Notes from Underground

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  VII

  But these are all golden dreams. Oh, tell me, who first announced, who was the first to proclaim that man does dirty only because he doesn't know his real interests; and that were he to be enlightened, were his eyes to be opened to his real, normal interests, man would immediately stop doing dirty, would immediately become good and noble, because, being enlightened and understanding his real profit, he would see his real profit precisely in the good, and it's common knowledge that no man can act knowingly against his own profit, consequently, out of necessity, so to speak, he would start doing good? Oh, the babe! oh, the pure, innocent child! and when was it, to begin with, in all these thousands of years, that man acted solely for his own profit? What is to be done with the millions of facts testifying to how people knowingly, that is, fully understanding their real profit, would put it in second place and throw themselves onto another path, a risk, a perchance, not compelled by anyone or anything, but precisely as if they simply did not want the designated path, and stubbornly, willfully pushed off onto another one, difficult, absurd, searching for it all but in the dark. So, then, this stubbornness and willfulness were really more agreeable to them than any profit… Profit! What is profit? And will you take it upon yourself to define with perfect exactitude precisely what man's profit consists in? And what if it so happens that on occasion man's profit not only may but precisely must consist in sometimes wishing what is bad for himself, and not what is profitable? And if so, if there can be such a case, then the whole rule goes up in smoke. What do you think, can such a case occur? You're laughing; laugh then, gentlemen, only answer me: has man's profit been calculated quite correctly? Isn't there something that not only has not been but even cannot be fitted into any classification? Because, gentlemen, as far as I know, you have taken your whole inventory of human profits from an average of statistical figures and scientifico-economic formulas. Because profit for you is prosperity, wealth, freedom, peace, and so on and so forth; so that a man who, for example, openly and knowingly went against this whole inventory would, in your opinion - well, and also in mine, of course - be an obscurantist or a complete madman, right? But here is the surprising thing: how does it happen that all these statisticians, sages, and lovers of mankind, in calculating human profits, constantly omit one profit? They don't even take it into account in the way it ought to be taken, and yet the whole account depends on that. It's no great trouble just to take it, this profit, and include it in the list. But that's the whole bane of it, that this tricky profit doesn't fall into any classification, doesn't fit into any list. I, for instance, have a friend… Eh, gentlemen! but he's your friend as well; and whose friend is he not! Preparing to do something, this gentleman will at once expound to you, with great eloquence and clarity, precisely how he must needs act in accordance with the laws of reason and truth. Moreover: with passion and excitement he will talk to you of real, normal human interests; with mockery he will reproach those shortsighted fools who understand neither their own profit nor the true meaning of virtue; and then, exactly a quarter of an hour later, without any sudden, extraneous cause, but precisely because of something within him that is stronger than all his interests, he'll cut quite a different caper, that is, go obviously against what he himself was just saying: against the laws of reason, against his own profit; well, in short, against everything… I warn you that my friend is a collective person, and therefore it is somehow difficult to blame him alone. That's just the thing, gentlemen, that there may well exist something that is dearer for almost every man than his very best profit, or (so as not to violate logic) that there is this one most profitable profit (precisely the omitted one, the one we were just talking about), which is chiefer and more profitable than all other profits, and for which a man is ready, if need be, to go against all laws, that is, against reason, honor, peace, prosperity - in short, against all these beautiful and useful things - only so as to attain this primary, most profitable profit which is dearer to him than anything else.

  "Well, but it is a profit, after all," you will interrupt me. I beg your pardon, sirs, but we shall speak further of it, and the point is not in a play on words, but in the fact that this profit is remarkable precisely because it destroys all our classifications and constantly shatters all the systems elaborated by lovers of mankind for the happiness of mankind. Interferes with everything, in short. But before naming this profit for you, I want to compromise myself personally, and therefore I boldly declare that all these beautiful systems, all these theories that explain to mankind its true, normal interests, so that, striving necessarily to attain these interests, it would at once become good and noble - all this, in my opinion, is so far only logistics! Yes, sirs, logistics! For merely to assert this theory of the renewal of all mankind by means of a system of its own profits - this, to my mind, is almost the same as… well, let's say, for example, the same as asserting, with Buckle, that man gets softer from civilization and, consequently, becomes less bloodthirsty and less capable of war. 11 Logically, it seems, that's what he comes up with. But man is so partial to systems and abstract conclusions that he is ready intentionally to distort the truth, to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, only so as to justify his logic.

  That's why I've chosen this example, because it is an all too vivid one. Why, look around you: blood is flowing in rivers, and in such a jolly way besides, like champagne. Take this whole nineteenth century of ours, in which Buckle also lived. Take Napoleon - both the great one and the present one. Take North America - that everlasting union. Take, finally, this caricature of a Schleswig-Holstein… 12 What is it that civilization softens in us? Civilization cultivates only a versatility of sensations in man, and… decidedly nothing else. And through the development of this versatility, man may even reach the point of finding pleasure in blood. Indeed, this has already happened to him. Have you noticed that the most refined blood-shedders have almost all been the most civilized gentlemen, to whom the various Attilas and Stenka Razins 13 sometimes could not hold a candle? And if they don't strike one as sharply as Attila or Stenka Razin, it is precisely because they occur too frequently, they are too ordinary, too familiar a sight. If man has not become more bloodthirsty from civilization, at any rate he has certainly become bloodthirsty in a worse, a viler way than formerly. Formerly, he saw justice in bloodshed and with a quiet conscience exterminated whoever he had to; while now, though we do regard bloodshed as vile, we still occupy ourselves with this vileness, and even more than formerly. Which is worse? - decide for yourselves. They say that Cleopatra (excuse this example from Roman history) liked to stick golden pins into her slave girls' breasts, and took pleasure in their screaming and writhing. You'll say that this was, relatively speaking, in barbarous times; that now, too, the times are barbarous because (again relatively speaking) now, too, pins get stuck in; that now, too, though man has learned to see more clearly on occasion than in barbarous times, he is still far from having grown accustomed to acting as reason and science dictate. But even so you are perfectly confident that he will not fail to grow accustomed once one or two old bad habits have passed and once common sense and science have thoroughly re-educated and given a normal direction to human nature. You are confident that man will then voluntarily cease making mistakes and, willy-nilly, so to speak, refuse to set his will at variance with his normal interests. Moreover: then, you say, science itself will teach man (though this is really a luxury in my opinion) that in fact he has neither will nor caprice, and never did have any, and that he himself is nothing but a sort of piano key or a sprig in an organ; 14 and that, furthermore, there also exist in the world the laws of nature; so that whatever he does is done not at all according to his own wanting, but of itself, according to the laws of nature. Consequently, these laws of nature need only be discovered, and then man will no longer be answerable for his actions, and his life will become extremely easy. Needless to say, all human actions will then be calculated according to these laws, mathematically, like a table of logarithms, up to 108
,000, and entered into a calendar; or, better still, some well-meaning publications will appear, like the present-day encyclopedic dictionaries, in which everything will be so precisely calculated and designated that there will no longer be any actions or adventures in the world.

  And it is then - this is still you speaking - that new economic relations will come, quite ready-made, and also calculated with mathematical precision, so that all possible questions will vanish in an instant, essentially because they will have been given all possible answers. Then the crystal palace will get built. 15 Then… well, in short, then the bird Kagan will come flying. 16 Of course, there's no guaranteeing (this is me speaking now) that it won't, for example, be terribly boring then (because what is there to do if everything's calculated according to some little table?), but, on the other hand, it will all be extremely reasonable. Of course, what inventions can boredom not lead to! Golden pins also get stuck in from boredom, but all that would be nothing. The bad thing is (this is me speaking again) that, for all I know, they may be glad of the golden pins then. Man really is stupid, phenomenally stupid. That is, he's by no means stupid, but rather he's so ungrateful that it would be hard to find the likes of him. I, for example, would not be the least bit surprised if suddenly, out of the blue, amid the universal future reasonableness, some gentleman of ignoble, or, better, of retrograde and jeering physiognomy, should emerge, set his arms akimbo, and say to us all: "Well, gentlemen, why don't we reduce all this reasonableness to dust with one good kick, for the sole purpose of sending all these logarithms to the devil and living once more according to our own stupid will!" That would still be nothing, but what is offensive is that he'd be sure to find followers: that's how man is arranged. And all this for the emptiest of reasons, which would seem not even worth mentioning: namely, that man, whoever he might be, has always and everywhere liked to act as he wants, and not at all as reason and profit dictate; and one can want even against one's own profit, and one sometimes even positively must (this is my idea now). One's own free and voluntary wanting, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, though chafed sometimes to the point of madness - all this is that same most profitable profit, the omitted one, which does not fit into any classification, and because of which all systems and theories are constantly blown to the devil. And where did all these sages get the idea that man needs some normal, some virtuous wanting? What made them necessarily imagine that what man needs is necessarily a reasonably profitable wanting? Man needs only independent wanting, whatever this independence may cost and wherever it may lead. Well, and this wanting, the devil knows…

  VIII

  HA, ha, ha! but in fact, if you want to know, there isn't any wanting!" you interrupt with a guffaw. "Today's science has even so succeeded in anatomizing man up that we now know that wanting and so-called free will are nothing else but…"

  Wait, gentlemen, I myself wanted to begin that way. I confess, I even got scared. I just wanted to cry out that wanting depends on the devil knows what, and thank God, perhaps, for that, but I remembered about this science and… backed off. And just then you started talking. And indeed, well, if one day they really find the formula for all our wantings and caprices -that is, what they depend on, by precisely what laws they occur, precisely how they spread, what they strive for in such-and-such a case, and so on and so forth; a real, mathematical formula, that is - then perhaps man will immediately stop wanting; what's more, perhaps he will certainly stop. Who wants to want according to a little table? Moreover: he will immediately turn from a man into a sprig in an organ or something of the sort; because what is man without desires, without will, and without wantings, if not a sprig in an organ barrel? What do you think?

  – let's reckon up the probabilities - can it happen or not?

  "Hm…" you decide, "our wantings are for the most part mistaken owing to a mistaken view of our profit. We sometimes want pure rubbish precisely because, in our stupidity, we see this rubbish as the easiest path to the attainment of some preconceived profit. Well, but when it's all explained, worked out on a piece of paper (which is quite possible because, after all, it's vile and senseless to believe beforehand that there are certain laws of nature which man will never learn) - then, to be sure, there will be no more so-called desires. For if wanting someday gets completely in cahoots with reason, then essentially we shall be reasoning and not wanting, because it really is impossible, for example, while preserving reason, to want senselessness and thus knowingly go against reason and wish yourself harm… And since all wantings and reasonings can indeed be calculated

  – because, after all, they will someday discover the laws of our so-called free will - then consequently, and joking aside, something like a little table can be arranged, so that we shall indeed want according to this little table. For if it should someday be worked out and proved to me that when I made a fig at such-and-such a person, it was precisely because I could not do otherwise, and that I was bound to do it with such-and-such a finger, then what is left so free in me, especially if I am a learned man and have completed a course of studies somewhere? No, then I can calculate my life for thirty years ahead; in short, if this does get arranged, then we really will have no choice; we'll have to accept it in any case. And, generally, we ought tirelessly to repeat to ourselves that, precisely at such-and-such a moment, in such-and-such circumstances, nature does not ask our permission; that it must be accepted as it is, and not as we fancy, and if we are really aiming at a little table and a calendar, and… well, and even at a retort, then there's no help for it, we must accept the retort! Or else it will get accepted of itself, without you…"

  Yes, sirs, but for me that's just where the hitch comes! You will forgive me, gentlemen, for philosophizing away; it's a matter of forty years underground! Allow me to indulge my fancy a bit. You see: reason, gentlemen, is a fine thing, that is unquestionable, but reason is only reason and satisfies only man's reasoning capacity, while wanting is a manifestation of the whole of life - that is, the whole of human life, including reason and various little itches. And though our life in this manifestation often turns out to be a bit of trash, still it is life and not just the extraction of a square root. I, for example, quite naturally want to live so as to satisfy my whole capacity for living, and not so as to satisfy just my reasoning capacity alone, which is some twentieth part of my whole capacity for living. What does reason know? Reason knows only what it has managed to learn (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is no consolation, but why not say it anyway?), while human nature acts as an entire whole, with everything that is in it, consciously and unconsciously, and though it lies, still it lives. I suspect, gentlemen, that you are looking at me with pity; you repeat to me that an enlightened and developed man, such, in short, as the future man will be, simply cannot knowingly want anything unprofitable for himself, that this is mathematics. I agree completely, it is indeed mathematics. But I repeat to you for the hundredth time, there is only one case, one only, when man may purposely, consciously wish for himself even the harmful, the stupid, even what is stupidest of all: namely, so as to have the right to wish for himself even what is stupidest of all and not be bound by an obligation to wish for himself only what is intelligent. For this stupidest of all, this caprice of ours, gentlemen, may in fact be the most profitable of anything on earth for our sort, especially in certain cases. And in particular it may be more profitable than all other profits even in the case when it is obviously harmful and contradicts the most sensible conclusions of our reason concerning profits - because in any event it preserves for us the chiefest and dearest thing, that is, our personality and our individuality. Now, some insist that this is indeed the dearest of all things for man; wanting may, of course, converge with reason, if it wants, especially if this is not abused but is done with moderation; it is both useful and sometimes even praiseworthy. But wanting is very often, and even for the most part, completely and stubbornly at odds with reason, and… and… and, do you know, this, too, is u
seful and sometimes even quite praiseworthy? Suppose, gentlemen, that man is not stupid. (Really, it is quite impossible to say he is, for the sole reason that if he is stupid, who then is intelligent?) But even if he isn't stupid, all the same he's monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. I even think the best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful. But that's still not all; that's still not his chief defect; his chiefest defect is his constant lack of good behavior - constant from the great flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period of man's destiny. Lack of good behavior and, consequently, lack of good sense; for it has long been known that lack of good sense comes from nothing else but the lack of good behavior. Try casting a glance at the history of mankind; well, what will you see? Majestic? Maybe it is majestic; the Colossus of Rhodes alone, for example, is worth something! Not without reason did Mr Anaevsky 17 testify that while some say it was the work of human hands, others insist it was created by nature itself. Colorful? Maybe it is colorful; one need only sort through the full-dress military and civil uniforms of all times and all peoples - that alone is worth something, and if you were to add the uniforms of the lower civil ranks, you could really break a leg; no historian would be left standing. Monotonous? Well, maybe also monotonous: they fight and fight, they fight now, and fought before, and fought afterwards - you'll agree it's even all too monotonous. In short, anything can be said about world history, anything that might just enter the head of the most disturbed imagination. Only one thing cannot be said - that it is sensible. You'd choke on the first word. And one even comes upon this sort of thing all the time: there constantly appear in life people of such good behavior and good sense, such sages and lovers of mankind, as precisely make it their goal to spend their entire lives in the best-behaved and most sensible way possible, to become, so to speak, a light for their neighbors, essentially in order to prove to them that one can indeed live in the world as a person of good behavior and good sense. And what then? It is known that sooner or later, towards the end of their lives, many of these lovers have betrayed themselves, producing some anecdote, sometimes even of the most indecent sort. Now I ask you: what can be expected of man as a being endowed with such strange qualities? Shower him with all earthly blessings, drown him in happiness completely, over his head, so that only bubbles pop up on the surface of happiness, as on water; give him such economic satisfaction that he no longer has anything left to do at all except sleep, eat gingerbread, and worry about the noncessation of world history- and it is here, just here, that he, this man, out of sheer ingratitude, out of sheer lampoonery, will do something nasty. He will even risk his gingerbread, and wish on purpose for the most pernicious nonsense, the most noneconomical meaninglessness, solely in order to mix into all this positive good sense his own pernicious, fantastical element. It is precisely his fantastic dreams, his most banal stupidity, that he will wish to keep hold of, with the sole purpose of confirming to himself (as if it were so very necessary) that human beings are still human beings and not piano keys, which, though played upon with their own hands by the laws of nature themselves, are in danger of being played so much that outside the calendar it will be impossible to want anything. And more than that: even if it should indeed turn out that he is a piano key, if it were even proved to him mathematically and by natural science, he would still not come to reason, but would do something contrary on purpose, solely out of ingratitude alone; essentially to have his own way. And if he finds himself without means - he will invent destruction and chaos, he will invent all kinds of suffering, and still have his own way! He will launch a curse upon the world, and since man alone is able to curse (that being his privilege, which chiefly distinguishes him from other animals), he may achieve his end by the curse alone - that is, indeed satisfy himself that he is a man and not a piano key! If you say that all this, the chaos and darkness and cursing, can also be calculated according to a little table, so that the mere possibility of a prior calculation will put a stop to it all and reason will claim its own - then he will deliberately go mad for the occasion, so as to do without reason and still have his own way! I believe in this, I will answer for this, because the whole human enterprise seems indeed to consist in man's proving to himself every moment that he is a man and not a sprig! With his own skin if need be, but proving it; by troglodytism if need be, but proving it. And how not sin after that, how not boast that this has still not come about, and that wanting so far still depends on the devil knows what…