Continuation of Sin
Sickness Unto Death Preface To many the form of this “exposition” will perhaps seem strange; it will seem to them too strict to be edifying, and too edifying to be strictly scientific.
As to this latter point I have no opinion.
As to the first, however, this does not express my opinion of the matter; and if it were true that the form is too strict to be edifying, that, according to my conception, would be a fault.
It is one question whether it cannot be edifying to everyone, seeing that not everyone possesses the capacity for following it; it is another question whether it possesses the specific character of the edifying.
From the Christian point of view everything, absolutely everything should serve for edification.
The sort of learning which is not in the last resort edifying is precisely for that reason unchristian.
Everything that is Christian must bear some resemblance to the address which a physician makes beside the sick-bed: although it can be fully understood only by one who is versed in medicine, yet it must never be forgotten that it is pronounced beside the sick-bed.
This relation of the Christian teaching to life (in contrast with a scientific aloofness from life), or this ethical side of Christianity, is essentially the edifying, and the form in which it is presented, however strict it may be, is altogether different, qualitatively different, from that sort of learning which is “indifferent,” the lofty heroism of which is from a Christian point of view so far from being heroism that from a Christian point of view it is an inhuman sort of curiosity.
The Christian heroism (and perhaps it is rarely to be seen) is to venture wholly to be oneself, as an individual man, this definite individual man, alone before the face of God, alone in this tremendous exertion and this tremendous responsibility; but it is not Christian heroism to be humbugged by the pure idea of humanity or to play the game of marveling at world-history.
All Christian knowledge, however strict its form, ought to be anxiously concerned; but this concern is precisely the note of the edifying.
Concern implies relationship to life, to the reality of personal existence, and thus in a Christian sense it is seriousness; the high aloofness of indifferent learning, is, from the Christian point of view, far from being seriousness, it is, from the Christian point of view, jest and vanity.
This little book therefore is in one sense composed in a way that a seminary student could write it; in another sense, however, in a way that perhaps not every professor could write it.
But the fact that the form in which this treatise is clothed is what it is, is at least the result of due reflection, and at all events it is certainly correct from a psychological point of view.
There is a more solemn style which is so solemn that it does not signify much, and since one is too well accustomed to it, it easily becomes entirely meaningless.
Only one remark more, doubtless a superfluity, but for that I am willing to assume the blame: I would call attention once for all to the fact that in this whole book, as the title indeed says, despair is conceived as the sickness, not as the cure.
So also in the Christian terminology death is the expression for the greatest spiritual wretchedness, and yet the cure is simply to die, to “die from.” Introduction “This sickness is not unto death” (John 11:4), and yet Lazarus died; for when the disciples misunderstood the words which Christ adjoined later, “Lazarus our friend is asleep, but I go to wake him out of his sleep” (11:11), He said plainly, “Lazarus is dead” (11:14).
So then Lazarus is dead, and yet this sickness was not unto death; he was dead, and yet this sickness is not unto death.
Now we know that Christ was thinking of the miracle which would permit the bystanders, “if they believed, to see the glory of God” (11:40), the miracle by which He awoke Lazarus from the dead, so that this sickness was not only not unto death, but, as Christ had foretold, “for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (11:4).
Oh, but even if Christ had not awakened Lazarus from the dead, is it not true that this sickness, that death itself, was not a sickness unto death?
When Christ comes to the grave and cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth” (11:43), it is evident enough that “this” sickness is not unto death.
But even if Christ had not said these words — merely the fact that He, who is “the resurrection and the life” (11:25), comes to the grave, is not this a sufficient sign that this sickness is not unto death, does not the fact that Christ exists mean that this sickness is not unto death?
And what help would it have been to Lazarus to be awakened from the dead, if the thing must end after all with his dying — how would that have helped Lazarus, if He did not live who is the resurrection and the life for everyone who believes in Him?
No, it is not because Lazarus was awakened from the dead, not for this can one say that this sickness is not unto death; but because He lives, therefore this sickness is not unto death.
For, humanly speaking, death is the last thing of all; and, humanly speaking, there is hope only so long as there is life.
But Christianly understood death is by no means the last thing of all, hence it is only a little event within that which is all, an eternal life; and Christianly understood there is in death infinitely much more hope than merely humanly speaking there is when there not only is life but this life exhibits the fullest health and vigor.
So then in the Christian understanding of it not even death is the sickness unto death, still less everything which is called earthly and temporal suffering: want, sickness, wretchedness, affliction, adversities, torments, mental sufferings, sorrow, grief.
And even if such things are so painful and hard to bear that we men say, or at all events the sufferer says, “This is worse than death” — everything of the sort, which, if it is not a sickness, is comparable to a sickness, is nevertheless, in the Christian understanding of it, not the sickness unto death.
So it is that Christianity has taught the Christian to think dauntlessly of everything earthly and worldly, including death.
It is almost as though the Christian must be puffed up because of this proud elevation above everything men commonly call misfortune, above that which men commonly call the greatest evil.
But then in turn Christianity has discovered an evil which man as such does not know of; this misery is the sickness unto death.
What the natural man considers horrible — when he has in this wise enumerated everything and knows nothing more he can mention, this for the Christian is like a jest.
Such is the relation between the natural man and the Christian; it is like the relation between a child and a man: what the child shudders at, the man regards as nothing.
The child does not know what the dreadful is; this the man knows, and he shudders at it.
The child’s imperfection consists, first of all, in not knowing what the dreadful is; and then again, as an implication of this, in shuddering at that which is not dreadful.
And so it is also with the natural man, he is ignorant of what the dreadful truly is, yet he is not thereby exempted from shuddering; no, he shudders at that which is not the dreadful: he does not know the true God, but this is not the whole of it, he worships an idol as God.
Only the Christian knows what is meant by the sickness unto death.
He acquires as a Christian a courage which the natural man does not know — this courage he acquires by learning fear for the still more dreadful.
Such is the way a man always acquires courage; when one fears a greater danger, it is as though the other did not exist.
But the dreadful thing the Christian learned to know is “the sickness unto death.” That Despair is the Sickness Unto Death Despair is a Sickness in the Spirit, in the Self, and So It May Assume a Triple Form: in Despair at Not Being Conscious of Having a Self (Despair Improperly So Called); in Despair at Not Willing to Be Oneself; in Despair at Willing to Be Oneself.
The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self.
Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis.
A synthesis is a relation between two factors.
In the relation between two, the relation is the third term as a negative unity, and the two relate themselves to the relation, and in the relation to the relation; such a relation is that between soul and body, when man is regarded as soul.
If on the contrary the relation relates itself to its own self, the relation is then the positive third term, and this is the self.
Such a relation which relates itself to its own self (that is to say, a self) must either have constituted itself or have been constituted by another.
If this relation which relates itself to its own self is constituted by another, the relation doubtless is the third term, but this relation (the third term) is in turn a relation relating itself to that which constituted the whole relation.
Such a derived, constituted, relation is the human self, a relation which relates itself to its own self, and in relating itself to its own self relates itself to another.
Hence it is that there can be two forms of despair properly so called.
If the human self had constituted itself, there could be a question only of one form, that of not willing to be one’s own self, of willing to get rid of oneself, but there would be no question of despairingly willing to be oneself.
that the self is constituted by another] is the expression for the total dependence of the relation (the self namely), the expression for the fact that the self cannot of itself attain and remain in equilibrium and rest by itself, but only by relating itself to that Power which constituted the whole relation.
Indeed, so far is it from being true that this second form of despair (despair at willing to be one’s own self) denotes only a particular kind of despair, that on the contrary all despair can in the last analysis be reduced to this.
If a man in despair is as he thinks conscious of his despair, does not talk about it meaninglessly as of something which befell him (pretty much as when a man who suffers from vertigo talks with nervous self-deception about a weight upon his head or about its being like something falling upon him, etc., this weight and this pressure being in fact not something external but an inverse reflection from an inward experience), and if by himself and by himself only he would abolish the despair, then by all the labor he expends he is only laboring himself deeper into a deeper despair.
The disrelationship of despair is not a simple disrelationship but a disrelationship in a relation which relates itself to its own self and is constituted by another, so that the disrelationship in that self-relation reflects itself infinitely in the relation to the Power which constituted it.
This then is the formula which describes the condition of the self when despair is completely eradicated: by relating itself to its own self and by willing to be itself the self is grounded transparently in the Power which posited it.
Possibility and Actuality of Despair Is despair an advantage or a drawback?
Regarded in a purely dialectical way it is both.
If one were to stick to the abstract notion of despair, without thinking of any concrete despairer, one might say that it is an immense advantage.
The possibility of this sickness is man’s advantage over the beast, and this advantage distinguishes him far more essentially than the erect posture, for it implies the infinite erectness or loftiness of being spirit.
The possibility of this sickness is man’s advantage over the beast; to be sharply observant of this sickness constitutes the Christian’s advantage over the natural man; to be healed of this sickness is the Christian’s bliss.
So then it is an infinite advantage to be able to despair; and yet it is not only the greatest misfortune and misery to be in despair; no, it is perdition.
Ordinarily there is no such relation between possibility and actuality; if it is an advantage to be able to be this or that, it is a still greater advantage to be such a thing.
That is to say, being is related to the ability to be as an ascent.
In the case of despair, on the contrary, being is related to the ability to be as a fall.
Infinite as is the advantage of the possibility, just so great is the measure of the fall.
So in the case of despair the ascent consists in not being in despair.
Yet this statement is open to misunderstanding.
The thing of not being in despair is not like not being lame, blind, etc.
In case the not being in despair means neither more nor less than not being this, then it is precisely to be it.
The thing of not being in despair must mean the annihilation of the possibility of being this; if it is to be true that a man is not in despair, one must annihilate the possibility every instant.
Such is not ordinarily the relation between possibility and actuality.
Although thinkers say2 that actuality is the annihilated possibility, yet this is not entirely true; it is the fulfilled, the effective possibility.
Here, on the contrary, the actuality (not being in despair), which in its very form is a negation, is the impotent, annihilated possibility; ordinarily, actuality in comparison with possibility is a confirmation, here it is a negation.
Despair is the disrelationship in a relation which relates itself to itself.
But the synthesis is not the disrelationship, it is merely the possibility, or, in the synthesis is latent the possibility of the disrelationship.
If the synthesis were the disrelationship, there would be no such thing as despair, for despair would then be something inherent in human nature as such, that is, it would not be despair, it would be something that befell a man, something he suffered passively, like an illness into which a man falls, or like death which is the lot of all.
No, this thing of despairing is inherent in man himself; but if he were not a synthesis, he could not despair, neither could he despair if the synthesis were not originally from God’s hand in the right relationship.
From the relation wherein the synthesis relates itself to itself, in that God who made man a relationship lets this go as it were out of His hand, that is, in the fact that the relation relates itself to itself.
And herein, in the fact that the relation is spirit, is the self, consists the responsibility under which all despair lies, and so lies every instant it exists, however much and however ingeniously the despairer, deceiving himself and others, may talk of his despair as a misfortune which has befallen him, with a confusion of things different, as in the case of vertigo aforementioned, with which, though it is qualitatively different, despair has much in common, since vertigo is under the rubric soul what despair is under the rubric spirit, and is pregnant with analogies to despair.
So when the disrelationship — that is, despair — has set in, does it follow as a matter of course that it continues?
No, it does not follow as a matter of course; if the disrelationship continues, it does not follow as a consequence of the disrelation but as a consequence of the relation which relates itself to itself.
That is to say, every time the disrelation expresses itself, and every instant it exists, it is to the relation one must revert.
Observe that we speak of a man contracting a disease, maybe through carelessness.
Then the illness sets in, and from that instant it affirms itself and is now an actuality, the origin of which recedes more and more into the past.
It would be cruel and inhuman if one were to continue to say incessantly, “This instant thou, the sick man, art contracting this disease”; that is, if every instant one were to resolve the actuality of the disease into its possibility.
It is true that he did contract the disease, but this he did only once; the continuance of the disease is a simple consequence of the fact that he once contracted it, its progress is not to be referred every instant to him as the cause; he contracted it, but one cannot say that he is contracting it.
Not so with despair: every actual instant of despair is to be referred back to possibility, every instant the man in despair is contracting it, it is constantly in the present tense, nothing comes to pass here as a consequence of a bygone actuality superseded; at every actual instant of despair the despairer bears as his responsibility all the foregoing experience in possibility as a present.
This comes from the fact that despair is a qualification of spirit, that it is related to the eternal in man.
But the eternal he cannot get rid of, no, not to all eternity; he cannot cast it from him once for all, nothing is more impossible; every instant he does not possess it he must have cast it or be casting it from him — but it comes back, every instant he is in despair he contracts despair.
For despair is not a result of the disrelationship but of the relation which relates itself to itself.
And the relation to himself a man cannot get rid of, any more than he can get rid of himself, which moreover is one and the same thing, since the self is the relationship to oneself.
Despair is “The Sickness unto Death.” The concept of the sickness unto death must be understood, however, in a peculiar sense.
Literally it means a sickness the end and outcome of which is death.
Thus one speaks of a mortal sickness as synonymous with a sickness unto death.
In this sense despair cannot be called the sickness unto death.
But in the Christian understanding of it death itself is a transition unto life In view of this, there is from the Christian standpoint no earthly, bodily sickness unto death.
For death is doubtless the last phase of the sickness, but death is not the last thing.
If in the strictest sense we are to speak of a sickness unto death, it must be one in which the last thing is death, and death the last thing.
Yet in another and still more definite sense despair is the sickness unto death.
It is indeed very far from being true that, literally understood, one dies of this sickness, or that this sickness ends with bodily death.
On the contrary, the torment of despair is precisely this, not to be able to die So it has much in common with the situation of the moribund when he lies and struggles with death, and cannot die.
So to be sick unto death is, not to be able to die — yet not as though there were hope of life; no the hopelessness in this case is that even the last hope, death, is not available.
When death is the greatest danger, one hopes for life; but when one becomes acquainted with an even more dreadful danger, one hopes for death.
So when the danger is so great that death has become one’s hope, despair is the disconsolateness of not being able to die.
It is in this last sense that despair is the sickness unto death, this agonizing contradiction, this sickness in the self, everlastingly to die, to die and yet not to die, to die the death.
For dying means that it is all over, but dying the death means to live to experience death; and if for a single instant this experience is possible, it is tantamount to experiencing it forever.
If one might die of despair as one dies of a sickness, then the eternal in him, the self, must be capable of dying in the same sense that the body dies of sickness.
But this is an impossibility; the dying of despair transforms itself constantly into a living.
The despairing man cannot die; no more than “the dagger can slay thoughts” can despair consume the eternal thing, the self, which is the ground of despair, whose worm dieth not, and whose fire is not quenched.
Yet despair is precisely self-consuming, but it is an impotent self-consumption which is not able to do what it wills; and this impotence is a new form of self-consumption, in which again, however, the despairer is not able to do what he wills, namely, to consume himself.
This is despair raised to a higher potency, or it is the law for the potentiation.
This is the hot incitement, or the cold fire in despair, the gnawing canker whose movement is constantly inward, deeper and deeper, in impotent self-consumption.
The fact that despair does not consume him is so far from being any comfort to the despairing man that it is precisely the opposite, this comfort is precisely the torment, it is precisely this that keeps the gnawing pain alive and keeps life in the pain.
This precisely is the reason why he despairs — not to say despaired — because he cannot consume himself, cannot get rid of himself, cannot become nothing.
This is the potentiated formula for despair, the rising of the fever in the sickness of the self.
A despairing man is in despair over something.
So it seems for an instant, but only for an instant; that same instant the true despair manifests itself, or despair manifests itself in its true character.
For in the fact that he despaired of something, he really despaired of himself, and now would be rid of himself.
Thus when the ambitious man whose watchword was “Either Caesar or nothing”3 does not become Caesar, he is in despair thereat.
But this signifies something else, namely, that precisely because he did not become Caesar he now cannot endure to be himself.
So properly he is not in despair over the fact that he did not become Caesar, but he is in despair over himself for the fact that he did not become Caesar.
This self which, had he become Caesar, would have been to him a sheer delight (though in another sense equally in despair), this self is now absolutely intolerable to him.
In a profounder sense it is not the fact that he did not become Caesar which is intolerable to him, but the self which did not become Caesar is the thing that is intolerable; or, more correctly, what is intolerable to him is that he cannot get rid of himself.
If he had become Caesar he would have been rid of himself in desperation, but now that he did not become Caesar he cannot in desperation get rid of himself.
Essentially he is equally in despair in either case, for he does not possess himself, he is not himself.
By becoming Caesar he would not after all have become himself but have got rid of himself, and by not becoming Caesar he falls into despair over the fact that he cannot get rid of himself.
Hence it is a superficial view (which presumably has never seen a person in despair, not even one’s own self) when it is said of a man in despair, “He is consuming himself.” For precisely this it is he despairs of, and to his torment it is precisely this he cannot do, since by despair fire has entered into something that cannot burn, or cannot burn up, that is, into the self.
So to despair over something is not yet properly despair.
It is the beginning, or it is as when the physician says of a sickness that it has not yet declared itself.
The next step is the declared despair, despair over oneself.
A young girl is in despair over love, and so she despairs over her lover, because he died, or because he was unfaithful to her.
This is not a declared despair; no, she is in despair over herself.
This self of hers, which, if it had become “his” beloved, she would have been rid of in the most blissful way, or would have lost, this self is now a torment to her when it has to be a self without “him”; this self which would have been to her riches (though in another sense equally in despair) has now become to her a loathsome void, since “he” is dead, or it has become to her an abhorrence, since it reminds her of the fact that she was betrayed.
Try it now, say to such a girl, “Thou art consuming thyself,” and thou shalt hear her reply, “Oh, no, the torment is precisely this, that I cannot do it.” To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself, is the formula for all despair, and hence the second form of despair (in despair at willing to be oneself) can be followed back to the first (in despair at not willing to be oneself), just as in the foregoing we resolved the first into the second (cf.
A despairing man wants despairingly to be himself.
But if he despairingly wants to be himself, he will not want to get rid of himself.
Yes, so it seems; but if one inspects more closely, one perceives that after all the contradiction is the same.
That self which he despairingly wills to be is a self which he is not (for to will to be that self which one truly is, is indeed the opposite of despair); what he really wills is to tear his self away from the Power which constituted it.
But notwithstanding all his despair, this he is unable to do, notwithstanding all the efforts of despair, that Power is the stronger, and it compels him to be the self he does not will to be.
But for all that he wills to be rid of himself, to be rid of the self which he is, in order to be the self he himself has chanced to chose.
To be self as he wills to be would be his delight (though in another sense it would be equally in despair), but to be compelled to be self as he does not will to be is his torment, namely, that he cannot get rid of himself.
Socrates proved the immortality of the soul from the fact that the sickness of the soul (sin) does not consume it as sickness of the body consumes the body.
So also we can demonstrate the eternal in man from the fact that despair cannot consume his self, that this precisely is the torment of contradiction in despair.
If there were nothing eternal in a man, he could not despair; but if despair could consume his self, there would still be no despair.
Thus it is that despair, this sickness in the self, is the sickness unto death.
In an entirely different sense than can appropriately be said of any disease, we may say that the sickness has attacked the noblest part; and yet the man cannot die.
Death is not the last phase of the sickness, but death is continually the last.
To be delivered from this sickness by death is an impossibility, for the sickness and its torment .
and death consist in not being able to die.
And however thoroughly it eludes the attention of the despairer, and however thoroughly the despairer may succeed (as in the case of that kind of despair which is characterized by unawareness of being in despair) in losing himself entirely, and losing himself in such a way that it is not noticed in the least — eternity nevertheless will make it manifest that his situation was despair, and it will so nail him to himself that the torment nevertheless remains that he cannot get rid of himself, and it becomes manifest that he was deluded in thinking that he succeeded.
And thus it is eternity must act, because to have a self, to be a self, is the greatest concession made to man, but at the same time it is eternity’s demand upon him.
The Universality of This Sickness (Despair) Just as the physician might say that there lives perhaps not one single man who is in perfect health, so one might say perhaps that there lives not one single man who after all is not to some extent in despair, in whose inmost parts there does not dwell a disquietude, a perturbation, a discord, an anxious dread of an unknown something, or of a something he does not even dare to make acquaintance with, dread of a possibility of life, or dread of himself, so that, after all, as physicians speak of a man going about with a disease in him, this man is going about and carrying a sickness of the spirit, which only rarely and in glimpses, by and with a dread which to him is inexplicable, gives evidence of its presence within.
At any rate there has lived no one and there lives no one outside of Christendom who is not in despair, and no one in Christendom, unless he be a true Christian, and if he is not quite that, he is somewhat in despair after all.
This view will doubtless seem to many a paradox, an exaggeration, and a gloomy and depressing view at that.
It is not gloomy; on the contrary, it seeks to throw light upon a subject which ordinarily is left in obscurity.
It is not depressing; on the contrary it is uplifting, since it views every man in the aspect of the highest demand made upon him, that he be spirit.
Nor is it a paradox; on the contrary, it is a fundamental apprehension consistently carried through, and hence it is no exaggeration.
On the other hand, the ordinary view of despair remains content with appearances, and so it is a superficial view, that is, no view at all.
It assumes that every man must know by himself better than anyone else whether he is in despair or not.
So whoever says that he is in despair is regarded as being in despair, but whoever thinks he is not in despair is not so regarded.
Consequently despair becomes a rather rare phenomenon, whereas in fact it is quite universal.
It is not a rare exception that one is in despair; no, the rare, the very rare exception is that one is not in despair.
But the vulgar view has a very poor understanding of despair.
Among other things (to mention only one which, if rightly understood, would bring thousands, yea, millions under this category), it completely overlooks the fact that one form of despair is precisely this of not being in despair, that is, not being aware of it.
The vulgar view is exposed, though in a much deeper sense, to the same fallacy it sometimes falls into when it would determine whether a man is sick or not.
In a much deeper sense, I say, for the vulgar view has a far more inadequate notion of spirit than of sickness and health — and without understanding spirit it is impossible to understand despair.
It is ordinarily assumed that a man is well when he does not himself say that he is sick, and still more confidently when he says that he is well.
The physician on the other hand regards sickness differently.
Because he has a definite and well thought out conception of what it is to be in sound health, and by this he tests the man’s condition.
The physician knows that just as there is sickness which is only imaginary, so also there is such a thing as fictitious health.
In the latter case, therefore, the physician first employs medicines to cause the disease to become manifest.
Generally the physician, just because he is a physician, i.e.
the competent man, has no unconditional faith in a person’s own assertion about the state of his health.
If it were true that what every man says about the state of his health (as to whether he is sick or well, where he suffers, etc.) were absolutely to be relied upon, it would be an illusion to be a physician.
For a physician does not merely have to prescribe medicines, but first and foremost he has to be acquainted with sickness, and so first and foremost to know whether a supposedly sick man really is sick, or whether a supposedly well man is not really sick.
So it is also with the physician of souls when dealing with despair.
He knows what despair is, he is acquainted with it, and hence he is not satisfied with a man’s assertion that he is in despair or that he is not.
For it must be observed that in a certain sense not even all who say they are in despair always are so.
One may affect despair, and one may make a mistake and confuse despair with all sorts of transitory dejection or grief which pass away without coming to the point of despair.
However, the physician of souls does, it is true, regard these states also as forms of despair.
He perceives very well that this is affectation — but precisely this affectation is despair.
He perceives very well that this dejection etc.
does not mean much — but precisely this fact, that it does not mean much, is despair.
Furthermore, the vulgar view overlooks the fact that, as compared with sickness, despair is much more dialectical than what is commonly called sickness, because it is a sickness of the spirit.
And this dialectical quality, rightly understood, again brings thousands under the category of despair.
For in case at a given moment a physician is convinced that this or that person is in good health and at a later moment becomes sick — the physician may be right in affirming that the person was well then, and at a later moment became sick.
As soon as despair manifests itself in a person, it is manifest that the person was in despair.
For this reason one cannot at a given moment decide anything about a person who is not saved by the fact that he has been in despair.
For in case the condition comes about which brings him to despair, it is at that same moment manifest that he has been in despair throughout the whole of his previous life.
On the other hand, one is by no means justified in saying, when a man has a fever, that he has had a fever throughout his whole life.
But despair is a phenomenon of the spirit, is related to the eternal, and therefore has something of the eternal in its dialectic.
Not only is despair far more dialectical than an illness, but all its symptoms are dialectical, and for this reason the superficial view is so readily deceived in determining whether despair is present or not.
For not to be in despair may mean to be in despair, and it may also mean to be delivered from being in despair.
A sense of security and tranquillity may mean that one is in despair, precisely this security, this tranquillity, may be despair; and it may mean that one has overcome despair and gained peace.
In this respect despair is unlike bodily sickness; for not to be sick cannot possibly mean to be sick; but not to be despairing may mean precisely to be despairing.
It is not true of despair, as it is of bodily sickness, that the feeling of indisposition is the sickness.
The feeling of indisposition is again dialectical.
Never to have been sensible of this indisposition is precisely to be in despair.
This points to the fact, and has its ground therein, that man, regarded as spirit, is always in a critical condition — and if one is to talk of despair, one must conceive of man as spirit.
In relation to sickness we talk of a crisis, but not in relation to health.
Because bodily health is an “immediate” qualification, and only becomes dialectical in sickness, when one can speak of the crisis.
But spiritually, or when man is regarded as spirit, both health and sickness are critical.
There is no such thing as “immediate” health of the spirit.
So long as one does not regard man as spirit (in which case we cannot talk about despair) but only as a synthesis of soul and body, health is an “immediate” determinant, and only the sickness of soul or body is a dialectical determinant.
But despair is expressed precisely by the fact that a person is unaware of being characterized as spirit.
Even that which, humanly speaking, is the most beautiful and lovable thing of all, a feminine youthfulness which is sheer peace and harmony and joy — even that is despair.
For this indeed is happiness, but happiness is not a characteristic of spirit, and in the remote depths, in the most inward parts, in the hidden recesses of happiness, there dwells also the anxious dread which is despair; it would be only too glad to be allowed to remain therein, for the dearest and most attractive dwelling-place of despair is in the very heart of immediate happiness.
All immediacy, in spite of its illusory peace and tranquillity, is dread, and hence, quite consistently, it is dread of nothing; one cannot make immediacy so anxious by the most horrifying description of the most dreadful something, as by a crafty, apparently casual half word about an unknown peril which is thrown out with the surely calculated aim of reflection; yea, one can put immediacy most in dread by slyly imputing to it knowledge of the matter referred to.
For immediacy doubtless does not know; but never does reflection catch its prey so surely as when it makes its snare out of nothing, and never is reflection so thoroughly itself as when it is .
There is need of an eminent reflection, or rather of a great faith, to support a reflection based upon nothing, i.e.
So even the most beautiful and lovable thing of all, a feminine youthfulness which is sheer peace and harmony and joy, is nevertheless despair, is happiness.
Hardly will one have the good hap to get through life on the strength of this immediacy.
And if this happiness has the hap to get through, it would be of little help for it is despair.
Despair, just because it is wholly dialectical, is in fact the sickness of which it holds that it is the greatest misfortune not to have had it — the true good hap to get it, although it is the most dangerous sickness of all, if one does not wish to be healed of it.
In other cases one can only speak of the good fortune of being healed of a sickness, sickness itself being misfortune.
Therefore it is as far as possible from being true that the vulgar view is right in assuming that despair is a rarity; on the contrary, it is quite universal.
It is as far as possible from being true that the vulgar view is right in assuming that everyone who does not think or feel that he is in despair is not so at all, and that only he is in despair who says that he is.
On the contrary, one who without affectation says that he is in despair is after all a little bit nearer, a dialectical step nearer to being cured than all those who are not regarded and do not regard themselves as being in despair.
But precisely this is the common situation (as the physician of souls will doubtless concede), that the majority of men live without being thoroughly conscious that they are spiritual beings — and to this is referable all the security, contentment with life, etc., etc., which precisely is despair.
Those, on the other hand, who say that they are in despair are generally such as have a nature so much more profound that they must become conscious of themselves as spirit, or such as by the hard vicissitudes of life and its dreadful decisions have been helped to become conscious of themselves as spirit — either one or the other, for rare is the man who truly is free from despair.
Ah, so much is said about human want and misery — I seek to understand it, I have also had some acquaintance with it at close range; so much is said about wasted lives — but only that man’s life is wasted who lived on, so deceived by the joys of life or by its sorrows that he never became eternally and decisively conscious of himself as spirit, as self, or (what is the same thing) never became aware and in the deepest sense received an impression of the fact that there is a God, and that he, he himself, his self, exists before this God, which gain of infinity is never attained except through despair.
And, oh, this misery, that so many live on and are defrauded of this most blessed of all thoughts; this misery, that people employ themselves about everything else, or, as for the masses of men, that people employ them about everything else, utilize them to generate the power for the theater of life, but never remind them of their blessedness; that they heap them in a mass and defraud them, instead of splitting them apart so that they might gain the highest thing, the only thing worth living for, and enough to live in for an eternity — it seems to me that I could weep for an eternity over the fact that such misery exists!
And, oh, to my thinking this is one expression the more of the dreadfulness of this most dreadful sickness and misery, namely, its hiddenness — not only that he who suffers from it may wish to hide it and may be able to do so, to the effect that it can so dwell in a man that no one, no one whatever discovers it; no, rather that it can be so hidden in a man that he himself does not know it!
And, oh, when the hour-glass has run out, the hourglass of time, when the noise of worldliness is silenced, and the restless or the ineffectual busyness comes to an end, when everything is still about thee as it is in eternity — whether thou wast man or woman, rich or poor, dependent or independent, fortunate or unfortunate, whether thou didst bear the splendor of the crown in a lofty station, or didst bear only the labor and heat of the day in an inconspicuous lot; whether thy name shall be remembered as long as the world stands (and so was remembered as long as the world stood), or without a name thou didst cohere as nameless with the countless multitude; whether the glory which surrounded thee surpassed all human description, or the judgment passed upon thee was the most severe and dishonoring human judgement can pass — eternity asks of thee and of every individual among these million millions only one question, whether thou hast lived in despair or not, whether thou wast in despair in such a way that thou didst not know thou wast in despair, or in such a way that thou didst hiddenly carry this sickness in thine inward parts as thy gnawing secret, carry it under thy heart as the fruit of a sinful love, or in such a way that thou, a horror to others, didst rave in despair.
And if so, if thou hast lived in despair (whether for the rest thou didst win or lose), then for thee all is lost, eternity knows thee not, it never knew thee, or (even more dreadful) it knows thee as thou art known, it puts thee under arrest by thyself in despair.
of Despair The forms of despair must be discoverable abstractly by reflecting upon the factors which compose the self as a synthesis.
The self is composed of infinity and finiteness.
But the synthesis is a relationship, and it is a relationship which, though it is derived, relates itself to itself, which means freedom.
But freedom is the dialectical element in the terms possibility and necessity.
Principally, however, despair must be viewed under the category of consciousness: the question whether despair is conscious or not, determines the qualitative difference between despair and despair.
In its concept all despair is doubtless conscious; but from this it does not follow that he in whom it exists, he to whom it can rightly be attributed in conformity with the concept, is himself conscious of it.
It is in this sense that consciousness is decisive.
consciousness of self, is the decisive criterion of the self.
The more consciousness, the more self; the more consciousness, the more will, and the more will the more self.
A man who has no will at all is no self; the more will he has, the more consciousness of self he has also.
Despair Regarded in Such a Way That One Does Not Reflect Whether It Is Conscious or Not, So That One Reflects Only upon the Factors of the Synthesis.
Despair viewed under the aspects of Finitude/Infinitude.
The self is the conscious synthesis of infinitude and finitude which relates itself to itself, whose task is to become itself, a task which can be performed only by means of a relationship to God.
But to become oneself is to become concrete.
But to become concrete means neither to become finite nor infinite, for that which is to become concrete is a synthesis.
Accordingly, the development consists in moving away from oneself infinitely by the process of infinitizing oneself, and in returning to oneself infinitely by the process of finitizing.
If on the contrary the self does not become itself, it is in despair, whether it knows it or not.
However, a self, every instant it exists, is in process of becoming, for the self [potentially] does not actually exist, it is only that which it is to become.
In so far as the self does not become itself, it is not its own self; but not to be one’s own self is despair.
The Despair Of Infinitude Is Due To The Lack Of Finitude.
The truth of this is inherent in the dialectical fact that the self is a synthesis [of two factors], the one of which is constantly the opposite of the other.
No kind of despair can be defined directly (i.e.
undialectically), but only by reflecting upon the opposite factor.
The despairing person’s condition of despair can be directly described, as the poet does in fact by attributing to him the appropriate lines.
But to describe despair is possible only by its opposite; and if the lines are to have poetic value, they must contain in their coloring a reflection of the dialectical opposite.
So then every human existence which supposedly has become or merely wills to become infinite is despair.
For the self is a synthesis in which the finite is the limiting factor, and the infinite is the expanding factor.
Infinitude’s despair is therefore the fantastical, the limitless.
The self is in sound health and free from despair only when, precisely by having been in despair, it is grounded transparently in God.
The fantastical is doubtless most closely related to fantasy, imagination, but imagination in turn is related to feeling, knowledge, and will, so that a person may have a fantastic feeling, or knowledge, or will.
Generally speaking, imagination is the medium of the process of infinitizing; it is not one faculty on a par with others, but, if one would so speak, it is the faculty instar omnium [for all faculties).
What feeling, knowledge, or will a man has, depends in the last resort upon what imagination he has, that is to say, upon how these things are reflected, i.e.
Imagination is the reflection of the process of infinitizing, and hence the elder Fichte quite rightly assumed, even in relation to knowledge, that imagination is the origin of the categories.
The self is reflection, and imagination is reflection, it is the counterfeit presentment of the self, which is the possibility of the self.
Imagination is the possibility of all reflection, and the intensity of this medium is the possibility of the intensity of the self.
Generally the fantastical is that which so carries a man out into the infinite that it merely carries him away from himself and therewith prevents him from returning to himself.
So when feeling becomes fantastic, the self is simply volatilized more and more, at last becoming a sort of abstract sentimentality which is so inhuman that it does not apply to any person, but inhumanly participates feelingly, so to speak, in the fate of one or another abstraction, e.g.
As the sufferer from rheumatism is unable to master his physical feelings which are under the sway of wind and weather, with the result that he is involuntarily aware of a change in the air etc., so it is with him whose feeling has become fantastic; he becomes in a way infinitized, but not in such a way that he becomes more and more himself, for he loses himself more and more.
So it is with knowledge when it becomes fantastic.
The law for the development of the self with respect to knowledge, in so far as it is true that the self becomes itself, is this, that the increasing degree of knowledge corresponds with the degree of self-knowledge, that the more the self knows, the more it knows itself.
If this does not occur, then the more knowledge increases, the more it becomes a kind of inhuman knowing for the production of which man’s self is squandered, pretty much as men were squandered for the building of the Pyramids, or as men were squandered in the Russian horn-bands to produce one note, neither more nor less.
When the will becomes fantastic, the self likewise is volatilized more and more.
In this case the will does not constantly become concrete in the same degree that it is abstract, in such a way that the more it is infinitized in purpose and resolution, the more present and contemporaneous with itself does it become in the small part of the task which can be realized at once, so that in being infinitized it returns in the strictest sense to its self, so that what is farthest from itself (when it is most infinitized in purpose and resolution) is in the same instant nearest to itself in accomplishing the infinitely small part of the task which can be done even today, even at this hour, even at this instant.
And when feeling, or knowledge, or will have thus become fantastic, the entire self may at last become so, whether in a more active form, as when a man runs headlong into the fantastic, or in a more passive form, when he is carried away, but in either case with moral responsibility.
The self thus leads a fantastic existence in abstract endeavor after infinity, or in abstract isolation, constantly lacking itself, from which it merely gets further and further away.
So, for example, in the religious sphere.
The God-relationship infinitizes; but this may so carry a man away that it becomes an inebriation, it may seem to a man as though it were unendurable to exist before God — for the reason that a man cannot return to himself, cannot become himself.
Such a fantastic religious individual would say (to characterize him by putting into his mouth these lines), “That a sparrow can live is comprehensible; it does not know anything about existing before God.
But to know that one exists before God — and then not to go crazy or be brought to naught!” But in spite of the fact that a man has become fantastic in this fashion, he may nevertheless (although most commonly it becomes manifest) be perfectly well able to live on, to be a man, as it seems, to occupy himself with temporal things, get married, beget children, win honor and esteem — and perhaps no one notices that in a deeper sense he lacks a self.
About such a thing as that not much fuss is made in the world; for a self is the thing the world is least apt to inquire about, and the thing of all things the most dangerous for a man to let people notice that he has it.
The greatest danger, that of losing one’s own self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is sure to be noticed.
The Despair of Finitude is Due to the Lack of Infinitude.
The truth of this (as was shown under 1) is inherent in the dialectical fact that the self is a synthesis [of two factors], one of which is the opposite of the other.
The lack of infinitude means to be desperately narrow-minded and mean-spirited.
Here of course it is only a question of ethical meanness and narrowness.
The world really never talks of any narrowness but intellectual or aesthetic narrowness — or about the indifferent, which is always the principal subject of the world’s talk; for worldliness means precisely attributing infinite value to the indifferent.
The worldly view always clings fast to the difference between man and man, and naturally it has no understanding of the one thing needful (for to have that is spirituality), and therefore no understanding of the narrowness and meanness of mind which is exemplified in having lost one’s self — not by evaporation in the infinite, but by being entirely finitized, by having become, instead of a self, a number, just one man more, one more repetition of this everlasting Einerlei.
Despairing narrowness consists in the lack of primitiveness, or of the fact one has deprived oneself of one’s primitiveness; it consists in having emasculated oneself, in a spiritual sense.
For every man is primitively planned to be a self, appointed to become oneself; and while it is true that every self as such is angular, the logical consequence of this merely is that it has to be polished, not that it has to be ground smooth, not that for fear of men it has to give up entirely being itself, nor even that for fear of men it dare not be itself in its essential accidentality (which precisely is what should not be ground away), by which in fine it is itself.
But while one sort of despair plunges wildly into the infinite and loses itself, a second sort permits itself as it were to be defrauded by “the others.” By seeing the multitude of men about it, by getting engaged in all sorts of worldly affairs, by becoming wise about how things go in this world, such a man forgets himself, forgets what his name is (in the divine understanding of it), does not dare to believe in himself, finds it too venturesome a thing to be himself, far easier and safer to be like the others, to become an imitation, a number, a cipher in the crowd.
This form of despair is hardly ever noticed in the world.
Such a man, precisely by losing his self in this way, has gained perfectibility in adjusting himself to business, yea, in making a success in the world.
Here there is no hindrance, no difficulty, occasioned by his self and his infinitization, he is ground smooth as a pebble, courant as a well-used coin.
So far from being considered in despair, he is just what a man ought to be.
In general the world has of course no understanding of what is truly dreadful.
The despair which not only occasions no embarrassment but makes one’s life easy and comfortable is naturally not regarded as despair.
That this is the view of the world can also be seen in almost all the proverbs, which are merely rules for shrewd behavior.
It is said, for example, that a man ten times regrets having spoken, for the once he regrets his silence.
Because the fact of having spoken is an external fact, which may involve one in annoyances, since it is an actuality.
Yet this is the most dangerous thing of all.
For by keeping silent one is relegated solely to oneself, no actuality comes to a man’s aid by punishing him, by bringing down upon him the consequences of his speech.
No, in this respect, to be silent is the easy way.
But he who knows what the dreadful is, must for this very reason be most fearful of every fault, of every sin, which takes an inward direction and leaves no outward trace.
So it is too that in the eyes of the world it is dangerous to venture.
And yet, by not venturing, it is so dreadfully easy to lose that which it would be difficult to lose in even the most venturesome venture, and in any case never so easily, so completely as if it were nothing .
For if I have ventured amiss — very well, then life helps me by its punishment.
But if I have not ventured at all — who then helps me?
And, moreover, if by not venturing at all in the highest sense (and to venture in the highest sense is precisely to become conscious of oneself) I have gained all earthly advantages .
And thus it is precisely with the despair of finitude.
In spite of the fact that a man is in despair he can perfectly well live on in the temporal, in fact all the better for it; he may be praised by men, be honored and esteemed, and pursue all the aims of temporal life.
What is called worldliness is made up of just such men, who (if one may use the expression) pawn themselves to the world.
They use their talents, accumulate money, carry on worldly affairs, calculate shrewdly, etc., etc., are perhaps mentioned in history, but themselves they are not; spiritually understood, they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything, no self before God — however selfish they may be for all that.
Despair Viewed Under the Aspects of Possibility/Necessity.
For the purpose of becoming (and it is the task of the self freely to become itself) possibility and necessity are equally essential.
Just as infinitude and finitude ( ) [The limitless/the finite — important terms in Plato’s philosophy, especially in his Philebus, 30.] both belong to the self, so also do possibility and necessity.
A self which has no possibility is in despair, and so in turn is the self which has no necessity.
The Despair of Possibility is Due to the Lack Of Necessity.
The truth of this proposition, as was shown, is inherent in the dialectical situation.
Just as finitude is the limiting factor in relation to infinitude, so in relation to possibility it is necessity which serves as a check.
When the self as a synthesis of finitude and infinitude is once constituted, when already it is then in order to become it reflects itself in the medium of imagination, and with that the infinite possibility comes into view.
The self is just as possible as it is necessary; for though it is itself, it has to become itself.
Inasmuch as it is itself, it is the necessary, and inasmuch as it has to become itself, it is a possibility.
Now if possibility outruns necessity, the self runs away from itself, so that it has no necessity whereto it is bound to return — then this is the despair of possibility.
The self becomes an abstract possibility which tries itself out with floundering in the possible, but does not budge from the spot, nor get to any spot, for precisely the necessary is the spot; to become oneself is precisely a movement at the spot.
To become is a movement from the spot, but to become oneself is a movement at the spot.
Possibility then appears to the self ever greater and greater, more and more things become possible, because nothing becomes actual.
At last it is as if everything were possible — but this is precisely when the abyss has swallowed up the self.
Every little possibility even would require some time to become actuality.
But finally the time which should be available for actuality becomes shorter and shorter, everything becomes more and more instantaneous.
Possibility becomes more and more intense — but only in the sense of possibility, not in the sense of actuality; for in the sense of actuality the meaning of intensity is that at least something of that which is possible becomes actual.
At the instant something appears possible, and then a new possibility makes its appearance, at last this phantasmagoria moves so rapidly that it is as if everything were possible — and this is precisely the last moment, when the individual becomes for himself a mirage.
What the self now lacks is surely reality — so one would commonly say, as one says of a man that he has become unreal.
But upon closer inspection it is really necessity the man lacks.
For it is not true, as the philosophers explain, that necessity is a unity of possibility and actuality; no, actuality is a unity of possibility and necessity.
Nor is it merely due to lack of strength when the soul goes astray in possibility — at least this is not to be understood as people commonly understand it.
What really is lacking is the power to obey, to submit to the necessary in oneself, to what may be called one’s limit.
Therefore the misfortune does not consist in the fact that such a self did not amount to anything in the world; no, the misfortune is that the man did not become aware of himself, aware that the self he is, is a perfectly definite something, and so is the necessary.
On the contrary, he lost himself, owing to the fact that this self was seen fantastically reflected in the possible.
Even in looking at one’s self in a minor it is requisite to know oneself; for, if not, one does not behold one’s self but merely a man.
But the mirror of possibility is not an ordinary mirror, it must be used with the utmost precaution.
For of this minor it is true in the highest sense that it is a false mirror.
That the self looks so and so in the possibility of itself is only half truth; for in the possibility of itself the self is still far from itself, or only half itself.
So the question is how the necessity of the self determines it more precisely.
A case analogous to possibility is when a child is invited to participate in some pleasure or another: the child is at once willing, but now it is a question whether the parents will permit it — and as with the parents, so it is with necessity.
In possibility, however, everything is possible.
Hence in possibility one can go astray in all possible ways, but essentially in two.
One form is the wishful, yearning form, the other is the melancholy fantastic — on the one hand hope; on the other, fear or anguished dread.
Fairy-tales and legends so often relate that a knight suddenly perceived a rare bird, which he continues to run after, since at the beginning it seemed as if it were so very near — but then it flies off again, until at last night falls, and he has become separated from his companions, being unable to find his way in the wilderness where he now is.
So it is with the possibility of the wish.
Instead of summoning back possibility into necessity, the man pursues the possibility — and at last he cannot find his way back to himself.
— In the melancholy form the opposite result is reached in the same way.
The individual pursues with melancholy love a possibility of agonizing dread, which at last leads him away from himself, so that he perishes in the dread, or perishes in that in which he was in dread of perishing.
The Despair of Necessity is Due to the Lack of Possibility.
If one will compare the tendency to run wild in possibility with the efforts of a child to enunciate words, the lack of possibility is like being dumb.
Necessity is like a sequence of consonants only, but in order to utter them there must in addition be possibility.
When this is lacking, when a human existence is brought to the pass that it lacks possibility, it is in despair, and every instant it lacks possibility it is in despair.
One commonly thinks that there is a certain age which is especially rich in hope, or one talks about being or having been at a certain period or a particular moment of one’s Life so rich in hope and possibility.
All this is merely human talk, which never reaches the truth.
All this hoping and all this despairing is not yet the true hope and the true despair.
The decisive thing is, that for God all things are possible.
This is eternally true, and true therefore every instant.
This is commonly enough recognized in a way, and in a way it is commonly affirmed; but the decisive affirmation comes only when a man is brought to the utmost extremity, so that humanly speaking no possibility exists.
Then the question is whether he will believe that for God all things are possible — that is to say, whether he will believe.
But this is completely the formula for losing one’s mind or understanding; to believe is precisely to lose one’s understanding in order to win God.
Picture a man who with all the shuddering revolt of a terrified imagination has represented to himself some horror as a thing absolutely not to be endured.
Now it befalls him, precisely this horror befalls him.
Humanly speaking his destruction is the most certain of all things — and the despair in his soul fights desperately to get leave to despair, to get, if you will, repose for despair, the consent of his whole personality to despair, so that he would curse nothing and nobody more fiercely than him who attempted (Or it may be the attempt) to prevent him from despairing, as the poet’s poet so capitally, so incomparably expresses it in Richard II, Act 3, Scene Z: Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth Of that sweet way I was in to despair.
So then, salvation is humanly speaking the most impossible thing of all; but for God all things are possible!
This is the fight of faith, which fights madly (if one would so express it) for possibility.
For possibility is the only power to save.
When one swoons people shout for water, Eau-de-Cologne, Hoffman’s Drops; but when one is about to despair the cry is, Procure me possibility, procure possibility!
Possibility is the only saving remedy; given a possibility, and with that the desperate man breathes once more, he revives again; for without possibility a man cannot, as if were, draw breath.
Sometimes the inventiveness of a human imagination suffices to procure possibility, but in the last resort, that is, when the point is to believe, the only help is this, that for God all things are possible.
Whether he who is engaged in this fight will be defeated, depends solely and alone upon whether he has the will to procure for himself possibility, that is to say, whether he will believe.
And yet he understands that humanly speaking his destruction is the most certain thing of all.
This is the dialectical character of faith.
For the most part a man knows no more than that this or that, as he has reason to hope, as seems probable, etc., will not befall him.
The foolhardy man plunges into a danger involving this or that possibility; if it befalls him, he despairs and succumbs.
The believer perceives, and understands, humanly speaking, his destruction (in what has befallen him and in what he has ventured), but he believes.
He leaves it wholly to God how he is to be helped, but he believes that for God all things are possible.
To believe in his own destruction is impossible.
To understand that, humanly, it is his own destruction, and then nevertheless to believe in the possibility, is what is meant by faith.
So then God helps him — perhaps by letting him escape the terror, perhaps by means of the terror — in the fact that here, unexpectedly, miraculously, divinely, help appears.
Miraculously — for it is a strange pedantry to assume that only eighteen hundred years ago it could occur that a man was helped miraculously.
Whether a man has been helped by a miracle depends essentially upon the degree of intellectual passion he has employed to understand that help was impossible, and next upon how honest he is toward the Power which helped him nevertheless.
But usually it is neither the one thing nor the other: men cry that there is no help, without having strained the understanding to find help, and afterwards they lie ungratefully.
The believer possesses the eternally certain antidote to despair, viz, possibility; for with God all things are possible every instant.
This is the sound health of faith which resolves contradictions.
The contradiction in this case is that, humanly speaking, destruction is certain, and that nevertheless there is possibility.
Health consists essentially in being able to resolve contradictions.
So it is bodily or physically: a draft is indifferently cold and warm, disparate qualities undialectically combined; but a healthy body resolves this contradiction and does not notice the draft.
The loss of possibility signifies: either that everything has become necessary to a man/or that everything has become trivial.
The determinist or the fatalist is in despair, and in despair he has lost his self, because for him everything is necessary.
He is like that king who died of hunger because all his food was transformed into gold.
Personality is a synthesis of possibility and necessity.
The condition of its survival is therefore analogous to breathing (respiration), which is an in- and an a-spiration.
The self of the determinist cannot breathe, for it is impossible to breathe necessity alone, which taken pure and simple suffocates the human self.
The fatalist is in despair — he has lost God, and therefore himself as well; for if he has no God, neither has he a self.
But the fatalist has no God — or, what is the same thing, his god is necessity.
Inasmuch as for God all things are possible, it may be said that this is what God is, viz, one for whom all things are possible.
The worship of the fatalist is therefore at its maximum an exclamation, and essentially it is dumbness, dumb submission, he is unable to pray.
So to pray is to breathe, and possibility is for the self what oxygen is for breathing.
But for possibility alone or for necessity alone to supply the conditions for the breathing of prayer is no more possible than it is for a man to breathe oxygen alone or nitrogen alone.
For in order to pray there must be a God, there must be a self plus possibility, or a self and possibility in the pregnant sense; for God is that all things are possible, and that all things are possible is God; and only the man whose being has been so shaken that he became spirit by understanding that all things are possible, only he has had dealings with God.
The fact that God’s will is the possible makes it possible for me to pray; if God’s will is only the necessary, man is essentially as speechless as the brutes.
In the case of philistinism or triviality, which also lacks possibility, the situation is somewhat different.