“sensation,” “will,” and “life” do not refer to essences, nor to actual things, but only to a quality, an ability, or an activity of a living substance or result of the activity of substances that are based on material forms of existence.
Dr. Davin reread and then crossed out what he had written, skewering the page with his pen. He didn’t tear it up or throw it in the wastebasket, however. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his face wearily, thus wiping something off his face—something weak and angry—and stared out the window. Mountains of firewood were growing up around Gummi, and new logs were flying merrily through the air like little birds. At this hour, the sun illuminated the yellow gaiety of the freshly cut wood as though it were shining from within, as though it were burning with the anticipation of its eventual combustion. How neat and precise its death is, Davin thought. For it is already dead … Evolution is connected with permission to oneself, with the dissolution of the aesthetic principle. How foolish it is to say, “What an ugly tree has taken root there.” The tree’s nobility is obvious: it is devoted to its place of birth, it leaves no excrement … No, no! To the capital! To Europe! Davin howled to himself in alarm. I’ll lose my mind here! The provinces … Who would have thought that it’s not the absence of theater premieres, not the stagnation, but this … This hypnosis, or whatever one might want to call it. Happiness—of all the nonsense! What a meaningless category! And I, a scientist, whose sound reason … How can such a word come out of my mouth—“happiness”! The provinces are … happiness is the provinces. The provinces are anti -science. They’re blurry features, the inane smile playing on Gummi’s face … Gummi—now that’s the embodiment of the provinces.
Why am I suddenly so tired? It seemed that today my soul had finally found some repose. For the first time, perhaps, I allowed it to rest, but it is so fatigued. Why? Perhaps for the first time I let it be? And it became overtired, like babies from the fresh air, like convalescents when the sunlight streams through the window. My untrained, frail, infantile soul. What, am I still saying the word “soul”? Davin laughed out loud. I have water on the brain! Sentimentality has displaced sanity. Could it be that sentimentality is actually an absence of education, a lack of exercise of the soul?… Damnation, damnation!
He went over to the window and flung it open. He was greeted by the smell of freshly chopped wood and the cool evening, a scent slightly redolent of wine—autumn again … Behind the heaps of wood, only Gummi’s foolish head was visible. It appeared and disappeared in concert with the ax. Gummi was singing, and by attending closely, Dr. Davin was able to make out the words.
Viewing the land
from a wooden Moon
I see a maiden
like the Moon from the back.
One of them can’t see
another one who sees
them both. But she sees only
half the Moon.
Oo, Oo, Oo …
He sang this sad little ditty with lively gusto, refuting whatever idea one might, with great effort, extract from it. The doctor grinned, and his envy faded. I can’t truly envy Gummi for how easily his firewood flies when my words are so constrained, he thought. These are certainly two different spheres of activity.
Dear Joy , he wrote.
I am consumed by new thoughts that will overturn the state of contemporary psychiatry. Does this not mean that the new foundations of psychiatry are now being laid? I think that if we submit our practice to the sacred individual analysis of each separate case, science would fall apart into the sum of all these individual cases, one to every life. It is only a crudeness of approach, monetary rewards, practical mediocrity, and the practitioner’s negligence that lead to the generalization and grouping of psyches according to the most approximate and rough-hewn symptoms and signs.
Dr. Davin reread and then crossed out what he had written, skewering the page with his pen. He didn’t tear it up or throw it in the wastebasket, however. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his face wearily, thus wiping something off his face—something weak and angry—and stared out the window. Mountains of firewood were growing up around Gummi, and new logs were flying merrily through the air like little birds. At this hour, the sun illuminated the yellow gaiety of the freshly cut wood as though it were shining from within, as though it were burning with the anticipation of its eventual combustion. How neat and precise its death is, Davin thought. For it is already dead … Evolution is connected with permission to oneself, with the dissolution of the aesthetic principle. How foolish it is to say, “What an ugly tree has taken root there.” The tree’s nobility is obvious: it is devoted to its place of birth, it leaves no excrement … No, no! To the capital! To Europe! Davin howled to himself in alarm. I’ll lose my mind here! The provinces … Who would have thought that it’s not the absence of theater premieres, not the stagnation, but this … This hypnosis, or whatever one might want to call it. Happiness—of all the nonsense! What a meaningless category! And I, a scientist, whose sound reason … How can such a word come out of my mouth—“happiness”! The provinces are … happiness is the provinces. The provinces are anti -science. They’re blurry features, the inane smile playing on Gummi’s face … Gummi—now that’s the embodiment of the provinces.
Why am I suddenly so tired? It seemed that today my soul had finally found some repose. For the first time, perhaps, I allowed it to rest, but it is so fatigued. Why? Perhaps for the first time I let it be? And it became overtired, like babies from the fresh air, like convalescents when the sunlight streams through the window. My untrained, frail, infantile soul. What, am I still saying the word “soul”? Davin laughed out loud. I have water on the brain! Sentimentality has displaced sanity. Could it be that sentimentality is actually an absence of education, a lack of exercise of the soul?… Damnation, damnation!
He went over to the window and flung it open. He was greeted by the smell of freshly chopped wood and the cool evening, a scent slightly redolent of wine—autumn again … Behind the heaps of wood, only Gummi’s foolish head was visible. It appeared and disappeared in concert with the ax. Gummi was singing, and by attending closely, Dr. Davin was able to make out the words.
Viewing the land
from a wooden Moon
I see a maiden
like the Moon from the back.
One of them can’t see
another one who sees
them both. But she sees only
half the Moon.
Oo, Oo, Oo …
He sang this sad little ditty with lively gusto, refuting whatever idea one might, with great effort, extract from it. The doctor grinned, and his envy faded. I can’t truly envy Gummi for how easily his firewood flies when my words are so constrained, he thought. These are certainly two different spheres of activity.
Dear Joy , he wrote.
I am consumed by new thoughts that will overturn the state of contemporary psychiatry. Does this not mean that the new foundations of psychiatry are now being laid? I think that if we submit our practice to the sacred individual analysis of each separate case, science would fall apart into the sum of all these individual cases, one to every life. It is only a crudeness of approach, monetary rewards, practical mediocrity, and the practitioner’s negligence that lead to the generalization and grouping of psyches according to the most approximate and rough-hewn symptoms and signs.
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