VIII
HA, ha, ha! but in fact, if you want to know, there isn't any wanting!" you interrupt with a guffaw. "Today's science has even so succeeded in anatomizing man up that we now know that wanting and so-called free will are nothing else but…"
Wait, gentlemen, I myself wanted to begin that way. I confess, I even got scared. I just wanted to cry out that wanting depends on the devil knows what, and thank God, perhaps, for that, but I remembered about this science and… backed off. And just then you started talking. And indeed, well, if one day they really find the formula for all our wantings and caprices -that is, what they depend on, by precisely what laws they occur, precisely how they spread, what they strive for in such-and-such a case, and so on and so forth; a real, mathematical formula, that is - then perhaps man will immediately stop wanting; what's more, perhaps he will certainly stop. Who wants to want according to a little table? Moreover: he will immediately turn from a man into a sprig in an organ or something of the sort; because what is man without desires, without will, and without wantings, if not a sprig in an organ barrel? What do you think?
– let's reckon up the probabilities - can it happen or not?
"Hm…" you decide, "our wantings are for the most part mistaken owing to a mistaken view of our profit. We sometimes want pure rubbish precisely because, in our stupidity, we see this rubbish as the easiest path to the attainment of some preconceived profit. Well, but when it's all explained, worked out on a piece of paper (which is quite possible because, after all, it's vile and senseless to believe beforehand that there are certain laws of nature which man will never learn) - then, to be sure, there will be no more so-called desires. For if wanting someday gets completely in cahoots with reason, then essentially we shall be reasoning and not wanting, because it really is impossible, for example, while preserving reason, to want senselessness and thus knowingly go against reason and wish yourself harm… And since all wantings and reasonings can indeed be calculated
– because, after all, they will someday discover the laws of our so-called free will - then consequently, and joking aside, something like a little table can be arranged, so that we shall indeed want according to this little table. For if it should someday be worked out and proved to me that when I made a fig at such-and-such a person, it was precisely because I could not do otherwise, and that I was bound to do it with such-and-such a finger, then what is left so free in me, especially if I am a learned man and have completed a course of studies somewhere? No, then I can calculate my life for thirty years ahead; in short, if this does get arranged, then we really will have no choice; we'll have to accept it in any case. And, generally, we ought tirelessly to repeat to ourselves that, precisely at such-and-such a moment, in such-and-such circumstances, nature does not ask our permission; that it must be accepted as it is, and not as we fancy, and if we are really aiming at a little table and a calendar, and… well, and even at a retort, then there's no help for it, we must accept the retort! Or else it will get accepted of itself, without you…"
Yes, sirs, but for me that's just where the hitch comes! You will forgive me, gentlemen, for philosophizing away; it's a matter of forty years underground! Allow me to indulge my fancy a bit. You see: reason, gentlemen, is a fine thing, that is unquestionable, but reason is only reason and satisfies only man's reasoning capacity, while wanting is a manifestation of the whole of life - that is, the whole of human life, including reason and various little itches. And though our life in this manifestation often turns out to be a bit of trash, still it is life and not just the extraction of a square root. I, for example, quite naturally want to live so as to satisfy my whole capacity for living, and not so as to satisfy just my reasoning capacity alone, which is some twentieth part of my whole capacity for living. What does reason know? Reason knows only what it has managed to learn (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is no consolation, but why not say it anyway?), while human nature acts as an entire whole, with everything that is in it, consciously and unconsciously, and though it lies, still it lives. I suspect, gentlemen, that you are looking at me with pity; you repeat to me that an enlightened and developed man, such, in short, as the future man will be, simply cannot knowingly want anything unprofitable for himself, that this is mathematics. I agree completely, it is indeed mathematics. But I repeat to you for the hundredth time, there is only one case, one only, when man may purposely, consciously wish for himself even the harmful, the stupid, even what is stupidest of alclass="underline" namely, so as to have the right to wish for himself even what is stupidest of all and not be bound by an obligation to wish for himself only what is intelligent. For this stupidest of all, this caprice of ours, gentlemen, may in fact be the most profitable of anything on earth for our sort, especially in certain cases. And in particular it may be more profitable than all other profits even in the case when it is obviously harmful and contradicts the most sensible conclusions of our reason concerning profits - because in any event it preserves for us the chiefest and dearest thing, that is, our personality and our individuality. Now, some insist that this is indeed the dearest of all things for man; wanting may, of course, converge with reason, if it wants, especially if this is not abused but is done with moderation; it is both useful and sometimes even praiseworthy. But wanting is very often, and even for the most part, completely and stubbornly at odds with reason, and… and… and, do you know, this, too, is useful and sometimes even quite praiseworthy? Suppose, gentlemen, that man is not stupid. (Really, it is quite impossible to say he is, for the sole reason that if he is stupid, who then is intelligent?) But even if he isn't stupid, all the same he's monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. I even think the best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful. But that's still not all; that's still not his chief defect; his chiefest defect is his constant lack of good behavior - constant from the great flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period of man's destiny. Lack of good behavior and, consequently, lack of good sense; for it has long been known that lack of good sense comes from nothing else but the lack of good behavior. Try casting a glance at the history of mankind; well, what will you see? Majestic? Maybe it is majestic; the Colossus of Rhodes alone, for example, is worth something! Not without reason did Mr Anaevsky 17 testify that while some say it was the work of human hands, others insist it was created by nature itself. Colorful? Maybe it is colorful; one need only sort through the full-dress military and civil uniforms of all times and all peoples - that alone is worth something, and if you were to add the uniforms of the lower civil ranks, you could really break a leg; no historian would be left standing. Monotonous? Well, maybe also monotonous: they fight and fight, they fight now, and fought before, and fought afterwards - you'll agree it's even all too monotonous. In short, anything can be said about world history, anything that might just enter the head of the most disturbed imagination. Only one thing cannot be said - that it is sensible. You'd choke on the first word. And one even comes upon this sort of thing all the time: there constantly appear in life people of such good behavior and good sense, such sages and lovers of mankind, as precisely make it their goal to spend their entire lives in the best-behaved and most sensible way possible, to become, so to speak, a light for their neighbors, essentially in order to prove to them that one can indeed live in the world as a person of good behavior and good sense. And what then? It is known that sooner or later, towards the end of their lives, many of these lovers have betrayed themselves, producing some anecdote, sometimes even of the most indecent sort. Now I ask you: what can be expected of man as a being endowed with such strange qualities? Shower him with all earthly blessings, drown him in happiness completely, over his head, so that only bubbles pop up on the surface of happiness, as on water; give him such economic satisfaction that he no longer has anything left to do at all except sleep, eat gingerbread, and worry about the noncessation of world history- and it is here, just here, that he, this man, out of sheer ingratitude, out of sheer lampoonery, will do something nasty. He will even risk his gingerbread, and wish on purpose for the most pernicious nonsense, the most noneconomical meaninglessness, solely in order to mix into all this positive good sense his own pernicious, fantastical element. It is precisely his fantastic dreams, his most banal stupidity, that he will wish to keep hold of, with the sole purpose of confirming to himself (as if it were so very necessary) that human beings are still human beings and not piano keys, which, though played upon with their own hands by the laws of nature themselves, are in danger of being played so much that outside the calendar it will be impossible to want anything. And more than that: even if it should indeed turn out that he is a piano key, if it were even proved to him mathematically and by natural science, he would still not come to reason, but would do something contrary on purpose, solely out of ingratitude alone; essentially to have his own way. And if he finds himself without means - he will invent destruction and chaos, he will invent all kinds of suffering, and still have his own way! He will launch a curse upon the world, and since man alone is able to curse (that being his privilege, which chiefly distinguishes him from other animals), he may achieve his end by the curse alone - that is, indeed satisfy himself that he is a man and not a piano key! If you say that all this, the chaos and darkness and cursing, can also be calculated according to a little table, so that the mere possibility of a prior calculation will put a stop to it all and reason will claim its own - then he will deliberately go mad for the occasion, so as to do without reason and still have his own way! I believe in this, I will answer for this, because the whole human enterprise seems indeed to consist in man's proving to himself every moment that he is a man and not a sprig! With his own skin if need be, but proving it; by troglodytism if need be, but proving it. And how not sin after that, how not boast that this has still not come about, and that wanting so far still depends on the devil knows what…