## Absurdity and Suicide There is but one truly grave matter in all philosophy, and it is this: whether a man ought to end his life by his own hand. To weigh whether life be worth the living is to put forth judgment on the root of all thought. All else—whether the world stretch forth in threefold measure, or whether the soul possess nine or twelve powers—comes thereafter. These be but games of wit; this question must be answered first. And if it be so, as Nietzsche saith, that the philosopher must show forth his teaching in the manner of his living, then the weight of this judgment is no small thing. For it doth precede the final deed. These truths, the heart doth feel; yet ere they shine clear to the mind, they must be measured with care. If I ask myself how one may deem this question to stand above all others, I say: a matter is judged by the deeds it draweth forth. I have seen no man die for the sake of an argument of essence. Galileo, though he held a truth of no small import, did set it aside lightly when his life was put in peril. And in some wise, he did wisely. That truth was not worth the price. Whether the sun circle the earth or the earth the sun—what weight hath it, truly? It is a question vain and fruitless. Yet I see many take their own lives, deeming the world to hold no worth. I see others die at the hands of men, clinging to their beliefs—beliefs which gave them cause to live. And mark this well: that which giveth a man reason to live oft giveth him likewise reason to die. Therefore do I hold that the question of life’s meaning is the most pressing of all. How then shall one answer? Upon all grave matters—those that may end in death or that burn more brightly the fire of life—there seem but two ways of thought: that of La Palisse, and that of Don Quixote. Only a weighing of what is plain with what is poetic shall let us keep both feeling and clearness. Where the matter is both lowly and heavy with the soul’s burden, the grand dialects of the schools must yield their place to a humbler mind—one that draweth at once from plain wit and quiet knowing. Men have seldom spoken of self-murder but as a thing of the multitude—a matter for the town crier and the constable. Yet what we take up here, from the first, is not such outward show, but the hidden bond betwixt a man’s solitary thought and his turning of the hand against himself. Such a deed is not wrought in the open but is fashioned in the quiet places of the soul, even as a great poem or painting. Oft, the man knows it not himself. Then one evening—he pulls the trigger, or casts himself down. They said of a keeper of lodgings, who had laid hands upon himself, that his daughter had died five years past, and since that hour, he had changed. The grief, said they, had “undermined” him. A truer word were hard to find. To begin to think is to begin to be undermined. The crowd hath little to do with such births of despair. The worm lieth in the heart. There it must be sought. One must follow and fathom this fateful sport wherein clear sight of the world doth lead, step by step, unto a fleeing from the light. Many are the causes of self-slaughter, and yet it is oft not the cause most plainly seen that hath the truest strength. Seldom doth a man perish by full and cold reflection—though I shall not cast out the thought altogether. That which unleasheth the storm is most oft something that may not be shown. The news-sheet will say “personal sorrow” or “sickness with no cure.” And these may well be so. But who can say whether some friend did not speak coldly to the man that very morn? That friend is the guilty one. For such a word may rouse all the bitterness, all the weariness that had lain still and waiting. Yet though the moment be hard to fix—the subtle hour when the soul took the path of death—it is a simpler matter to read the deed’s meaning by the light of what it bringeth. In some wise, as in cheap plays, to end one’s own life is to confess. Aye—it is a telling that the world is too much with thee, or that thou canst make no sense of it. But let us not press too hard on the simile. Let us rather speak as men do daily. It is, simply, a saying that the whole of it is not worth the toil. For to live is no light thing. Yet we do it—we go on, moved by many causes, first among them, the power of custom. But to die of one’s own choosing—that is to have known, if only in the marrow and not the mind, how laughable that custom is. It is to have seen there is no deep cause to be found, that our daily scurry is madness, and our sorrow unneeded. What, then, is this boundless feeling that robbeth the mind of the rest it needeth to endure? A world that can be made sense of—even by poor reckonings—is yet a world one knoweth. But lo, when the veil of dream is torn away and the lights put out, man findeth himself a stranger in his own house. His exile hath no cure, for he is bereft of both the memory of a former home and the hope of one to come. This rift between man and the life he dwelleth in—between the player and his stage—is rightly named the sense of the absurd. Every man in good health hath, at some hour, pondered his own death by his own hand. Thus it is plain—without great proof—that there lieth a straight path from the sense of absurdity to the longing for death. This writing seeketh to treat of that selfsame tie: between the absurd and the act of self-slaying. It would know how far that act might serve as answer to the absurd. For one who doth not feign, but seeketh to live true, his deeds must follow from what he believeth. If he deem life to be void of reason, then his steps must take that truth as guide. It is fair, then, to ask—clearly and without weeping—if a man must not flee with haste from a state so strange and dark. I speak of men whose will would be in accord with their soul. Laid forth in plain speech, the matter may seem both easy and beyond all solving. Yet it is false to suppose that simple askings bring simple answers, or that what is shown plainly must needs be plainly followed. Turn the question round, as one doth with riddles of life and death: whether one endeth his days or doth not, it seemeth to leave only two replies—yea or nay. But this is too light a telling. We must give room for those who, never choosing, yet never cease to ask. I do not mock, for this is the greater part of men. And I have marked this also: many who say “no” in word live as though their hearts said “yea.” If I take up Nietzsche’s measure—that a man’s worth lieth in what he maketh of his truth—then these men are, in some fashion, affirmers of life. And contrariwise, it is no rare thing to see those who cast themselves into death with full surety that life had meaning. These mislikings and crossways abound, and never are they more sharp than at the very place where reason is most longed for. Oft hath it been sport among scholars to weigh the creed of a philosopher against his life. Yet one must note: among those who did deny life any meaning, none save Kirilov, who walketh through pages of tale, Peregrinos, who dwelleth in fable, and Jules Lequier, who mayhap never was, did carry their thought to its final end and renounce life itself. Schopenhauer is much named, and oft with a laugh, for having praised self-slaughter whilst feasting at a full table. But here is no jesting matter. To take lightly the grief of man is no great sin, yet it revealeth the heart of him who so doth. Though it be not the greatest of woes, yet suicide doth serve to weigh the measure of a man. Faced with such riddles and strife of thought, must we then say there is no bond between what a man thinketh of life and the deed by which he leaveth it? Let us not press too hard upon that notion. In a man’s cleaving unto life, there is a force greater than all the world’s afflictions. The body, no less than the mind, hath its judgment—and the body shrinketh from being unmade. We learn to live ere we learn to think. In this ceaseless race that draweth us daily unto death, the flesh keepeth ever its lead, which cannot be undone. At the root of this strife lies what I shall name the act of eluding: it is somewhat less, yet more, than what Pascal would call diversion. Eluding is the game all men do play. And the chief manner of this flight—the great deceiving turn which this discourse shall next unfold—is hope. Hope for another life that must be earned, or cunning fables of those who live not for life’s own sake, but for some grand thought that shall rise above it, cleanse it, bestow it meaning—and so betray it. Thus do all things join to sow confusion. And though men have labored long—and not in vain—to toy with words and feign belief, many still claim that to deny life a meaning is to deem it not worth the living. Yet that is no sure bond. There is no need to bind those two judgments in one. One must not be misled by tangled words, by breaks and flaws and the ill-matching of parts. One must sweep aside the trappings and come to the heart of the thing. A man taketh his life because he deemeth it no longer worth the keeping. That is true—yet barren, for it is but a commonplace. But doth this scorn of life, this cold denial that engulfeth it, spring from the thought that it hath no meaning? Must life’s lack of reason be answered with hope or with death? This is what we must seek, root out, and make plain, setting all else aside. Doth the Absurd demand our death? This question must stand above all others, apart from every manner of thought and every play of idle wit. Here, the many shadings of sense, the crossways of thought, and the tricks of mind that an "objective" eye doth ever bring to every matter—these have no place. What is called for is a thought that is unjust in the world’s eyes, but true in the realm of reason. That is no easy thing. It is easy to seem wise; to be wise unto the bitter end is near impossible. Those who take their lives do follow to its edge the path their hearts have laid. And in the musing upon death I find the one question that truly concerneth me: is there a logic that reacheth unto death itself? I cannot know unless I go forward, without frenzy, and with only the light of what is plain, to follow the course of thought that hath here been opened. This is what I name an absurd reckoning. Many have begun such a path; I know not yet if any have seen it through. When Karl Jaspers, laying bare the impossibility of framing the world as one whole, crieth out, “This limit driveth me back unto myself, where I may no longer take shelter behind some outward vantage, feigning a place I but represent—where neither I myself nor the being of others may any longer be made into objects for my gaze,” he doth but summon again, as many before him, those dry and barren wastes where thought meeteth its farthest bounds. Many before him, indeed—but with what haste did they seek escape! At that last crossing where the soul doth waver, where the path is forked and the way unsure, many have come—even the lowliest among men. And there, they did cast aside that which was most dear—their very lives. Others, lords of the mind, forsook likewise—yet theirs was the slaying of thought itself, done in the name of its highest defiance. The true labour is rather to remain—to abide, so far as man may—and look closely upon the strange growths of that far-off clime. There, only steadfastness and sharp discernment may rightly behold the unkindly spectacle, where the absurd, and hope, and death, do utter their speeches each to each. Then may the mind discern the forms of that primal, yet cunningly woven, dance—and only after, show them forth in image, and live them anew within itself. ## Absurd Walls As with great works, so with deep stirrings of the soul—they ever bear more meaning than they themselves do utter. The steadiness of a longing or a loathing within a man’s breast reappeareth in his way of thought or deed, and is seen anew in ends unknown even to his own soul. Great passions bring forth their own world, be it noble or base. They cast their light, fierce or dim, upon a world of their own making, and therein they know the air that suits them. There is a world made by envy, another by hunger for glory, another still by self-love—or by the largeness of heart. A world, I say—that is to say, a whole bent of soul, a whole truth of thought. What is said of passions already known and named is even more true of those that are still formless—those stirrings which are at once vague and sharp, far and near, like those awakened in us by beauty, or by the sight of the absurd. At a street’s edge, the sense of the absurd may smite a man full in the face. There it stands, bare and stript of finery, lit but not aglow, a ghostly thing. Yet this very fleetness doth call for pondering. It may well be that a man remain ever strange to us, with something deep in him that no eye shall ever catch. And yet, in the realm of deeds, I know men: I mark them by their manner, by the full sum of their doings, by the wake they leave behind them in the stream of life. So too with these shapeless feelings that baffle the mind’s hand. I may set their bounds by their fruits, and weigh them by the work they do. I may take their shape from the thoughts they quicken, the words they draw forth, the stance of mind they make known. Yea, though I have looked upon the same player an hundred times, I do not say I know the man more for it. Yet if I take account of the parts he hath played, if I say, “Now I know him a little better, having marked the hundredth guise,” this shall not sound wholly false. There lieth in it a kind of truth. For such a seeming contradiction is a parable; it speaketh to us. It teacheth that a man is made known not only by what he doth in earnest, but by what he pretendeth also. There is, beneath the high tongue of feeling, a lowlier speech, shut up in the heart yet dimly made known by the acts it stirreth and the frame of thought it breedeth. Herein, I set forth not a doctrine, but a way of thought. And yet it is plain that such a way is one of seeking, not of knowing. For every way doth rest upon a belief, and every belief, though it call itself blind, doth carry an end within it. So too, the final page of a book is held secret within the first. This joining together of parts is fated. The way I have traced doth confess that all sure knowing is out of reach. We may count what we see; we may feel the air, the weight, the light of a thing. That is all. Yet perchance we may draw near that fleeing feeling of absurdity, whether in the world of thought, the art of living, or the realm of art itself. The air of absurdity bloweth from the first. The end is the absurd world entire, and the turn of mind that beholdeth it with clear eyes, giving it hue and shape, until that cruel and chosen face of the world is made plain at last. All high deeds and lofty thoughts do oft begin in folly. Great works are many times begotten at the turning of a tavern door or on the dusty edge of a street. So it is with the absurd: this world, more than others, draweth its nobleness from a base and scorned beginning. At times, when a man is asked what he thinketh, and he answereth “nothing,” it may be but feigning. Those who are loved know full well such pretense. Yet if that word be spoken in truth—if it show forth that strange estate wherein the soul heareth the voice of the void, wherein the chain of daily custom is snapped, wherein the heart gropeth for a lost bond and findeth none—then hath absurdity already given its first sign. There are hours when the stage doth fall away. Rising from sleep, the street-car, four hours’ toil in shop or hall, the taking of meat, the street-car again, another four hours, then supper, and at last sleep—and thus Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, each in the same rhythm. This round is trod easily enough for a time. But lo, one day the question ariseth: “Why?” And from that weary yet wonderstruck breath, all things begin. That it doth begin is the thing of weight—for weariness followeth the final stroke of mindless habit, yet even in its sickness, it awakeneth thought. It stirreth the slumbering soul and giveth birth to all that cometh after. What followeth may be a falling back into the chain—or the true awakening. And at the far end of that awakening there waiteth, in its time, a reckoning: death by one’s own hand, or a return unto life. Weariness itself hath somewhat vile in it—but for this cause I say it is good. For all beginneth in awareness, and naught is of worth save through it. These words are not strange nor new. They are plain, and for now, that sufficeth as we walk the first paths toward the absurd. Even mere dread, as Master Heidegger speaketh, is at the root of all. So too in the quiet life, unmarked by fame, Time carrieth us gently on. But ever and again there cometh a day when we must carry Time instead. We live by hope of what shall come—"tomorrow," "soon," "once thou hast risen," "thou shalt understand when thou art older." These trifles are sweet, though strange, for in the end it is death they seek to soothe. And yet there cometh a morning when a man sayeth, "I am thirty." And in that saying he claimeth his youth—but also setteth himself within Time. He knoweth he standeth upon a point in a curve whose end he must needs walk to. And by the horror that taketh him in that hour, he knoweth his truest foe. He hath longed for the morrow—but now his whole being would cast it off. That revolt of the flesh against its own tomorrow—that is the absurd. Go but a step lower, and strangeness doth creep in. One perceiveth the world to be thick and heavy, and feeleth how utterly strange a stone is—how far beyond our reach or likeness. One knoweth, then, with what force a stretch of land or sky may stand against us. At the heart of all beauty there lieth somewhat inhuman; and these hills, the softness of the firmament, the line of trees as they stand at this very hour—lo, they do cast off the false meaning we had dressed them in, and become more distant than Eden long lost. The olden enmity of the world riseth again before us across the gulf of ages. For a breath of time, we understand it not—for we had, through centuries, read in it naught but the images and figures we ourselves had planted. But now, having lost that power to shape, we can no longer wield the veil. The world doth slip our grasp—for it hath become itself once more. That painted backdrop, long cloaked in habit, standeth bare as it is, and draweth away from us. And even as on certain days, beneath the well-known face of a woman, we behold a stranger—the very same she whom once we loved—so too may we, in time, long for what now withdraweth and leaveth us alone. But that time is not yet. Only this: that weight, that strangeness, that muteness of the world—that is the absurd. And men too, like the world, secrete the inhuman. In some clear moments, their doings appear as mere workings of a lifeless thing; their limbs move in vain, their play of gestures is like a jest without wit, and all about them seems but foolish dressing. A man speaketh on the telephone behind a pane of glass—you hear him not, but see his wild hands and lips and brow, and wonder why he yet liveth. That ache, that sickly awe before man’s own unmaking—that staggering glimpse of what we are—this is the absurd also. That nausea, as a writer of our day hath named it. So too the stranger who meeteth us at times in the mirror, the face that is ours and yet not ours, the kinsman unknown, the ghost in our own likeness, caught unguarded in a painted likeness or old image—that too is the absurd. At length I come to the matter of death, and to the bearing we take toward it. On this point, all hath been spoken already, and it is well to forgo all show of grief. Yet one cannot help but marvel that men go on living as though none knew the end. For in sooth, death is not truly known. Strictly speaking, we may only be said to know what we have lived and drawn forth into the light of our mind. Death, being not lived, is no experience. Yea, we may behold the deaths of others, but even that is shadow and show. It is a stand-in, a seeming, and it never quite persuadeth the heart. That dim rite of sorrow is a hollow comfort. The true terror lies not in feeling, but in reckoning—in the sheer number of it. If Time troubleth the soul, it is for this cause: it setteth forth the sum, but the answer waiteth until all is done. Let a man speak fair words of the soul—he shall yet be confounded, if only for a while. From that stiff and fallen body, which no blow can wake, the soul is gone. This plain and final aspect of the affair giveth rise to the sense of the absurd. Beneath the cold lamp of fate, the futility of it all is laid bare. No law of morals, nor work of virtue, hath warrant before the hard and soulless numbering that ruleth our lot. Let me say it again: these things have been said many times before. I seek not to set forth new truths, but to name and order what is already known. These themes run through all writings and all schools of thought. They lie in common talk and daily speech. The aim is not to make them anew, but to hold them firm, to know their weight, before we ask the greater question. I care not so much for the absurd in itself as for what must follow. If we hold these things to be sure, what shall we then conclude? How far may a man go to flee from the void? Shall he die by his own hand, or hope still, against all hope? But before such questions are put, one must take stock of the mind, and reckon swiftly what the reason hath to say. The mind’s first motion is to divide truth from falsehood. Yet no sooner doth thought look inward upon itself, than it findeth contradiction at its gate. To persuade on this point is a vain thing—for no age hath given a clearer or more comely proof than that of Aristotle, who speaketh thus: “The oft-mocked end of such doctrines is that they undo their own selves. For to say that all is true is to say likewise that the contrary is true, and thereby that our own claim is false (since the contrary denieth truth to our claim). And if we say that all is false, then our saying itself is false. Should we declare that only the word against us is false, or only ours is not false, then must we admit without end a swarm of judgments, true or untrue. For he who speaketh truth doth at once claim it to be truth, and so on, without end.” This cruel circle is but the first among many wherein the mind, searching out its own nature, loseth itself in a giddy spinning. The very plainness of these riddles maketh them the harder to escape. No juggleries of speech, no feats of logic can undo them—for to understand is chiefly to bind together. The mind’s most inward longing, even in its highest reckonings, echoeth man’s dim feeling before the world: a need for the known, a hunger for the clear. To know the world is, for man, to bring it within the bounds of the human, to mark it with his image and stamp. The world of the cat is not the world of the ant. The saying, “All thought is after man’s shape,” meaneth no more than this. Even so, the mind that seeketh to grasp what is real can rest only when it hath cast all into the mold of thought. If man could believe the world did love and suffer as he, he would find peace. If thought might spy out in the flickering veil of things eternal bonds that might be drawn up into one, and themselves into one again, then should we behold a joy of the mind so deep that the old tales of the blest would be but pale jest beside it. This longing for oneness, this thirst for the unchanging, is the heart of man’s tale. Yet that such longing is, doth not mean it must be fed at once. For if, crossing that wide chasm from yearning to having, we speak with Parmenides and say, “There is but One,” be it what it may—then we fall straightway into folly. For the mind that proclaimeth perfect unity showeth, by the very breath of its speech, that it is not one with what it speaketh. The sundry tongue that would make all things one revealeth in the saying the very difference it would destroy. This, too, is a vicious circle—and one full bitter enough to choke all hope. These things, once more, are but truisms. I shall repeat again: they are not of interest in themselves, but in the ends one may draw from them. I know another such saying: that man must die. And yet, few are they who have followed this truth to its furthest edge. It is needful throughout this writing to bear ever in mind the rift that lieth between what we think we know and what we truly know—between the act of practical consent and the feigned unknowing by which we abide notions that, if ever fully weighed, would shatter the order of our days. In the face of this inescapable discord within the mind, we come to understand the true estrangement between ourselves and the things we have fashioned. So long as the mind remaineth still within the world of its longings, all is reflected there in some seeming wholeness, shaped by the yearning for that which was lost. But let the mind stir but once, and straightway that world breaketh asunder. It falleth, and scattereth into a thousand glimmering shards, each cast before the sight, no longer to be joined in peace. We must give up the hope of ever mending the smooth and gentle surface of knowing that once quieted the soul. After long ages of seeking, after so many renunciations among the wise, we know well that this is the case in all our understanding. Save for a few who still cling to cold reason, most men now have lost hope of finding truth entire. If one were to set forth the only history of thought that truly mattereth, it would be the tale of its regrets—one sorrowed turning after another, and its long failure to prevail. Of whom, or of what, may I truly say: _“I know this thing”_? This heart within my breast I do feel, and I judge it to be. This world I do touch, and I hold it likewise to exist. There doth end all my knowing—what lieth beyond is but the work of fancy. For if I would grasp the self wherein I place such faith, if I strive to define it, to bind it with word or image, it is but like unto water slipping through the fingers. I may list its faces one by one, its guises both born and bestowed—this rearing, this root, this fire or this silence, this worth or this shame. Yet the sum of such showings is no whole. This very heart that is mine remaineth ever beyond the bounds of understanding. Between the surety I hold of my being and the shape I would give to it, there is a breach that shall never be bridged. Forever shall I be a stranger unto mine own self. As in the soul’s study so in reason’s lore—there be many truths, but no one truth. _Know thyself_, saith Socrates; and it hath no more strength than _Be virtuous_, as spoken in the box of confession. Both are yearning and unknowing alike. They are barren rites upon grand themes—of worth only insofar as they confess their nearness, not their grasp. And behold—here stand trees, and I know the roughness of their bark; here is water, and its taste is known to me. The breath of grass, the stars above in the hush of night, the gentle eves wherein the heart doth ease—how shall I deny this world whose might I feel so deeply? And yet, though all the knowledge under heaven be heaped before me, none shall make this world mine. Ye describe it, and teach me how to set it in order; ye number its laws, and I, thirsty for knowing, do grant them truth. Ye take apart the working of it, and my hope is stirred. At the end of your speech, ye show me that this fair and many-hued world may be brought down to the atom, and the atom unto the electron. This is well, and I bid you speak on. But then ye speak of a hidden realm, a heaven of smallest spheres, wherein electrons wheel about a heart unseen. Ye give me an image to explain the world—and thus I know ye have stepped into poetry. Then do I know I shall never know. Shall I take offence? Nay—for even as I muse, ye have changed your rule again. That science which was to tell me all doth end in guesswork; that clearness falleth into fable; that sure step sinketh into song. What need had I of so great a striving? The soft bend of yonder hills, the cool hand of dusk upon this troubled breast, tell me far more. I am brought back to my beginning. For though by science I may seize upon appearances and list them cleanly, yet the world itself evadeth me still. Though I trace each edge of its shape with my finger, I am no closer. And so ye offer me two paths: one, a tale that is sure yet giveth me nothing; the other, a promise that would teach—but cannot hold. A stranger to my own flesh, a wanderer in the world, armed with but a thought that doth unmake itself even as it speaketh—what estate is this? That I may find peace only in casting off the will to know or to live? That my hunger for grasping is met only with walls that mock and refuse me? To will anything at all is but to call up riddles. All things are shaped that they might bring forth a peace corrupted—born of dullness, of hollow soul, or of grim surrender. Thus doth the mind also whisper, in its own fashion, that this world is absurd. Its shadow-self, blind reason, may well declare that all is plain and sure; and I, for a season, did wait upon that proof, even yearning for it to be so. But though the ages have paraded their pride before me, and though a host of silver-tongued men have spoken with power and grace, I know now that it is false. On this ground at least, no joy may be had if I cannot know. That so-called reason—be it practical or moral, that law of causes, those clever orders which feign to explain all—might well draw laughter from a man of upright soul. They concern not the mind, nor honor its true depth, which is to be bound and limited, not flattered by illusion. In this world that cannot be understood, and in which bounds press on every side, man’s lot gains its form at last. A wild swarm of things without reason rises and gathers round him, growing thick unto the end. And yet, in the light of his regained awareness—an awareness now pondered and not fleeting—the sense of the absurd is made plain and sure. I had said the world is absurd, yet I spoke too quickly. The world in itself is not reasonable; that is all that can rightly be said. But the absurd lieth in this: the clash between the world’s silence and the soul’s fierce cry for meaning. It is not in the world alone, nor in man alone, but in the meeting of the two. The absurd is born of man and the world both—for now, it is the sole bond that joineth them. And it bindeth them as hatred sometimes joineth two foes more tightly than love. This is all I see with clear eyes in this boundless world wherein my wandering is set. Let us tarry here a while. If I take it for truth—that this absurdity doth shape my bond with life—if I let that feeling seize me, which steals upon me as I behold the world’s scenes—if I yield to the clear-eyed mind that is born of study and seeking—then must I give all unto this truth. I must gaze full upon it, and walk it to its ends, else I forfeit the ground beneath my feet. Most of all, I must shape my deeds by it, and follow it wheresoever it leadeth. This, I speak, is the bare least required of a decent soul. Yet before I go further, I would know this: can thought abide in such wastes? Can the mind, which seeketh light, dwell in so barren a land? Thus doth the mind also whisper, in its own wise manner, that this world is absurd. Its shadow, blind reason, may yet declare all things plain and firm; and I, for a time, did wait upon such a verdict, even longing that it might prove true. But though the ages have strutted forth with their learning, and though hosts of silver-tongued men have spoken with might and fairness, I see now their speech was vain. In this matter, at least, joy cannot dwell where knowing is denied. That so-called reason—be it of the practical sort or born of morals, that tidy law of causes, those ordered schemes which claim to explain all—might well bring a wry smile to the lips of a soul that loveth truth. Such things do not touch the mind’s true ground, nor do they honour its depth, which is not to be soothed with fair tales, but to be known by its limits. In a world that may not be made plain, where bounds press on every side, man’s lot at last taketh shape. A swarm of wild and witless things doth gather round him, thick as mist to the world’s edge. And yet, in the light of this mind made still and steady—not fleeting as before—the sense of the absurd groweth clear. I had said the world is absurd, but I spoke too soon. The world, as it is, is not reasonable; and that alone is all we may rightly say. The absurd is not in the world, nor in man alone, but in the meeting of the two: the silence of the world set against the soul’s fierce cry for meaning. It is here that the absurd is born—at this very clash. From this hour, it is the one bond that doth join man to the world. And it bindeth them not in peace, but as hatred at times doth bind two foes more strongly than love ever could. This much is clear to me now, in this measureless world where my feet do wander. Let us linger here. If I take this truth to heart—that absurdity doth shape the cord between life and me—if I let that feeling take hold, which steals upon me as I look upon the world—if I yield to the clear-seeing mind that cometh through long search—then must I give myself wholly to this truth. I must look it full in the face and walk its length, else I lose the very ground on which I stand. Most of all, I must shape my deeds by it and follow whither it leadeth. This, I say, is the least that may be asked of an honest soul. Yet ere I go further, I must ask: can thought dwell in such desolation? Can the mind, which was made to seek light, endure in so barren a land? Heidegger beholdeth the plight of man with a chill and steady gaze, and declareth that our estate is one of abasement. All that is real in this great chain of being is anxiety. To the man who hath lost himself amid the noise and diversions of the world, this anxiety is but a passing dread—a flicker of fear that soon fadeth. But when that fear awakeneth unto itself, it becometh anguish: the abiding air breathed by the man made clear-sighted, in whom the whole weight of being is drawn tight. This master of philosophy writeth without tremble, in the most bloodless tongue of the schools, that "the finite and bounded nature of man's being is more deep-rooted than man himself." His care for Kant goeth no further than to mark the narrow bounds of that famed "pure Reason." And having followed all his paths of thought, he endeth by declaring that "the world hath naught left to give to the man filled with anguish." So strong doth he hold this dread to be, that he setteth it above all other orders and reckonings. He counteth its forms: boredom, when the common man would smother it in dullness; terror, when the mind beholdeth death. He likewise refuseth to sever awareness from the absurd. To know death is to hear the voice of dread, and through that voice doth being call itself back to itself by way of consciousness. That voice is none other than anguish itself, and it calleth being home from its straying among the faceless throng, the "They." He too would have man wake and watch till all be ended. In this world of broken things, he setteth himself, and pointeth to its fleetingness. Among the fallen stones, he seeketh a way. Jaspers hath despaired of all crafting of being, for he holdeth that the age of innocence is lost to us. He knoweth full well that we may bring forth naught that shall overleap the doomèd sport of mere seemings. He knoweth the end of the mind is to fail. And so he lingereth over the soul’s ventures recorded in time, laying bare without mercy the crack in every system—the sweet illusion that upheld all, the bold preaching that veiled naught. In this broken world, where the unknowing of man is made plain, where endless naught seemeth the sole firm truth and unhealing sorrow the only fit reply, Jaspers seeketh once more the thread of Ariadne, that it might guide the way to godly mysteries. Chestov, for his part, through a work wondrous in its monotony and firm in its aim, straineth ever toward the same truths. With unflagging hand, he showeth how the most lockèd-down system, the most world-reaching reason, shall ever find its ruin upon the rock of the unreasonable soul. No mocking fact nor laughable flaw that shattereth reason’s pride doth escape his sight. One thing alone stirreth him: the exception, be it wrought in heart or mind. In the fierce trials of Dostoevsky’s condemned, in the stormy wanderings of the Nietzschean will, in Hamlet’s cursed reckonings, or the bitter nobility of Ibsen’s brooding, he hunteth down, casteth light upon, and exalteth man’s revolt against what may not be mended. He giveth no ear to reason’s pleas, and beginneth to stride forth with sure foot only in that pale and barren waste where all that once stood sure hath turned to stone. But of all, perchance the most moving is Kierkegaard—who, for a time, doth not only name the absurd, but liveth it outright. The man who declareth, “The most stubborn silence is not to still the tongue, but to speak,” doth from the first make clear that no truth standeth whole, nor can any truth suffice for a life which, by its nature, may not be fulfilled. A Don Juan of the mind, he scattereth names and maskings, contriveth contradiction upon contradiction, and at once peneth his Uplifting Discourses while setting forth that cunning book of mocking spirit, _The Diary of the Seducer_. He casteth away comfort, morals, and all sure teaching. That thorn lodged deep within his breast—he doth not pluck it forth, but rather pricketh it sharper still. And in the wild joy of one stretched upon the cross and glad to be nailed there, he doth build, piece by piece—through clearness, denial, and feigned belief—a figure of the man wholly overtaken. That visage at once soft and jeering, that dance of jest followed by the cry of a soul undone—this is the absurd itself, locked in strife with a world it shall never grasp. And that long pilgrimage which leadeth Kierkegaard unto his dearly cherished shames doth begin, as well, in the storm and formlessness of an inward trial that hath lost its frame and fallen back into the very bedlam from whence it came. Upon quite another footing—namely, that of method—Husserl and the men of phenomenology, through the very boldness of their ways, do restore the world unto its manifold shape and deny unto reason any sovereign height. The spiritual realm is thereby made wondrously full. A rose petal, a milestone by the road, the hand of man—these stand in no lesser stead than love, longing, or the binding laws that hold the heavens. Thought no longer seeketh to bind all things beneath a single name, nor to make the strange seem known beneath the shadow of some lofty rule. Rather, to think is to behold anew—to learn once more to see, to give heed, to train the eye of the mind. It is to turn each thought and likeness, as did Proust, into a hallowed hour. What justifieth thought is its utmost self-knowing. Though less dire than the ways of Kierkegaard or Shestov, the beginning of Husserl’s path doth yet cast off the olden way of reason. It dismayeth hope, and openeth the door to the eye of the soul and the stirrings of the heart, where there unfoldeth a wild flowering of appearances whose riches bear something of the inhuman. Such paths may lead unto all the sciences—or unto none at all. Which is to say, in this case, the road itself mattereth more than the end. What is asked is not solace, but only an eye to understand. Let that be said again: in the beginning, at the very least. And how can one fail to feel the kinship among these minds? How can one not see that they stand gathered about a solemn and bitter instant, wherein hope findeth no more foothold? I would fain have all things made plain unto me—or else nothing at all. And here, reason standeth helpless before the heart’s outcry. The awakened mind, thus called forth, seeketh—and findeth naught but strife and madness. What I cannot comprehend, I must needs call absurd. The world is thick with such folly. Yea, the world itself—whose meaning I grasp not—is but one vast unreason. If only once a man could say, “This is plain,” all might be redeemed. But these men, each and all, do cry out that naught is plain, that all is confusion, and that man hath but one gift: the light of his mind, and sure knowledge of the walls that hem him in. All these reckonings do accord, and lend strength each to the other. The mind, when it cometh unto its outermost bounds, must needs judge and choose what end to draw. Here doth the question of self-slaughter, and its answer, make their stand. Yet I would turn the order upon its head: let us begin not with daily motions, but with that high and knowing venture—and from thence return to common acts. The reckonings I speak of were born in the barren waste we must not forsake. At the least, we must know how far into that desert they did press. For in this striving, man standeth face to face with the unreasoning whole. He feeleth within himself a cry for joy, and a cry for sense. And lo—the absurd is born from this clash between man’s deep hunger and the dumb stillness of the world. This truth must not be cast aside. It must be held fast, for the whole shaping of a man’s life may rest upon it. The unreasonable, the heart’s yearning, and the absurd which riseth from their meeting—these three are the players upon the stage, and their play must run its course with such logic as life itself can muster. ## Philosophical Suicide The feeling of the absurd is not, for all that, the full conceit of the absurd. It doth lay the groundwork for such, and no more. It is not bound to that notion, save for a fleeting moment when it passeth judgment upon the world. Thereafter, it may yet press onward. For it liveth—and therefore, must either perish or echo forth. So stand the themes we have thus far gathered. Yet even now, what stirs my mind is not the works or their authors, whose censure or praise would demand another time and form, but rather the uncovering of what is shared among their ends. Never, it may be, have minds differed so greatly—yet we behold, as one, the inward realm wherein they begin. So too, though they wander through far lands of thought, the cry that marks their journey’s end soundeth ever alike. It is plain that the thinkers we have now recalled do dwell beneath a common sky. And to say that such a sky is deathly is no jest of tongue. To live beneath such a stifling firmament is to choose—to flee from it, or to abide under it. What mattereth most is this: how do they flee in the first case, and why do they remain in the second? Herein I do set the meaning of suicide, and the worth we may find in the ends of the existential sort. Yet first, I must stray a while from the straight path. Till now, we have traced the absurd from without. But now we must ask what light there is within that notion—and by plain search seek both its meaning and the fruit it beareth. If I charge a just man with a loathsome crime—say, that he hath lusted after his own sister—he shall answer, “This is absurd.” His wrath, though it may raise a smile, hath true cause. In his reply he showeth forth the deep contradiction between that false deed I lay upon him and the upright rule he hath ever kept. To say “It is absurd” is to say both “It cannot be” and “It is not in keeping.” If I behold a man, armed but with a sword, rush against a line of guns, I shall count his act absurd—yet only for the chasm that lieth between his aim and the hard world that shall answer him. So too, a judgment shall seem absurd if it stand at odds with what the known truth did plainly call for. And likewise, a proof by the absurd is wrought when one setteth the end of a train of thought beside the truth it was meant to uphold—and findeth them strangers. In all such cases, be they simple or subtle, the weight of the absurd lieth in the breadth between the two things compared. There are absurd unions, absurd feuds, absurd silences, absurd wars—and even absurd peaces. In each, the absurd riseth from a clash. I am thus right to say: the feeling of absurdity springeth not from the mere beholding of a fact or a fleeting thought, but from the striking of one thing against another—a bare act against some deep-held truth, a motion against the world it seeketh to reach. The absurd is, in its heart, a sundering. It resteth not in either thing alone, but is born where they meet in disharmony. In this case, and on the plain of the mind, I say then that the Absurd is found not in man alone—if such a manner of speech be granted—nor yet in the world alone, but rather in their meeting and presence one with the other. For now, this alone bindeth them together. If I hold to the realm of fact, I know well what man seeketh; I know also what the world yieldeth. And now I may say, I know likewise what joineth them. I need not dig deeper. One sure thing sufficeth for the true seeker; his task is but to follow all that springeth therefrom. The first fruit of such knowledge is likewise a law for the mind. The strange threefold union so brought to light is no wondrous discovery, yet it is akin to all true knowledge, in that it is both most simple and most tangled. Its chief mark is this: it may not be divided. To undo one part is to unmake the whole. There is no absurd apart from man’s understanding—just as there is no Absurd apart from the world he beholdeth. Thus doth the Absurd end with death. But neither can it exist where there is no world. And by this plain rule I hold the Absurd to be of first weight, and fit to stand as the foremost of my truths. The rule of method, whereof I spake before, showeth itself now. If I reckon a thing to be true, I must hold it fast. And if I take in hand to settle a riddle, I must not by my solving blot out one of its parts. For me, the one given thing is the absurd. And the first—and truthfully, the only—charge laid upon my search is this: to keep whole that which bruises me, and so to give honour to that which I have named the heart of it. I have spoken of it as a strife and a continual meeting face to face. And if I bring this strange reason to its rightful end, I must confess that such a strife calleth for a full lack of hope (which is not the same as despair), an endless saying of nay (not to be taken as mere yielding), and a mindful unrest (which is not to be likened to childish fretfulness). Whatsoever destroyeth or banisheth these things—be it comfort, faith, or the glad yielding that would make one with what ought to be sundered—overturneth the absurd and maketh light of the stance that followeth after. The Absurd hath meaning only so long as it is withstood. There is a plain truth, which seemeth wholly moral: namely, that a man is ever the prey of his own truths. Once he hath confessed them, he may no longer flee them. A price must be paid. A man who hath become aware of the absurd is thenceforth bound unto it. A man without hope, and knowing himself so, hath ceased to belong unto the future. This is in the nature of things. Yet it is likewise in man’s nature to seek escape from the world which he himself hath shaped. All that hath been said hitherto holdeth weight only by reason of this riddle: that though some men, beginning from a casting down of reason, have come to admit the climate of the absurd, they have not remained within it. Nothing teacheth more in this regard than to behold how such men have drawn out the thread of their thoughts to its end. Let me speak now but of the philosophies called existential. I find that every one of them, without fail, seeketh some form of flight. By a strange counsel, having begun with the absurd and the ruin of reason, and finding themselves in a closed world bounded by man alone, they lift up and make divine that which grindeth them down. They draw forth hope from that which doth make them poor. This hope, wrung forth by force, is in every case a kind of faith. It is a matter worthy of heed. I shall but take for my purpose here a few themes beloved of Chestov and Kierkegaard, using them as examples. Yet it is Jaspers who, through his manner (verging at times on caricature), giveth us the clearest shape of this mode of soul. By him the rest shall be made the plainer. He standeth unable to bring forth the transcendent, unfit to plumb the deep things of experience, and keenly aware of a world thrown into disorder by failure. Will he press onward, or at the least draw out the fruit of such failure? He addeth nothing new. In all his journeying through experience he hath found but the witness of his own helplessness—and no cause to draw forth any sure or sufficient rule. Yet suddenly, without warrant (as he himself doth confess), he putteth forth in a single breath the existence of the transcendent, the very heart of experience, and the superhuman worth of life itself, saying: “Doth not failure show us—not the lack but the presence of transcendence, past all speech and searching?” That being, which in an instant and through blind trust in man’s spirit is made to explain all things, he nameth “the unthinkable joining of the common and the particular.” Thus, the absurd is made god—in the widest sense—and man’s blindness to meaning becometh the very light that shineth on all. No chain of reason leadeth to this saying. I must call it a leap. And now is made plain, in a strange and backward fashion, Jaspers’ unyielding care—his endless patience—in proving that the transcendent may never be rightly grasped. For the more it slippeth away, the more hollow his definition becometh, the more real that transcendent is to him. The fire with which he doth hold it true is matched only by the gulf between his power of speech and the wildness of the world he would speak of. So it cometh to pass that the more harshly Jaspers breaketh down the dreams of reason, the more utterly he would explain the world. This herald of beaten thought seeketh, in the farthest end of man’s lowliness, the spring by which being may be made whole anew—even to its roots. The mystical mind hath long made us known to such turns of thought. They are no less rightful than any posture of the soul. Yet for the nonce I would deal as though I took one matter in sober earnest. I do not seek, for now, to weigh the worth of such an outlook, nor to speak to its power to teach or uplift. I mean but to ask whether it answereth the charge I have set for myself—whether it be fit to meet the trial that lieth before me. Thus do I return to Master Chestov. A writer on his work doth report a saying of his, which surely meriteth our ear: “The only true answer,” saith he, “is found where man’s judgment seeth no answer at all. Else, to what end were God? We turn us unto God to seek the thing that cannot be. For that which may be done, man alone is enough.” If there be a philosophy in Chestov’s name, it lieth whole within these words. For when, through the fierce pressing of his thought, he cometh upon the deep absurdity that is the root of all life, he doth not say: “This is the absurd.” Nay, he saith instead: “This is God. We must cast ourselves upon him, though he fit not any of the forms that reason might ordain.” And lest there be doubt, Chestov himself doth speak plain: this God of whom he speaketh may be hateful, full of wrath, unknowable and split against himself—yet all the more doth his might shine through such a face. The foulness of his visage declareth his strength. His greatness is shown in his unlikeness. His witness is his cruelty. One must leap into him, and in that leap be loosed from the mirage of reason. Thus for Chestov, to accept the absurd is one with the absurd itself. To behold it is to bow to it. And all the striving of his thought is but to lay it bare, that the mighty hope it hideth may spring forth at once. This path, I grant, is a rightful one. Yet still do I hold fast to one problem and the train of things that follow from it. I need not now assay the feeling that is born of thought, nor the fire that breaketh forth in faith. A whole life lieth before me for that work. I know well that the man of reason is vexed by Chestov’s way. But I feel, too, that Chestov is nearer right than he. And so I ask but this: doth he keep faith with the laws that the absurd itself demandeth? Now, if it be granted that the absurd standeth opposed to hope, it becometh plain that the thought called existential, in the work of Chestov, doth take the absurd as its groundwork—yet only that it may cast it off. Such craft of mind is naught but a conjurer’s sleight, wrought by way of the heart. For when Chestov, in other places, setteth the absurd against the laws of common reason and right, he calleth it both truth and salvation. Thus at the root of his saying lieth a certain yea-saying to the very thing he would seem to grieve. But if one allow that the might of the absurd lieth in this alone—that it runneth crosswise to man’s simplest hopes—and if one feel, as one must, that the absurd doth demand our resistance and not our assent, then it is easy to see how, in Chestov’s hand, the absurd is stripped of its true form. No longer doth it bear the mark of man—no longer is it tied to our fleshly thoughts—but is made to leap into the bosom of eternity, dark and soothing. Yet if there be an absurd, it is in the realm of man. The instant it be turned into a ladder to heaven, it is torn away from human seeing and knowing. No longer is it the clear, cold truth that man beholdeth and yet will not bless. The battle is sidestepped. Man claspeth the absurd to his breast, and in that embrace the absurd is lost—for its nature is to rend, to tear, to stand apart. This leap is flight. Chestov, who delighteth to echo Hamlet's line—"The time is out of joint"—writeth it down with a wild kind of hope, a hope that seemeth his own and no other’s. But it is not in such wise that Hamlet speaketh, nor Shakespeare intendeth. The rapture of unreason and the love of ravishment turn the mind from what is stark and true. To Chestov, reason is of no use, yet he dreameth of that which lieth beyond it. But to the mind of the absurd, reason availeth nothing—and beyond it there is naught. This leap may at the least cast some further light upon the true nature of the absurd. We know now it holdeth no worth, save in balance—that it dwelleth chiefly in the comparing, not in the things compared. Yet it falleth out that Master Chestov setteth all weight upon but one part, and thereby undoeth the balance. Our hunger to understand, our long yearning for the unchanging, may be accounted for only insofar as we are indeed able to make sense of much. There is no use in casting out reason utterly. It hath its own domain where it worketh well. It belongeth to the realm of human life and dealings. For this cause did we seek to make all things plain. And if we find ourselves unable, if the absurd ariseth in such moments, then it is begotten precisely at the joining of that sharp yet bounded reason and the rising up again of the unknowable. Now, when Chestov riseth in wrath against a saying of Hegel, such as that “the motion of the heavens is bound to steadfast laws, and these laws are its reason,” or when he doth pour out all his strength to topple Spinoza’s high tower of reason, he doth in truth pronounce all reason vain. And thus, by a strange and unlawful turning, he declareth the irrational to reign supreme. Yet such a turn is not plain nor rightful. For one might instead bring in the thought of bounds and of degrees. The laws of nature may serve well up to a point—yet past that point, they may fold in upon themselves and bring forth the absurd. Or again, they may stand true upon the level of what may be seen and named, without for that cause being true upon the level of why things are so. In such a scheme as Chestov’s, all is offered up unto the irrational. And when once the call for clearness is banished, the absurd itself vanisheth—for one of its two parts is no more. The man who liveth within the absurd, however, refuseth such flattening. He beholdeth the fight between the known and the unknowable, he scorneth not wholly the rule of reason, yet he acknowledgeth what lieth beyond it. Thus he keepeth in his sight all that experience giveth, and is not swift to leap before he hath known. He knoweth only this: that in such keen watchfulness as his, there remaineth no room for hope. That which is felt in Leo Chestov shall be felt yet more keenly in Kierkegaard. True it is, his writings are like unto a mist, shifting and ungraspable, and clear judgments are not easily drawn from so elusive a hand. Yet for all the seeming contraries, the play of false names, the cunning turns, and the wry smiles, there runneth through all his works the faint foreknowing—and with it, the quiet dread—of a truth that breaketh forth at last in his final pages: Kierkegaard, too, maketh the leap. His youth, sorely struck with fear by the terrors of Christianity, turneth in the end back to its sternest form. In his eyes, contradiction and paradox are themselves the marks of the holy. That which once brought despair, the doubt of meaning and depth in this world, becometh now its light and its proof. Christianity is the offence, the stumbling-stone, and Kierkegaard asketh, openly and without disguise, for that third sacrifice of which Ignatius of Loyola spake—the one wherein God taketh the greatest joy: the yielding up of the intellect. This fruit of the “leap” is strange, yet it should no longer move us to wonder. He maketh the absurd not merely a burden or blemish of this world, but the sign and measure of another. Yet the absurd is but the last smoke trailing from the fire of lived days. “In his falling short,” saith Kierkegaard, “the believer findeth his crown.” It is not for me to inquire to what stirring sermon this turn of mind may be joined. I must only ask whether the sight of the absurd and its own true nature giveth ground for such a stance. And herein I know it doth not. For when one returneth to ponder the content of the absurd, one may more rightly grasp the manner by which Kierkegaard was moved. 'Twixt the unreason of the world and the uprising longing of the absurd soul, he doth not hold the mean. He doth not keep faith with that balance which alone doth give birth to the true feeling of absurdity. Assured that he cannot flee the unreason, he seeketh at least to save himself from that barren yearning which seemeth to him fruitless and void of promise. And though he may well judge rightly in this, he erreth in his denial. If, instead of lifting a cry of revolt, he giveth himself wholly to frantic belief, then straightway he must blind his eye to the absurd which once gave him light, and make a god of the one thing he yet holdeth—the unreason itself. The thing of weight, as the Abbé Galiani once wrote to Madame d'Épinay, is not to be healed, but to live with one's afflictions. Yet Kierkegaard longeth to be healed. This is his burning wish, and it doth run like a fever through all his writings. His whole mind laboureth to flee from the cruel strife that is the lot of man. All the more desperate is this striving, for he seeth at times that it availeth him naught; he speaketh of himself as one who findeth no peace, as though neither fear of God nor devoutness could bring him rest. Thus, by way of a strained trick of thought, he clotheth the unreason in the shape of the absurd, and setteth upon God the marks of what is unjust, muddled, and beyond all knowing. In him, the mind alone fighteth to hush the hidden cry of the heart. And where nothing is proven, all things may be claimed as proof. Surely even Kierkegaard himself showeth us the path he hath walked. I mean not to cast judgment here—but who can read his writings and not behold therein the marks of a soul near-cleft in twain, as though he would wound himself inwardly to match the wound he hath suffered in the face of the absurd? This strain runneth throughout his _Journal_ like a thread through cloth. “What I lacked was the animal which also belongeth to man’s fate... But give me a body then.” And again: “Oh! especially in my early youth, what would I not have given to be a man, if only for six months... what I lack, at the root, is a body and the earthly terms of being.” Yet elsewhere, this same man taketh up that great cry of hope which hath echoed through the centuries, warming many hearts—though never that of the man who walketh with the absurd. “But for the Christian, death is surely not the end of all things, and holdeth more hope by far than life itself, even when that life overfloweth with strength and joy.” Reconciliation by way of scandal is yet a form of reconciliation. It giveth, perhaps, the hope of its opposite—namely, death. And though fellow-feeling may draw one toward such a view, yet must it be said plain: that which exceedeth all measure doth not thereby justify itself. What is beyond the scale of man must, as is said, be more than man. But I say even this “must” is needless. There is no logic in such a leap. No proof from the world’s working. I can only say this: it lieth beyond my measure. And though I take not denial from that, yet neither will I build my house upon that which cannot be grasped. I am told, yet again, that the mind must set aside its pride, and reason must bend low. But if I own the bounds of reason, I do not thereby undo it. I grant it no more than its due—and no less. I seek only to abide in the middle way, where thought remaineth clear and unclouded. If such clarity be pride, I know not why it should be cast away. There is naught more piercing, to my mind, than Kierkegaard’s own thought: that despair is no mere thing that befalls, but rather a condition of the soul—it is sin itself. For sin is the turning away from God. But the absurd, which is the metaphysical lot of the thinking man, leadeth not unto God. And if I may risk a bold word, one that may strike the ear too hard: the absurd is sin—without God. It is a matter of dwelling in the state of the absurd. I know well upon what it resteth—this mind of mine and this world pressing hard each upon the other, yet never clasping hands. I ask for the rule of life befitting such a state, yet what is given me forsaketh its very ground. It denieth one half of the bitter strife. It calleth upon me to yield, to bow in resignation. I ask what it meaneth to live in the state I have claimed as mine. I know it bringeth with it a dark mist, a deep unknowing. And yet I am told that this very ignorance holdeth the key to all things, that this shadow is in sooth my light. But such speech answereth not the cry of my heart, and no song, however fine, can veil the sharpness of this contradiction. Therefore, one must turn aside. Kierkegaard may well cry aloud: “If man had no everlasting soul, if beneath all things there roared but a mad and boiling force, spawning all—great and mean alike—out of the storm of dark passions; if there yawned beneath the world a bottomless gulf that nothing might fill—what would life be, save utter despair?” Yet such a cry shall not halt the man of the absurd. For to seek what is true is not to seek what is fair or sweet. And if, to escape the dread question “What is life?” a man must, like the ass, nibble upon the fair blossoms of delusion, then the absurd mind, rather than lie to itself, shall take up without fear Kierkegaard’s own word: “despair.” And all weighed rightly, a steadfast soul shall yet find its way. I take the liberty now to name the existential posture _philosophical self-slaughter_. Yet let no one mistake this for a judgment; it is but a fit name for the turning wherein thought doth undo itself and seeketh to rise beyond, even in the act of its own undoing. For to the existential mind, denial is its god—aye, a god born only through the casting down of man’s own reason. But gods, like those who perish by their own hand, do shift and pass with men. There are many manners of leaping; only this is needful—that a leap be made. These redeeming denials, these final contradictions that unmake the hindrance which hath not yet been overcome, may rise alike from holy fire or from the strictness of reason. Here lieth the paradox to which this whole reckoning bendeth: both faith and thought may leap, so long as they leap toward the eternal. That eternal is what all such gestures lay claim to, and only thus do they cross the gulf. I must say again, the manner of reason laid forth in this writing hath set aside the most common spiritual manner of our brightened age—that way which holdeth that _all is reason_, and seeketh to unfold the world thereby. To deem the world plain to the mind, after first yielding to the notion that it must be so, is a natural course. It is even a lawful one—but it is not the course we now trace. Rather, our task is to make plain the very moment wherein the mind, having begun with a belief in the world’s lack of meaning, doth somehow come to find meaning therein. The most stirring of these turns is born of faith, and is seen clearest in the soul’s longing for what lieth beyond all reason. But the strangest, and perchance most weighty of all, is that which setteth to the world a rational order, after first declaring that none could be found within it. No man may behold the ends which matter to us here, unless he hath first known this new rising of the spirit—the spirit of longing, of ache, of homesickness for sense in a world thought senseless. The phenomenologists—of whom I have spoken before—begin with a turning away from the old ways of Reason. Husserl, in his first teachings, cast aside the classic method. Let me say it again plainly: to think is not to bind things beneath one grand rule, nor to soften what is strange beneath some mighty principle. Rather, to think is to learn anew how to behold; it is to direct the soul’s sight; it is to set each image apart as a place of worth. Phenomenology refuseth to explain the world—it seeketh only to give voice to what is truly felt. In this, it confirmeth the absurd mind in its first cry: there is no one truth, but many truths. From the hush of the evening wind to the touch of this hand upon my shoulder, each thing hath its own truth. It is made bright by the gaze of the mind, which giveth heed to it. The mind doth not shape the thing it beholdeth; it doth but fasten upon it. Consciousness is no more than attention itself. It is, as Bergson speaketh, like a beam of light cast suddenly on a picture. Yet unlike the playhouse stage, there is no tale set out—only a string of images, each following the last, and oft with no clear bond between them. And yet, in that lantern’s glow, all images are raised to high estate. Through this wonder, the mind setteth apart the thing it beholdeth. No judgment may touch it now—it is lifted beyond such reach. This is what men of learning call "intention" in the soul—not meaning to end, but rather to aim. The word pointeth not to purpose, but to place. It speaketh of bearing, not of cause. Its worth is in direction, not design. At first glance, it seemeth indeed that naught in this would run crosswise to the spirit of the absurd. That seeming lowliness of mind which setteth bounds about itself, content to speak of what it dare not explain—that chosen restraint which, strangely enough, bringeth forth a richer grasp of life and a world reborn in its endlessness—such ways are, to all outward show, in keeping with the absurd. Yet as ever, the ways of thought bear two faces: the one of the soul, and the other of the world itself. Thus do they house two truths. If this manner of intent be meant only to show a turn of mind—wherein the world is not solved but simply revealed—then it parteth not from the absurd. It seeketh to list what it cannot rise above. It claimeth only this: that without a single thread to bind all things, the mind may still rejoice in naming and beholding each piece of the whole. Such truth, then, is not of the world’s core, but of the mind’s witness. It speaketh merely to the "interest" the world can stir in us. It is a waking of a slumbering realm, a rousing of life within the understanding. But if one go further—if one would lay reason beneath such musings, and claim thereby to uncover the very essence of all things—then one giveth back a hidden depth to life. To a mind steeped in the absurd, this is dark and unfitting. For in that turn from humble witness to haughty knowing, the absurd is broken. It is this sway between meekness and boldness that showeth itself in the eye of intent. And it is this shimmer, this flickering in the thought of the phenomenologists, that layeth bare the absurd way of thinking better than any other. Husserl too speaketh of “essences beyond time,” brought forth by the aim of the mind, and herein he soundeth much like Plato. All things, he would seem to say, are not made plain by one cause alone, but by all causes together. In truth, I see little difference. Surely, those ideas or forms which the soul bringeth forth at the close of every reckoning are not to be held as perfect patterns. Yet it is claimed they are present straightway in each thing perceived. Gone is the single Form that maketh sense of all; in its stead standeth an unnumbered host of essences, each bestowing meaning upon an unnumbered host of things. The world is stilled—but it is also made bright. The realism of Plato groweth now to be of the senses, yet it remaineth realism nonetheless. Kierkegaard was swallowed up in his God; Parmenides cast thought into the One. But here, thought is flung headlong into a kind of abstracted polytheism. Nor is that the end—for even false sights and feigned imaginings have their place among these "essences beyond time." In this new realm of thought, the tribe of centaurs doth stand beside the common breed of the city-dwelling man, each granted station and kind in the same heavenly register. For the man bound to the absurd, there was both truth and bitterness in that purely inward notion that every part of the world is set apart. To say that all things are privileged is the same as saying all things are alike in worth. Yet the matter, when looked upon with metaphysical eyes, stretches so wide that, by a kind of first reaction, he finds himself drawn, perchance, nearer to Plato than he thought. For he is brought to see that every outward show must needs rest upon a like-honoured essence. In this world without rank or order, where no station standeth above another, the army of thought is made up all of generals. Indeed, transcendence hath been banished—but by swift turning of mind, there returneth a scattered presence, a kind of broken immanence, which bringeth again some depth to the world. Should I be afeared that I have pressed too far a theme more carefully handled by its first masters? I but read the plain words of Husserl, that seem strange at first but are firmly bound in logic, if one grant what came afore: "That which is true is true altogether, in itself; truth is one, changeless, though it be beheld by man, monster, angel, or god." Here reason soundeth its triumph like a trumpet—I cannot gainsay it. Yet what doth such a cry avail in a world bound to the absurd? The sight of an angel or a god holdeth no meaning for me. That point in the heavens where divine thought and mine are said to meet shall ever be a land unknown to me. There, once more, I behold the leap—and though it be made in thought alone, it is still, to my eye, a turning away from that which I would not forget. And when farther on, Husserl doth cry, “Should all bodies that feel the pull of gravity vanish, yet would the law of that force remain, though with naught upon which to act,” then do I know I stand before a comfort built of air. It is a doctrine of solace, not of proof. And if I would mark the place where thought strays from what is plain, I need but read his like claim regarding the soul: “Were we to see clearly the very laws of the soul’s workings, they too would prove eternal and unchanging, as are the chief laws of nature’s lore. Thus, they would hold true even if no soul did stir.” Even were the soul not, yet would its laws remain! So it is that Husserl, from a truth of the heart, would draw forth a rule of pure reason. After setting aside the power of man’s own understanding to hold all things together, he springeth by this craft unto the everlasting Realm of Reason. Husserl’s talk of the “world made full and concrete” doth not astonish me. If I am told that not all essences be formal, but some material—that the one sort pertaineth to logic, the other to the realm of nature—then this is but a matter of words. The abstract, they say, is but a part, lacking all substance in itself, of a fuller, whole reality. Yet that same vagueness already marked out doth allow me to cast light on the muddle of such terms. For this may mean that the true and real object of my gaze—this sky above, that glimmer of water upon this cloak—alone doth keep the charm of the real, as my heart picketh it out from the many things of the world. And I shall not gainsay it. But it may also mean that the cloak itself is of the kind universal, hath its own essence full and complete, and belongeth to the realm of Forms. Then I see it plain: only the order of things hath been reversed. The world no longer mirroreth some higher realm, but the sky of Forms now shineth through the likenesses found in earth and matter. And what then? It changeth naught for me. This is no true love of the real, no clear sight of man’s estate. Nay, it is but a soaring of the wits so unbridled that it setteth out to make even the most earthly thing a ghost of thought. It is no marvel, then, that thought should fall to its own undoing, whether by the road of broken reason or of overweening reason. From Husserl’s god of pale abstraction to Kierkegaard’s god of blinding light, the span is narrow indeed. Reason and its opposite do preach the same sermon. In sooth, the road itself is of little matter—only the will to reach an end is needful. The cold philosopher and the trembling believer both set out from the same confusion, and lean upon one another in their shared unrest. But what most presseth is this: that all must explain. For in this age, longing is stronger than knowing. Mark it well: the thinking of our time is at once steeped in the belief that the world is void of meaning, and yet rent in twain by warring judgments. It doth swing between two poles—on the one side, a stark reason that grindeth all things into numbered causes; on the other, a wild unreason that lifteth all things into godhead. Yet this breach is but seeming. In both lies the same desire: to mend, to heal. And in both, a leap is thought enough. It is falsely held that reason is but a straight path. Nay, it is as wayward as any. However strong its yearning for rigor, reason itself is ever shifting. It hath a face most human, yet it can turn itself unto the divine. Since the days of Plotinus, who first joined reason with the timeless realm, it hath been taught to cast aside its most hallowed rule—contradiction—and to take in its stead the strange and witch-like power of sharing and partaking. Reason is a tool of the mind, but not the mind itself. And above all else, man’s thought is but his homesickness made flesh. Even as reason did once soothe the dark sadness of Plotinus, so now doth it offer to the anguish of our own age a familiar balm drawn from the eternal. Yet the mind that knoweth the Absurd hath no such fortune. To it, the world is neither ruled by reason nor cast wholly in madness—it is but unreason itself, and naught more. In the thought of Husserl, reason hath no end, no bounds. But the Absurd, by contrast, declareth its limits, knowing it hath no power to still the torment it endureth. Kierkegaard declareth that a single limit sufficeth to undo despair. But the Absurd mind refuseth so easy a peace. Its quarrel is not with anguish itself, but with the pride of reason. What the existential thinkers name the irrational is but reason turned inward on itself, becoming bewildered and fleeing by means of its own denial. The Absurd is not such confusion—it is reason made clear and cold, beholding the border of its reach. Not until this harsh road is trod to its end doth the man of the Absurd behold the true cause of his unrest. When he looketh within, and seeth what he doth long for, and turneth then to what the world doth offer him in place of it, he feeleth, all at once, a turning away. In the ordered cosmos of Husserl, all becometh plain—and the heart’s longing for nearness is shown to be vain. In the vision of Kierkegaard, that same longing must be yielded up, if ever it shall be fulfilled. But sin, in such a world, is not found in knowing—for were it so, all men would be blameless. Nay, sin is found in the yearning to know. And this, the Absurd man alone may own as both his fault and his innocence. He is given answers wherein all old strife is reduced to schoolmen’s sport. But this doth not accord with how he hath lived through those trials. Their truth, as he hath known it, lieth in their unrest, in their refusal to be appeased. He desireth not sermons. My reckoning would be true to the proof that gave it birth. That proof is the Absurd itself—that rift betwixt the soul that yearneth and the world that denieth, the ache for oneness, the sundering of the world, and the contradiction that linketh them still. Kierkegaard doth banish my longing. Husserl doth mend the world entire. But that was not my hope. It was ever my charge to live and think with the disjoinings still in place, to ask whether a man might bear them, or whether they be such as compel his end. One must not veil the proof, nor mend the Absurd by casting away a part of it. The true thing to be known is whether a man may live with such a rift—or whether, rather, reason commandeth that he perish by it. I care not for philosophical dying, but for dying itself, made bare of all passion. I would know its reason and its rightness. All else is deceit to the Absurd mind, a turning away from that which reason itself hath uncovered. Husserl professeth a wish to break free from “the old and easy ways of living and thinking in known and comfortable terms,” yet in his last leap he returneth to the eternal, and to the solace it bestoweth. But such a leap is no great danger, as Kierkegaard would have it. The true peril is found in the breath that cometh before it—that single, dreadful moment on the edge of the leap. To abide in that sharp hour—that is true uprightness. All else is feigning. I know full well that never hath helplessness made music so piercing as that of Kierkegaard. Yet though helplessness may dwell in the cold scenes of history, it hath no place in a mind that now demandeth truth of itself. ## Absurd Freedom