Notes from the Underground

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  VII

  But these are all golden dreams. Oh, tell me, who was it firstannounced, who was it first proclaimed, that man only does nasty thingsbecause he does not know his own interests; and that if he wereenlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, manwould at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good andnoble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage,he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else, and we allknow that not one man can, consciously, act against his own interests,consequently, so to say, through necessity, he would begin doing good?Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child! Why, in the first place,when in all these thousands of years has there been a time when man hasacted only from his own interest? What is to be done with the millionsof facts that bear witness that men, CONSCIOUSLY, that is fullyunderstanding their real interests, have left them in the backgroundand have rushed headlong on another path, to meet peril and danger,compelled to this course by nobody and by nothing, but, as it were,simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, wilfully,struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in thedarkness. So, I suppose, this obstinacy and perversity were pleasanterto them than any advantage.... Advantage! What is advantage? And willyou take it upon yourself to define with perfect accuracy in what theadvantage of man consists? And what if it so happens that a man'sadvantage, SOMETIMES, not only may, but even must, consist in hisdesiring in certain cases what is harmful to himself and notadvantageous. And if so, if there can be such a case, the wholeprinciple falls into dust. What do you think--are there such cases?You laugh; laugh away, gentlemen, but only answer me: have man'sadvantages been reckoned up with perfect certainty? Are there not somewhich not only have not been included but cannot possibly be includedunder any classification? You see, you gentlemen have, to the best ofmy knowledge, taken your whole register of human advantages from theaverages of statistical figures and politico-economical formulas. Youradvantages are prosperity, wealth, freedom, peace--and so on, and soon. So that the man who should, for instance, go openly and knowinglyin opposition to all that list would to your thinking, and indeed mine,too, of course, be an obscurantist or an absolute madman: would not he?But, you know, this is what is surprising: why does it so happen thatall these statisticians, sages and lovers of humanity, when they reckonup human advantages invariably leave out one? They don't even take itinto their reckoning in the form in which it should be taken, and thewhole reckoning depends upon that. It would be no greater matter, theywould simply have to take it, this advantage, and add it to the list.But the trouble is, that this strange advantage does not fall under anyclassification and is not in place in any list. I have a friend forinstance ... Ech! gentlemen, but of course he is your friend, too; andindeed there is no one, no one to whom he is not a friend! When heprepares for any undertaking this gentleman immediately explains toyou, elegantly and clearly, exactly how he must act in accordance withthe laws of reason and truth. What is more, he will talk to you withexcitement and passion of the true normal interests of man; with ironyhe will upbraid the short-sighted fools who do not understand their owninterests, nor the true significance of virtue; and, within a quarterof an hour, without any sudden outside provocation, but simply throughsomething inside him which is stronger than all his interests, he willgo off on quite a different tack--that is, act in direct opposition towhat he has just been saying about himself, in opposition to the lawsof reason, in opposition to his own advantage, in fact in opposition toeverything ... I warn you that my friend is a compound personality andtherefore it is difficult to blame him as an individual. The fact is,gentlemen, it seems there must really exist something that is dearer toalmost every man than his greatest advantages, or (not to be illogical)there is a most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of whichwe spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous thanall other advantages, for the sake of which a man if necessary is readyto act in opposition to all laws; that is, in opposition to reason,honour, peace, prosperity--in fact, in opposition to all thoseexcellent and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental,most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all. "Yes, butit's advantage all the same," you will retort. But excuse me, I'llmake the point clear, and it is not a case of playing upon words. Whatmatters is, that this advantage is remarkable from the very fact thatit breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters everysystem constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind. Infact, it upsets everything. But before I mention this advantage toyou, I want to compromise myself personally, and therefore I boldlydeclare that all these fine systems, all these theories for explainingto mankind their real normal interests, in order that inevitablystriving to pursue these interests they may at once become good andnoble--are, in my opinion, so far, mere logical exercises! Yes,logical exercises. Why, to maintain this theory of the regeneration ofmankind by means of the pursuit of his own advantage is to my mindalmost the same thing ... as to affirm, for instance, following Buckle,that through civilisation mankind becomes softer, and consequently lessbloodthirsty and less fitted for warfare. Logically it does seem tofollow from his arguments. But man has such a predilection for systemsand abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truthintentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only tojustify his logic. I take this example because it is the most glaringinstance of it. Only look about you: blood is being spilt in streams,and in the merriest way, as though it were champagne. Take the wholeof the nineteenth century in which Buckle lived. Take Napoleon--theGreat and also the present one. Take North America--the eternal union.Take the farce of Schleswig-Holstein.... And what is it thatcivilisation softens in us? The only gain of civilisation for mankindis the greater capacity for variety of sensations--and absolutelynothing more. And through the development of this many-sidedness manmay come to finding enjoyment in bloodshed. In fact, this has alreadyhappened to him. Have you noticed that it is the most civilisedgentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers, to whom the Attilasand Stenka Razins could not hold a candle, and if they are not soconspicuous as the Attilas and Stenka Razins it is simply because theyare so often met with, are so ordinary and have become so familiar tous. In any case civilisation has made mankind if not morebloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty. Inold days he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peaceexterminated those he thought proper. Now we do think bloodshedabominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energythan ever. Which is worse? Decide that for yourselves. They say thatCleopatra (excuse an instance from Roman history) was fond of stickinggold pins into her slave-girls' breasts and derived gratification fromtheir screams and writhings. You will say that that was in thecomparatively barbarous times; that these are barbarous times too,because also, comparatively speaking, pins are stuck in even now; thatthough man has now learned to see more clearly than in barbarous ages,he is still far from having learnt to act as reason and science woulddictate. But yet you are fully convinced that he will be sure to learnwhen he gets rid of certain old bad habits, and when common sense andscience have completely re-educated human nature and turned it in anormal direction. You are confident that then man will cease fromINTENTIONAL error and will, so to say, be compelled not to want to sethis will against his normal interests. That is not all; then, you say,science itself will teach man (though to my mind it's a superfluousluxury) that he never has really had any caprice or will of his own,and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or thestop of an organ, and that there are, besides, things called the lawsof nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it,but is done of itself, by the laws of nature. Consequently we haveonly to discover these laws of nature, and man will no longer have toanswer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him.All human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to theselaws, mathematically, like tables of logarithms up to 108,000,
andentered in an index; or, better still, there would be published certainedifying works of the nature of encyclopaedic lexicons, in whicheverything will be so clearly calculated and explained that there willbe no more incidents or adventures in the world.

  Then--this is all what you say--new economic relations will beestablished, all ready-made and worked out with mathematicalexactitude, so that every possible question will vanish in thetwinkling of an eye, simply because every possible answer to it will beprovided. Then the "Palace of Crystal" will be built. Then ... Infact, those will be halcyon days. Of course there is no guaranteeing(this is my comment) that it will not be, for instance, frightfullydull then (for what will one have to do when everything will becalculated and tabulated), but on the other hand everything will beextraordinarily rational. Of course boredom may lead you to anything.It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all thatwould not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is that Idare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then. Man isstupid, you know, phenomenally stupid; or rather he is not at allstupid, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another likehim in all creation. I, for instance, would not be in the leastsurprised if all of a sudden, A PROPOS of nothing, in the midst ofgeneral prosperity a gentleman with an ignoble, or rather with areactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, putting hisarms akimbo, say to us all: "I say, gentleman, hadn't we better kickover the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply tosend these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once moreat our own sweet foolish will!" That again would not matter, but whatis annoying is that he would be sure to find followers--such is thenature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, onewould think, was hardly worth mentioning: that is, that man everywhereand at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he choseand not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated. And one maychoose what is contrary to one's own interests, and sometimes onePOSITIVELY OUGHT (that is my idea). One's own free unfettered choice,one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up attimes to frenzy--is that very "most advantageous advantage" which wehave overlooked, which comes under no classification and against whichall systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. Andhow do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice?What has made them conceive that man must want a rationallyadvantageous choice? What man wants is simply INDEPENDENT choice,whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. Andchoice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.