TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE

MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO

translator, J.E. CRAWFORD FLITCH

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC

New York

This Dover edition, first published in 1954, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the English translation originally published by Macmillan and Company, Ltd., in 1921. This edition is published by special arrangement with Macmillan and Company, Ltd.

The publisher is grateful to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania for supplying a copy of this work for the purpose of reproduction.

Standard Book Number: 486-20257-7
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-4730

Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc.
180 Varick Street
New York, N.Y. 10014

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

I

THE MAN OF FLESH AND BONE

Philosophy and the concrete man—The man Kant, the man Butler, and the man Spinoza—Unity and continuity of the person—Man an end not a means—Intellectual necessities and necessities of the heart and the will—Tragic sense of life in men and in peoples

II

THE STARTING-POINT

Tragedy of Paradise—Disease an element of progress—Necessity of knowing in order to live—Instinct of preservation and instinct of perpetuation—The sensible world and the ideal world—Practical starting-point of all philosophy—Knowledge an end in itself?—The man Descartes—The longing not to die

III

THE HUNGER OF IMMORTALITY

Thirst of being—Cult of immortality—Plato's "glorious risk"— Materialism—Paul's discourse to the Athenians—Intolerance of the intellectuals—Craving for fame—Struggle for survival

IV

THE ESSENCE OF CATHOLICISM

Immortality and resurrection—Development of idea of immortality in Judaic and Hellenic religions—Paul and the dogma of the resurrection—Athanasius—Sacrament of the Eucharist—Lutheranism—Modernism—The Catholic ethic—Scholasticism—The Catholic solution

V

THE RATIONALIST DISSOLUTION

Materialism—Concept of substance—Substantiality of the soul—Berkeley—Myers—Spencer—Combat of life with reason—Theological advocacy—Odium anti-theologicum—The rationalist attitude—Spinoza—Nietzsche—Truth and consolation

VI

IN THE DEPTHS OF THE ABYSS

Passionate doubt and Cartesian doubt—Irrationality of the problem of immortality—Will and intelligence—Vitalism and rationalism—Uncertainty as basis of faith—The ethic of despair—Pragmatical justification of despair—Summary of preceding criticism

VII

LOVE, SUFFERING, PITY, AND PERSONALITY

Sexual love—Spiritual love—Tragic love—Love and pity—Personalizing faculty of love—God the Personalization of the All—Anthropomorphic tendency—Consciousness of the Universe—What is Truth?—Finality of the Universe

VIII

FROM GOD TO GOD

Concept and feeling of Divinity—Pantheism—Monotheism—The rational God—Proofs of God's existence—Law of necessity—Argument from Consensus gentium—The living God—Individuality and personality—God a multiplicity—The God of Reason—The God of Love—Existence of God

IX

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY

Personal element in faith—Creative power of faith—Wishing that God may exist—Hope the form of faith—Love and suffering—The suffering God—Consciousness revealed through suffering—Spiritualization of matter

X

RELIGION, THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BEYOND, AND THE APOCATASTASIS

What is religion?—The longing for immortality—Concrete representation of a future life—Beatific vision—St. Teresa—Delight requisite for happiness—Degradation of energy—Apocatastasis—Climax of the tragedy—Mystery of the Beyond

XI

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM

Conflict as basis of conduct—Injustice of annihilation—Making ourselves irreplaceable—Religious value of the civil occupation—Business of religion and religion of business—Ethic of domination—Ethic of the cloister—Passion and culture—The Spanish soul

CONCLUSION

DON QUIXOTE IN THE CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN TRAGI-COMEDY

Culture—Faust—The modern Inquisition—Spain and the scientific spirit—Cultural achievement of Spain—Thought and language—Don Quixote the hero of Spanish thought—Religion a transcendental economy—Tragic ridicule—Quixotesque philosophy—Mission of Don Quixote to-day

INDEX

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

DON MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO