Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/39

 the last conclusions and mortally wound the old man tottering on the brink of his grave by thus attacking the Church. There followed a three years' period of silence on the part of Kierkegaard—again certainly a proof of his utter sincerity. It must be remembered, in this connection, that the very last thing Kierkegaard desired was an external reorganization, a "reform," of the Church—indeed, he firmly refused to be identified with any movement of secession, differing in this respect vitally from his contemporaries Vinet and Grundtvig who otherwise had so much in common with him. His only wish was to infuse life and inwardness into the existing forms. And far from being inferior to them in this he was here at one with the Founder and the Early Church in that he states the aim of the Christian Life to be, not to transform the existing social order, but to transcend it. For the very same reason, coupled to be sure with a pronounced aristocratic individualism, he is utterly and unreasonably indifferent, and even antagonistic, to the great social movements of his time, to the political upheavals of 1848, to the revolutionary advances of science.

As Kierkegaard now considered his career virtually concluded, he wrote (1851) a brief account "About my Activity as an Author" in which he furnishes his readers a key to its unfolding—f r o m an aesthetic view t o the religious view—which he considers his own education by Providence; and indicates it to be his special task to call attent.i o n, without authority, to the religious, the Christian life. His "Viewpoint for my Activity as an Author," published by his brother only long after his death, likewise defines the purpose of the whole "authorship," besides containing important biographical material.

At length (January, 1854) Mynster died. Even then Kierkegaard, though still on his guard, might not have felt called upon to have recourse to stronger measures if it had not been for an unfortunate sentence in the funeral sermon preached by the now famous Martensen—generally pointed out as the successor to the primacy—with whom Kierkegaard had already broken a lance or two. Martensen had declared Mynster to have been "one of the holy chain of