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Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

UnitsANSWER: False
8. The dorsal cavity contains the _____.
a. heart and lungs b. major organs of digestion
c. structures of the central nervous system

ANSWER: c

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 2

Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

Units
9. Lateral means .
a. near the beginning of a structure b. near the front of the
body
c. toward the midline d. toward the side

ANSWER: d
10. The midsagittal plane divides the body into _____.
a. anterior and posterior portions b. cephalic and caudal halves
c. upper and lower sections d. left and right halves

ANSWER: d
11. The surface of a structure is toward, or nearer, the midline and away from the side.
a. distal
b. lateral
c. medial
d. proximal

ANSWER: c
12. The _____ plane divides the body into front and back portions.
a. coronal b. sagittal
c. transverse

ANSWER: a
13. Which of the following is known as the study of microscopic one-celled organisms, multi-celled organisms, plants,
animals, and humans?
a. Biology b. Anatomy
c. Physiology

ANSWER: a
14. Which of the following conditions would occur on the anterior part of the body?
a. Injury to the bottom of the foot b. Ventral hernia
c. Bruise on the back of the head

ANSWER: b
15. A scratch on the left thigh would best be described as _____.
a. deep b. superficial
c. internal d. external
e. superficial and external f. deep and internal

ANSWER: e

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Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

Units
16. Which of the following sequences place the terms from the simplest to the most complex?
a. Tissues, cells, organs, organ systems, human
body b. Human body, organ system, organs,
tissues, cells c. Cells, tissues, organs, organ
system, human body d. None of these answers are
correct.

ANSWER: c
17. Which of the following is the best description of anabolism?
a. Functional activities of cells that result in growth, repair, energy release, use of food, and secretions
b. Building up of complex materials from simpler ones such as food and oxygen
c. Breaking down and changing of complex substances into simpler ones, with a release of energy and carbon dioxide

ANSWER: b
18. In the metric system, which of the following is used to measure weight?
a. Grams b. Meters
c. Liters d. Milliliters

ANSWER: a
19. Place the following prefixes in the order of smallest to largest.
a. Micro, milli, centi
b. Milli, centi, micro
c. Centi, milli, micro
d. Micro, centi, milli

ANSWER: a
20. The provider instructs the patient to take 1 gram of acetaminophen for their fever. The patient only has capsules marked
as 325 mg. How many should the patient take?
a. 1 capsule b. 2 capsules
c. 3 capsules d. 4 capsules

ANSWER: c
21. Which of the following are cavities within the skull. Mark all that apply.
a. Orbital cavity b. Nasal cavity
c. Oral cavity d. Buccal cavity

ANSWER: a, b, c, d

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Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

Units
22. Mark all that are true.
a. 1 liter = 1,000 milliliters b. 2.2 kilograms = 1 pound
c. 2.5 centimeters = 1 inch d. The prefix centi means 1/1000.
e. 30 milliliters = 1 ounce

ANSWER: a, c, e
23. Any abnormal change in the structure or function which produces symptoms is considered a(n) ____________.

ANSWER: disease

24. A(n) ____________, or cross, section is a horizontal cut that divides the body into upper and lower parts.

ANSWER: transverse

25. The dorsal cavity contains the ____________ cavity and the ____________ cavity.

ANSWER: cranial, spinal

26. The ____________ divides the ventral cavity into two parts: the upper thoracic and the lower abdominopelvic cavities.

ANSWER: diaphragm

27. The naval is located in the middle or _____________ region.

ANSWER: umbilical

28. The stomach is located ____________ to the diaphragm.

ANSWER: inferior

29. The term ____________ is used to reference the ventral surface of the body.

ANSWER: anterior

30. The region superior to the left inguinal region is the ____________ ____________ region.

ANSWER: left lumbar

31. The pubic area can also be referred to as the lower, or ______________, region.

ANSWER: hypogastric

32. The region inferior to the right lumbar region is the right inguinal region, or the ____________ ____________ region.

ANSWER: right iliac

33. The area superior to the right lumbar region is the ____________ ________________ region.

ANSWER: right hypochondriac

34. is the ability of the body to regulate its internal environment within narrow limits.

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Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

UnitsANSWER: Homeostasis

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 6

Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

Units
35. The metric system is a decimal system based on the power of ____________.

ANSWER: 10 ten

36. One tablespoon of cough medicine equals milliliters of cough medicine.

ANSWER: 15 fifteen

You must make a notation on a patient’s record. Match the correct anatomical terminology to the description of the
location.
a. pain in the back
b. pain below the right ribs
c. a cut in the lower part of the right arm
d. heartburn
e. stomach cramps
f. right inguinal hernia
37. proximal to wrist

ANSWER: c
38. lumbar region

ANSWER: a
39. epigastric area

ANSWER: d
40. right hypochondriac area

ANSWER: b
41. umbilical area

ANSWER: e
42. right iliac area

ANSWER: f

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 7

Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

Units
Match the branch of anatomy with its
description.
a. gross anatomy b. microscopic anatomy
c. developmental anatomy d. comparative anatomy
e. systematic anatomy
43. study of the growth and development of an organism during its lifetime

ANSWER: c
44. study of large and easily observable structures of an organism

ANSWER: a
45. examples are dermatology, endocrinology, and neurology

ANSWER: e
46. study of similarities and differences between different animals

ANSWER: d
47. includes cytology and histology

ANSWER: b

Match the life function with the applicable body

system.
a. movement b. ingestion
c. transport d. growth
e. secretion f. excretion
g. regulation
(sensitivity)
48. digestive system

ANSWER: b
49. skeletal system

ANSWER: d
50. circulatory system

ANSWER: c
51. nervous system

ANSWER: g
52. endocrine system

ANSWER: e
53. muscle system

ANSWER: a
Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 8
Name: Class: Date:

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Structural

Units
54. urinary system

ANSWER: f

Copyright Cengage Learning. Powered by Cognero. Page 9

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
father was too proud to acknowledge that he liked the book, but
John learned through one of his brothers that he was especially
delighted with the famous sermon "On Old Age."
In the matter of John's opposition to the professor, his father
vacillated. His opinion was that right was always right, but he did not
like the disrespectful way in which John spoke of the professor.
Meanwhile John saw that he had won the game and that his father
had a lively interest in his success.
But one day in spring John went into the country, telling the servant
that he would be absent for the day. When he returned the next
morning he had an unpleasant reception.
"You go away without telling me?"
"I told the servant."
"I require you to ask permission of me as long as you eat my bread."
"Ask permission! What nonsense!"
John departed, borrowed three hundred kronas from a friendly
tradesman, and then with three of his club associates went to one of
the islands near Stockholm, where they hired rooms in a fisher's
house at a rent of thirty kronas per month. No one tried to stop him,
and probably this crisis was occasioned by the fact that John was
exercising a perceptible influence on his father, brothers and sisters
in matters concerning domestic arrangements. The mistress of the
house feared that the power would be taken out of her hands.
He spent the summer in strenuously working for his examination, for
he had now no hope of receiving further supplies from home. It was
a healthy and ascetic life with innocent amusements. He went about
in dressing-gown, drawers and sea-boots, and the toilette of his
companions was still more scanty. They bathed, sailed, fenced, and
John gave himself over increasingly to a process of decivilisation.
There were almost always spirituous liquors on the table, and John
feared them, for they made him mad. But to this asceticism and
industry succeeded a desire to make converts of others, and a great
amount of self-satisfaction. The latter is always the case, whether
the ascetic feels that in this respect he is better than others, or
whether he makes the sacrifice in order to feel himself better.
Therefore he preached to one brother who drank, and moralised
over the others who did not work, but went to Dalarö to dance or to
feast. Kierkegaard's influence was strong upon him; he wished to be
moral, and thundered against æstheticism.
He now studied philology, and went through Dante, Shakespeare
and Goethe. The last he hated because he was an æsthete. Behind
all, like a dark background, was the breach with his father. After
their life together during the last winter, he saw him as it were
transfigured, justified him with respect to all that had happened in
the past, and had forgotten all the petty troubles of his childhood.
He missed most of all his brothers and sisters, especially his sisters
whom he had really learnt to know. Toiling with a lexicon and
investigating roots of words had become painful to him, but he
enjoyed this pain, and disciplined his imagination by hard work,
looking upon it as his professional duty.
Towards the end of the summer he was wild and shy. The clothes,
winch he rummaged out again, were too tight, his collar, which he
had not worn for months, tormented him as though it had been of
iron, and his shoes pinched him. Everything seemed to him
constrained, conventional and unnatural. Once he had been enticed
to an evening party at Dalarö but had immediately returned. He was
shy and could not bear frivolity and laughter. This time it was not the
consciousness of belonging to the lower classes, for he had ceased
to regard himself as one of them. Meanwhile the ascetic life he had
been leading increased his will-power and his activity. When the next
term at Upsala commenced, he took his travelling-bag and
journeyed thither, without having more than a krona to call his own,
and without knowing where he would find a room and something to
eat. On his arrival he took up his quarters with Rejd, and set about
working. The first evening, feeling half famished, he looked up Is,
who had remained the whole summer alone in Upsala and seemed
more melancholy than usual. His appearance was that of a shadow,
and solitude had made him still more morbid. He went out with John
and invited him to supper at a restaurant. He spoke in his usual style
and mangled his prey, who, on the other hand, defended himself,
struck back, and attacked the æsthete. Is contemplated his hungry
companion while he ate, and intoxicated himself with the brandy-
bottle. He adopted a maternal air and offered to lend John money.
The latter was touched, thanked him, and borrowed about ten
kronas, for, since he believed he had a future before him, he
borrowed without fear. Finally Is became drunk and raved. He
changed his attitude, called John an egoist, and reproached him for
having taken the ten kronas.
To be suspected of egotism was the worst thing John knew, for
Christ had taught him that the "ego" must be crucified. His
individuality had grown since it had been freed from pressure and
attained publicity. Conspicuous persons obtain a greater individuality
through the attention they receive, or they attract attention for the
simple reason that they have a greater individuality. John felt that he
was working in the right way for his future; he pressed forward with
energy and will and the help of many friends, but not as a charlatan
or schemer. But Is's accusation struck him in the face, as it must all
men who have an "ego." He wished to return the money, but Is
drew himself up proudly, played the "gentleman" and continued to
romance. It struck John that this idealist was a mean fellow who
behaved in this fantastic way in order to conceal his vexation at the
temporary loss of the ten kronas.
Now the students returned for the term, and all of them with money.
John wandered about with his travelling-bag and his books, and
discovered how soon a welcome is worn out when one lies upon
somebody else's sofa. He borrowed money to hire a room with. It
was a real rats' nest with a camp-bed without sheets or cushions. No
candlestick, nothing. But he lay in bed in his under-clothes and read
by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle. His friends here and there
provided him with meals. But then came the winter. He used to go
out after dark and buy a quantity of wood, which he carried home in
his bag. A scientific friend taught him how to make a charcoal fire.
Moreover, the shaft of a chimney passed through his room and was
warm every washing-day. He stood beside it with his hands behind
him and read out of a book which he had placed on the chest of
drawers, dragging the latter close to him. In the meantime his
drama had been played and coldly received. The subject-matter was
religious. It dealt with heathendom and Christendom, the former
being defended as an epoch-making movement, not as a creed.
Christ was placed on one side and the only true God exalted. The
drama also contained a domestic struggle, and, after the fashion of
the time, women were extolled at the expense of the men. In one
passage the author expressed his opinion as to the position of a
poet in life. "Are you a man, Orm?" asks the duke. "I am only a
poet," answers Orm. "Therefore you will never become anything," is
the rejoinder.
In fact, John believed now that the poet's life was a shadow
existence, that he had no individuality, but only lived in that of
others. But is it then so certain that the poet possesses no
individuality because he has more than one? Perhaps he is richer
because he possesses more than the others. And why is it better to
have only one "ego," since in any case a single "ego" is not more
one's own than many "egos," seeing that even one "ego" is a
compound product derived from parents, educators, social
intercourse and books? Perhaps it is for this reason that society, like
a machine, demands that the single "egos" shall act each like a
wheel, screw, or separate piece of the machine in a limited
automatic way. But the poet is more than a piece of a machine,
since he is a whole machine in himself.
In the drama John had incorporated himself in five persons;—in the
Jarl, who is at war with his contemporaries; in the Poet, who looks
over things and looks through them; in the Mother, who is angry and
revengeful but whose thirst for vengeance is counteracted by her
sympathy; in the Daughter, who for the sake of her faith breaks with
her father; in the Lover, whose love is ill-starred. John understood
the motives of all the dramatis personae; and spoke from their
varying points of view. But a drama written for the average man who
has ready-made views on all subjects, must at least take sides with
one of its characters in order to win the excitable and partisan
public. John could not do this, because he believed in no absolute
right or wrong, for the simple reason that all these ideas are relative.
One may be right as regards the future, and wrong as regards the
present; one may be wrong in one year and right in the next; a
father may justify his son while the mother condemns him; a
daughter is right in loving the man she loves, but in her father's view
she is wrong in loving a heathen. There comes in doubt: Why do
men hate and despise the doubter? Because doubt is the seed of
development and progress, and the average man hates development
because it disturbs his quiet. Only the stupid man is certain; only the
ignorant one thinks he has found the truth. Doubt undermines
energy, they say. But it is better to act without considering the
consequences. The animal and the savage act blindly, obeying desire
and impulse; in that they resemble our "men of action"!
When John returned to Upsala, he was again followed by
disparaging criticisms. To some extent they were true, e.g. the
assertion that the form of the piece was borrowed from the
Kongsemnerne, but only to some extent, for John had taken the
frigid tone and the rough phraseology direct from the Icelandic
sagas, and the views of life he expressed were original. Scorn
followed him, and he was regarded as a man who was ambitious of
being a poet, the worst suspicion under which any one can fall.
But in the midst of his toil and needy circumstances, a week after his
overthrow, there came a letter from the chamberlain of the Theatre
Royal at Stockholm, requesting him to go there immediately as the
king wished to see him. Morbidly suspicious he believed that it was a
practical joke, and took the letter to his wise friend—the student of
Natural History. The latter telegraphed in the evening to a well-
known actor of the Theatre Royal requesting him to ask the
chamberlain whether he had written to John. The latter spent a
restless night, tossed to and fro between hope and fear. The next
morning the answer came that it was indeed so and that John
should come at once. He set off forthwith.
Why did he, a born rebel, accept the royal favour without hesitation?
For the simple reason that he did not belong to the democratic
party; he had never promised his father or mother not to receive a
favour from the king. Furthermore he believed in the aristocracy or
the right of the best to govern, and he considered the upper classes
the best, as he had shown in his tragedy, Sinking Hellas, in which he
expressed contempt for the demagogues. He hated tyrants, but this
king was no tyrant. Therefore there was no reason for hesitation
within him or without him. Accordingly he travelled to Stockholm and
was received in audience by the king. The latter was just now very
ill, and looked so emaciated as to make a painful impression. He
stood with a benevolent aspect, smoking his long tobacco-pipe, and
smiled at the young beardless author, walking awkwardly between
the rows of aide-de-camps and chamberlains. He thanked him for
the pleasure which he had derived from his drama, adding that he
himself when young had competed for an academical prize with a
poem on the Vikings, and was fond of the old Norse legends. He
said that he wished to help the young student to take his doctor's
degree, and closed the interview by referring him to the treasurer,
who had been ordered to make him a first payment. Later on he
would receive more, and the king said he supposed there were still
two or three years to elapse before he took his degree.
John's immediate future was now secure. He felt gratefully moved by
this kindness on the part of a king who had so many things to think
about. On his return to Upsala, he saw for two months how the
court sunshine had turned him into a star. The official who had paid
him, had asked him whether he thought later on of obtaining a post
in some public department or in the Royal Library. His ambition had
never soared so high and did not yet do so.
The chief object of human existence seems to be, and must indeed
be, to spend one's life till death in the least unpleasant manner
possible. This aim does not exclude solicitude for the good of others,
for happiness includes the consciousness of not having infringed
others' rights unnecessarily. Therefore ill-gotten wealth cannot
secure a pleasant life, nor can any path which leads over the
prostrate bodies of others. Accordingly Utilitarianism, or the
philosophy which aims at the greatest happiness of the greatest
number, is not immoral.
In spite of all his asceticism John could not help feeling happy. His
happiness consisted in the half-consciousness that he could live his
life without the great anxiety which the insecurity of means of
existence causes. He had been threatened by penury and was now
secure; life had been restored to him, and it is a happy thing to be
able to live before one has done growing. His chest, which had been
narrowed by hunger and over-exertion, broadened itself; his back
grew straighter; life no longer seemed so melancholy. He was
contented with his lot; things took on a more cheerful aspect, and
he would have been ungrateful had he still remained among the
malcontents.
But this did not last long. When he saw his old comrades round him
in a position in which his happiness had effected no change, he
found that there was a want of harmony between them. They had
been accustomed to help him as one in need and now he needed
their help no longer. They had liked him, because they protected him
and were accustomed to see him below them. But when he came
upwards, near them and above them, they found him necessarily
altered by altered circumstances. The necessitous man is not so bold
in his opinions nor so stiff in the back as the prosperous one. He was
altered for them, but was he therefore worse? Self-esteem under
other circumstances is generally well thought of. Enough! He
annoyed others by the fact that he was fortunate, and still more
because he wished to help others to be so.
The present he had received entailed obligations, and John gave
himself diligently to study. He passed his examinations in Philology,
Astronomy, and Political Science, but received in none of these
subjects such a good testimonial as he had expected. He had
studied too much in one way and too little in another.
In examination time he generally had an attack of aphasia.
Physiologists usually ascribe this weakness to an injury in the left
temple. And as a matter of fact John had two scars above his left
eye. One was caused by the blow of an axe, the other by a rock
against which he had struck himself in jumping down the
Observatory hill. He was inclined to trace to this the great difficulty
he had in delivering public addresses and speaking foreign
languages.
Accordingly, during examinations, he would sit there, unable to give
an answer although he knew more than was asked. Then there
came over him a spirit of defiance, of self-torment, of ill-humour, and
he felt tempted to throw up the whole thing. He criticised the text-
books and felt dishonest in learning what he despised. The rôle
assigned to him began to oppress him; he longed to get away from
it all to something else, wherever it might be. It was not that he
regarded the king's present as a benefaction. It was a stipend, a
reward for merit, such as artists at all periods have received for the
purpose of carrying on their self-cultivation. His royal patron was not
merely the king but his personal friend and admirer. Therefore the
gift exercised no kind of restraint upon his rebellious thoughts; he
only let himself be temporarily deceived, and believed that all was
right with the world, because he prospered. His radicalism had been
considerably mitigated; he no longer thought that all which was
wrong in the state was the fault of the monarchy, nor did he believe
with the pagans that better harvests would follow if the king was
sacrificed on an idol-altar. His mother would have wept for joy at his
distinction, had she lived, so strong were her aristocratic leanings.
All of us, including crown princes, are democrats, inasmuch as we
wish those above us to come down to our level; but when we
ascend, we do not wish to be pulled down. The question is only
whether that winch is "above" us is so in a spiritual sense, and
whether it ought to be there. That was what John began to be
doubtful of.
 CHAPTER XIII

THE WINDING UP

(1872)

At the beginning of the spring term, John took up his quarters with
an elder comrade in order to continue his studies. But when he had
again the old books before him which he had already studied so
long, he felt a distaste for them. His brain was full of impressions, of
collected literary material, and refused to take in any more; his
imagination and thought were busily at work and would not let
memory be alone active; he had fits of doubt and apathy and often
remained the whole day lying on the sofa. Then the desire would
sometimes awake to be altogether free and to plunge into the life of
activity. But the royal stipend held him fast in fetters and imposed on
him obligations. Having received it, he was bound to go on studying
for his doctor's degree, the course of reading for which he had half
completed. So he applied himself to philosophy, but when he read
the history of it, he found all systems equally valid or invalid, and his
mind resisted all new ideas.
In the literary club there was disunion and lethargy. All their youthful
poems had been read and no one produced any more, so that they
only met together to drink punch. Is had exposed himself, and after
a scene with another member, he had been thrown out. He drew his
knife and got well thrashed. He saved himself from worse by
affecting to treat the affair as a joke, and was now a mere laughing-
stock, since it had been discovered that his wisdom consisted in
quotations from the students' periodicals which the others had not
had the wit to utilise. At the beginning of term an Æsthetic Society
had been founded by the professor of Æsthetics, and this made their
own literary society, the "Runa," superfluous.
At one of the meetings of the former, John's discontent with classical
authorities broke out. He had been drinking that evening and was
half-intoxicated. In conversation with the professor dangerous
ground was touched upon and John was enticed so far out of his
reserve as to declare Dante without significance for humanity and
overestimated. John had plenty of reasons to allege for his opinion,
but could not express them to advantage when the professor set
upon him, and the whole company gathered round the disputants,
who were squeezed into a corner by the stove. He wanted in the
first place to say that the construction of the Divine Comedy was not
original, but a very ordinary form which had already been employed
shortly before in the Vision of Albericus. Furthermore his opinion was
that in this poem Dante did not reflect the culture and thoughts of
his period, because he was so uncultured that he did not even know
Greek. He was not a philosopher, for he hampered thought by the
fetters of revelation, and therefore he was no precursor of the
Renaissance or the Reformation. He was no patriot, for he venerated
the German empire as established by God. He was at most a local
patriot of Florence. Nor was he a democrat, for he always dreamt of
a union of the empire and the papacy. He did not attack the papacy,
but only individual popes who lived immoral lives, as he himself had
done in his youth. He was a monk, a truly idiotic child of his age, for
he sent unbaptised children to hell. He was a narrow-minded royalist
who put Brutus next to Satan in the deepest hell. He was entirely
wanting in the power of selfcriticism;—while he reckons ingratitude
to friends and betrayal of one's fatherland among the worst of
crimes, he places his own friend and teacher, Brunetto Latini, in hell,
and supports the German Emperor, Henry VII, against his native city
Florence. He had bad literary taste, for he reckoned as the six
greatest poets of the world Homer, Horace, Lucan, Ovid, Virgil and
himself. How could modern critics who were so severe on all
scandalous literature praise Dante, who in his poem cast dishonour
on so many contemporary persons and families? He even scolds his
own dear native city, exclaiming when he finds five nobly-born
Florentines in Hell: "Rejoice! O Florence! for thy name is not only
great over land and sea, but also in hell. Five of thy citizens are in
thieves' company; my cheeks blush at the sight of them. But one
thing I know; punishment will light upon thee, Florence, and may it
happen soon!"
As is usual in such debates, the attacked and the attacker often
changed their ground. John wished to prove to the professor that
from his point of view the Commedia was a political pamphlet, but
then the professor veered round, adopted the enemy's point of view
and said that he should value it as such. Whereupon John answered
that it was exactly as such that he designated it, but not as a
magnificent poem of everlasting value, which the professor had
declared it to be in his lectures. Again the professor changed his
ground, and said that the poem should be judged by the standard of
the period at which it was composed.
"Exactly so," answered John, "but you have judged it by the
standard of our time and all succeeding times, and therefore you are
wrong. But even with regard to its own time the work is not an
epoch-making one; it is not in advance of its period, but belongs
strictly to it, or rather lags behind it. It is a linguistic monument for
Italy, nothing more, and should never be read in a Swedish
university, because the language is antiquated, and finally because it
is too insignificant to be regarded as a link in the development of
culture."
The result of the controversy was that John was regarded as
shameless and half-cracked.
After this explosion he was exhausted and incapable of work. The
whole of the life in a town where he did not feel at home was
distasteful to him. His companions advised him to take a thorough
rest, for he had worked too hard, and so, as a matter of fact, he
had. Various schemes again presented themselves to his mind, but
without result. The grey dirty town vexed him, the scenery around
depressed him; he lay on a sofa and looked at the illustrations in a
German newspaper. Views of foreign scenery had the same effect as
music on his mind and he felt a longing to see green trees and blue
seas; he wished to go into the country but it was still only February,
the sky was as grey as sack-cloth, the streets and roads were
muddy. When he felt most depressed, he went to his friend the
natural science student. It refreshed him to see his herbarium and
microscope, his aquarium and physiological preparations. Most of all
he found a pleasure in the society of the quiet, peaceable atheist,
who let the world go its way, for he knew that he worked better for
the future, in his small measure, than the poet with his excitable
outbreaks. He had a little of the artist left in him and painted in oils.
To think that he could call up as if by enchantment a green
landscape amid the mists of this wintry spring and hang it on his
wall!
"Is painting difficult?" he asked his friend.
"No, indeed! It is easier than drawing. Try it!"
John, who had already, with the greatest calm, composed a song
with a guitar-accompaniment, thought it not impossible for him to
paint, and he borrowed an easel, colours, and a paint-brush. Then
he went home and shut himself up in his room. From an illustrated
paper he copied a picture of a ruined castle. When he saw the clear
blue of the sky he felt sentimental, and when he had conjured up
green bushes and grass he felt unspeakably happy as though he had
eaten haschish. His first effort was successful. But now he wished to
copy a painting. That was harder. Everything was green and brown.
He could not make his colours harmonise with the original and felt in
despair.
One day when he had shut himself up he heard a visitor talking with
his friend in the next room. They whispered as though they were
near a sick person. "Now he is actually painting," said his friend in a
depressed tone.
What did that mean? Did they consider him cracked? Yes. He began
to think about himself, and like all brooders came to the conclusion
that he was cracked. What was to be done? If they shut him up, he
would certainly go quite mad. "Better anticipate them," he thought,
and as he had heard of private asylums in the country, where the
patients could walk about and work in the garden, he wrote to the
director of one of them. After some time he received a friendly
answer advising him to be quiet. His correspondent had received
information about John through his friend and understood his state
of mind. He told him it was only a crisis which all sensitive natures
must pass through, etc.
That danger, then, was over. But he wished to get out into active life
when ever it might be.
One day he heard that a travelling theatrical company had come to
the town. He wrote a letter to the manager and solicited an
engagement, but he received no answer and did not call on the
manager. Thus he was tossed to and fro, till at last fate intervened
and set him free. Three months had passed and he had received no
money from the court-treasurer. His companions advised him to
write and make a polite inquiry. In reply he was told that it had
never been his Majesty's intention to pay him a regular pension, but
only a single donation. However, in consideration of his needy
circumstances, by way of exception, he had made him a grant of
200 kronas, which would shortly be sent.
John at first felt glad, for he was free, but afterwards the turn which
affairs had taken made him uneasy, for the papers had stated that
he was the king's stipendiary, and the king had really promised him
a stipend during the year that he must read for his degree. Besides
this the court-marshal had given him a sort of half promise for the
future which could hardly be considered as adequately fulfilled by a
donation of 200 kronas. Different opinions were expressed on the
matter. Some thought that the king had forgotten, others that the
state of his finances did not allow of a further gift, or that his good
wishes exceeded his powers. No one expressed disapproval, and
John was secretly glad, had he not felt a certain disgrace in the
withdrawal of the stipend, so that he might be suspected of having
groundlessly boasted of it. Those who believed that John was in
disfavour at court ascribed this to the fact that he had omitted to
wait upon the king in person when he was in Stockholm at Christmas
and the New Year. Others attributed it to the fact that he had not
formally presented his tragedy, Sinking Hellas, but had simply sent it
to the palace, instead of going with it, which his sense of
independence forbade him to do. Ten years later he heard quite a
new explanation of this disfavour. He was said to have composed a
lampoon on the king. But this was a pure legend, probably the only
one of its obscure fabricator which would reach posterity. Anyhow
facts remained as they were and his resolve was quickly taken. He
would go to Stockholm and become a literary man, an author if
possible, should he prove to possess sufficient capacity for that
calling.
The student who shared his room undertook to pay his return
journey, and alleged as a pretext that John must wait some time in
Stockholm lest the landlord should be uneasy. Meanwhile he could
collect enough money to pay the rent which was due at the end of
the term.
His friends gave John a farewell feast and John thanked them,
acknowledging the obligations which each owes to those he meets in
social intercourse. Every personality is not developed simply out of
itself, but derives something from each with whom it comes in
contact, just as the bee gathering her honey from a million flowers,
appropriates it and gives it out as her own.
Thus he stepped into life, abandoning dreams and the past to live in
reality and the present. But he was ill-prepared and the university is
not the proper school for life. He felt also that the decisive hour had
come. In a clumsy speech he called the feast a "svensexa," i.e. a
farewell supper for a bachelor on the eve of his marriage, for he was
now to be a man and leave boyhood behind; he was to become a
member of society, a useful citizen and eat his own bread.
So he believed at the time, but he soon discovered that his
education had unfitted him for society, and as he did not wish to be
an outlaw the doubt awoke in him whether society, of which after all
school and university were a part, was not to blame for his
education, and whether it had not serious defects which needed a
remedy.

CHAPTER XIV

AMONG THE MALCONTENTS

(1872)

When John came to Stockholm, he borrowed money in order to hire

a room near the Ladugärdslandet. Always under the sway of
sentiment, he chose this quarter of the town because he always
used to walk there in his childhood on the 1st of May, and the High
Street especially had something of a holiday air about it. Moreover it
soon opened into the Zoological Gardens, which became his
favourite place for walks. The barracks with their drums and
trumpets had something exhilarating about them, and there were
fine views over the sea which was close at hand. There was plenty
of light and air. When he went for his morning walk he could choose
his route according to his mood. If he was sad and depressed, he
went along the Sirishofsvägen; if he was cheerful he turned off to
the level ground of Manilla, where the paradisial rose-valley exhaled
joy and delight; if he was despairing and anxious to avoid people he
went out to Ladugärdsgardet, where no one could disturb his self-
communings and his prayers to God. Sometimes, when his soul was
in a tumult, he remained standing by the cross-ways above the
bridge near the Zoological Gardens, irresolute which way to take. On
such occasion a thousand forces seemed to pull him in all directions.
His room was very simple and commanded no view. It smelt of
poverty, as the whole house did, in which the only person of
standing was the deputy-landlord, a policeman. John began his
active career by painting, out of a sense of need to give his feelings
shape and to express them in a palpable way, for the little letters
huddled together on the paper were dead and could not express his
mind so plainly and simultaneously. He did not think of being a
painter in order to exhibit or sell pictures. To step to the easel was
for him just like sitting down and singing. At the same time he
renewed his acquaintance with his friend the sculptor, who
introduced him to a circle of young painters. These were all
discontent with the Academy and the antiquated methods which
could not express their vague dreams. They still preserved the
Bohemian type, so late did the waves of modern ideas beat on the
far coasts of the North. They wore long hair, slouched hats, brilliant
cravats, and lived like the birds of heaven. They read and quoted
Byron and dreamt of enormous canvases and subjects such as no
studio could contain. A sculptor and a Norwegian had conceived the
idea of hewing a statue out of the Dovre rock; a painter wished to
paint the sea not merely as a level, but with such a wide horizon as
to show the convex curve of the globe.
This took John's fancy. One should give expression to one's inner
feelings and not depict mere sticks and stones which are
meaningless in themselves till they have passed through the alembic
of a percipient mind. Therefore the artists did not make studies out
of doors, but painted at home from their memory and imagination.
John always painted the sea with a coast in the foreground, some
gnarled pine-trees, a couple of rocky islets in the distance and a
white-painted buoy. The atmosphere was generally gloomy, with a
weak or strong light on the horizon; it was always sunset or
moonlight, never clear daylight.
But he was soon woken out of this dream-life partly by hunger,
partly by recollecting the reality which he had sought in order to
save himself from his dreams.
Although John knew little of contemporary politics, he knew that the
democracy or peasant-class had arrived at power, that they had
declared war on the official and middle classes, and that they were
hated in Upsala. And now he himself was to enter the ranks of the
combatants and attack the old order of things. The only item of the
knowledge which he had brought with him from Upsala which was
likely to be useful here, was the small amount of political science
which he had studied. Of what use were Astronomy, Philology,
Æsthetics, Latin and Chemistry here? He knew something about the
land-laws and communal-laws, but had no idea of political economy,
finance or jurisprudence. When he now began to look about for a
suitable paper to which to attach himself, it did not occur to him to
make use of his old connection with the Aftonbladet, but he wrote
for a small evening paper which had lately appeared, which was
regarded as radical and was issued by the New Liberal Union. The
editor held receptions in the La Croix Café, and here John was
introduced into the society of journalists. He felt ill at ease among
them. They did not think as he did, seemed uncultivated, as indeed
they were, and rather gossiped than discussed important matters.
They certainly busied themselves with facts, but these were rather
trifles than great questions. They were full of phrases, but did not
seem to have a proper command of their material. John, though
against his will, was too much of an academic aristocrat to
sympathise with these democrats, who for the most part had not
chosen their career, but been forced into it by the pressure of
circumstances. He found the atmosphere stifling for his idealism, and
came no more to the receptions after he had done his business, and
been invited to write for the paper.
He made his début as an art-critic. His first criticism concerned
Winge's "Thor with the giants" and Rosen's "Eric XIV and Karin
Monsdotter." The young critic naturally wished to display his
learning, though all he had was what he had picked up in lectures
and books. Therefore his criticism of Winge was a mere eulogy. His
remarks chiefly regarded the subject of the picture as a Norse one
and treated in the grand style. The painters did not like this sort of
criticism, as they considered the only point to be criticised in a work
of art was the execution. "Eric the XIV" he judged from his
monomaniacal point of view, "aristocrat or democrat," and found
fault with the incorrect conception of Göran Persson, whom in his
own tragedy Eric XIV (subsequently burnt) he had represented as an
enemy of the nobility and friend of the people.
Descended from his own height as a promising student, author and
royal protégé to the then less regarded class of journalists, he felt
himself again one of the lower orders.
After the editor had struck out his learned flourishes, the articles
were printed. The editor told him they were piquant, but advised
him to employ a more flowing style. He had not yet caught the
journalistic knack.
Then John planned a series of articles in which, under the title
"Perspective," he treated of social and economic questions. In these
he attacked university life, the divisions of the classes, the injurious
over-reading and the unfortunate position of the students. Since the
labour-question at that time was not a burning one, he ventured on
a comparison between the prospects of a student and that of a
workman, declaring the latter to be far better off. The workman was
generally in good health, could support himself at eighteen and
marry at twenty, while the student could not think of marriage and
making a livelihood before thirty. As a remedy he recommended
doing away with the final examination as Jaabaek had already done
in Norway, and the transference of the university to Stockholm in
order that the students might have a chance of earning something
during their course. As an example he adduced the case of modern
students at Athens who learn a trade while they study. This was all
clear to him as early as 1872, yet when he made similar suggestions
twelve years later, he was thought to have conceived them on the
spur of the moment.
At the same time he took an engagement on a small illustrated
ladies' paper and wrote biographical notices and novelettes. The
ladies were very kind, but let him work too hard, and gave him all
kinds of commissions to execute. After he had spent two or three
days in paying visits, dived into a publisher's place of business, read
biographical romances in three or four volumes, made researches in
the library, run to the printing-office and finally written his columns
carefully, setting each person treated of in a proper historical light,
and analysing his career, he received, for all that work, fifteen
kronas. He calculated that this was less pay per hour than a servant
earned. The bread of the literary man was certainty hardly earned,
and that this is the common lot of authors does not make matters
better. But the profession was also despised, and John felt that in
social position he stood below his brothers who were tradesmen,
below the actors, yes, even below the elementary school-teachers.
The journalists led a subterranean existence, but they styled
themselves "we" and wrote as though they were sovereigns of God's
appointment; they had men's weal or woe in their hand, since the
chief weapon in the struggle for existence in our civilised days is
social reputation. How was it that society had given these free
lances such terrible power without taking any guarantees? But when
one comes to think, what assurance is there for the capacity and
insight of the law-givers in parliament, in the ministry, on the
throne? None whatever! It is therefore the same all round. There
were, however, two classes of newspapers; the conservative, which
wished to preserve the social condition with all its defects, and the
liberal, which wished to improve it. The former enjoyed a certain
respect, the latter, none at all. John instinctively sided with the last,
and at once felt that he was regarded as every one's enemy. A
liberal journalist and a chronicler of scandals were synonymous
terms. At home he had heard the usual phrase that "no one was
honourable whose name had not appeared in the paper Fatherland."
In the street they had pointed out to him a man who looked like a
bandit, with the mark of a dagger-stab between his eyes, and said,
"There goes the journalist X." In the Café La Croix he felt depressed
among his new colleagues, but none the less chose to associate with
this unpopular group. Did he choose really? One does not choose
one's impulses, and it is no virtue to be a democrat when one hates
the upper classes and has no pleasure in their company.
Meanwhile for social intercourse he went to the artists. It was a
strange world in which they lived. There was so much nature among
these men who busied themselves with art. They dressed badly,
lived like beggars—one of them lived in the same room with the
servant—and ate what they could get; they could hardly read, and
had no knowledge of orthography. At the same time they talked like
cultivated people, they looked at things from an independent point
of view, were keenly observant and unfettered by dogmas. One of
them four years previously had minded geese, a second had wielded
the smith's hammer, a third had been a farmer's servant and walked
behind the dung-cart, and a fourth had been a soldier. They ate with
knives, used their sleeves as napkins, had no handkerchiefs and only
one coat in winter. However, John felt at home with them, though of
late years he had been conversant only with cultivated and well-to-
do young people. It was not that he was superior to them, for that
they did not acknowledge, nor was it any use to quote books to
them, for they accepted no authority. His doubts as regards books,
especially text-books, began to be aroused, and he began to suspect
that old books may injure a modern man's thinking powers. This
doubt became a certainty when he met one of the group whom all
regarded as a genius.
He was a painter about thirty years old, formerly a farmer's servant
who had come to the Academy in order to become an artist. After he
had spent some time in the painting school he came to the
conclusion that art was insufficient as a medium for expressing his
thoughts, and he lived now on nothing, while he busied himself by
reflecting on the questions of the time. Badly educated at an
elementary school, he had now flung himself on the most up-to-date
books and had a start of John, since he had begun where the latter
had left off. Between John and him there was the same difference as
between a mathematician and a pilot. The former can calculate in
logarithms, the latter can turn them to practical use. But Måns also
was critically disposed and did not believe in books blindly. He had
no ready-made scheme or system into which to fit his thoughts; he
always thought freely, investigated, sifted and only retained what he
recognised as tenable. More free from passions than John, he could
draw more reckless inferences, even when they went against his
own wishes and interests, though with certain matter-of-course
limitations. He was more-over prudent, as indeed he must have
been to have worked himself up from such a low position, and
understood how to be silent as to certain conclusions, which, if
expressed tactlessly and in the wrong place, might have injured him.
As his literary adviser, he had a telegraph-assistant whose
knowledge Mans knew better how to use than its owner himself; the
latter had not a very lively intellect, although in his knowledge of
languages he possessed the key to the three great modern
literatures. Passionless and self-conscious, with a strong control over
his impulses, he stood outside everything, contemplating and smiling
at the free play of thought which he enjoyed as a work of art, with
the accompanying certainly that it was after all only an illusion.
With both of these John had many friendly disputes. When he drew
up his schemes for the future of men and society he could rouse
Måns' enthusiasm and carry him along with him, but when he had
taken his hearer a certain way with his emotional and passionate
descriptions, the latter took out his microscope, found the weak spot
where to insert his knife, and cut. On such occasions John was
impatient and motioned his opponent away. "You are a pedant," he
said, "and fasten on details." But sometimes it turned out that the
"detail" was a premise the excision of which made the whole grand
fabric of inference collapse. John was always a poet, and had he
continued as such unhindered he might have brought it to
something. The poet can speak to the point like the preacher, and
that is an advantageous position. He can rattle on without being
interrupted, and therefore he can persuade if not convince. It was
through these two unlearned men that John learned a philosophy
which was not known at Upsala. In the course of conversation, his
opponents often referred to an authority whom they called "Buckle."
John rejected an authority of whom he had heard nothing in Upsala.
But the name continually recurred and worried him to such an
extent that he at last asked his friends to lend him the book. The
effect of reading it was such that John regarded his acquaintance
with the book as the vestibule of his intellectual life. Here there was
an atmosphere of pure naked truth. So it should be and so it was.
Måns, like all other organised beings, was under the control of
natural laws; all so-called spiritual qualities rest on a material basis,
and chemical affinities are as spiritual as the sympathies of souls.
The whole of speculative philosophy which wished to evolve laws
from the inner consciousness was only a better kind of theology, and
what was worse, an inquisition, which wished to confine the many-
sidedness of the world-process within the limits of an individual
system. "No system" is Buckle's motto. Doubt is the beginning of all
wisdom, doubt means investigation and stimulates intellectual
progress. The truth which one seeks is simply the discovery of
natural laws. Knowledge is the highest, morality is only an accidental
form of behaviour, which depends upon different social conventions.
Only knowledge can make men happy, and the simple-minded or
ignorant with their moral strivings, their benevolence and their
philanthropy are only injurious or useless.
And now he drew the necessary conclusions. Heavenly love and its
result, marriage, is conditioned as to that result by such a prosaic
matter as the price of provisions; the rate of suicide varies with
wages, and religion is conditioned by natural scenery, climate and
soil. His mind was predisposed to receive the new doctrines, and
now they made their triumphant entry. John had always planted his
feet firmly on the earth, and neither the balloon-voyages of poetry
nor the will-o'-the-wisps of German philosophy had found a sincere
adherent in him. He had sat in despair over Kant's Kritik der reinen
Vernunft, and asked himself with curiosity, whether it was he who
was so stupid or Kant who was so obscure. The study of the history
of philosophy, in which he had seen how each philosopher pointed to
his system as the true one, and championed it against others, had
left him amazed. Now it was clear to him that the idealists who
mingle their obscure perceptions with dear presentations of facts
were only savages or children, and that the realists, who were alone
capable of clear perceptions, were the most highly developed in the
scale of creation. The poets and philosophers are somnambulists,
and the religious who always live in fear of the unknown are like
animals in a forest who fear every rustic in the bushes, or like
primitive men who sacrificed to the thunder instead of erecting
lightning rods.
Now he had a weapon in his hand to wield against the old
authorities and against the schools and universities which were
enslaved by patronage. Buckle himself had run away from school,
had never been at a university, and hated them. Apropos of Locke
he remarks, "Were this deep thinker now alive, he would inveigh
against our great universities and schools, where countless subjects
are learnt which no one needs, and which few take the trouble to
remember."
Accordingly Upsala had been wrong, and John right. He knew that
there were ignorant savants there, and that it was on account of
their own want of culture that the professors of philosophy could
teach nothing but German philosophy. They neither knew English
nor French philosophy for the simple reason that they only
understood Latin and German. Buckle's History of Civilisation in
England was written in 1857, but did not reach Sweden till 1871-72.
Even then the soil was not ready for the seed. The learned critics
were unfavourable to Buckle, and the seed took root only in some
young minds who had no authoritative voice.
"No literature," says Buckle himself, "can be useful to a people, if
they are not prepared to receive it." Thus it was with Buckle and his
work, which preceded that of Darwin (1858) and contained all its
inferences—a proof that evolution in the world of thought is not so
strictly conditioned as has been believed. Buckle did not know Mill or
Spencer, whose thoughts now rule the world, but he said most of
what they said subsequently.
Now, if John had had a character, i.e. if he had been ruled by a
single quiet purpose directed towards one object, he would have
extracted from Buckle all that answered his purpose and left out all
that told against it. But he was a truth-seeker and did not shrink
from looking into the abyss of contradictions, especially as Buckle
never asserted that he had found the truth, and because truth is
relative and it is often found on both sides. Doubt, criticism, inquiry
are the chief matter, and the only useful course to pursue, as they
guarantee liberty. Sermons, programmes, certainty, system, "truth"
are various forms of constraint and stupidity. But it is impossible to
be a consistent doubter when one is crammed full with "complete
evidence," and when one's judgment is swayed by class-prejudice,
anxiety for a living and struggles for a position. John became calm
when he learnt that all that was wrong in the world was wrong in
accordance with necessary law, but he became furious when he
made the further discovery that our social condition, our religion and
morality were absurdities. He wished to understand and pardon his
opponents, since in their actions they were no more free than he
was, but he was in duty bound to strangle them since they hindered
the evolution of society towards universal happiness, and that was
the only and greatest crime that could be committed. But as there
were no criminals, how could one get hold of the crime?
He was rejoiced that the mistakes had now been discovered, but
despair oppressed him again when he saw that the discovery was
premature. Nothing could be done for many years to come. Social
evolution was a very slow process. Consequently he must lie at
anchor in the roadstead waiting for the tide. But this waiting was too
long for him; he heard an inner voice bidding him speak, for if one
does not spread what light one has, how can popular views be
changed? Yes, but a premature promulgation of new ideas can do no
good. Thus he was tossed to and fro. Everything round him now
seemed so old and out of date that he could not read a newspaper
without getting an attack of cramp. They only had regard to the
present moment; no one thought of the future. His philosophical
friend comforted and calmed him, through, among other sayings, a
sentence of La Bruyère, "Don't be angry because men are stupid and
bad, or you will have to be angry because a stone falls; both are
subject to the same laws; one must be stupid and the other fall."
"That is all very well," said John, "but think of having to be a bird
and live in a ditch! Air! light! I cannot breathe or see," he exclaimed;
"I suffocate!"
"Write!" answered his friend.
"Yes, but what?"
Where should he begin? Buckle had already written everything, and
yet it was as though it had not been written. The worst thing was
that he felt he lacked the power. Hitherto he had only felt a very
moderate degree of ambition. He did not wish to march at the head,
to be a conqueror and so on. But to go in front with an axe as a
simple pioneer, to fell trees, root up thickets, and let others build
bridges and throw up redoubts, was enough for him. It is often
observable that great ambition is only the sign of great power. John
was moderately ambitious, because he was now only conscious of
moderate powers. Formerly when he was young and strong he had
great confidence in himself. He was a fanatic, i.e. his will was
supported by powerful passions, but his awakened insight and
healthy doubt had sobered his self-confidence. The work before him
took the form of rock-walls which must be pulled down, but he was
not so simple as to venture on the task.
Now he began to habituate himself forcibly to doubt in order to be
patient and not to explode. He entrenched himself in doubt as in a
fortress, and as a means of self-preservation he determined to
depict his struggles and doubts in a drama. The subject matter
which he had been turning over in his mind for a year he took from
the history of the Reformation in Sweden. Thus was composed the
drama later on known as The Apostate.

CHAPTER XV

THE RED ROOM

(1872)
In autumn occurred the death of Charles XV. With the mourning,
which was fairly sincere and widespread, there mingled gloomy
anxieties for the future. One of the young painters who belonged to
John's circle of friends had just received a royal stipend and gone to
Norway. He had now to return quite destitute and without any
prospects for the future. John was accustomed to go with him into
the Zoological Gardens in order to paint, and occupy his mind while
he was waiting for an answer from the theatrical manager to whom
he had sent his drama.
There is indeed no occupation which so absorbs all the thoughts and
emotions so much as painting. John watched and enjoyed the
delicate harmonies of the lines in the branch-formation of the trees,
in the wave-like curves of the ground, but his paint-brush was too
coarse to reproduce the contours as he wished. Then he took his
pen and made a drawing in detail. But when he tried to transfer it to
his canvas and paint it, the whole appeared but a smudge.
Pelle, on the other hand, was an impressionist and look no notice of
details. He took up the landscape at a stroke, so to speak, and gave
the colours their due value, but the various objects melted into
uncertain silhouettes. John thought Pelle's landscapes more beautiful
than the reality, although he cherished great reverence for the works
of the Creator. After he had wiled away about a month in painting,
he went one evening into the Café La Croix. The first person he met
was his former editor, who said, "I have just heard from X." (a young
author) "that the Theatre Royal has refused The Apostate."
"I know nothing about it," answered John. He did not feel well and
left the company as soon as possible. The next day he went to his
former instructor to find how the matter stood. The latter began first
to praise, and then to criticise it, which is the right method. He said
that the characters of Olaus Petri and Gustav Wasa had been
brought down from their proper level and distorted. John, on the
other hand, held that he had given a realistic representation of them
as they probably were, before their figures had been idealised by
patriotic considerations. His friend replied that that was no good; the
public would never accept a new reading of their characters till
critical inquiry had done its preliminary work.
That was true, but the blow was a heavy one, although dealt with as
much consideration as possible, and the author was invited to
remodel his drama. He had again been premature in his attempt.
There was nothing left for him but to wait and wile away the time.
To think of remodelling it now was not possible for him, for he saw,
when he read it through again, that it was all cast in one piece and
that the details could not be altered. He could not change it, unless
he changed his thoughts, and therefore he must wait.
Now he took to reading again. Chance brought into his hand two of
"the best books which one can read." They were De Tocqueville's
Democracy in America and Prévost-Paradol's The New France. The
former increased his doubts as to the possibility of democracy in an
uncultivated community. Written with sincere admiration for the
political institutions of America, which the author holds up as a
pattern for Europe, this work points out so sincerely the dangers of
democracy, as to make even a born hater of the aristocracy pause.
John's theories received terrible blows, but this time his good sense
triumphed over his prejudices. His loss of faith in his own powers,
however, had a demoralising effect upon him, and he was soon ripe
for absolute scepticism. Sentences such as the following admitted at
that time of no contradiction: "The moral power of the majority is
based partly upon the conviction that a number of men have more
understanding, intelligence and wisdom than an individual, and a
great number of lawgivers more than a selection of them. That is the
principle of equality applied to intellectual gifts. This doctrine attacks
the pride of humanity in its innermost citadel."
An individualist like John did not perceive that this pride can and
must be overcome. Nor did he see that wisdom and intelligence can
be spread by means of good schools among the masses.
"When a man or a party in the United States suffers injustice, to
whom shall he turn? To public opinion? That is the opinion of the
majority. To the legislative officials? They are nominated by the
majority and obey it blindly. To the executive power? That is chosen
by the majority and serves it as a passive instrument. To the military
forces of the State? They are simply the majority under arms. To
juries? They are formed by a majority which possesses the right to
judge." De Tocqueville goes on to say that the happiness of the
majority which consists in maintaining its rights deserves
recognition, and that it is better for a minority to suffer from
pressure than a majority, but the sufferings which an intelligent
minority suffer from an unintelligent majority are much greater than
those which an intelligent minority inflict upon a majority. On the
other hand, the minority understands much better than the majority
what conduces to their own and the general happiness, and
therefore the tyranny of the minority is not to be compared with that
of the majority.
"Yes, but," thought John, "did not the European peoples generally
suffer from the tyranny of a minority?" The mere fact that there
were upper classes lay like a heavy cloud on the life of the masses.
Nowadays the question may be raised, "Why should a different
class-education result in an intelligent minority and an unintelligent
majority?" But such questions were not raised then. Moreover had
such a state really ever been seen in which an intelligent minority
had the power to "oppress"? No, for sovereigns, ministers and
parliaments had usually the due modicum of intelligence.
That which more than anything else inclined John to fear the power
of the masses, was the fact noted by De Tocqueville that they
tyrannised over freedom of thought.
"When one tries to ascertain," he says, "how much freedom of
thought there is in the United States it becomes apparent how much
the tyranny of the masses transcends any despotism known to
Europe. I know no country where there is, generally speaking, less
independence of opinion and real freedom of discussion than
America. The majority draw a terribly narrow circle round all
thought. Within that circle an author may say what he likes, but woe
to him if he step across the limit. He has no auto-da-fé to fear, but
he is made the mark for all kinds of unpleasantness and daily
persecutions. Every good quality is denied him, even honour. Before
he published his views, he thought he had adherents; after he has
made them known to all the world he sees that he no longer has
any, for his critics have raised an outcry, and those who thought as
he did, but lacked the courage to express themselves, are silent and
withdraw. He gives way; he finally collapses under the strain of daily
renewed effort, and resumes silence, as though he regretted having
spoken the truth,
"In democratic republics, tyranny lets the body alone and attacks the
soul. In them the dominant power does not say, 'You must think as I
do, or die;' it says, 'You are free to differ from me in opinion; your
life and property will remain untouched, but from the day that you
express a different view from mine, you will be a stranger among us.
You will retain your rights and privileges as a citizen, but they will be
useless to you. You will remain among men, but be deprived of all a
man's rights. When you approach your equals they will flee you as
though you were a leper; even those who believe in your innocence
will abandon you, lest they should be themselves abandoned. Go in
peace! I grant you life, but a life which shall be harder and bitterer
than death!'"
That is the true and credible picture which the noble De Tocqueville,
friend of the people and tyrant-hater as he was, has drawn of the
tyranny of the masses, those masses whose feet John had felt
trampling on him at home, at school, in the steamer and the theatre,
those masses whom he had satirised in the play Sinking Hellas, and
whom he had described as throwing the first stone at Olaus Petri
just at the moment when he was preaching to them of freedom! If it
is thus in America, how can one expect anything better in Europe.
He found himself in a cul-de-sac. His hereditary disposition
prevented his becoming an aristocrat, nor could he come to terms
with the people. Had he not himself suffered lately from an ignorant
theatre-management behind which stood the uncultivated public,
and found the way blocked for his new and liberal ideas. There was
then already a mob-despotism in Sweden, and the director of the
Theatre Royal was only their servant.
It was all absurdity! And even suppose society were ruled by those
who knew most. Then they would be under professors with their
heads full of antiquarian ideas. Even if the director had put his
drama on the stage, it would have certainly been hissed off by the
tradesmen in the stalls, and no critics could have helped him!
His thoughts struggled like fishes in a net, and ended by being
caught. It was not worth the trouble of thinking about and he tried
to banish the thought, but could not. He felt a continual trouble and
despair in his mind that the world was going idiotically, majestically
and unalterably to the devil. "Unalterably," he thought, for as yet a
large number of strong minds had not attacked the problem, which
was soluble after all. Ten years later it was provisionally solved,
when knowledge on the subject of this sphinx-riddle had been so
widely spread that even a workman had obtained some insight into
it, and in a public meeting had declared that equality was
impossible, for the block-heads could not be equal to the sharp-
sighted, and that the utmost one could demand was equality of
position. This workman was more of an aristocrat than John dared to
be in the year 1872, though he belonged to no party which claimed
the right to muzzle him.
Prévost-Paradol had dealt with the same theme as Tocqueville, but
he suggested a secret device against the tyranny of the masses—the
cumulative vote or the privilege of writing the same name several
times on the ballot-paper. But John considered this method, which
had been tried in England, doubtful.
He had set great hopes on his drama, and borrowed money on the
strength of them, and now felt much depressed. The disproportion
between his fancied and his real value galled him. Now he had to
adopt a rôle, learn it, and carry it out. He composed one for himself,
consisting of the sceptic, the materialist and the liar, and found that
it suited him excellently. This was for the simple reason that it was a
sceptical and materialistic period, and because he had unconsciously
developed into a man of his time. But he still believed that his earlier
discarded personality, ruled indeed by wild passions, but cherishing
ideals of a higher calling, love to mankind and similar imaginations,
was his true and better self which he hid from the world. All men
make similar mistakes when they value sickly sentimentality above
strong thought, when they look back to their youth and think they
were purer and more virtuous then, which is certainly untrue. The
world calls the weaker side of men their "better self," because this
weakness is more advantageous for the world and self-interest
seems to dictate its judgment. John found that in his new rôle he
was freed from all possible prejudices—religious, social, political and
moral. He had only one opinion,—that everything was absurd, only
one conviction,—that nothing could be done at present, and only
one hope,—that the time would come when one might effectively
intervene, and when there would be improvement. But from that
time he altogether gave up reading newspapers. To hear stupidity
praised, selfish acts lauded as philanthropic, and reason
blasphemed,—that was too much for a fanatical sceptic. Sometimes,
however, he thought that the majority were right in just being at the
point of view where they were, and that it was unnecessary that
some few individuals, because of a specialised education, should run
far ahead of the rest. In quiet moments he recognised that his
mental development which had taken place so rapidly, without his
ever seeing an idea realised, could be a pattern for such a slowly-
working machine as society is. Why did he run so far ahead? It was
not the fault of the school or university, for they had held him back
equally with the majority.
Yes, but those already out in the world, by their own hearths, had
already reached the stage of Buckle's scepticism as regards the
social order, so that he was not so far ahead after all. The slow rate
of progress was enough to make one despair. What Schiller's Karl
Moor had seen a hundred years previously, what the French
Revolution had actually brought about were now regarded as brand-
new ideas. After the Revolution, social development had gone
backwards; religious superstitions were revived, belief in a better
state of things lost, and economic and industrial progress was
accompanied by sweating and terrible poverty. It was absurd! All
minds that were awake at all had to suffer,—suffer like every living
organism when hindered in growth and pressed backward. The
century had been inaugurated by the destruction of hopes, and
nothing has such a paralysing effect on the soul as disappointed
hope, which, as statistics show, is one of the most frequent causes
of madness. Therefore all great spirits were, vulgarly speaking, mad.
Chateaubriand was a hypochondriac, Musset a lunatic, Victor Hugo a
maniac. The automatic pygmies of everyday life cannot realise what
such suffering means, and yet believe themselves capable of judging
in the matter.
The ancient poet is psychologically correct in representing
Prometheus as having his liver gnawed by a vulture. Prometheus
was the revolutionary who wished to spread mental illumination
among men. Whether he did it from altruistic motives, or from the
selfish one of wishing to breathe a purer mental atmosphere, may
be left undecided. John, who felt akin to this rebel, was aware of a
pain which resembled anxiety, and a perpetual boring "toothache in
the liver." Was Prometheus then a liver-patient who confusedly
ascribed his pain to causes outside himself? Probably not! But he
was certainly embittered when he saw that the world is a lunatic
asylum in which the idiots go about as they like, and the few who
preserve reason are watched as though dangerous to the public
safety. Attacks of illness can certainly colour men's views, and every
one well knows how gloomy our thoughts are when we have attacks
of fever. But patients such as Samuel Oedmann or Olaf Eneroth were
neither sulky nor bitter, but, on the contrary, mild, perhaps languid
from want of strength. Voltaire, who was never well, had an
imperturbably good temper. And Musset did not write as he did
because he drank absinthe, but he drank from the same cause that
he wrote in that manner, i.e. from despair. Therefore it is not in good
faith that idealists who deny the existence of the body, ascribe the
discontent of many authors to causes such as indigestion, etc., the
supposition of which contradicts their own principles, but it must be
against their better knowledge, or with worse knowledge.
Kierkegaard's gloomy way of writing can be ascribed to an absurd
education, unfortunate family relations, dreary social surroundings,
and alongside of these to some organic defects, but not to the latter
alone.
Discontent with the existing state of things will always assert itself
among those who are in process of development, and discontent has
pushed the world forwards, while content has pushed it back.
Content is a virtue born of necessity, hopelessness or superfluity; it
can be cancelled with impunity.
Catarrh of the stomach may cause ill temper, but it has never
produced a great politician, i.e. a great malcontent. But sickliness
may impart to a malcontent's energy a stronger colour and greater
rapidity, and therefore cannot be denied a certain influence. On the
other hand, a conscious insight into grievances can produce such a
degree of mental annoyance as can result in sickness. The loss of
dear friends through death, may in this way cause consumption, and
the loss of a social position or of property, madness.
If every modern individual shows a geological stratification of the
stages of development through which his ancestors passed, so in
every European mind are found traces of the primitive Aryan,—class-
feeling, fixed family ideas, religious motives, etc. From the early
Christians we have the idea of equality, love to our neighbour,
contempt for mere earthly life; from the mediæval monks, self-
castigation and hopes of heaven. Besides these, we inherit traits
from the sensuous cultured pagans of the Renaissance, the religious
and political fanatics of the sixteenth century, the sceptics of the
"illumination" period, and the anarchists of the Revolution. Education
should therefore consist in the obliteration of old stains which
continually reappear however often we polish them away.
John proceeded to obliterate the monk, the fanatic and the self-
tormentor in himself as well as he could, and took as the leading
principle of his provisional life (for it was only provisional till he
struck out a course for himself) the well-understood one of personal
advantage, which is actually, though unconsciously, employed by all,
to whatever creed they belong.
He did not transgress the ordinary laws, because he did not wish to
appear in a court of justice; he encroached on no one's rights
because he wished his own not to be encroached upon. He met men
sympathetically, for he did not hate them, nor did he study them
critically till they had broken their promises and shown a want of
sympathy to him. He justified them all so long as he could, and
when he could not, well,—he could not, but he tried by working to
place himself in a position to be able to do so. He regarded his talent
as a capital sum, which, although at present it yielded no interest,
gave him the right and imposed on him the duty to live at any price.
He was not the kind of man to force his way into society in order to
exploit it for his own purposes, he was simply a man of capacity
conscious of his own powers, who placed himself at the disposal of
society modestly, and in the first place to be used as a dramatist.
The theatre, as a matter of fact, needed him to contribute to its
Swedish repertory.
After a solitary day's work, it was his habit to go to a café to meet
his acquaintances there. To seek "more elevated" recreations in
family circles such as meaningless gossip, card playing and such like
had no attraction for him. Whenever he entered a family circle he
felt himself surrounded by a musty atmosphere like that exhaled
from stagnant water. Married couples who had been badgering each
other, were glad to welcome him as a sort of lightning conductor, but
he had no pleasure in playing that part. Family life appeared to him
as a prison in which two captives spied on each other, as a place in
which children were tormented, and servant-girls quarrelled. It was
something nasty from which he ran away to the restaurants. In them
there was a public room where no one was guest and no one was
host: one enjoyed plenty of space and light, heard music, saw
people and met friends. John and his friends were accustomed to
meet in a back room of Bern's great restaurant which, because of
the colour of the furniture, was called the "red room." The little club
consisted originally of John and a few artistic and philosophical
friends. But their circle was soon enlarged by old friends whom they
met again. They were first of all recruited by the presentable former
scholars of the Clara School,—a postal clerk who was at the same
time a bass singer, pianist and composer; a secretary of the Court
treasurer; and the trump card of the society,—a lieutenant of
artillery. To these were added later, the composer's indispensable
friend, a lithographer, who published his music, and a notary who
sang his compositions. The club was not homogeneous, but they
soon managed to shake down together.
But since the laymen had no wish to hear discussions on art,
literature and philosophy, their conversations were only on general
subjects. John, who did not wish to discuss any more problems,
adopted a sceptical tone, and baffled all attempts at discussion by a
play upon words, a quibble or a question. His ultimate "why?"
behind every penultimate assertion threw a light on the too-sure
conclusions of stupidity, and let his hearer surmise that behind the
usually accepted commonplaces there were possibilities of truths
stretching out in endless perspective. These views of his must have
germinated like seeds in most of their brains, for in a short time they
were all sceptics, and began to use a special language of their own.
This healthy scepticism in the infallibility of each other's judgments
had, as a natural consequence, a brutal sincerity of speech and
thought. It was of no use to speak of one's feelings as though they
were praise worthy, for one was cut short with "Are you sentimental,
poor devil? Take bi-carbonate."
If any one complained of toothache, all he received by way of
answer was, "That does not rouse my sympathy at all, for I have
never had toothache, and it has no effect upon my resolve to give a
supper."
They were disciples of Helvetius in believing that one must regard
egotism as the mainspring of all human actions, and therefore it was
no use pretending to finer emotions. To borrow money or to get
goods on credit without being certain of being able to pay, was
rightly regarded as cheating, and so designated. For instance, if a