Copenhagen, March 1849.
When a country is little, the proportions in every relationship in the little land naturally are small. So, too, in literary matters; the royalties and everything else involved will be only insignificant. To be an author—unless one is a poet, and in addition a dramatist, or one writes textbooks or in some other way is an author in connection with a public office—is about the poorest paid, the least secure, and just about the most thankless job there is. If there is some individual who has the capability of being an author and if he is also fortunate enough to have private means, then he becomes an author more or less at his own expense. This, however, is quite appropriate; there is nothing more to be said about it. In that way the individual in his work will love his idea, the nation to which he belongs, the cause he serves, the language he as an author has the honor to write. Indeed, this is how it will be where there is harmony between the individual and the nation, which in turn in the given situation will be somewhat appreciative of this individual.
Whether the opposite of this has in any way been my experience, whether I have been treated shabbily by anyone or by some persons, is really not my concern but quite properly is their business. What is my concern, however—and I am so happy that it is my concern—is that I should and ought to give thanks for whatever favors and kindness and courtesy and appreciation have been shown to me in general or by particular individuals.2
__________
3 The movement the authorship describes is: from “the poet,” [XIII 494] from the esthetic—from “the philosopher,” from the speculative—to the indication of the most inward qualification of the essentially Christian; from the pseudonymous Either/Or, through Concluding Postscript, with my name as editor, to Discourses at the Communion on Fridays,* of which two were delivered in Frue Church.
[XIII 495] This movement was traversed or delineated uno tenore, in one breath, if I dare say so—thus the authorship, regarded as a totality, is religious from first to last, something anyone who can see, if he wants to see, must also see. Just as one versed in natural science promptly knows from the crisscrossing threads in a web the ingenious little creature whose web it is, so an insightful person will also know that to this authorship there corresponds as the source someone who qua author “has willed only one thing.”13 The insightful person will also know that this one thing is the religious, but the religious completely cast into reflection, yet in such a way that it is completely taken back out of reflection into simplicity—that is, he will see that the traversed path is: to reach, to arrive at simplicity.
And this is also (in reflection, as it in fact was originally) the Christian movement. Christianly, one does not proceed from the simple in order then to become interesting, witty, profound, a poet, a philosopher, etc. No, it is just the opposite; here one begins and then becomes more and more simple, arrives at the simple. This, in “Christendom,” is Christianly the movement of reflection; one does not reflect oneself into Christianity but reflects oneself out of something else and becomes more and more simple, a Christian. If the author had been a richly endowed intellect, or, if he was that, if he had been a doubly richly endowed intellect, he probably would have needed a longer or a doubly long period in order to describe this path in literary production and to reach this point.
But just as that which has been communicated (the idea of the religious) has been cast completely into reflection and in turn taken back out of reflection, so also the communication has been decisively marked by reflection, or the form of communication used is that of reflection. “Direct communication” is: to communicate the truth directly; “communication in reflection” is: to deceive into the truth. But since the movement is to arrive at the simple, the communication in turn must sooner or later end in direct communication. It began maieutically14 with esthetic [XIII 496] production,* and all the pseudonymous writings are maieutic in nature. Therefore this writing was also pseudonymous, whereas the directly religious—which from the beginning was present in the gleam of an indication—carried my name. The directly religious was present from the very beginning; Two Upbuilding Discourses (1843) is in fact concurrent* with Either/Or. And in order to safeguard this concurrence of the directly religious, every pseudonymous work was accompanied concurrently by a little collection of “upbuilding discourses”—until Concluding Postscript appeared, which poses the issue, which is the issue κατ’ ἐξοχήν [in the eminent sense] of the whole authorship: becoming a Christian.”**15 From that moment the gleam of the directly religious ceases, since now the exclusively religious writing begins: [XIII 497] Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Works of Love, Christian Discourses.17 But in order inversely to recall the beginning (corresponding to what Two Upbuilding Discourses was at the beginning, when the voluminous works were esthetic), there appeared at the end (when for a long period the writing was exclusively and voluminously religious) a little esthetic article by Inter et Inter18 in the newspaper Fædrelandet, no. 188–191, July 1848. The gleam of the two upbuilding discourses at the beginning meant that it was actually this that should advance, this at which it was to arrive; the gleam of the little esthetic article at the end was meant, by way of a faint reflection, to bring to consciousness that from the beginning the esthetic was what should be left behind, what should be abandoned. Concluding Postscript is the midpoint, and so exactly—something that of course only lays claim to being a curiosity—that even the quantities of what was written before and after it are more or less equal if one, and rightfully so, includes the eighteen upbuilding discourses19 in the purely religious writing, and even the periods of the literary activity prior to and after Concluding Postscript are roughly equal.
Finally, this movement of the authorship is again decisively marked by reflection or is the movement of reflection. The direct way begins with individuals, a few readers, and the task or the movement is to gather a large number, to acquire an abstraction: the public. Here the beginning is made, maieutically, with a sensation, and with what belongs to it, the public, which always joins in where something is going on; and the movement was, maieutically, to shake off “the crowd” in order to get hold of “the single individual,”* religiously understood. At the very same time when the sensation Either/Or created was at its peak, at that [XIII 498] very same time appeared Two Upbuilding Discourses (1843), which used the formula that later was repeated unchanged: “It seeks that single individual whom I with joy and gratitude call my reader.”20 And precisely at the critical moment when Concluding Postscript, which, as stated, poses “the issue,” was delivered to the printer so that the printing could commence as soon as possible and the publication presumably quickly follow21—at precisely that moment a pseudonym, most appropriately in a newspaper article,22 made the greatest possible effort to alienate the public* and after that began the decisively religious production. For the second time I religiously affirmed “that single individual,” to whom the next substantial book** (after Concluding Postscript), Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, or the first part of the same book, “Confessional Address,” was dedicated. Perhaps nobody paid much attention to the category “that single individual” the first time I used it, nor was much notice paid to its being repeated unchanged in the preface to every volume of upbuilding discourses. When I the second time or in the second potency repeated the message and stood by my first message, everything was done that I was able to do to make the whole weight of emphasis fall upon this category. Here again the movement is: to arrive at the simple; the [XIII 499] movement is: from the public to “the single individual.”25 In other words, there is in a religious sense no public but only individuals,†26 because the religious is earnestness, and earnestness is: the single individual; yet every human being, unconditionally every human being, which one indeed is, can be, yes, should be—the single individual. Thus it was and is a joy to me, the upbuilding author, that also from that moment the number of those increased who became aware of29 this about the single individual. It was and is a joy to me, for I certainly do have faith in the rightness of my thought despite the whole world, but next to that the last thing I would surrender is my faith in individual human beings. And this is my faith, that however much confusion and evil and contemptibleness there can be in human beings as soon as they become the irresponsible and unrepentant “public,” “crowd,” etc.—there is just as much truth and goodness and lovableness in them when one can get them as single individuals. Oh, to what degree human beings would become—human and lovable beings—if they would become single individuals before God!
__________
[XIII 500] 30 This is how I now understand the whole. From the beginning I could not quite see what has indeed also been my own development. This is scarcely the place for a lengthy account. Here it is just a matter of being able very briefly to fold together in simplicity what is unfolded in the many books or what unfolded is the many books, and this brief communication is more immediately prompted by the fact that the first book in the authorship now comes out the second time, the new edition of Either/Or,31 which I earlier was unwilling to have published.
Personally—also when I consider my own inner sufferings, which I personally may have deserved—personally, one thing absorbs me unconditionally, is more important to me and lies more upon my heart than the whole authorship: to express as honestly and as strongly as possible something for which I can never adequately give thanks and which I, when I at some time have forgotten the whole authorship, will eternally recollect unchanged—how infinitely much more Governance has done for me than I had ever expected, could have expected, or dared to have expected.
__________
[XIII 501] 32“Without authority” to make aware of the religious, the essentially Christian, is the category for my whole work as an author regarded as a totality. From the very beginning I have enjoined and repeated unchanged that I was “without authority.” I regard myself rather as a reader of the books, not as the author.
33“Before God,” religiously, when I speak with myself, I call my whole work as an author my own upbringing and development, but not in the sense as if I were now complete or completely finished with regard to needing upbringing and development.34