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Page 121
Dr. Knowall, who thought he could grasp everything between Heaven
and Earth by means of reason and science, sings like this, when he
comes to the end of his life:
I had thought to find in knowledge
Light to guide me on my way;
Yet I still must walk in darkness
All that's known must soon decay.
Ignorance, I turn to thee!
Knowledge is but vanity.
But that's no matter! Voltaire can be put to many uses. The Jews
use him against the Christians, and the Christians use him against
the Jews, because he was an anti-Semite, like Luther. Chateaubriand
used him to defend Catholicism, and Protestants use him even to-day
to attack Catholicism. He was a fine fellow!
STRANGER. Then what's your view?
MELCHER. We have no views here; we've faith, as I've told you
already. And that's why we've only one head--placed exactly above
the heart. (Pause.) In the meantime let's look at number seven in
the catalogue. Ah, Napoleon! The creation of the Revolution itself!
The Emperor of the People, the Nero of Freedom, the suppressor of
Equality and the 'big brother' of Fraternity. He's the most cunning
of all the two-headed, for he could laugh at himself, raise himself
above his own contradictions, change his skin and his soul, and yet
be quite explicable to himself in every transformation--convinced,
self-authorised. There's only one other man who can be compared
with him in this; Kierkegaard the Dane. From the beginning he was
aware of this parthenogenesis of the soul, whose capacity to
multiply by taking cuttings was equivalent to bringing forth young
in this life without conception. And for that reason, and so as not
to become life's fool, he wrote under a number of pseudonyms, of
which each one constituted a 'stage on his life's way.' But did you
realise this? The Lord of life, in spite of all these precautions,
made a fool of him after all. Kierkegaard, who fought all his life
against the priesthood and the professional preachers of the State
Church, was eventually forced of necessity to become a professional
preacher himself! Oh yes! Such things do happen.
STRANGER. The Powers That Be play tricks. ...
MELCHER. The Powers play tricks on tricksters, and delude the
arrogant, particularly those who alone believe they possess truth
and knowledge! Number eight in the catalogue. Victor Hugo. He split
himself into countless parts. He was a peer of France, a Grandee of
Spain, a friend of Kings, and the socialist author of _Les
Mis�rables_. The peers naturally called him a renegade, and the
socialists a reformer. Number nine. Count Friedrich Leopold von
Stollberg. He wrote a fanatical book for the Protestants, and then
suddenly became a Catholic! Inexplicable in a sensible man. A
miracle, eh? A little journey to Damascus, perhaps? Number ten.
Lafayette. The heroic upholder of freedom, the revolutionary, who
was forced to leave France as a suspected reactionary, because he
wanted to help Louis XVI; and then was captured by the Austrians
and carried off to Olm�tz as a revolutionary! What was he in
reality?
STRANGER. Both!
MELCHER. Yes, both. He had the two halves that made a whole--a
whole man. Number eleven. Bismarck. A paradox. The honest diplomat,
who maintained he'd discovered that to tell the truth was the
greatest of ruses. And so was compelled--by the Powers, I suppose?--
to spend the last six years of his life unmasking himself as a
conscious liar. You're tired. Then we'll stop now.
STRANGER. Yes, if one clings to the same ideas all one's life, and
holds the same opinions, one grows old according to nature's laws,
and gets called conservative, old-fashioned, out of date. But if
one goes on developing, keeping pace with one's own age, renewing
oneself with the perennially youthful impulses of contemporary
thought, one's called a waverer and a renegade.
MELCHER. That's as old as the world! But does an intelligent, man
heed what he's called? One is, what one's becoming.
STRANGER. But who revises the periodically changing views of
contemporary opinion?
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