92
Kierkegaard
Journals
62-15862
D DDD1
v .""iL-
The Journals of
KIERKEGAARD
A - I
iv- /*d*oyr~
Translated, selected,
and with an introduction by
ALEXANDER DRU
HAEPEE TOBCHBOOKS
Harper & Brothers Publishers New York
THE JOURNALS OF KIERKEGAARD
Copyright 1958, 1959 by Alexander Dru
Printed in the United States of America
This selection from the Journals was made by arrangement with
the Oxford University Press, which published the original edition
in 1939.
All rights in this book are reserved.
No part of the book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written per-
mission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews. For
information address Harper & Brothers
49 East sard Street, New York 16, N. Y.
First HARPER TORCHBOOK edition published 1959
Library of Congress catalog card number: 59-6650
92,
CONTENTS
Introduction to the Torchbook Edition page J
Chronological Table 33
The Journals 39
PLAZA
INTRODUCTION
TO THE TORCHBOOK EDITION
Somewhere in the Journals Kierkegaard remarks that the
skipper of a fishing-smack knows his whole cruise before sailing,
but a man-of-war gets its orders only on the high seas. That is
what happened to him. It was not until he had completed his
work, in 1845, that its full significance dawned on him, and he
understood his mission. That mission was not a self -chosen, self-
imposed task, but was implicit in the work he had written. The
Revolutions of 1848 in Paris, Rome, Berlin and Vienna showed
him the situation in Copenhagen in a new light.
What he calls "the Journal proper" begins in January 1846
and is the record of that change and its consequences. The earlier
Journals had been haphazard by comparison. They allow us to
see the raw material of his life, so to say, before his destiny had
taken shape. The Journal proper enables the reader to assist at
the process of simplification and clarification hi which he under-
stood himself in existence.
The Introduction, I need hardly say, confines itself to giving
the reader an outline of Kierkegaard's life and work which I
hope will enable him to read the Journal in comfort. Those
who wish to follow up their reading may usefully consult The
Mind of Kierkegaard, by James Collins, and Johannes Kohlen-
berg's biography. Dr. Walter Lowrie's Short Life is a sound,
dual-purpose volume.
Childhood and Youth
Copenhagen, where Kierkegaard was born on 5th May, 1813,
was a small provincial town, the seat of Government and, at
that time, the intellectual centre of Scandinavia, with its Uni-
versity and its learned Academies a closely-knit society which
provided Kierkegaard with a clinical specimen of the social and
8 INTRODUCTION
political, intellectual and religious currents of the day, which
he could consult like a barometer. There was hardly anyone
from the King, Christian VIII, to the women in the fish-market,
whom he did not know, and there was certainly no one who
aroused more curiosity than the gnome-like figure, with his um-
brella under his arm, who could be seen on his daily walks about
the town.
In appearance he was certainly odd. He was slight, spindly
and with so pronounced a stoop that he was regarded as a
hunch-back. The curvature of his spine, which he thought had
been caused by a fall from a tree when he was a child, made
him lean back as he walked, and gave him a dislocated, mechani-
cal, crab-like gait, so that every movement appeared to be delib-
erate. His head was finely shaped and well-rounded, crowned
with a mop of uncontrollable fair hair. The eyes behind his
glasses were pale blue, his nose straight and strong, his mouth
large, his teeth protruding, his chin receding. Unprepossessing
and unimpressive though he was, he had only to begin talking,
and in spite of a rasping voice that easily cracked, he was
altogether transformed. His conversation could be captivating in
the highest degree, and he possessed an uncanny, but not always
reassuring, gift of penetrating the minds of others. When Hans
Br0chner, later Professor of Philosophy at the University, first
met him, he assumed he must be some little clerk from an office.
But it was not long before he was disillusioned on that score,
and delighted in his company. "His smile," he wrote, after
Kierkegaard's death, "and his look, were indescribably expres-
sive. He had a particular way of greeting one at a distance, with
a mere look. It was just a little movement of the eyes, and yet
it conveyed so much. He could put something infinitely gentle
and loving into his gaze, but he could equally goad and tease
people to frenzy. With a single look at a passer-by he could, as
he expressed it, e put himself in touch with him.' Whoever met
his gaze was either drawn to him or repelled, was either made to
feel uncomfortable, or attracted to him. I have walked down
whole streets with him while he explained how one could make
psychological studies by 'getting in touch' with people; and while
INTRODUCTION 9
he explained his theory he put it into practice with almost every-
one."
Seen from the inside, through the pages of the Journal, Kierke-
gaard is all melancholy and the microscopic analysis to which
he submitted his thoughts and feelings and experience is in
danger of concealing as much as it reveals. For from the outside
nothing of this appeared. No one, he triumphantly asserts, ever
pitied him. To his contemporaries he was a man of infinite wit
whose flashing intelligence dazzled and disturbed; but although
his superiority was never in question, he remained an enigma.
Far from appearing serious, he gave the impression of taking
a frivolous delight in making a mockery of everything they took
to heart. "There is nothing spontaneous or straightforward
about him," one man who knew him well wrote. "I am
surprised he can eat and sleep, etc. Otherwise I acknowledge
him to be the most cultured and talented author; but he seems
to me like a decrepit old man, or rather like an exceptionally
intellectual person with a sickly imagination."
Kierkegaard would not have disagreed. He had never known
what it meant to be young, and his genius, he thought, lay in
an exceptional compound of opposites, of reflection and imag-
ination and a diseased absence of spontaneity, so that the very
qualities which gave him his superiority over others, were at
the same time the source of his misery, cutting him off from
ordinary life at which he could only assist as an observer, or a
spy, he wrote later, in the service of an idea. It was as though
his infinitely reflective mind disintegrated experience as it came
to him, putting spontaneous reaction beyond his reach. And yet
at the same time a vivid imagination enabled him to feel and
grasp all that was denied him. "Lacking almost all the require-
ments for being a man," crippled by the disproportion between
body and spirit, he was nevertheless possessed by a vitality which
nothing could subdue. Even at the point where he felt that he
was on the borderline of madness, his vitality of mind held
everything together, piercing the web of explanation in which
his reflection tried to imprison him, and finally restoring order.
It was this agonising sense of the dislocation between thought
IO INTRODUCTION
and existence which drove him, as he grew up, to search for "the
idea for which I can live and die," for the truth which would be
the full-blooded union of thought and existence which fate, in
the first instance, had denied him.
"From my earliest youth," Kierkegaard writes, "I was in the
grip of a profound melancholy." The expression is misleading,
and on one occasion at least, he is more precise, and adds, "from
my twentieth year." What he meant was that "we are all of
us what we are to be by the time we are ten years old:" he was
predisposed by his physical weakness, by his malformation and
his whole cast of mind to fall into melancholy. But it was only
by stages that his singularity turned into isolation, and his isola-
tion was transformed by his imagination into an inescapable
fate. The events which determined the course of his life have
been discussed ad infinitum and the full truth will probably
never be known; but the main outline of the great moral and
intellectul crisis of his youth is clear enough, and it is possible
to follow the steps by which Kierkegaard came to understand
the forces of heredity and upbringing by which he was formed.
The story is briefly summarised in a group of quotations and
comments in which he describes the culminating point as "the
great earthquake," They were written on three pages of gilt-
edged paper and are given here (p. 39) in the order in which
they were written, and not as printed by the editors. Variously
interpreted, they give the phases of Kierkegaard's development
from childhood until the death of his father in August, 1838.
Kierkegaard was anything but a melancholy child. He was,
from all accounts, alert, independent and precociously intelli-
gent, "with a tendency to freedom and irresponsibility which
prevents him from taking anything seriously." He was perfectly
well able to look after himself at school, more than a match
for a master who showed any signs of weakness, and never with-
out the physical courage to deal with the boys of his own age,
who noticed nothing particularly odd about him except the curi-
ous suits he was dressed in and his sarcastic remarks. It was not
INTRODUCTION 1 1
until much later that he became conscious of being unlike others,
and by then he had discovered ample compensation in his home
life.
Everything there centred round his father. As the youngest of
seven children he was spoilt and allowed a degree of freedom
which his brothers and sisters had not known. And as he grew
older the natural affinity between him and his father came into
play. Everything, it seemed to him in after life, had been done
to favour his development and to establish his self-confidence.
The autobiographical sketch, "Johannes Glimacus" (p. 80) gives
a stylised impression of the "insane upbringing" which he cursed
and blessed in the same breath as wonderfully suited to his
genius, though by developing his natural gifts it encouraged his
singularity and made him old before his time. Then and after-
wards, his father was the only man with whom he lived on
equal terms, whose cast of mind was in many respects like his
own, and on whom he could count absolutely for understanding.
From him, he says, he learnt the meaning of fatherly love, and
so gained some analogy for the love of God. The motto chosen
for these years, "Half childish games, Half God in my heart,"
taken from Goethe, sums up the happy and solid foundations
on which his life was built, the sense of freedom and duty and
the belief that "one can do what one wills" which supported
him through all the trials and crises of his life.
But when the crisis came involving his father, his whole world
came crashing about his ears. It is a matter of conjecture when
Kierkegaard's suspicion first arose. But whenever it was, he grad-
ually began to notice that the facade of his father's life con-
cealed a different world, that the faith in God which he had
been taught, and the Christianity in which he had been reared,
were powerless to support the man he loved. He came to see
that his father was deeply vulnerable, and that his faith was
undermined by "silent despair." This suspicion was explored in
every direction, and kept alive by his father's unguarded re-
marks. When his mother and all but one of his brothers died
within a few years, and his father's melancholy could no longer
be hidden, Kierkegaard brooded over his suspicions until they
12 INTRODUCTION
acquired the compulsive force of "a frightful foreboding" that
in some unexplained way he himself was involved in the fate of
the whole family. In 1835 he seems finally to have stumbled on
the "secret" that explained everything, and its power over him
was doubly increased by the fact that his worst forebodings had
been fulfilled. He had discovered the "infallible law" that ex-
plained everything and it became an Me fixe, something objec-
tive, a point on which his sense of isolation could centre and
round which his melancholy coagulated.
Kierkegaard's father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was
born in Saeding, a hamlet in the poorest district on the moors
of Jutland, where the peasants scraped a bare existence from
the soil. As a child, he was often sent out on to the moor to
mind the sheep, and it was there, when he was twelve years old,
that in his misery and solitude, he climbed on a hill and cursed
God. The primitive intensity of thought and emotion which the
gesture reveals was never dulled or transformed by education,
and the act of rebellion which his grinding poverty had pro-
voked was firmly fixed in his memory when his luck suddenly
changed.
When he was about sixteen, Michael Pedersen was sent to
assist a cousin in a hosier's business in Copenhagen. He was
quick to learn the business and soon took over the management
entirely. By the time he was forty he had saved a very substan-
tial sum for a man of his position, and subsequently, in the year
of S0ren*s birth, his capital was unexpectedly increased by a
lucky investment. But his material prosperity had already been
payed for in spiritual tribulation.
Shortly after the death of his first wife, who died childless,
in April 1796, Michael Pedersen wound up his affairs and sold
his business. Within a year, in April 1797, he had married his
servant, and less than five months later their first child was born.
Behind that sequence of events, the death of his first wife, to
whom he was devoted, his retirement, and his hurried second
marriage, lies the secret on which he began to brood, and which
his son was to discover with such tremendous consequences. He
had loved his first wife, and to the end of his life continued to re-
INTRODUCTION 13
gard her as his real wife and himself as responsible in some sense
for her death perhaps she had learnt of his relations with their
servant. If Kierkegaard's expressions are any guide, he accused
himself of seducing, if not raping, the girl who lived under his
roof and under his protection, and who became the mother of
his children. Outwardly fortunate, eminently successful, a close
friend of Mynster, the future Primate of Denmark, and widely
respected for his uprightness and his intelligence, he was in-
wardly broken by remorse. His vigorous mind was imprisoned
in a narrow, disfiguring Protestantism, an arid predestinarian
theology and a meagre pietism that accentuated the personal de-
pendence of man on God at the price of confining it in an almost
mechanistic conception of Divine Providence. To him the chain
of cause and effect, of guilt and punishment reached from his
first rebellion against God, down through his sensuality to the
successive deaths of his children. It was a religion which neither
education nor vision had touched; it remained morose, intense,
and sterile. In a softened light it was the Christianity which
Kierkegaard himself was offered and against which he re-
acted healthily, though to the end his mind was coloured by
it
By his second wife, Michael Pedersen had seven children,
four boys and three girls, the eldest of whom died as the result
of an accident in 1819. Two years later his eldest daughter
died suddenly. It was ten years later, just as S0ren Kierke-
gaard left school and began going to the University, that
his mother and three of his remaining brothers and sisters died
within the space of three years. It was this succession of deaths
which made such an impression on Michael Pedersen and Ms
two surviving sons. S0ren*s brother Peter, then lecturing at the
University, was himself in the grip of religious melancholy which
a grim theology had fastened so firmly on him that at the end
of his life, when he had been Bishop of Aalborg for some years,
he begged to be relieved of his office, unable to bear the responsi-
bility any longer. The atmosphere in the large house in the
main square, where they all three lived, was such that a less
sensitive mind than Soren's might well have wondered what lay
14 INTRODUCTION
behind the inheritance of melancholy that had descended upon
him.
All three, as Kierkegaard now discovered, had arrived inde-
pendently at the same conclusion. His father and his brother
had come to believe that the father's sins were to be visited on
the sons, and that Michael Pedersen was destined, as the deaths
of his children had proved, to outlive them all, "a cross on the
tomb of all his hopes" and that the "outstanding intellectual
gifts of our family were only given to us in order that we should
rend one another to pieces." Kierkegaard had found the infalli-
ble law which explained all the facts; the "great earthquake 59
shattered his world and left him stranded. "Inwardly torn asun-
der as I was . . . what wonder then that in desperate despair
I grasped at nought but the intellectual side in man, and clung
fast to it, so that the thought of my own considerable powers of
mind was my consolation, ideas my one joy, and mankind indif-
ferent to me." (p. 40).
The "infallible law" was not merely an explanation of his
father's despair; it was a "terrifying, mysterious explanation of
religion, which a frightful foreboding had played into my hands,
which my imagination worked upon, and the scandal which reli-
gion became to me." His life which had begun in an idyllic,
patriarchal key was suddenly transformed into terror. Instead of
submitting like his father and brother and bowing under the
weight of the fate they had constructed for themselves, S0ren
reacted violently and broke with everything which had hitherto
protected and supported him, and found release in the new in-
tellectual life that opened out before him at the University. For
however firmly "the infallible law" had taken root in his mind,
there was the outside world to be explored and new levels of
experience to be tasted and tested.
It is at this time that Kierkegaard first appears on the scene
rejoicing in his talents and making his superiority felt. He is
seen addressing the University Club on a political motion, cut-
ting short a rowdy meeting with his sarcasms and making his
INTRODUCTION 15
debut in the press. His articles on the Liberal leader, Orla Leh-
mann, were at once attributed to J. L. Heiberg, the most distin-
guished litterateur of the day though what the author intended
was not quite clear, except to ridicule the Liberals. But neither
his father, nor his brother was impressed by his success. They
did not share his interest in politics, his enthusiasm for the
romantic school, his passion for Mozart or his boundless curiosity
in his contemporaries. They only saw him drifting away from
home, and speaking and thinking in a cold and critical way to
Christianity, while he found as little substance in the stodgy
orthodoxy of old-fashioned Protestantism as in the brittle new-
fangled rationalistic theology of the young Hegelians like Mar-
tensen, his coach. In the hope of bringing him to his senses his
father sent him for a holiday to Gilleleje, on the north coast of
Zealand, where the first entries in this selection were written in
August 1835. For a moment Kierkegaard pulled himself together
and the deeper note in his mind sounds through his despair.
But on his return to Copenhagen his new state was soon worse
than the first.
For the next two years he speaks of himself as "on the path
to perdition," but what looked like frivolity and irresponsibility
to his father and others and even to himself was a necessary
safety-valve. The Journal for these years is short and intermit-
tent, hardly more than an echo of his conversation and the
carefree mood he adopted in public where he was "never so
ungracious as to appear without a freshly picked bouquet of wit."
He spent much of his time with a group of seedy aesthetes, Hans
Andersen among others, who met regularly in one of the cafe's.
Among these was P. L. M011er, a gifted young man who supplied
the model for the Don Juan character who appears in Either-
Or, and a drunken, declasse intellectual Johannes J0rgensen. It
was probably in their company that he visited a brothel an inci-
dent which suddenly sprang to the forefront of his mind some
time afterwards like "lightning announcing a violent storm," at
the time when he first met Regine Olsen, the girl to whom he
became engaged.
The one man who penetrated his mask, and was not taken
1 6 INTRODUCTION
in by his nihilism, was the poet and philosopher Poul Martin
M011er (not to be confused with P. L. M011er) to whom Kierke-
gaard afterwards dedicated The Concept of Dread where he
defines the notion of Angst and analyses his own spiritual atti-
tude during these years with special reference to sin and sexual-
ity. In the long dedication M011er is addressed as "the mighty
trumpet of my awakening." M011er was almost the only man at
the University who sympathised with Kierkegaard's growing
irritation with the fashionable philosophy of Hegel, and he sus-
pected rightly enough that the young man whose sardonic com-
ments amused him would, if only he could concentrate his
energies, play David to Hegel's Goliath. They were often seen
about together, M011er large and easy-going, and Kierkegaard
walking him into the gutter as he threw out his ideas and ex-
plained his point of view. M011er's early death, in the spring of
1838, touched him deeply and a few days later, he took up his
interrupted Journal again.
The first sign of change is Kierkegaard's reconciliation with
his father. At about this time Michael Pedersen paid his son's
debts and made him an allowance which enabled him to leave
his father's house and live in rooms. It may have been part of
the bargain that Kierkegaard should begin working, and he
taught Latin for a time at the school he had attended as a boy.
To judge by the quotation from Lear (p. 40) headed "twenty-
five years old" it was on the occasion of his legal coming of age
that his father made full amends for the past and confessed his
sins. A week or so later, on nth May, 1838, Kierkegaard re-
corded an experience of "indescribable joy" unique in the Jour-
nals. On August gth his father died and Kierkegaard's period of
crisis was over. "The powerful religious impressions of childhood
acquired a renewed power, over me, but softened by reflection. 5 *
Now that his father was no longer alive to be put off with ex-
cuses, Kierkegaard felt in duty bound to set to work and take
his degree which during the last eight years he had not at-
tempted to do. He began working for the theological examina-
tion which would give him the right to preach.
INTRODUCTION *7
In the spring of 1837, Kierkegaard had visited his friends
the R0rdams, whose daughter Bolette had made an impression
on him. It was in their house that he met Regine Olsen. She
was barely fifteen at the time, and for the next year or two he
only saw her occasionally. In her old age Regine recalled their
first meeting clearly, and was in no doubt that Kierkegaard had
decided then and there that she should be his wife. Immediately
after his father's death he made a pilgrimage to Jutland, care-
fully noted in the Journal, and on his return began working for
his examination. He presented his thesis "On Socratic Irony" in
September, 1840. A few weeks later he asked for Regine's hand,
and they became officially engaged. His self-confidence had re-
turned. He was still under the impression of his religious experi-
ence, and he saw the past through the haze of his reconciliation
with his father. In his happiness he never doubted that he could
escape his father, overcome his isolation and "realise the uni-
versal"; marry and be like others. But no sooner had he spoken
than he felt he had overstepped the mark. And the more he
poured over his dark secret the more certainly he knew that he
could never reveal it and speak of his father's sin, his mother's
dishonour or involve the girl he loved in his exceptional life. It
never occurred to him to conceal anything. After a long struggle,
during which he hoped she would break with him, he had finally
to tell her he would not marry. The engagement was broken
oil in October 1841, and after remaining in Copenhagen for a
couple of weeks, in order to give the impression that he was
indifferent to the whole affair and so, if possible, make things
easier for Regine, he took the boat for Stralsund and went on to
Berlin. The possibility that he might still marry however was not
entirely ruled out and he remained in an agonised state of sus-
pense. "Had I had faith," he wrote afterwards, "I should have
remained with Regine" but on another level he had felt "a
divine protest" and believed that his destiny lay elsewhere. Even
before he had become engaged he had asked himself whether
he was to be able to marry Regine or whether perhaps "the
orders are: further": whether fate had other plans for him.
1 8 INTRODUCTION
Kierkegaard's Work: The Pseudonyms. 1841-1845
Kierkegaard returned to Copenhagen early in March, 1841.
For the next four and a half years, until the end of 1845, he
lived for his work and his whole life was planned accordingly.
He was comfortably installed in the house on Nytorv, cared for
by his servants, and spared the worst drudgery by his secre-
taries. Food and wine, coffee and cigars interested him, and he
fussed about the temperature of his room as he could not bear
the heat. His daily walks round the town continued, and he
was often seen at the theatre, and when the long summer days
came he hired a carriage and horses and made expeditions into
the surrounding country, where he dined and supped at an inn,
occasionally spending a night or two away. As long as he was
writing, his melancholy was in abeyance, and his whole attention
was given to the works in hand. A glance at the chronological
table will suggest the speed at which he worked.
Kierkegaard's work is so large, complex and detailed, that
the reader is often unable to see the wood for the trees. In fact
the main lines of the structure are large and simple, and it is
the ground-plan, if I may so call it, that needs to be made clear
if the Journals are to be read in comfort: for it is in the Jour-
nals that the significance of his work as a whole can be seen
developing in the same way that a photograph "develops,"
until what had been a literary and private work appears as his
mission.
Kierkegaard's work falls into two perfectly distinct parts.
The first, written consecutively and at full speed between 1841
and 1845, is a complete oeuvre, a self-contained ComSdie Hu-
maine, attributed to half a dozen pseudonyms, some of whom
reappear in subsequent volumes. Into this part Kierkegaard
poured everything which he had seen, read, thought and expe-
rienced during his youth; it is autobiographical, of course, but
equally a study of his times, full of portraits of his contempo-
raries, scenes he had witnessed, in which he looks back and ex-
plains his own life and the times in which he lived.
The second part (already latent in the first) is a "work in
INTRODUCTION 19
progress" where, working within narrower limits, he moves cir-
cumspectly towards the open "attack on Christendom" which
exploded in the last series of pamphlets which were cut short
by his death. A work of a different stamp altogether which he
perceived in the course of the metamorphosis or conversion
which occurred in 1847 and is described in the next* section. It
is no longer literary or assigned to pseudonyms, except inci-
dentally, but signed with his own name. The oblique approach
is abandoned, not without loss, in order to bring out the basic
themes of his apology for Christianity.
The first part of the work consists of the great pseudonyms,
Either-Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, The Concept of
Dread, Stages on the Road of Life and two philosophical essays,
Fragments of Philosophy and the Concluding Unscientific Post-
script. The latter, as the title indicates, was to have been the
end of his work. It proved in the event to be the beginning of
a new series. In addition there are the Eighteen Edifying Dis-
courses published under his own name.
With all the intensity at his command, Kierkegaard focussed
his work on the juncture of thought and existence, of philosophy
and Christianity. At first sight everything else seems to go by
the board and everything objective is sacrificed in the pursuit
of subjectivity or inwardness. Church and State, culture and
history, everything except religion in its inward and moral aspect
is brushed aside and appears as a distraction, like geometry to
Pascal. His purpose seems to be to isolate the individual man
in a deathly silence where he will be face to face with the one
thing necessary: the fusion of thought and existence. For it is
only then that the spirit of man is born, and he becomes "the
individual." That unswerving insistence on the essential repeated
in a variety of keys, is what makes Kierkegaard at once curiously
remote and yet intensely personal. In one respect he is what
he called "an author's author," yet without losing the capacity
to speak to "the individual" in accents which have not been
dulled by time.
The outstanding feature of this part of his work is the po-
lemic against Hegel, a criticism of the whole corpus of post-
20 INTRODUCTION
Christian philosophy from Spinoza to Hegel; an attack on
"philosophy" itself for its wordy metaphysics and its verbal
scepticism and for its original sin of divorcing thought from
existence or reality. It is also a criticism, on the moral and psy-
chological level of the humanism of that period, of the world
which emerged after the Reformation which he called for short
the "Goetheo-Hegelian" world. That world, with its rationalist
philosophies and its aesthetic humanism was, in his view, already
moribund, a mirage, but a potent illusion which prevented men
from seeing the real problems of both faith and doubt. It is
"the dregs of Christianity."
The critical, almost nihilistic aspect of Kierkegaard's work is
so sharp and prominent, his attack on rationalism and "human-
ism" so unrelenting, that the constructive element is in danger
of being overlooked. But parallel with it runs the analysis and
phenomenological description of "the individual" depicted in
a series of scenes and situations which define the stages or levels
of existence: the aesthetic, ethical and religious levels which are
presented both as alternatives and again as the material to be
co-ordinated. Much of the material, such as the archetypes,
Don Juan, Faust and the Wandering Jew, are derived from the
romantic school, and the inspiration of Hamann had borne
fruit This aspect of his work is the best known, but it is often
isolated, admired for its psychological penetration and not al-
ways read in the context of the wider argument. In these works,
however, Kierkegaard starts from various points of view, and
his thought moves always in the same direction, towards the
moment of decision, the "choice" in Either-Or 3 the "leap of
faith" in Fear and Trembling, and guided by the conception of
the individual which is being put forward, leads up to the mo-
ment in which decision and action fuse thought and existence,
the moment in which temporal and eternal meet and man can
fulfill his destiny.
Kierkegaard does not merely criticise the error of the basic
idea in Hegel's system, which is the identity of thought and
reality or existence the error of rationalism in fact. The core of
his work is an attempt to bridge the gulf an attempt which he
INTRODUCTION 21
regarded as a return to tradition, to the Greeks and to the Chris-
tian thought which sprang from them.
It is here that the two foundations of his work appear: the
role allotted to "feeling," "passion" or "pathos" (he uses the
words interchangeably); and secondly, though in his view this
was the more important point, the new form of communication
which the role of feeling demands. Briefly and crudely stated,
Kierkegaard's argument is that abstract thought is incapable
of grasping "what it means to exist" (because it abstracts from
the concrete) and is confined, by definition, to the world of
the possible, to a timeless and static world, seen sub specie
aeterni. But "passion" is the door to existence and under the
right conditions opens the way to a real and certain knowledge
of existence, although that knowledge cannot be communicated
in the ordinary, "direct" dialectical form (the formal logic of
abstract thought).
But this does not mean that our knowledge of existence
cannot be communicated at all. Where existence is concerned,
the form of communication must, self-evidently, correspond to
the faculty of mind through which it is ^grasped, and that
faculty is "feeling." Feeling or pathos cannot, however, be
communicated "directly" love cannot be "proved" syllogisti-
cally, nor beauty demonstrated by formal logic. But the
knowledge which "feeling" brings and this includes our knowl-
edge of quality as opposed to quantity can be communicated
indirectly. The poet, for example, is not necessarily talking
nonsense pure and simple, though his form of communication
differs essentially from that of the "philosopher" in the narrow
sense of the word. Hence the importance which Kierkegaard
gives to music and Mozart in particular, in Either-Or and to
the significance of the "poet" throughout his works. Fueling,
in fact> does not deny reason, but can only be expressed in-
directly, by the use of analogy, images, and last but not least,
form (as in poetry and the arts).
Kierkegaard would, however, be misunderstood if it were
not at once made clear that feeling is not sentiment or emotion
isolated from the other faculties of mind. Feeling and passion
22 INTRODUCTION
are only the gateway to reality when purified by reason and
will and integrated by that process with the other faculties.
Feeling is in one sense the faculty which leads to the quality
of intensity of our knowledge, as opposed to knowledge which
is significant by virtue of its extensity. It is only when both are
co-ordinated that "the individual" begins to exist and becomes
a complete mati. The error of rationalism is therefore twofold.
It limits man to being "a rational animal," and because it
excludes feeling, limits him to one form of communication
which, by definition, excludes reality. It is the world of a
man who "has forgotten what it means to exist," who does not
really live in the same categories as he thinks in :
"But as people have forgotten what to exist sensu eminenti
means, because they generally make the pathetic refer to
imagination and sentiment, allowing it to be annulled by the
dialectic (the direct form), the pathetic has fallen into dis-
repute in our igth century philosophy and dialectics have
become its passion."
From this it should be plain that "the choice" and "the leap
of faith" are not arbitrary acts of the will divorced from
reason and feeling, and intervening like a deus ex machina
to solve the problem of life, but acts of the whole man which
alone give him the right to speak of existence. It might almost
be said that Kierkegaard reverses the cogito. Instead of saying
"I think, therefore I am," he says, "Only if I exist sensu eminenti
can I begin to think" and that thought, moreover, requires a
dual form of communication, both direct and indirect. The real
difficulty consists in co-ordinating the two forms of communi-
cation, as Kierkegaard says quite clearly in the Postcript:
"Where existence is concerned, thought is not higher than
imagination and feeling, but is co-ordinated with them. In
existence, the supremacy of thought (abstract thought) pro-
duces confusion. . . . Where the thinker is concerned, this
distinction (between imagination or feeling and thought) is
abolished. To that one must reply: all right, for thought, ab-
stract thought, it is untenable, but abstract thought in its turn
is untenable where existence is concerned. . . . Thought may
INTRODUCTION 23
well despise imagination; but en revanche, imagination despises
thought, and the same is true of feeling. The task is not to
annul the one at the expense of the other, but to preserve, on the
contrary, their equilibrium, their simultaneity; and the plane
on which they are united is existence"
To complete the circle of Kierkegaard's thought, it could be
pointed out that "imagination" is defined as the faculty instar
omnium, which takes the place of all the others, for it is a re-
flection, or if one likes synthesis, of feeling, reason and will,
which is why it is an essential element in the communication
of the knowledge derived from the fusion of all three faculties
in "the individual."
That fusion takes place in the "choice." For the choice is
not the choice of something external (a view of life, a particular
corpus of knowledge) but of oneself, of a complete existence.
Prior to that constitutive act man is always consciously or
unconsciously in despair, for despair is the disintegration of
personality in the course of which one or the other of the
faculties assumes ^supremacy": either reason, resulting in
rationalism; or feeling, resulting in sentimentality; or will, re-
sulting in voluntarism. It is really only after the "choice," that
the "leap of faith" becomes possible, for only the complete
man can really become a Christian. And in fact Kierkegaard goes
so far as to say that "one can guarantee to make a Christian
of every man one can get to come under the category of the
individual" in so far, that is, as one man can do this for
another. Kierkegaard concludes in the Postscript, "Man only
begins to exist in faith." For Christianity, from this point of
view, is a new level of existence.
"Life" he says elsewhere, "must be lived forward, but
understood backwards" so that there never can be a complete,
all-embracing and systematic explanation of life, since man
cannot stand still outside its movement in order to grasp and
explain it. Existence can only be understood in that movement
which no static scheme can hold fast. Decision and faith are
in that movement, and then action qualifies and enriches
thought, and thought elucidates action simultaneously. That
does not mean that existence is irrational (except in terms of
rationalism). But looking forward, living forward, faith ap-
pears as the paradox, and from the point of view of reason
alone, it is "the absurd" which reason cannot digest, as long
as it is uninflected by feeling and undetermined by will, choice
and action. But in the concrete everything is reversed, and the
second or mature form of reflection, the reflection of the com-
plete man, makes things fast once again (p. 146). The task is
not to prove the truth of Christianity beforehand, which puts
the accent on abstract thought instead of upon life, but to
communicate it afterwards. But at that point, even the indirect
method ultimately becomes inadequate or rather it must be
enlarged and extended. The second part of Kierkegaard's
work therefore turns to the specifically Christian form of
communication, "the witness to the truth, 55 the confessor and
martyr, while he regarded his own task as on a lower level
altogether: "to make men aware." He therefore regarded the
problem of communication as "the distinctive characteristic"
of his work, and as embodying "the reality of his historical
importance," for Christianity is "the truth that is troubled,"
i,e., essentially concerned with communicating it to others (see
p. 169).
That, as far as I can see, is the core of Kierkegaard's work,
neither rationalistic, nor irrationalistic, nor inhuman. Its human-
ism lies in the conception of "the individual" which, unlike the
aesthetic humanism of the bourgeois period, is open to all
men equally, and in the fact that his conception of the complete
man was an indirect proof of Christianity: not a demonstration
which could be received second hand, but which "looking back-
wards" (and provided one lived forwards) gave the mind the
freedom to be itself and fulfil its destiny.
Seen in its broadest lines, Kierkegaard's work involves a
shift of emphasis from the objective world of Reason and
Culture, to the moral and inward sphere. That is why every-
thing, in the first instance, is obliterated by the intensity with
which he maneouvres to reach "the choice." That truth lies
in subjectivity does not mean that truth is subjective. On the
INTRODUCTION 25
contrary, inwardness, or subjectivity, is the starting point at
which "the individual" enters life by acting decisevly. Maturity
does not consist in some form of cultural humanism, with its
accents on the externals of personality, such as gifts and genius,
but in the depth and riches of the spiritual life which is the
spring of action. It is that inward action, as Kierkegaard says in
one of the earliest entries, which means everything, and then
the rest, the objective aspect, will follow. In the first part
of his work Kierkegaard does not go beyond the choice. It
was only after he himself had acted decisively, when he was
forced out of his work into life by his conflict with The Corsair,
a weekly newspaper, that he saw the future clearly.
The Metamorphosis
Kierkegaard completed his work in the autumn of 1845
and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript was sent sent to the
printers in December. With his vast, though unrecognised,
achievement behind him Kierkegaard once again began to think
that his melancholy and self-isolation might be overcome. His
ambition now was to write finis to his work and retire to a country
living. He discussed the plan with Bishop Mynster, his father's
friend, who thought well of any arrangement by which so restive
a mind could be kept at a distance. But the romantic gesture
was hardly practicable. He began to have doubts about his
worthiness for the ministry and before he had had time to
reach a decision fate intervened. He was not destined to languish
in a vicarage.
Just as Kierkegaard had sent off the manuscript of the Post-
script, P. L. M011er, whom he had hardly seen for the last five
or six years, published a violent attack on the author (the
pseudonym was "Frater Taciturnitus" ) of Guilty? Not Guilty?
which is a thinly disguised account of Kierkegaard's engage-
ment. M011er was perfectly aware that he had figured in The
Seducer's Diary and now that Kierkegaard had produced the
pendent to it (published at the end of 1844) he took his re-
venge and held up the writer to ridicule. M011er, who was not
26 INTRODUCTION
without ability as a critic, was trying to live down his repu-
tation in the hope of succeeding the poet Oelenschlager in the
Chair of Aesthetics at the University. To this end he used
flattery in his more serious articles, but could not resist the
pleasure and profit to be derived from writing anonymously in
The Corsair an amusing, gossipy weekly belonging to Meier
Goldschmidt, a liberal and enlightened Jew.
Kierkegaard had had his eye on Goldschmidt and The
Corsair for some time past. He regarded it as lowering the
tone and the standard and compromising the reputations of
reputable writers such as Heiberg. He had already prepared an
article expressing his views, which were shared by very many,
though no one had had the nerve to protest for fear of ap-
pearing in its pages. Kierkegaard had up to that time always
been singled out by Goldschmidt and M011er for praise; they
admired certain parts of his work immensely and felt with a
certain justice that Kierkegaard was on their side and against
the orthodox reputations it amused them to prick. This was
a mistake. Kierkegaard had no intention of allowing his criti-
cism of Heiberg to be used in the levelling down process. His
reply to M011er was meant to prevent The Corsair from dis-
tinguishing between him and men like Heiberg and Gj0dwad,
the editor of The Fatherland, and to force M011er into the
open. Heiberg and Gj0dwad both thanked Kierkegaard for his
article in private, but said nothing, to his irritation, in public,
and left him to bear the brunt of it.
Once M011er*s association with The Corsair had been made
public his prospects in Copenhagen were finished. He ultimately
went abroad and died in poverty. But not before exploring the
possibilities of revenge. Week in week out, for almost a year,
Kierkegaard was caricatured, parodied and ridiculed without
mercy. Nothing was omitted: his odd appearance, his rounded
back, his spindly legs, his ill-fitting clothes, his ridiculous love
affair, his incomprehensible jargon, his comfortable life, his
high-falutin' Christianity. He was depicted as a megalomaniac.
As usual, no one seems to have guessed how deeply Kierkegaard
felt these personal attacks, least of all Goldschmidt with whom
INTRODUCTION 27
he continued, when they met on the street, to discuss the rights
and wrongs of Frater Taciturnitus, as though Kierkegaard were
not involved. His air of treating the matter as a bagatelle con-
vinced everyone.
When finally Kierkegaard cut him in the street, Goldschmidt
realised the position and soon after the attacks ceased and
the paper was suppressed.
This incident, trifling though it appears, is the dividing
line in Kierkegaard's life and work. The Corsair affair turned
his attention back from his work to the world about him for the
first time he saw his work complete in its historical setting:
the historical context of his work revealed it to him in a new
light, and he understood his mission.
This change in perspective, first suggested to him by the
social and political conditions which The Corsair had revealed,
occupied him intensely for the next two years. Almost simul-
taneously with the article against M011er, published in The
Fatherland like all his newspaper articles, Kierkegaard reviewed
a novel by Fru Gyllembourg, Heiberg's mother-in-law, and in
the last part (translated under the title The Present Age] set
down his diagnosis of the times in which he lived, with
special reference to Christianity. He could now see the historical
situation clearly. His mind then swung back to his own life,
and he considered his future. For the first time he realised that
his financial independence was threatened and his way of
life endangered. He had always spent his money freely and
the end was in sight had he lived a month longer he would
have been penniless and it occurred to him for a moment to
apply for a pension. But he had also grasped how important
money had been to him by making it possible "to perform a salto
mortale into a purely spiritual existence.*' It was at this point
that the curious case of a certain Pastor Adler claimed his
interest. Adler provided an instructive example of "religious
enthusiasm," of a man with a mission without the faintest notion
of how enthusiasm would need to be qualified in "the present
age." Kierkegaard was fascinated by the spectacle of Adler's
2 g INTRODUCTION
naivete and the insoluble problems which it set to Mynster
and the Church authorities. Most of what he wrote was left
unpublished, but although The Great Book on Adler (re-written
three times) is a poor book, it shows the direction which his
mind was taking and the renewed importance which he gave to
social and political conditions an aspect of his work that is
often neglected.
During the first half of 1847 Kierkegaard finished his most
important religious work, Works of Love, and by August the
meditations of the last year and a half began to bear fruit.
"Something is stirring within me" he wrote, "which points to
a metamorphosis. For that very reason I dare not go to Berlin,
for that would be to procure an abortion. I shall remain quietly
at home . . . (and) really think out the idea of my melancholy
together with God here and now."
Six months later the metamorphosis which he had suspected
culminated in his second conversion. On Wednesday in Holy
Week, 1848, all the strands of his thought were drawn together,
and for the third time in his life he believed that he was to
escape his fate. "My reserve and self-isolation are broken" he
exclaims, "I must speak out Lord give thy grace. It is indeed
true as my father said of me, c y u WU< 1 never become anything
as long as you have money'." The spell was broken. At first he
assumed that his isolation was to be broken and that he could
now take Holy Orders which would also have solved the
financial problem. But almost at once he dismissed the thought
and finally understood that his task was not to become like
others but to fulfil his mission. In the place of a cruel fate he
saw Providence "which had done so much more for rne than
I ever expected." He could say that he had found the idea
for which he could live and die, and could see where his
melancholy had entered his soul. "In my melancholy I loved
the world. Now I am weaned." He had wanted to be like
others. His resignation hitherto had been a shield enabling him
to live a purely spiritual existence, more stoical than Christian.
Suffering voluntarily accepted and hk decision to remain "the
INTRODUCTION 29
exception" opened his eyes to a new world. The metamorphosis
had revolutionised his point of view and at one essential point
altered the character of his work.
"The communication of Christianity must ultimately end
in bearing witness, the maieutic (indirect) method can never
be final. For truth from the Christian point of view does not lie
in the subject, as Socrates understood it, but in a Revelation
which must be proclaimed."
The Second Group of Works
and the "Attack on Christendom' 9
The Journal entry quoted above marks the end of the
metamorphosis. Nothing is unsaid, but the form of communica-
tion undergoes a transformation. The perspective changes, and
"the individual" instead of being the centre and aim is now
seen against the concrete historical background of The Present
Age. This little essay, which opens the new phase of author-
ship, is a diagnosis of the world in which Christianity has to
be proclaimed. Much of it reads like Nietzsche avant la lettre,
and is a diagnosis of the moral and intellectual characteristics
of the "mass man" deracine, without a protective cultural
or religious tradition, clever, emancipated but at bottom wanting
in feeling and lacking in passion, only acting as one of the
herd and given to envy. The situation as he saw it meant that
all the former methods of apologetic were useless. The rational-
istic apologetics of the age of reason, and the cultural apologetics
of the romantic period (such as Chateaubriand's Genie du
Christianisme) were anachronisms. Two things were necessary.
First, as he had always said, to get men into the "category of
the individual," to save them from vanishing in the herd; and
secondly to dispel the illusion that Europe was still Christian.
The "attack on Christendom," -which is often regarded as the
chief, if not the only, aim of the last part of his life, is mis-
understood unless it is realised that the real aim of his polemic
is "the masses." These two aspects of his work belong to-
30 INTRODUCTION
gether. In the new circumstances, "Christendom" was an illusion
which prevented men from seeing Christianity in a light in
which it was relevant, and that light was "the individual."
These thoughts had been occupying him for some time when
the Revolutions of 1848 brought everything to a head.
"Even now, in 1848, it certainly looks as though politics were
everything; but it will be seen that the catastrophe (the Revo-
lution) corresponds to and is the obverse of the Reformation:
then everything pointed to a religious movement and proved
to be political; now everything points to a political movement, but
will become religious."
Kierkegaard was not so na'ive as to expect the triumph of
Christianity or even a great religious revival. What he means is
clear enough. "Now we are going to begin at another point,
namely the intensive development of the state itself," but just as
Marx foretold that the State (the political conception of life)
would wither away, so too Kierkegaard believed that the age
of politics in the old sense was over and that under the new
conditions religion would become relevant, provided it were
proclaimed in its original form and not as the culture which
it had helped to create in the past: Christendom.
This conception of the Revolution obliged him to modify his
form of communication. It could not longer remain "indirect"
in a purely intellectual sense, and he could no longer only be a
poet. In the present age only "the witness to the truth" could
proclaim Christianity effectively, proclaim it directly as a revela-
tion of man's destiny, but indirectly through his life. "I am,"
he now saw, "the ultimate phase of the poetic temper, on the
way to becoming a sort of reformer on a small scale." He never
confused himself with the witness, though he believed that his
work had become action.
In this light the "attack on Christendom" ceases to be an
attack on the Danish Church as such. He had, in fact, nothing
to say about its doctrine or organization. He only wished to
dissociate it from the antiquated apologetics to which it was
committed, and from the Erastianism which paralysed it. This
accounts for his view of Catholicism. His whole purpose was
INTRODUCTION 31
to make the teaching of Christianity more inward and to bring
it back to the individual.
It is a fact that as long as Bishop Mynster lived, he clung to
the hope that, although Mynster was the personification of the
status quo, he might be persuaded to mend his ways. But when
Martensen was appointed to succeed him, Kierkegaard con-
cluded that the Establishment was petrified and could not
reform itself. When Martensen publicly described Mynster as
a "witness to the truth" (possibly knowing Kierkegaard's in-
sistence on the term), he determined to speak out.
His first article appeared in January 1855 and was followed
by a series of scathing pamphlets on the Establishment. He
exaggerated without fear, and certainly forgot that what was
true of Luther was true of him: "a corrective made into a norm
is eo ipso confusion." He confused many and allowed himself
to be carried away by the force of his own logic. Everything
was strung a tone higher in order "to make men aware," in order
to shake the complacency of both the Established Church and
of the "masses." He was confident, not of victory against the
"masses" but of having fought for the truth, for the cause of
truth was not triumphant as Christendom and the Establish-
ment implied but militant. To be an author had at last become
action, and the conclusion of his life was expressed in the fact
that he had emerged from his melancholy without overstepping
the boundaries of or falsifying his personality. Professor Sibbem,
who had taught him and known him all his life, was amazed
that so circumspect a man should have landed himself in an
imbroglio. Everyone could understand him, Kierkegaard re-
marked, as long as he expressed his thought in words; as soon
as he acted, he caused a "scandal." Action, to use his favourite
metaphor, was the knot in the thread that made the end fast.
In the middle of October, shortly before the last of the
pamphlets was sent to the printer, Kierkegaard collapsed in
the street. He was taken to the Frederiks Hospital. He knew
he was dying, but refused to receive communion from "the
King's official." His brother Peter, who was of Grundtvig's
persuasion, was not admitted. Not even his oldest friend, Emil
32 INTRODUCTION
Boesen, could persuade him to retract a word of what he had
said. He was visited by his brother-in-law Hendrik Lund, by
his nephew and niece. One and all were struck by the radiance
of his spirits. "He preserved a loving sympathy for others," Hans
Br0chner wrote after his death, "even in the smallest matters,
preserved a gentleness and even humour, a sense of proportion
and a clarity of thought, and above all a calm and peaceful
faith, which did not desert him even during the severe suffering
of his death bed"
He died on nth November, 1855, at the age of forty-two.
November^ 1958 ALEXANDER DRU
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
( Where the title of a work is given in italics and without comment, ih*
date is that of publication )
1756 S. K.*s lather, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard,
bom.
1768 June 18 S. K.*s mother, Anne Sorensdattcr Lund, born,
1813 May 5 S. K. born in his father's house, 2 (now 27)
Nytorv, Copenhagen.
1821 S. K. sent to school, to the Borgerdydskole in
Copenhagen,
1823 Jan. 23 RegineOlsenborn.
1828 Apr. 20 S. K. confirmed by J. P. Mynster.
1830 Oct. 30 S. K. entered as student at the University of
Copenhagen.
1834 July 3 1 S.K.*s mother dies.
Dec. 17 S.K/s first article in KjebenhamsHyvendePost,
Dec, 29 Death of S, K/s sister Petrea.
1837 May S. K. meets Regine Olsen at the R0rdams (i 19).
1837-1838 S. K. teaches Latin in the Borgerdydskolc.
1838 Aug. 9 Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard dies at 2 a.m.
Sept 7 From the Papers of one still living, * published con-
trary to his will, by S. K/ A criticism of
Hans Andersen's novel.
1840 Julys S.K. finishes his theological examination.
July ig-Aug. 6 The Journey to Jutland.
Sept 10 S. K. engaged to Regine Olsen.
1841 Jan. 12 S. K. preaches his first sermon in Holmens
Kirke.
Sept 16 On the concept of Irony with particular reference to
Socrates (S. K.'s dissertation).
Oct. ii S. K. breaks off his engagement to Regine Olsen.
Oct. 25 S. K. leaves for Berlin.
1842 Mar. 6 S. K. arrives back in Copenhagen.
33
34 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
1843 Feb. 20 Either- Or edited by Victor Eremita.
May 8 S. K. leaves for Berlin.
May 1 6 Two Edifying Discourses,, by S. K.
1843 May i Berlin.
May 8 S. K. returns from Berlin.
Oct. 1 6 Fear and Trembling, by Johannes de Silentio;
Repetition, by Constantin Constantius; Three
Edifying Discourses, by S. K.
Dec. 6 F0wr Edifying Discourses, by S. K.
1844 Mar. 5 Tow by S. K.
June 8 Three byS.K.
June 13 Philosophical Fragments, or a Fragment of Philosophy,
by Johannes Climacus, published by S. K.
June 17 The Concept of Dread, by Vigilius Haufhiensis;
Prefaces by Nicolaus Notabene.
Aug. 3 1 Four Edifying Discourses, by S. K.
Oct. 16 S. K. moves from 230 (now 28) N0rregade to his
house on Nytorv.
1845 Apr. 29 Three Occasional Discourses, by S. K.
Apr. 30 Stages on the Road of Life, edited by Hilarius
Bookbinder.
May 13-24 Berlin.
Dec. 30 Manuscript of the Final Unscientific Postscript to
the Philosophical Fragments sent to the printer.
1846 Feb. 27 Final Unscientific Postscript, by Johannes Climacus,
published by S. K.
Mar. 30 A Literary Review, by S. K., containing The
Present Age.
May 2-16 Berlin.
Oct. 2 Goldschmidt gives up the editorship of The
Corsair.
1847 Mar. 13 Edifying Discourses of Varied Tenor 9 by S. K.
Sept. 29 The Works of Love, by S. K.
Nov. 3 Regine Olsen married to Fritz Schlegel.
Dec. i The Book on Adler completed in its third form,
Dec. 24 S. K. sells 2 Nytorv for RdL 22,000 paid to him
and his brother.
1848 Jan. 20 Death of Christian VIII.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 35
Mar. 23 Rising in Holstein.
Apr. 23 Battle of Schleswig*
Apr, 26 Christian Addresses, by S. K.
Nov. The Point of view for my Work as an Author * as
good as finished.* It was published by his
brother in 1 859.
1849 May 14 The Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Airs
second edition ofEither-Or.
May 19 Two Minor Ethico-Religious Essays, by H. HL
July 30 Sickness unto Death, by Anti-Climacus, published
byS.K.
Nov. 13 The High Priest The Publican The Woman who
was a Sinner: Three Discourses before Communion
on Friday.
1850 Aug. 7 On my work as an author; Two Discourses at
Communion on Friday.
Sept. 10 For Self-examination.
Sept 27 Training in Christianity, by Anti-Climacus, pub-
lished by S.K.
Dec, 20 An Edifying Discourse.
1851-1852 Judge for Yourself, the second part of For Self-
examination, published by his brother in 1876.
1854 Jan* 30 Death of Bishop Mynster.
Feb. The article against Martensen, 'Was Bishop
Mynster a witness to the truth ? *, written.
Apr. 15 Hans Martensen, Bishop of Zealand in succession
to Mynster.
Dec. 18 The article against Martensen published.
1855 Jan.-May Articles arising out of the attack on Martensen*
May-Oct Nos. 1-9 of The Instant.
Oct 2 S. K, taken to the Frederiks Hospital
Nov. n DeathofS.K.
THE
JOURNALS OF KIERKEGAARD
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE
CHILDHOOD
Halb Kinderspiel,
Halb Gott im Herzen.
Goethe
n [1835]
Then it was that the great earthquake occurred, the
terrible revolution which suddenly forced upon me a new
and infallible law of interpretation of all the facts. Then I
suspected that my father's great age was not a divine bless-
ing but rather a curse; that the outstanding intellectual
gifts of our family were only given to us in order that we
should rend each other to pieces : then I felt the stillness
of death grow around me when I saw my father, an un-
happy man who was to outlive us all, a cross on the tomb
of all his hopes. There must be a guilt upon the whole
family, the punishment of God must be on it; it was to dis-
appear, wiped out by the powerful hand of God, obliterated
like an unsuccessful attempt, and only at times did I find
a little alleviation in the thought that my father had been
allotted the heavy task of calming us with the consolation
of religion, of ministering to us so that a better world
should be open to us even though we lost everything in
this world, even though we were overtaken by the punish-
ment which the Jews always called down upon their
enemies : that all recollection of us should be utterly wiped
out, that we should no longer be found
39
40 THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE
III YOUTH
Begging that's not for us !
Youth on the road of life
Forcefully seizes the prize.
Christian Winter
iv [1836-7]
Inwardly torn asunder as I was, without any expectation
of leading a happy earthly life ("that I should prosper
and live long in the land "), without hope of a happy and
comfortable future as it naturally springs from and lies
in the historical continuity of family life what wonder
then that in desperate despair I grasped at nought but the
intellectual side in man and clung fast to it, so that the
thought of my own considerable powers of mind was my
only consolation, ideas my one joy, and mankind indifferent
to me.
25 YEARS OLD [1838]
So we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news : and we'll talk with them too
Who loses and who wins; who's in^ who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies : and we'll wear out
In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.
King Lear
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE 41
vi [1838]
What I have often suffered from was that all the doubt,
trouble, and anguish which my real self wanted to forget
in order to achieve a view of life, my reflective self sought
equally to impress and preserve, partly as a necessary,
partly as an interesting stage, out of fear that I should
have falsely ascribed a result to myself.
Thus, for example when I have so arranged my life that
it seems to me as though it were my lot to read for the
examination in perpetuum, and that my life however long
it might otherwise be, is not to reach beyond the point
at which I myself once freely broke off, just as one sees
feeble-minded people who only remember their childhood
and forget all their life that lies in between, or forget every-
thing except one particular moment in their lives that
I should thus, at the thought of being a theological student,
be all at once reminded of that happy period of possibility
(what might be called one's pre-existence) and my pause
therein, more or less like a child who has been given alcohol
and so prevented from growing must be. When, now, my
active self tries to forget it in order to act, my reflective
self would like so much to ding to it because it seems
interesting, and would abstract itself from the control of
my personal consciousness by raising itself to the power
of a universal consciousness*
THE JOURNAL
July 29. As one goes from the inn through Sortebro
across the bare fields that run along the coast, about a
mile and a quarter to the north one comes to the highest
point in the district, to Gilbjerg. It has always been one
of my favourite places. And as I stood there one quiet
evening as the sea struck up its song with a deep and calm
solemnity, whilst my eye met not a single sail on the vast
expanse of water, and the sea set bounds to the heavens,
and the heavens to the sea; whilst on the other side the
busy noise of life subsided and the birds sang their evening
prayer the few that are dear to me came forth from their
graves, or rather it seemed to me as though they had not
died. I felt so content in their midst, I rested in theii em-
brace, and it was as though I were out of the body, wafted
with them into the ether above and the hoarse screech
of the gulls reminded me that I stood alone, and everything
vanished before my eyes, and I turned back with a heavy
heart to mix in the busy world, yet without forgetting such
blessed moments. I have often stood there and looked
out upon my past life and upon the different surroundings
which have exercised their power upon me; and the petti-
ness which is so often the cause of the numerous misunder-
standings separating minds which if they properly under-
stood one another would be bound together by indissoluble
ties, vanished before my gaze. Seen thus in perspective
only the broad and powerful outline showed, and I did not
as so frequently happens to me lose myself in the moment,
but saw everything as a whole and was strengthened to
42
l8 35 43
understand things differently, to admit how often I had
blundered, and to forgive others.
As I stood there, without that feeling of dejection and
despondency which makes me look upon myself as the
enclitic of the men who usually surround me, and without
that feeling of pride which makes me into the formative
principle of a small circle as I stood there alone and for-
saken, and the power of the sea and the battle of the
elements reminded me of my own nothingness, and on the
other hand the sure flight of the birds recalled the words
spoken by Christ : Not a sparrow shall fall to the ground
without your Father : then all at once I felt how great and
how small I was; then did those two mighty forces, pride
and humility, happily unite in friendship. Lucky is the
man to whom that is possible at every moment of his life;
in whose breast those two factors have not only come to
an agreement but have joined hands and been wedded a
marriage which is neither a mariage de convenance nor a
mesalliance but a tranquil marriage of love held in the
most secret chamber of man's heart, in the holy of holies,
where there are few witnesses but where everything pro-
ceeds before the eyes of Him who alone witnessed the mar*
riage in the Garden of Eden & marriage, which will not
remain unfruitful but bears blessed fruits, as may be seen
in the world by an experienced observer; for like crypto-
gams among plants, they withdraw from the notice
of the masses and only the solitary inquirer discovers them
and rejoices over his find. His life will flow on peacefully
and quietly and he will neither drain the intoxicating cup
of pride nor the bitter chalice of despair. He has found
what the great philosopher who by his calculations was
able to destroy the enemy's engines of war desired, but
did not find : that archimedean point from which he could
lift the whole world, the point which for that very reason
must lie outside the world, outside the limitations of time
and space.
44 1835
Gilleleie, August i, 1835
What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am
to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain
understanding must precede every action. The thing is to
understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to
do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to
find the idea for which I can live and die. What would
be the use of discovering so-called objective truth, of work-
ing through all the systems of philosophy and of being able,
if required, to review them all and show up the inconsis-
tencies within each system; what good would it do me to
be able to develop a theory of the state and combine all the
details into a single whole, and so construct a world in
which I did not live, but only held up to the view of
others; what good would it do me to be able to explain
the meaning of Christianity if it had no deeper significance
for me and for my life; what good would it do me if
truth stood before me, cold and naked, not caring whether
I recognised her or not, and producing in me a shudder
of fear rather than a trusting devotion? I certainly do
not deny that I still recognise an imperative of understand-
ing and that through it one can work upon men, but it
must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now
recognise as the most important thing. That is what my
soul longs after, as the African desert thirsts for water. That
is what I lack, and that is why I am left standing like
a man who has rented a house and gathered all the furni-
ture and household things together, but has not yet found
the beloved with whom to share the joys and sorrows of
his life. But in order to find that idea, or better still, in
order to find myself, it is no use throwing myself still
further into life. And that is just what I have done hither-
to. That is why I thought it would be a good thing to
throw myself into the study of the law so as to develop my
1835 45
sharpness of mind in the complications of life. Here was
a great mass of detail in which I could lose myself; here
perhaps I might be able to work out a complete whole
from given facts, an organum of theft, following up its
darker side (and here a certain spirit of association is also
extremely remarkable). I therefore wanted to be a barrister
so that by putting myself in another man's role I could,
as it were, find a substitute for my own life, and find dis-
traction in outward change. That was what I lacked in
order to be able to lead a complete human life and not
merely one of the understanding,* so that I should not,
in consequence, base the development of my thought upon
well, upon something that is called objective something
that is in any case not my own, but upon something which
grows together with the deepest roots of my life, through
which I am so to speak, grafted upon the divine, hold
fast to it, even though the whole world fell apart. That
is what I lack and that is what I am striving after.
It is the divine side of man, his inward action which
means everything, not a mass of information; for that will
certainly follow and then aU that knowledge will not be
a chance assemblage, or a succession of details, without
system and without a focusing point I too have certainly
looked for such a centre. I have looked in vain for an
anchorage in the boundless sea of pleasure and in the depth
of understanding; I have felt the almost irresistible power
with which one pleasure reaches out its hand to the next;
I have felt the sort of meretricious ecstasy that it is capable
of producing, but also the ennui and the distracted state
*For otherwise how near man is to madness, in spite
of all his knowledge. What is truth but to live for an idea?
Ultimately everything must rest upon a postulate; but the
moment it is no longer outside him, and he lives in it, then
and only then does it cease to be a postulate for him.
46 1835
of mind that succeeds it. I have tasted the fruit of the
tree of knowledge, and often delighted in its taste. But
the pleasure did not outlast the moment of understanding
and left no profound mark upon me. It seems as though
I had not drunk from the cup of wisdom, but had fallen
into it. I have searched with resignation for the principle
of my life, by trying to believe that since all things pro-
ceeded according to unalterable laws things could not be
otherwise and by dulling my ambition and the antennae of
my vanity. And because I could not adapt everything to
my own mind I withdrew, conscious of my own ability,
rather like a worn out parson resigning with a pension.
What did I find? Not my Self, which was what I was
looking for (thinking of my soul, if I may so express it,
as shut in a box with a spring-lock which external circum-
stances, by pressing upon the lock, were to open). And so
the first thing to be decided, was the seeking and finding
of the Kingdom of Heaven. But just as a heavenly body,
if we imagine it in the process of constituting itself, would
not first of all determine how great its surface was to be and
about which other body it was to move, but would first
of all allow the centripetal and centrifugal forces to har-
monise its existence, and then let the rest take its course
similarly, it is useless for a man to determine first of all
the outside and afterwards fundamentals. One must know
oneself before knowing anything else (yvo>0t aeavTov). It
is only after a man has thus understood himself inwardly,
and has thus seen his way, that life acquires peace and
significance; only then is he rid of that tiresome, ill-
omened fellow-traveller, the irony of life, which shows it-
self in the sphere of understanding, bidding true under-
standing begin with ignorance (Socrates) like God creating
the world out of nothing.
Although I am still far from having reached so com-
plete an understanding of myself, I have, with profound
respect for its significance, tried to preserve my individu-
47
ality worshipped the unknown God. Warned by a prema-
ture apprehension I have tried to avoid coming in too close
contact with those phenomena whose power of attraction
would perhaps exercise too great an influence upon me.
I have tried to master them, studied them individually and
examined their importance in men's lives, but at the same
time guarded against going, like the moth, too near the
flame. I have had but little to win or lose from the ordinary
run of men. Partly because everything which occupies
them so-called practical life only interests me slightly;
partly because the coldness and lack of interest with which
they treat the tnore profound and spiritual emotions in man
have estranged me still further. With few exceptions my
associates have not exerted any particular influence upon,
me. A life which is not clear about itself inevitably dis-
plays an uneven surface; they have stopped short at par-
ticular facts and their apparent disharmony; they were
not sufficiently interested in me to try to resolve them in
a higher agreement or to perceive the inner necessity of
it. Their opinion of me was therefore always one-sided,
and I have, as a result, alternately laid too much, or too
little weight upon their pronouncements. I have now with-
drawn from their influence and their possibly misleading
effect upon the compass of my life. And so I stand once
again at the point where I must begin my life in a different
way. I shall now try to fix a calm gaze upon myself and
begin to act in earnest; for only thus shall I be able, like
the child calling itself " I " with its first conscious action,
to call myself " I " in any deeper sense.
But for that patience is necessary, and one cannot reap
immediately where one has sown. I shall bear in mind the
method of the philosopher who bade bis disciples keep
silence for three years after which time all would come
right One does not begin feasting at dawn but at sunset
And so too in the spiritual world it is first of all necessary
to work for some time before the light bursts through and
48
the sun shines forth In all its glory. For although it is
said that God allows the sun to shine upon the good and
the wicked, and sends down rain upon the just and the
unjust, it is not so in the spiritual world. And so the die is
cast I cross the Rubicon ! This road certainly leads me to
strife i but I shall not give up. I will not grieve over the past
for why grieve? I will work on with energy and not
waste time grieving, like the man caught in the quicksands
who began by calculating how far down he had already
sunk, forgetting that all the while he was sinking still
deeper. I will hurry along the path I have discovered,
greeting those whom I meet on my way, not looking back
as did Lot's wife, but remembering that it is a hill up which
we have to struggle. 1
Sept. " What !" he said to himself, " the man who pene-
trates his brother's most secret thoughts, does not that
fatal gift bring him to the frightful condition which came
upon the Wandering Jew, who wandered through the gay
tumult of the world without joy, without hope, without
pain, in dull indifference, which is the caput mortuum of
despair, as though through a dreary and disconsolate
desert?" 2
Oct. g. The same thing happens to Christianity, or to be-
coming a Christian, as to all radical cures, one puts it off
as long as possible.
Oct. 13. There is a curious connection between Protes-
tantism and the modern political point of view: it is a
struggle for the same thing, the sovereignty of the people,
which is why it is also interesting to note that the real
royalists, in so far as they have not got one view on one
subject and an essentially different one on another subject,
a S.K* returned to Copenhagen sometime before August 14.
. A. Hoffinann: Master Fbh.
1835 49
which in an individual should both be based upon the
same principle lean towards Catholicism.
The real beauty of Lemming's playing (he is a Danish
musician; I heard him at the University Club) was that he
stroked the guitar. The vibrations became almost visible,
just as when the moon shines on the sea the waves become
almost audible.
i8 3 6
Jan. It is a very curious thing about superstition. One
would expect that the man who had once seen that his
morbid dreams were not fulfilled would abandon them for
the future; but on the contrary they grow even stronger
just as the love of gambling increases in a man who has
once lost in the lottery.
Feb. People understand me so little that they do not
even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.
March. The difference between a man who faces death
for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search
of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea
most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness
which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the
former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.
The three great ideas (Don Juan, Faust and the Wander-
ing Jew) represent, as it were, life outside religion in its
three-fold direction, and only when those ideas are merged
in the individual and become mediate, only then do morals
and religion appear; that is my view of those three ideas in
relation to my dogmatic standpoint.
A man walked along contemplating suicide; at that very
moment a slate fell and killed him a and he died with the
words : God be praised.
I have just returned from a party of which I was the
life and soul; wit poured from my lips, everyone laughed
and admired me but I went away and the dash should
50
1836 5 1
be as long as the earth's orbit
-and wanted to shoot myself.
'Sdeath, I can abstract from everything but not from
myself. I cannot even forget myself when I am asleep.
Is it true that I should not laugh at my own jokes?
The omnipresence of wit.
Exactly how can one explain the inclination, which mani-
fests itself in people who are in some sense or other fallen,
to throw themselves into life instead of shunning it. J.
J0rgensen for example, says that when he is drunk he
feels an almost irresistible urge to be with people, to go
wherever there are crowds.
Aug. 25. When Goethe had accomplished the transi-
tion involved by a return to classical antiquity, why did
the age not follow him, why did it not follow Hegel, why
does it have no effect? Because they both limited it to
an aesthetic and speculative development, but the political
development had also to go through its romantic move-
ment and that is why all the romantics of the newer school
are politicians.
Oct. 8. The extraordinary way in which something
long forgotten suddenly bursts into consciousness is really
remarkable; for example, the recollection of something
wrong of which one was hardly conscious at the moment
of acting Lightning announcing a violent storm. They
do not come forward, they literally burst forth with tremen-
dous power, demanding to be heard. And that, generally
speaking, is how we are to understand the passage in the
52 1836
Gospels : that on the day of judgment man will be held
responsible for every idle word he has spoken.
What Schleiermacher calls " Religion " and the Hegelians
" Faith " is at the bottom nothing but the first immediate
condition for everything the vital fluidum the spiritual
atmosphere we breathe in and which cannot therefore
with justice be designated by those words.
The old man whom I met in the theatre who had been
going to Don Juan for thirty years (Tradition).
i8 3 7
Jan. 17. There are many people who reach their con-
clusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master
by copying the answer out of a book without having worked
out the sum for themselves.
At every step philosophy sloughs a skin into which creep
its worthless hangers-on.
If something is really to become depressing the forebod-
ing that there is something wrong must first of all develop
in the midst of the most favourable circumstances, one
does not become conscious oneself of anything so wrong;
but it must lie in the family history, then the all-consum-
ing power of original sin shows itself, which can grow into
despair and have far more terrible effects than the fact
whereby the truth of the foreboding is confirmed. That is
why Hamlet is so tragic. That is why Robert le Diable,
driven by a terrifying foreboding, asks why it should be
that he does so much evil The blessing is changed into
a curse it is a highly poetic move to make the girl, who
alone is in a position to know what is behind Robert le
Diable's assumed madness (his penance) dumb.
Feb. A certain foreboding seems to precede everything
which is to happen, but just as it can act as a deterrent
so too it can act as a temptation, awakening in man the
thought that he is, as it were, predestined; he sees himself
led on to something as though by consequences which he
cannot influence at all. One must therefore be very care-
ful with children, never believe the worst, or, as the result
of an ill-timed suspicion, or a chance remark (the infernal-
machine which sets fire to the tinder which is in every soul)
53
54
induce that state of anxiety in which innocent but weak
souk are easily tempted to believe themselves guilty, to
despair, and so take the first step towards the goal fore-
shadowed by the alarming foreboding a remark which
gives the kingdom of evil, with its stupefying, snake-like
eye, an opportunity of reducing them to a state of spiritual
impotence. Woe to him by whom the scandal cometh
applies in this case too.
It made a terrible impression upon me the first time I
heard that the indulgences contained the statement that
they remit all sins : (< etiam si matrem virginem violasset"
I still remember the impression it made upon me when
some years ago, filled with a youthful and romantic en-
thusiasm for a master-thief, I went so far as to say that it
was only the misuse of powers, and that such a man might
still be converted, and father said very solemnly : " there
are offences which one can only fight against with God's
continual help." I hurried down to my room and looked
at myself in the glass (cf. F. Schlegel's Works, Vol. VII,
p. 15) or when father said, as he often did, that it would
be a good thing to have " a venerable confessor to whom
one could open one's heart."
When one first begins to reflect upon Christianity it must
certainly have been an occasion of scandal to one before
one enters upon it, one must even have wished that it had
never come into the world or at least that the question
had never arisen in one's consciousness. That is why one
is sickened by all the chatter of fussy go-betweens about
Christ being the greatest hero, etc. etc., the humorous inter-
pretation is far better.
May 8. Oh God, how easily one forgets such resolutions !
Once again I turned back to the world for some time, de-
posed in my inmost self, to dominate there. Oh, what does
i 837 55
it help a man to win the whole world and injure his soul.
To-day again (May 8) I tried to forget myself, not in the
noise and bustle of the world, that substitute is no help,
but by going to the Rordams 1 and talking with Bolette and
by trying (if possible) to get my demoniacal wit to remain
at home, the angel which, as I deserve, stands with a sword
of fire between me and every innocent girl I thank thee,
O Lord, that when thou overtookest me thou didst not let
me go mad at once, I have never been so afraid of it,
and I thank thee for having once more inclined thine ear
towards me.
Again the same scene to-day nevertheless I got out to
the Rordams merciful God, why should that inclination
awaken just now Oh, how I feel that I am alone 2 Oh,
cursed be that arrogant satisfaction in standing alone
all will despise me now but thou, O my God, take not
thy hand from me now let me live and better myself.
July 9. I stand like a lonely pine tree egoistically shut
off, pointing to the skies and casting no shadow, and only
the turtle-dove builds its nest in my branches.
Sunday, July 9, in the gardens of Frederiksberg after a
visit to the R0rdams.
I am a Janus bifrons; I laugh with -one face, I weep
with the other.
July 13. I have often wondered how it could be that I
lf The family-in which Kierkegaard first met Regine Olsen.
*Regine Olsen believed that this entry was the result of their first
meeting and the impression which they made upon one another. 6< He
immediately made a very strong impression upon her, which, however,
she concealed. She still remembered that he talked continuously, that
the words poured forth and that his conversation was captivating In the
highest degree, but after the passage of many years she could not
remember the content." Raphael Meyer: Kurkegaardske Papirer,
Forlovelstn, 1904.
5 6 1837
had such a strong disinclination to note down individual
remarks; but the more I get to know individual great men
in whose writings one does not sense the kaleidoscopic shak-
ing up of the same set of ideas (perhaps the example of
Jean Paul has made me unnecessarily anxious on that score)
and the more I recollect that a writer as spontaneous as
Hoffman kept notes and that Lichtenberg recommends it,
the more interested I am in discovering why something
in itself entirely blameless should become unpleasant and
almost revolting to me. The reason evidently was that in
each case I had before me the possibility of publication,
which would probably have necessitated a fuller treatment
and not wishing to be bothered with it, and weakened by
that abstract possibility (a sort of literary hiccoughs and
nausea) the aroma of the conceits and moods evaporated.
I believe on the contrary that it is a good thing, by making
frequent notes, to let my thoughts appear with the um-
bilical cord of their first mood, and to forget as far as
possible the use to which they might be put, since in any
case I shall never use them by looking up my note-books;
by thus expectorating myself as though in a letter to a close
friend, I gain a double advantage, the possibility of know-
ing myself later on, and a certain fluency in writing, the
same freedom of articulation in the written word which I
have to some extent in the spoken, the knowledge of a
number of lesser traits which up till now I have passed
by with a hasty glance, and finally one other advantage
if, as Hamann says, it is true that some ideas occur only
once in a lifetime. Practice of this kind, behind the scenes,
is essential to all those who are not so gifted that their
development is, in a sense, public.
Thanks, Lichtenberg, thanks ! for having said that there
is nothing so feeble as the conversation of learned literary;
men who have never thought for themselves but know a
57
thousand historical-literary facts.* " It is almost like a read-
ing from a cookery book when one is hungry." Oh thanks
for that voice in the wilderness, for that comfort, which
sets the imagination working like the cry of a wild bird in
the silence of the night; I imagine it was written after a
protracted session with one of those learned jades, which
perhaps robbed him of some happy moments. Unfortun-
ately in my copy I found a mark which has disturbed me;
for I already see some journalist or other going carefully
through the work in order to fill the papers with aphorisms,
with or without Lichtenberg's name; and that has, unfor-
tunately, robbed me of some of the surprise.
Oct 7. How dreadful it is when everything historical
vanishes before a diseased probing of one's own miserable
history ! Who is to show us the middle course between being
devoured by one's own reflections, as though one were the
only man who ever had existed or ever would exist, and
seeking a worthless consolation in the commune nau-
fragium of mankind? That is really what the doctrine of
an ecclesia should do.
*Like Leporello they keep a list, but the point is what
they lack; while Don Juan seduces girls and enjoys himself
Leporello notes down the tune, the place and a descrip-
tion of the girl.
1838
Nulla dies sine Unea
Jan. i. Irony is an abnormal growth; like the abnormally
enlarged liver of the Strassburg goose it ends by killing the
individual.
If I am a weed in literature well, then at least I am
what is called " Proud Henry/*
April Once again a long time has gone by in which I
have not been able to concentrate upon the slightest thing
I will now try to get started again.
Poul Moller is dead. 1
April i. This morning in the cool fresh air I saw half
a dozen wild geese fly away, first of all they rose directly
above me, then further and further away till at last they
divided into two flocks and formed two arches like eye-
brows over my eyes which now looked into the land of
poetry.
April 22. If Christ is to come and take up his abode in
me, it must happen according to the title of to-day's Gospel
in the Almanac : Christ came in through locked doors.
The politicians accuse me of always contradicting; but
therein they are my masters; for they always have one
person more whom they contradict namely, themselves.
The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life, and
^oul Martin Moller died on March 13. With this entry the Journal
begins again.
58
1838 59
just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the
great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes,
which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.
May 19. Half -past ten in the morning. There is an in-
describable joy which enkindles us as inexplicably as the
apostle's outburst comes gratuitously : " Rejoice I say unto
you, and again I say unto you rejoice." Not a joy over
this or that but the soul's mighty song " with tongue and
mouth, from the bottom of the heart :" "I rejoice through
my joy, in, at, with, over, by, and with my joy" a
heavenly refrain, as it were, suddenly breaks off our other
song; a joy which cools and refreshes us like a breath of
wind, a wave of air, from the trade wind which blows from
the plains of Mamre to the everlasting habitations.
July 6. Idees fixes are like cramp in the foot the best
cure is to stamp on it.
July 7. God creates out of nothing, wonderful, you say :
yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful :
he makes saints out of sinners.
July 9. How I thank you, Father in Heaven, that you
have preserved my earthly father here upon earth for a
time such as this when I so greatly need him, a father who,
as I hope, will with your help have greater joy in being my
father a second time than he had the first time in being
so.
July 9. I mean to labour to achieve a far more inward
relation to Christianity; hitherto I have fought for its truth
while in a sense standing outside it. In a purely outward
sense I have carried Christ's cross, like Simon of Cyrene.
Aug. 11. My father died on Wednesday (the gth) at
6o 1838
2 a.m. I had so very much wished that he might live a few
years longer, and I look upon his death as the last sacrifice
which he made to his love for me; for he did not die from
me but died for me in order that if possible I might still
turn into something. Of all that I have inherited from him,
the recollection of him, his transfigured portrait, not trans-
figured by the poetry of my imagination (for it did not
require that) but explained by many an individual trait
which I can now take account of is dearest to me, and I
will be careful to preserve it safely hidden from the world;
for I feel clearly that at this moment there is only one (E.
Boesen) to whom I can in truth talk about him. He was a
"faithful friend."
Dec. 31. The Lord cometh, even though we have to wait
for him, he cometh even though we grow as old as Anne,
as grey as Simeon (that second Noah), but we must wait
for him in his house.
1839
ad se ipsum
Jan. i. The same miracle which astonished all those
present at the marriage feast in Gana repeats itself in the
life of every Christian: Thou hast served the bad wine
first and last of all the good, people will agree in saying,
particularly those who have felt how the world serves the
good first and afterwards the bad.
Jan. 3. In truth I feel at this moment the terrible truth
of the words Psalm 82, 6 : I have said, Ye are gods; and
all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die
like men, and fall like one of the princes.
Jan. 6, Father in Heaven ! When the thought of thee
wakes in our hearts let it not awaken like a frightened bird
that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its
sleep with a heavenly smile.
Jan. 7. What is so confusing about us is that we are at
once the pharisee and the publican.
Feb. 2. Thou sovereign of my heart ("Regina") treas-
ured in the deepest fastness of my breast, in the fullness of
my thought, there, where it is equally far to heaven and to
hell, unknown divinity! Oh, can I really believe the
poet's tales, that when one first sees the object of one's
love, one imagines one has seen her long ago, that all love
like all knowledge is remembrance, that love too has its
prophecies in the individual, its types, its myths, its Old
Testament Everywhere, in the face of every girl I see
61
6a 1839
traces of your beauty, but it seems to me that I should
have to possess the beauty of all of them in order to draw
out a beauty equal to yours; that I should have to circum-
navigate the world in order to find the place I lack and
which the deepest mystery of my whole being points to-
wards and at the next moment you are so near to me,
so present, filling my spirit so powerfully that I am trans-
figured for myself, and feel that it is good to be here.
Thou blind god of love ! Wilt thou reveal to me what
thou seest in secret? Shall I find what I am seeking, here
in this world, shall I experience the conclusion of all my
life's eccentric premises, shall I fold you in my arms or :
are the orders "FURTHER"?
Hast thou gone before me, thou my yearning, dost thou
beckon to me, transformed, from another world? Oh, I
will cast everything from me in order to be light enough
to follow thee.
May 12, I can say of my sorrow what the Englishman
says of his house : my sorrow is my castle.
May 13. I can only presume that it is God's will that I
should read for my exam and that it is more pleasing to
him that I should do so than by burying myself in some
research or other, I should reach a clearer understanding
of something or other; for obedience is dearer to him than
the fat of rams.
May 14. God in heaven, let me really feel my nothing-
ness, not in order to despair over it, but in order to feel the
more powerfully the greatness of thy goodness.
(That wish is not, as the scoffer in me would say, an
epicureanism^ as when the gourmand starves so that the
food will taste all the better.)
1 8 39 %
May 21. At the present time my existence is like that
of a piece on the chess board, of which the opponent says :
that piece cannot move like a deserted spectator, for my
time is not yet come.
July 20. What in certain cases we call "spleen/ 3 the
mystics know under the name tristitia and the Middle Ages
under the name acedia (ofojSia, dullness). Gregor moralia
in Job xiii, p. 435 : virum solitarium ubique comitatur
acedia . . . est animi remissio, mentis enervatio, neglectus
religiosae exercitationis, odium professionis, laudatrix
rerum secularium. That Gregory should pick out the
virum solitarium shows a wide experience, for it is a sick-
ness to which the isolated man at his highest degree is
exposed to and the sickness is most correctly described
and the odium professionis is rightly emphasised, and if we
take that symptom in a slightly more general sense (not
about the confession of sins in church, which would also
oblige us to take solitarius to mean an indifferent member
of the church) as an unburdening of oneself, experience
would not leave us in the lurch were we to ask for examples.
And it shows a deep knowledge of human nature that the
old moralists should have included ff tristitia " among the
septem vitia principalis. That is what my father called ;
a silent despair.
And now for a year's time, for a mile's distance in time,
I will dive below ground like the Guadalquivir; but I
shall come up again !
July 21. Now that I have read his latest handiwork
with its political notions I understand why Herz was so
anxious to talk with me. 1 Only it is a pity that he has left
novd Moods and Conditions was published in Copenhagen in^
1839. The Translator, one of the principal characters, is a description
of S. K. as a young man.
64 1839
out The Translator's satirical ideas which he certainly
thinks he can do without spoiling the general lines; but I
think that they were the best things in it, and ought cer-
tainly not to be left out, if only on account of the dramatic
interest of The Translator's character, but there are pre-
sumably good reasons for doing so; Herz is not the man
for that.
Aug. 8. If only I could finish my examination soon so
that I could once again be a quodlibetarius.
I am always accused of using long parentheses. Read*
ing for my examination is the longest parenthesis I have
known.
1840
The Journey to Jutland
Kallundborg, July 19. On board the ferry. It is terrible
how boring conversations in general are when one has to
be with people for long; the same remark was repeated
again and again, just as toothless old folk turn their food
over and over in their mouths., till in the end one had to
spit it out. There were four parsons on board, and although
the crossing lasted for eight to nine hours (an eternity
to me), the experienced travellers found it unusually short,
which gave each of the parsons in turn an opportunity of
remarking, first of all that no skipper liked to have a
parson on board, because it brought contrary winds and
that the truth of the remark was now disproved, and then
at the end of the crossing in full chorus, to establish it as
a principle that the saying about contrary winds was un-
true. It was in vain that I spread every inch of hearing-
canvas to catch a breath of wind; there was a dead calm;
from the four quarters one only heard that no skipper
wanted parsons on board (which goes to show what a
doubtful blessing the freedom of the parish is, for although
there was absolute freedom of parishes on board the smack,
and I could have listened to whichever parson I liked,
I was no better off). Since each of the parsons seemed
equally interested and justified in appropriating that story,
naturally no one of them would grant another a privilegium
exclusivum. I had hoped to be sea-sick, or at least that
all the other passengers would be sea-sick.
I feel so dull and so completely without joy, my soul is
so empty and void that I cannot even conceive what could
satisfy it oh, not even the blessedness of heaven.
65
66 1840
To thee, O God, we turn for peace . . . but grant us too
the blessed assurance that nothing shall deprive us of that
peace, neither ourselves, nor our foolish, earthly desires, nor
my wild longings, nor the anxious cravings of my heart.
The terrible thing about the absolute spiritual incapacity
from which I am suffering at the present time is that it is
coupled with a consuming desire, with a spiritual passion,
and yet so formless that I do not even know what I long
for.
I sit here quite alone (I have often been just as much
alone but I have never felt so conscious of it) counting
the hours until I see Saeding. I can never remember any
change in my father and I shall now see the places where
as a poor child he watched the flocks and for which, as
a result of his descriptions, I have felt such home-sickness.
What if I were to fall ill and be buried in the churchyard
of Saeding! Extraordinary thought. His last wish is ful-
filled 1 is that to be the whole meaning of my earthly
life? Great heavens! The task cannot be so small when
compared to all that I owe him. I learnt from him the
meaning of fatherly love and so was given some idea of
divine fatherly love, the one unshakable thing in life, the
true archimedean point.
To stand outside the door of this little place 2 in the late
evening light, in the aroma which hay always gives out;
the sheep coming home make the foreground; dark skies
broken by a few violent patches of light, such as are always
seen before a wind in the background rises the moor
if only I could remember the impression of this evening
clearly.
1 S. K. had taken his degree.
i S.K.*3 aunt*s house in Saeding*
1840 6y
Just as people say : nulla dies sine linea, so I can say of
this journey : Nulla dies sine lacryma,
The heaths of Jutland must of all places be suited to
develop the spirit powerfully; here everything lies naked
and uncovered before God, and there is no room for the
many distractions, the many little crevices where conscious-
ness can hide and where seriousness has such difficulty in
running down one's scattered thoughts. Here consciousness
must firmly and scrupulously close itself around itself. And
on the heaths one may say with truth : " Whither shall I
flee from thy presence?"
It seems as though I were to experience contrasts good
and proper. After having stayed with my poor aunt for
three days, almost like Ulysses's stable-companion with
Circe, the very first place I come to is so stuffed with
Counts and Barons as to be frightening. I spent the night
in Them and the morning and afternoon with Count
Ahlefeldt, who invited me to Langeland. The only friend
I found to-day was Rosen0rn my old and distinguished
friend.
On the way to Aarhuus I saw a very funny sight : two
cows harnessed together cantered past us, the one jogging
gaily along and swinging its tail with a fine dash, the other
was more prosaic and depressed at having to take part in
such emotions. Are not most marriages like that?
End of Journey
It requires moral courage to grieve; it requires religious
courage to rejoice.
Nov. 15. There is a world of difference between the
proud courage which dares to fear the worst and the
humble courage which dares to hope for the best.
1841
My Lord God, give me once more the courage to hope;
merciful God let me hope once again, fructify my barren
and infertile mind.
My doubt is terrible. Nothing can withstand it it is
a cursed hunger and I can swallow up every argument,
every consolation and sedative I rush at 10,000 miles a
second through every obstacle.
It is a positive starting point for philosophy when Aris-
totle says that philosophy begins with wonder, not as in
our day with doubt. Moreover the world will learn that
the thing is not to begin with the negative, and the reason
why it has succeeded up to the present is that it has never
really given itself over to the negative, and so has never
seriously done what it said. Its doubt is mere child's play.
For the rights of understanding to be valid one must
venture out into life, out on the sea and lift up one's voice,
even though God hears it not, and not stand on the shore
and watch others fighting and struggling only then does
understanding acquire its official sanction^ for to stand on
one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing
from going on one's knees and thanking him.
68
69
My relation to ff her* n
August 24, 1849. Infandum me jubes, Regina,
renovare dolorem
Regine Olsen I saw her first at the R0rdams. I really
saw her there before, at a time when I did not know her
family. (In a certain sense I feel a responsibility towards
Bollette R0rdam. Earlier on she made a certain impres-
sion upon me and I perhaps the same impression upon her;
but in all innocence, purely intellectual.)
Even before my father died I had decided upon her.
He died (Aug. 9, 1838). I read for my examination. During
the whole of that time I let her being penetrate mine.
In the summer of 1840 I took my theological examina-
tion.
Without further ceremony I thereupon called at their
house. I went to Jutland and even at that time I was per-
haps fishing for her, e.g. by lending them books in ray
absence and by suggesting that they should read certain
passages.
In August I returned. The period from August 9 till
the beginning of September I used in the strict sense to
approach her.
On September 8 I left my house with the firm purpose
of deciding the matter. We met each other in the street
outside their house. She said there was nobody at home.
I was foolhardy enough to look upon that as an invitation,
just the opportunity I wanted. I went in with her. We
stood alone in the living room. She was a little uneasy. I
asked her to play me something as she usually did. She
did so; but that did not help me. Then suddenly I took the
ir rhis account of his engagement was sent to Regine Olsen on S. K/s
death with all the papers relating to their engagement. They were
edited under her supervision, but not published until after her death, by
Raphael Meyer in 1904 under the title Kierkegaardske Papir&r: Forlovelsm*
70 1841
music away and closed it, not without a certain violence,
threw it down on the piano and said : " Oh, what do I care
about music now ! It is you I am searching for, it is you
whom I have sought after for two years." She was silent.
I did nothing else to make an impression upon her; I even
warned her against myself, against my melancholy. When,
however, she spoke about Schlegel I said : " Let that rela-
tionship be a parenthesis; after all the priority is mine."
(N.B. It was only on the loth that she spoke of Schlegel;
on the 8th she did not say a word.)
She remained quite silent. At last I left, for I was
anxious lest someone should come and find both of us, and
she so disturbed. I went immediately to Etatsraad Olsen,
I know that I was terribly concerned that I had made too
great an impression upon her. I also feared that my visit
might lead to a misunderstanding and even harm her repu-
tation.
Her father said neither yes nor no, but he was willing
enough as I could see. I asked for a meeting: it was
granted to me for the afternoon of the loth. I did not
say a single word to persuade her. She said, Yes.
I immediately assumed a relation to the whole family,
and turned all my virtuosity upon her father whom, more-
over, I have always loved.
But inwardly; the next day I saw that I had made a
false step. A penitent such as I was, my vita ante acta,
my melancholy, that was enough.
I suffered unspeakably at that time.
She seemed to notice nothing. On the contrary her
spirits were so high that once she said she had accepted
me out of pity. In short, I have never known such high
spirits.
In one sense that was the danger. If she does not take it
more to heart, I thought, than her own words betray : " if
she thought I only came from force of habit she would
1841 7*
break off the engagement at once"; if she does not take
it more to heart, then I am saved. I pulled myself to-
gether again. In another sense I must admit my weakness,
that for a moment she vexed me.
Then I set my whole strength to work she really gave
way and precisely the opposite happened, she gave herself
unreservedly to me, she worshipped me. To a certain ex-
tent I myself bear the guilt of that. While I perceived
the difficulty of the position only too clearly, and recognised
that I must use the maximum of strength in order if pos-
sible to burst through my melancholy, I had said to
her : " Surrender to me; your pride makes everything
easier for me." A perfectly true word; honest towards her,
melancholy and treacherous towards myself.*
And now of course my melancholy woke once more. Her
devotion once again put the whole "responsibility" upon
me on a tremendous scale, whereas her pride had almost
made me free from " responsibility*" My opinion is, and
my thought was, that it was God's punishment upon me.
I cannot decide clearly what purely emotional impres-
sion she made upon me. One thing is certain : that she
gave herself to me, almost worshipping me, asking me to
love her, which moved me to such an extent that I was
willing to risk all for her. How much I loved her is shown
by the fact that I always tried to hide from myself how
much she had moved me, which however really has no
relation to the passions. If I had not been a penitent, had
not had my vita ante acta> had not been melancholy, my
*To some extent she suspected my condition, for she
often answered : " You are never happy; and so it is all
one to you whether I remain with you or not" She also
once said to me : that she would never ask me about any-
thing if only she might remain with me.
72 1841
union with her would have made me happier than I had
ever dreamed of being. But in so far as I was what, alas,
I was, I had to say that I could be happier in my un-
happiness without her than with her; she had moved me
and I would have liked, more than liked, to have done
everything for her.
But there was a divine protest, that is how I understood
it. The wedding. I had to hide such a tremendous amount
from her, had to base the whole thing upon something
untrue.
I wrote to her and sent her back the ring. The letter
is to be found word for word in the " psychological experi-
ment." 1 With all my strength I allowed that to become
purely historical; for I spoke to no one of it, not to a single
man; I who am more silent than the grave. Should the
book come into her hands I wanted her to be reminded of
it.
What did she do? In her womanly despair she over-
stepped the boundary. She evidently knew that I was
melancholy; she intended that anxiety should drive me to
extremes. The reverse happened. She certainly brought me
to the point at which anxiety drove me to extremes; but
then with gigantic strength I constrained my whole nature
so as to repel her. There was only one thing to do and
that was to repel her with all my powers.
During those two months of deceit I observed a careful
caution in what I said directly to her from time to time :
Give in, let me go; you cannot bear it. Thereupon she
answered passionately that she would bear anything rather
than let me go.
I also suggested giving the appearance that it was she
who broke off the engagement, so that she might be spared
all offence. That she would not have. She answered : if
she could bear the other she could bear this too. And not
unsocratically she said : In her presence no one would let
*A part of The Stages by Frater Taciturnitus.
1841 73
anything be noticed and what people said in her absence
remained a matter of indifference.
It was a time of terrible suffering: to have to be so
cruel and at the same time to love as I did. She fought
like a tigress. If I had not believed that God had lodged
a veto she would have been victorious.
And so about two months later it broke. She grew des-
perate. For the first time in my life I scolded. It was the
only thing to do.
When I left her I went immediately to the Theatre be-
cause I wanted to meet Emil Boesen. (That gave rise to
what was then said in Copenhagen, that I had looked at
my watch and said to the family that if they had anything
more in their minds would they please hurry up as I had
to go to the theatre.) The act was over. As I left the
stalls Etatsraad Olsen came up to me and said " May I
speak to you?" We went together to his house. " It will
be her death, she is in absolute despair." I said 
