More than a century ago, in 1804, in Letter XC of that series that
constitutes the immense monody of his _Obermann_, Senancour wrote the
words which I have put at the head of this chapter--and of all the
spiritual descendants of the patriarchal Rousseau, Senancour was the
most profound and the most intense; of all the men of heart and feeling
that France has produced, not excluding Pascal, he was the most tragic.
"Man is perishable. That may be; but let us perish resisting, and if it
is nothingness that awaits us, do not let us so act that it shall be a
just fate." Change this sentence from its negative to the positive
form--"And if it is nothingness that awaits us, let us so act that it
shall be an unjust fate"--and you get the firmest basis of action for
the man who cannot or will not be a dogmatist.
That which is irreligious and demoniacal, that which incapacitates us
for action and leaves us without any ideal defence against our evil
tendencies, is the pessimism that Goethe puts into the mouth of
Mephistopheles when he makes him say, "All that has achieved existence
deserves to be destroyed" (_denn alles was ensteht ist wert doss es
zugrunde geht_). This is the pessimism which we men call evil, and not
that other pessimism that consists in lamenting what it fears to be true
and struggling against this fear--namely, that everything is doomed to
annihilation in the end.
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