Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/207

 204 opposition which spiritual life is capable of comprehending. The particular moment and the totality of life, time and eternity, reality and the ideal, nature and God — constitute such antitheses. The tension of life increases in direct proportion to the increasing sharpness of the manifestation of these antitheses, and the energy which is supposed to constitute life must therefore likewise be correspondingly greater. The professional artist who is absorbed in the pleasure of the moment represents the lowest degree; the writer of irony already discerns an element of the inner life which is incapable of expression in a single moment, or in a single act; the moralist develops this inner life positively by real influence on the family and in the state; the humorist regards all the vicissitudes of life as evanescent as compared with eternity and assumes an attitude of melancholy resignation, which he preferably makes the subject of jest; the devotees of religion regard the temporal life as a constant pain because finite and temporal existence is incommensurable with eternal truth; the Christian finally regards this pain as the effect of his own sins, and the antithesis of time and eternity can only be annulled by the fact that the everlasting itself is revealed in time and apprehended in the paradox of faith.

Kierkegaard wanted to show by this scale how comprehensive an ideal of life was possible even outside of Christianity. He likewise wanted to put an end to the amalgamation of Christianity and speculation in theology. But the anguish occasioned by the tension finally became his standard for the sublimity of life, and he had sufficient courage of consistency to draw the inference, that sufferings of no one are equal to those endured by God! — This brings him into direct conflict with the romantic