The Relationship between Persons and Characters Like Hollensteiner, as a Chemist, to the State, Which is Gradually and in the Most Consistent Manner Destroying and Killing Them. In fact, there are in existence a number of Karrer’s remarks about Hollensteiner, says Oehler, hundreds of slips of paper, just as there are about you, says Oehler to me, there are in existence hundreds of Karrer’s slips of paper just as there are about me. It is obvious that these slips of paper written by Karrer should not be allowed to disappear, but it is difficult to get at these notes of Karrer’s, if we want to secure Karrer’s writings, we have to apply to Karrer’s sister, but she doesn’t want to hear anything more about Karrer’s thoughts. He, Oehler, thinks that Karrer’s sister may already have destroyed Karrer’s writings, for as we see over and over again stupid relatives act quickly, as, for example, the sisters or wives or brothers and nephews of dead thinkers, or ones who have gone finally mad, even when it is a case of brilliant characters, as in the case of Karrer, they don’t even wait for the actual moment of death or the final madness of the hated object, says Oehler, but acting as their relatives destroy, that is burn, the writings that irritate them for the most part before the final death or the final confinement of their hated thinker. Just as Hollensteiner’s sister destroyed everything that Hollensteiner wrote, immediately after Hollensteiner’s suicide. It would be a mistake to assume that Hollensteiner’s sister would have taken Hollensteiner’s part, says Oehler, on the contrary Hollensteiner’s sister was ashamed of Hollensteiner and had taken the state’s part, the part, that is, of baseness and stupidity. When Karrer went to see her, she threw him out, says Oehler, that is to say she didn’t even let Karrer into her house. And to his question about Hollensteiner’s writings she replied that Hollensteiner’s writings no longer existed, she had burned Hollensteiner’s writings because they appeared to her to be the writings of a madman. The fact is, says Oehler, that the world lost tremendous thoughts in Hollensteiner’s writings, philosophy lost tremendous philosophical thoughts, science lost tremendous scientific thoughts. For Hollensteiner had been a continuous, thinking, scientific mind, says Oehler, who constantly put his continuous scientific thought onto paper. In fact, in Hollensteiner’s case, we were dealing not only with a scientist but also with a philosopher, in Hollensteiner the scientist and the philosopher were able to fuse into one single, clear intellect, says Oehler. Thus, when you talk of Hollensteiner, you can speak of a scientist who was basically really a philosopher, just as you can speak of a philosopher who was basically really a scientist. Hollensteiner’s science was basically philosophy, Hollensteiner’s philosophy basically science, says Oehler. Otherwise we are always forced to say, here we have a scientist but (regrettably) not a philosopher, or here we have a philosopher but (regrettably) not a scientist. This is not the case in our judgment of Hollensteiner. It is a very Austrian characteristic, as we know, says Oehler. If we get involved with Hollensteiner, says Oehler, we get involved with a philosopher and a scientist at the same time, even if it were totally false to say that Hollensteiner was a philosophizing scientist and so on. He was a totally scientific philosopher. If we are talking about a person, as we are at the moment about Hollensteiner (and if we are talking about Hollensteiner, then basically about Karrer, but very often basically about Hollensteiner and so on), we are nevertheless speaking all the time about a result. We are mathematicians, says Oehler, or at least we are always trying to be mathematicians. When we think, it is less a case of philosophy, says Oehler, more one of mathematics. Everything is a tremendous calculation, if we have set it up from the outset in an unbroken line, a very simple calculation. But we are not always in the position of keeping everything that we have calculated intact within our head, and we break off what we are thinking and are satisfied with what we see, and are not surprised for long that we rest content with what we see, with millions upon millions of images that lie on, or under, one another and constantly merge and displace each other. Again, we can say that what appears extraordinary to a person like me, what is in fact extraordinary to me, because it is extraordinary, says Oehler, means nothing to the state. For Hollensteiner meant nothing to the state because he meant nothing to the masses, but we shall not get any further with this thought, says Oehler. And whereas the state and whereas society and whereas the masses do everything to get rid of thought, we oppose this development with all the means at our disposal, although we ourselves believe most of the time in the senselessness of thinking, because we know that thinking is total senselessness, because, on the other hand, we know that without the senselessness of thinking we do not exist or are nothing. We then cling to the effortlessness with which the masses dare to exist, although they deny this effortlessness in every statement that they make, says Oehler, but, in the nature of things, we do not, of course, succeed in being really effortless in the effortlessness of the masses. We can, however, do nothing less than cling to this misconception from time to time, subject ourselves to the misconception, and that means all possible misconceptions, and exist in nothing but misconception. For strictly speaking, says Oehler, everything is misconceived. But we exist within this fact because there is no way that we can exist outside this fact, at least not all the time. Existence is misconception, says Oehler. This is something we have to come to terms with early enough, so that we have a basis upon which we can exist, says Oehler. Thus misconception is the only real basis. But we are not always obliged to think of this basis as a principle, we must not do that, says Oehler, we cannot do that. We can only say yes, over and over again, to what we should unconditionally say no to, do you understand, says Oehler, that is the fact. Thus Karrer’s madness was causally connected with Hollensteiner’s suicide, which of itself had nothing to do with madness. Behavior like Hollensteiner’s was bound to do damage to a nature like Karrer’s if we consider Hollensteiner’s relationship to Karrer and vice versa, in the way in which Hollensteiner’s suicide harmed Karrer’s nature, says Oehler. Karrer had on many occasions, he went on, spoken to Oehler of the possibility of Hollensteiner’s committing suicide. But he was talking about a suicide that would come