ENDS AND MEANS
of my contemporaries, I took it for granted that there was
no meaning. This was partly due to the fact that I shared
the common belief that the scientific picture of an abstrac-
tion from reality was a true picture of reality as a whole;
partly also to other, non-intellectual reasons. I had motives
for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently
assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty
to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know
because we don't want to know. It is our will that decides
how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence.
Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so
because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that
the world should be meaningless.
The behaviour of. the insane is merely sane behaviour, a
bit exaggerated and distorted. The abnormal casts a reveal-
ing light upon the normal. Hence the interest attaching,
among other madmen, to the extravagant figure of the
Marquis de Sade. The Marquis prided himself upon being
a thinker. His books, indeed, contain more philosophy
then pornography. The hungry smut-hound must plough
through long chapters of abstract speculation in order to
find die cruelties and obscenities for which he hungers.
De Sade's philosophy was the philosophy of meaningless-
ness carried to its logical conclusion. Life was without
significance. Values were illusory and ideals merely the
inventions of cunning priests and kings. Sensations and
animal pleasures alone possessed reality and were,alone
worth living for. There was no-reason why anyone should
have the sBghest consideration, for anyone else. For those
who found rape and murder amusing, rape and murder were
fully legitimate activities. And so on.
Why was the Marquis unable to find any value or signifi-
cance in the world? Was his intellect more piercing than
that of other men? Was he forced by the acuity of his
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