iii.).
What intense passion--that is to say, what truth--there is in this
bitter invective against Hegel, prototype of the rationalist!--for the
rationalist takes away our fever by taking away our life, and promises
us, instead of a concrete, an abstract immortality, as if the hunger for
immortality that consumes us were an abstract and not a concrete hunger!
It may indeed be said that when once the dog is dead there is an end to
the rabies, and that after I have died I shall no more be tortured by
this rage of not dying, and that the fear of death, or more properly, of
nothingness, is an irrational fear, but ... Yes, but ... _Eppur si
muove!_ And it will go on moving. For it is the source of all movement!
I doubt, however, whether our brother Kierkegaard is altogether in the
right, for this same abstract thinker, or thinker of abstractions,
thinks _in order that_ he may exist, that he may not cease to exist, or
thinks perhaps in order to forget that he will have to cease to exist.
This is the root of the passion for abstract thought. And possibly Hegel
was as infinitely interested as Kierkegaard in his own concrete,
individual existence, although the professional decorum of the
state-philosopher compelled him to conceal the fact.
Faith in immortality is irrational. And, notwithstanding, faith, life,
and reason have mutual need of one another. This vital longing is not
properly a problem, cannot assume a logical status, cannot be formulated
in propositions susceptible of rational discussion; but it announces
itself in us as hunger announces itself.
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