The Malady of the Century

to Paris when he surprised his friends by a s

e a practical landowner, and accordingly had taken a large leasehold estate. He gave Wilhelm and Schrotter further particulars of his plans. The place he had bought was hardly to be called an estate, but a wild desert bit of moorland called "Friesenmoor," growing only a kind of marsh grass. This piece of land, from which nothing but peat could be obtained, was worthless, and he had bought it for a few thalers. After many years of study on the subject, and without saying a word to any living soul, Paul had come to the conclu

ow furniture from the drawing-room, and spoke on the contrary of leaving the room free, so that the young couple might make it their headquarters when they came to Berlin. Paul hypocritically invited Frau Brohl and Frau Marker to come and live on his estate-he did not even fear two mothers-in-law. Grandmother and mother, though pleased with his attachment for them, declined with thanks. The cunning dog had reckoned on that refusal. He would have been in a terrible dilemma had they accepted. He would then have had to reveal th

see how the workmen were getting on. In the autumn he took Malvine for the first time to Harburg, and leaving the carriage at the office brought her by boat to the border of the Friesenmoor, to show her the picture all at once. The men stood on each side of the new house with their shovels and pickaxes, and greeted the young wife with such a hearty cheer that her eyes filled with tears. The broad flat surface of the marsh was now arranged in regular lines where the water was being drawn off, all so well superintended and orderly, that Malvine could not help thinking o

. All his money was in the buildings, the earth-works, and waterworks; if the barren swamp did not yield twice the sum intrusted to it he was a ruined man. But as July drew near, and Paul looked at the thick standing ears of barley and wheat, he felt the weight of his anxiety lifted, and in August he proclaimed in letters to his friends that the battle was won, the harvest more abundant than he had dared to hope for, and the remaining half-year would complete the transformation of the worthless moorland into a veritab

nd found in the society of his old friends the enjoyment of his early years renewed, and Wilhelm with his girlish face, his enthusiastic eyes, and his unworldly manner did not seem a year older. The professor of physics, who had frequently been invited to go abroad to direct the teaching in other European and foreign schools

in face. He came from the Rhine, and was the son of a rich merchant, into whose business he should have gone. However, when he was twenty-six he boldly told his father that the world outside was of deeper and wider interest to him than account books. The father died, and Dorfling hastened to put the business into liquidation, and devote himself to philosophical studies

f-audible remark: "Yes, it is a powerful and interesting subject. I have just been working at it, and you will find my opinions in my book." If he were asked to give his opinions now, or at least to indicate them, he shook his head and gently said, "I am not g

all that could be got out of him. Schrotter and Wilhelm were too good to tease him much about it, though the former, with a suspicion of a smile, would say that he hoped this and that would have a place in the book, so that one mi

y of Sindbad's tale, and in a hundred ways making vulgar and sceptical jokes. On one of his outbreaks of dissipation he had disappeared far longer than usual, and on his return he looked more miserable than ever. Dorfling made some kindly inquiries, and learned that he

ith copies before the book appeared at the shops. He therefore invited them to a little festival to celebrate the occasion. He had been thinking over the book for seventeen years, had been eight years in writing it, and as

he left side of the large room above the ground floor. This little room was all lined with red like a jewel case, thick red portieres were over the doors, and the amount of gas with which it was lighted made it rather warmer than was comfor

y flushed face beamed with pleasure. His friends regretted keenly that they had come in ordinary morning clothes, and express

ombined a successful career as a writer of comic verses with a confirmed pessimism. When he had written one of his merriest couplets, he would stop his work and sigh with Dorfling over the tragedy of life. The papers treated his farces as rubbish, but the publ

m put a large dish of oysters on the table, while the

cried Barinskoi gayly, and

id Paul, and held out

n the cynical Barinskoi, contemplated the book

f Deliverance, by

le," said Wilhelm, brea

melancholy air. Barinskoi laughed loudly, while Dorfling looked

einthaler?"

ame on the title page. If it does not find one, its curiosity is excited, and what I particularly wis

y you have not put your o

is book are not from me, the transient accident called Dorfling, but from the absolute everlasting thing which thinks in my brain.

l. "If I had devoted the best years of my life to any work

easoning child, who wants to be praised and petted because he has eaten his dinner. A mature perception arrives at this idea of the duty which one must fulfill, and in no hope of the gratification of individual vanity or self-seeking. Recognition! Does the wind hope for recognition from the ships it helps to sail? Is it blamed if it dashes the shi

e with you,"

Printaniere soup. The conversation halted, as everyone had involuntarily opened his copy of t

ling, "the book will be just the same

aid Barinskoi, and poked his pointed red

er; "it would be very friendly of you to give an ide

le system intelligibly in

can read those presently in your book. You need only just

a of having to read through that thick, dry book had frightened him, and now he

first, but as his fri

that it is a part of an eternal whole; it feels itself unhappy and uneasy in its fragmentary existence, and yearns to go back again to the whole from whence it came. Individual life means removal from that all-embracing whole; individual death is the complete union of finite parts with the infinite

but as they were silent he said nothin

part of the eternal p

y, to arrive at the consciousness of the 'ego,'

u like some lord or master, who is lonely because he is by hi

he consciousness of its own 'ego,' in addition to the knowledge of the ob

shook h

e reasoning. You will find

ism, but rather to confirm a fact. Your "Philosophy of Deliverance" is no other than a form of Christianity which looks upon the earth as a vale of

s a misery, and death is the deliverance. But Christianity does not explain why God creates men, and sends them to the misery of ear

ciple of phenomena creates organisms, with the o

act

musical sounds at the white man's command; and that is precisely what priests and philosophers do when they explain the great workings of the universe by a God, or a principle, or whatever they call their fetich. Human nature always wants to know the why and wherefore of things. When we are not sure of our ground, we help ourselves by conjectures, or even by imagination. These conjectures are senseless or reasonable, according to whether our knowledge is insuff

tem in earnest. He must know that his explanation is only a conjecture, a possibility at the best, and he actually has the temerity to preach it as a fixed truth. No, my friend, I do not expect anything from metaphysics. It only interests me as a means for studying psychol

has attained to a certain point, and beyond that we know and understand nothing, absolutely nothing. Metaphysics will not stop at that limit. It confuses knowledge and dreams together, and manufactures out of the two something

of your metaphysics?" said

than all the rest put together, and the serious c

truth. I am of an entirely different opinion on this point. I believe that the science of the actual content of things, the foundation of all appearances, the laws of the universe, in short, everything which you call objective truth, is the property peculiar to the atoms, of which the world formerly existed. Absolute science, I say, is

understood; and that is, why a flower pot should fall off a window st

bad jokes to-day,"

nd again sank into deep though

me the knowledge of the many. The development of the living being I regard in this way, that the atoms at first only hang loosely, gradually becoming more closely knit together, until they make a substantial organism. The single atoms in the course of this process of development step over the boundary toward consciousness. At first it is a trembling, insecure foreboding, like the sensation of light to one n

lling me to believe, as I can compell you to believe that twice two makes four. No, no; nothing can come of these metaphysical speculations. The whole philosophy is not worth psychological treatment. We are no further

eception, and exactly knowing what we do know, whereas yesterday men deceived themselves, and imagined that the fables of religion and metaphysics were positive knowledge. The history of physical science is in this respect very interesting. It teaches that every step forward do

ite such a history

Anything really new is written once in a thousand years, all the rest is repetition, dilution, compilation. If everyone who writes o

ones. But it is unconscious repetition, and it is exactly that which gives it a wonderfully new meaning. It proves unity of mind, identity of science. Thousands of men daily discover gunpowder. Many of them laugh, because gunpowder was first discovered two hundred years ago. I do

hinked together, and a man's voice was just distinguished in conversation. Ba

t remark. "I do not mean to say that your book is superfluous. Yo

d Dorfling. "The only object I have in

hen, when you conceived

pulse, or instinct. If one has a perception one also feels an imp

lm sm

I know, to my regret, that I have no perceptions to share with others, and the duty

r that reason I do not mind if I appear unphilosophical. One has duties toward one's fellowmen. One

speak like a town-crier," and after a short paus

man. And I try to be useful to the community by educating myself in the greatest possible morality, and the highest ideal of a citize

ol he had imbibed. "Prove first that it is a duty. I deny without exception every duty to others. Why should I trouble my

thout any vexation, "to care for one's fellow-crea

ot got this instinct?

e an unhealt

ove

e instinct of sympathy with others were to fail amon

koi la

ion of your instinct. I will leave you to listen to your instinct, and sympathize as much as you like, but for my part I joyfully renoun

lemnly, "that I take this bottle of champagne

it back again; a little struggle ensued. Dorfling put an end to it

duty to be quite a different thing. You limit your view to self-culture, and have love for your fellow-creatures, but no desire to instruct them. Now, I think that culture should begin with oneself, but end with others. That is my idea of love for humanity. One need hardly go out of onesel

influences certain substances. It will draw iron, but cannot attract copper, wood, or stone; but the cogwheel takes hold of anything near it, of whatever material it is made. I will not work the illustration to death. You can see by this what I mean. I think a far-reaching activity is the first business of mankind. Our nerves are not so much those of sensation as of movement; we do not only take in impressions from the outside, we are provided with organs which give out impres

and then ceased. It was near midnight, and Schrotter rose to go. He was thinking of Bhani, who was sitting up for him at home. The dinner must have been paid for beforehand, for the guests were spared the sight of a money

eplied Dorfling, and with these stran

with Paul, who had the furthest to go. For a

ts. You, Herr Doctor, were the only living being among them; I breathed again when I heard you talking. If I had not hea

out so, my dear Pa

alive? There we sat for four mortal hours, and the tal

" proteste

e' sensible? or, Wilhelm, your philosophy of self-culture, which, with all deference to you, I call philosophical onanism

each other; and Schrotter signed to them to look toward the left corner. Th

ll your philosophics. He has his method of sponging, and enjoys hi

ou really

of land to see after; and artificial manures and the price of corn to worry you; then perhaps you would take a little l

end to ideal views. At the corner of the Kochstrasse they separated, and Paul c

s eyes fell on a letter for him in Dorfling's handwritin

nd I am going back to eternity from this limited sphere. May you be as happy as I shall be in a few hours! Keep a friendly thou

DORF

a grim reality. He ran quickly out of the house to seek Schrotter. The old Indian servant opened the door, and in his br

he open door to his friend's bedroom. There he found Schrotter; Mayboom was also there sobbing, and a tearful old servant. In an arm chair near the bed was Dorfling, still in his dress coat

still quite warm. His agonizing look sought Schrott

o close the lids over his friend's eyes, those eyes which looked so stran