resolution but made a mistake and in your own eyes and in the eyes of others became so very important to the good; venture it again in order to become nothing before God—he will surely give you a spirit of power, of love, and of self-control!
Finally, cowardliness prevents a person from acknowledging the good that he does do. Now it is certainly true that it is always preferable to be regarded as lowlier and worse than one is than to be regarded as better than one is, which is a great danger if it happens to a person and terrible if he himself is responsible for it. Oh, even if I were dying, I would still recommend these words: “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that men will not see you fasting, but your Father who is in secret.”381 Even though a person went astray and sinned, there nevertheless are still comfort and trust in God’s compassion. But if a person is senseless enough to flirt with the highest, if the sacred words “virtue” and “love” and “piety” have become platitudes that he mouths to the point of nausea, if he has developed this art to the utmost of being able to deal thoughtlessly with even the holiest and most earnest thoughts, of being able to transform even the most earnest subject into bombast, the most sacred subject into a flourish; or if he were so base as to affect a hypocritical appearance, so base as to hold men in contempt by “disfiguring his face,”382 so base as to assume that God himself is for sale, yes, is purchasable with words and platitudes—where, then, is there deliverance for such a person? Or should language, especially in our day, perhaps consider finding such a new and ceremonious expression for the holy that it could impress one who tried (one would almost think this) his very best to create in every better person an aversion to that which has been received from our more earnest forefathers as a sacred heritage? Or would the holy ever be able to grasp someone who was much too accustomed to dealing with it hypocritically? But if this is the way it is, then attention should be given lest a person himself, out of cowardliness even though doing the good, become a snare for himself and the ruination of others by misleading their judgment. It should be noted that it is cowardliness that wants to prevent a person from acknowledging the good that he does do.
[V 144] From the very start, everything that is good in a person is silent, and just as it is essentially God’s nature to live in secret, so also the good in a person lives in secret. Every resolution that is fundamentally good is silent, because it has God as its confidant and went to him in private;383 every holy feeling that is fundamentally good is silent and concealed by a modesty that is holier than a woman’s;384 every pure sympathy for the human that is fundamentally good is silent, because it is hidden in God; every emotion of the heart is silent, since the lips are sealed and only the heart expanded. How dismal if people more and more forget that when everything becomes silent, when no one mentions or relates what is occurring within, when silence grows around a person, that he then can be with God in secret! How dismal if generation after generation the noise and the turbulence of life carry the child and the youth earlier and earlier out into the pandemonium, gather him into the vociferous crowd or make him vociferous, the earlier the better! Let worldly exploits become greater and greater, more and more extraordinary, more and more complicated, but do not forget that what a person gains by taking part in them, indeed, by managing the greatest of human enterprises, is not worth picking up on the beaten path compared with being superfluous in the world but sharing with God.
But if the good is silent this way, how easy for it to be misjudged! Unfortunately, it is frequently the case that the best people, who like that king’s daughter385 certainly possess the heart’s gold but have no small change to give away, sometimes suffer the most in the world simply because of others. Alas, if this happens, there is the temptation to break off relations with people and shut oneself in with the good in silence. It is so tempting not only for the falsely proud person but also for someone who, quiet and silent, humbles himself under God in fear and trembling;386 when all the inauthentic glitter and rouged untruth are held in high honor and even want to judge the one misjudged,387 then it is so tempting to be silent, to give the appearance that the judgment is correct, to be silent and not to defend oneself with a word but take one’s secret into the grave. When pure and warm feelings witness with a person’s heart that he loved much,388 when the sentimentality out there has monopolized the great word and even wants to judge the one misjudged, then it is so tempting to be silent, almost to confirm its judgment, and simply take along the consciousness that in its way the surrounding world acknowledged the good in him; after all, was he not declared to be the only selfish one? 389When so many people promptly say yes to the [V 145] good and promise to do the Father’s will and let themselves be praised for it, then it is very tempting to say no and secretly try to do it. When the soul is sighing and moaning and fasting, then it is so tempting to anoint one’s head and wash one’s face390 and not seek the company of the bighearted but be the heartless one. When so many hurry forward with their gifts and are called benefactors, or when they throng together around the injured party who acquired worldly significance by being wronged, or visit the prisoner who acquired worldly fame by his imprisonment, then it is very tempting to be anonymous, unseen to visit the widow, the orphan,391 and the prisoner392 who was shut out from society! But this also has its danger; it can become dangerous for oneself, and cowardliness can easily be present covertly or can little by little sneak its way in.
The good retains the right to make a person an unworthy servant even when he does the most. For the selfishness in man, this thought is the most humiliating. It requires from a person the honest confession that he is just like every other human being, even the lowliest, or (for this, unfortunately, is truer) the lowliest that any human being can become. But if he acknowledges the good, the world will perhaps judge differently; it will demand something else from him, and this he perhaps cannot endure, even if he secretly has the honesty to will and the strength to do the good. With his good resolution, he wished only to be an unworthy servant,393 that is, a servant who asks no reward. But see, the world rewards him; it rewards him with misjudgment. This was not according to the arrangement. Oh, anyone who does not comprehend that he is still an unworthy servant even when he does the most he can for the good and also suffers misjudgment—his thought has not even comprehended the perfect, to say nothing of having fulfilled it. If he fears misjudgment, it is indeed cowardliness that prevents him from acknowledging the good.
But a person may himself contribute to eliciting the misjudgment. Consequently, to that extent he seems not to be asking any reward for the good, even though he does not acknowledge it. But let us look at that. When he suffers misjudgment, it is easy for him to become more self-important; he does not judge others, but he wants his deeds to judge others and in a crafty way, if I dare say so, wants to build up a larger balance with God. He is not entirely content with being an unworthy servant; he wants to be a little more than that.
Now, a person can occasion misjudgment, indeed, the world’s persecution, by appearing as the advocate of the good [V 146] in an exaggerated way, consequently by acknowledging the good too much, if you please, but we are not speaking of this here. What we are speaking of here is the occasioning of misjudgment by failing to acknowledge the good. We shall not say with the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 4:10), “Woe to him who is alone; if he falls, there is no one else to raise him up,”394 for God is indeed still the one who both raises up and casts down, the one who lives in association with people and the solitary one; we shall not cry, “Woe to him,” but surely an “Ah, that he might not go astray,” because he is indeed alone in testing himself to see whether it is God’s call he is following or a voice of temptation, whether defiance and anger are not mixed embitteringly in his endeavor. How close is the path that leads astray!
Alas, there may have been someone who even called the curse upon himself and who nevertheless was in the right, who had a clear conscience about the matter for which he was judged but was wrong in being silent, wrong in that the essential reason perhaps was that he lacked the courage to admit his weakness, that he preferred to seem evil and be hated rather than to be loved and have his weakness known to others. Alas, there may have been someone who endured purposeless sufferings so hard that they could inspire a poet and who also at times became very self-important because of the anguish of being misunderstood, and yet, if he were really honest, he himself would have to confess that by means of a little confession he could at least have mitigated it! Alas, there may have been someone who bore the yoke of misjudgment years and days, did not become self-important but walked bent under the yoke because he suffered it as his punishment, even though he had allowed a change, so that he was punished not for what he should be punished for but for something else, and he on his own initiative accepted people’s misjudgment from God’s hands as a divine judgment but allowed people to be mistaken.
Silence and light-mindedness [Letsind] can indeed also conceal a heavy-mindedness [Tungsind] that gloomily loves the good. It will be very exhausting, and what is worse, the heavy-mindedness thrives and is nourished thereby. Silence and indifference to everything can also conceal a bad conscience, which still has this expression of the good, that it will simply suffer its punishment. We are speaking here not of hypocrisy, which wants to appear better, but of the opposite, a hatred of oneself that wrongs the person himself so that he is merely inventive in increasing his own torment. But hatred of oneself is still also self-love, and all self-love is cowardliness.
Let each one test himself to see whether he acknowledges the good that dwells within him, that moves and fills his heart, the good for which he lives. If he does this, not vociferously, [V 147] not obtrusively, because the acknowledgment should be like the good—reticent, unassuming, decorous, always modest—then he should tolerate the world’s misjudgment. He has no responsibility, for then and only then is he actually “open before God.”395 But if he does not do this, he had better watch out, because cowardliness only too willingly keeps bad company with pride. Cowardliness’s deception is to misrepresent the task and to make the difficult easy and the easier difficult; pride finds satisfaction in choosing the fancied difficulty. Then one becomes self-important, since someone who does the good but does not acknowledge it is still not altogether like other people. But whoever judges in this way is not judging spiritually, because anyone who judges spiritually knows that every human being is only an unworthy servant. To want to renounce the world and the world’s opinion and then in turn to pay oneself a worldly tribute for having done so is not renunciation of the world, even if cowardliness and pride can succeed in bringing off a remarkable deception. And if a person actually does love the good, does this not still have one claim upon him, the claim that he acknowledge it? The good certainly is not vain, and that is by no means the reason it makes this claim upon him, but it is the truth, and therefore all vociferousness is also just as detestable to the good. It is the truth, and the acknowledgment is the truth he owes to his neighbor. Is it not a good deed to restrain the arm of someone who wants to commit a misdeed, and is it not also a good deed to restrain the judgment of someone who wants to misjudge and cannot judge otherwise if acknowledgment of the good does not prevent it? Much wrong can be done to a person, but perhaps the worst is to come with belated repentance over a rash, unjust judgment that one nevertheless has oneself helped to occasion.
As you can see, if this happens, if a person goes astray in this way by doing the good, he can thank himself and cowardliness for it, because God gives a spirit of power, of love, and of self-control. Do what you can for God—but is it doing what you can to be unwilling to acknowledge the good, to be exclusive about it, although your life certainly must teach you to believe that a person is better than he seems—then God will give you a spirit of power and of love and of self-control. Therefore, venture it, you who embraced the good and remained true to your resolution; have the courage (since you do know that the discourse is against cowardliness, not against pride) to venture the lesser, if you wish to call it that, to acknowledge the good even if you do not gleam with it! Therefore, venture it, you who in your heart acknowledge the good, venture to do it before people. Do not do it ashamedly [V 148] and with downcast eyes, as if you were walking a forbidden road;396 acknowledge it even though you are ashamed because you always feel your own imperfection and lower your eyes before God! Venture it in trust in God, you who endured your punishment and did not flee the judgment of conscience. Venture the lesser (the discourse is against cowardliness, not against pride; yet it still pertains to you), to endure the sympathy of people, you who endured the punishment. Thus let each one acknowledge the good, renewed in his resolution, never led astray by any jugglery that it is more difficult to serve the good when one is misjudged. How, indeed, would it help for it to be more difficult if it was also less true or for it to be more difficult for many if it was easier for him?