Reality In The Works Of Unamuno And Ortega Y Gasset: A Comparative Study

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Content T h is d isse r ta tio n has been 61— G276 m ic r o film e d ex a ctly as r e c e iv e d BA K ER , C lifford H enry, 1 9 1 0 - REALITY IN THE WORKS OF UNAMUNO AND ORTEGA Y GASSET: A COMPARATIVE STUDY. U n iv e r sity of Southern C aliforn ia P h .D ., 1961 P h ilosop h y University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan REALITY IN THE WORKS OF UNAMUNO AND ORTEGA Y GASSET: A COMPARATIVE STUDY by Clifford Henry Baker A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Spanish) June 1961 UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CA LIFORNIA GRADUATE SCH O O L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANG ELES 7 , CA LIFO RN IA This dissertation, written by ....................C L IF P . OJRD.. JUSHRTBAftER...................... under the direction of kk&..~Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Dean of the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y ... D ate. ...... Dean DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Chairman ...3.4***.' £Lj!U'... To My Wife Louise ii CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION................................... 1 II. SECONDARY REALITIES .......................... 6 Ideas and Language........................ 7 Beliefs...................................... 28 Imagination and M e m o r y .................... 59 Perspective................................. 69 Metaphors............................ 83 Society...................................... 93 Aesthetic Reality ........................... 119 III. LA CIRCUNSTANCIA................................. 139 IV. HISTORICAL REALITY............................... 165 V. AUTHENTICITY . . ..................................220 VI. THE BASIC REALITY OF HUMAN L I F E .................356 The Y o ........................................ 357 Human L i f e ....................................407 Immortality....................................493 VII. DIVERGENCIES BETWEEN UNAMUNO AND ORTEGA . . . 560 Unamuno's Subjective Vitalism ............. 561 Ortega's Objective Ratio-vitalism ......... 6lO VIII. CONCLUSION........................................ 635 BIBLIOGRAPHY ; ...........................................646 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Two of the most outstanding thinkers and writers of the twentieth century have been Spaniards, and both were university professors: the Basque Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936) and the Madrid-born Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). Of secondary interest is the fact that both men lived to be seventy-two years of age. Unamuno taught Greek and the History of the Spanish Language at the University of Salamanca until his retirement in 1934. He also served twice as President (Rector) of his university, and was made honorary President for life upon his retire ment . Ortega was Professor of Metaphysics at the Univer sity of Madrid, his alma mater, from 1910 to 1936, withdrawing in this latter year due to political condi tions in Spain which made his professorship no longer tenable. These are the two outstanding men whose works I have studied in search of their concept of the problem of reality (ontology). Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1959)1 s. v. "reality,” defines this word as follows: Philos. a. That which actually exists; that which is not imagination, fiction, or pretense; that which has objective existence, and. is not merely an idea. . . . b. That which is absolute or self-existent, as opposed to what is derivative or dependent; that which is ultimate, as opposed to what is merely apparent or phenomenal. . . . It is the second of these two definitions (b) which most directly concerns the problem being investigated in this study. The problem of reality as defined in "b" above has been for centuries a matter of prime concern to philoso phers. Although this matter has been so widely studied, neither Unamuno nor Ortega is wholly satisfied with most oJ the earlier attempts at a solution. Both Spaniards are at odds with Cartesian Rationalism which holds that because man is capable of thought he ipso facto exists: Cogito ergo sum. The Idealism of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the Practical Reason of Immanuel Kant are, like wise, untenable. Unamuno and Ortega are basically op posed to all concepts of reality which fail to consider the obvious fact that much that man does, feels, and believes has nothing whatever to do with reason or with rational processes. A formula which would be more in accord with the truth concerning ’ ’reality" would be one that took into account the not unimportant fact of human life, and for Unamuno (not for Ortega) this means not only this life on earth but also eternal life, personal immor tality. Since Unamuno does not deny the reality of human 3 life and its vital significance, the following modifica tion of the Cartesian principle (Cogito ergo sum), an alteration that would be more appropriate to both men's concept of reality, would be what both have stated as their idea of the problem: Cogito quia vivo. ' * ' This places the emphasis squarely on the matter of living and being in life; it is more vitally appropriate to Ortega's thesis- that human life is the basic reality, to which all other realities are subordinate, and to Unamuno1s concept of life eternal, personal immortality, the projection of the yo — the consciousness — into eternity. I have classified nine realities as "secondary," and y This is Ortega's version. See Jose Ortega y Gasset, Obras completas, 4th ed., 6 vols. (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1957-1956)> IV, 58? in "Filosofla pura: Anejo a mi folleto 'Kant'," 1929 (all dates cited hereafter refer to year work was first published). This edition, hereafter cited as Obras, contains most of Ortega's works. All page references to the works of Ortega, unless other wise noted, are to this edition. Though Unamuno does not Latinize his statement of the problem, he uses identical words when he writes that "perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we think because we live" (see Miguel de Unamuno, Ensayos, ed. Bernardo G. de Candamo, 4th [I] and 5th [II] eds. , 2 vols. [Madrid: Aguilar, S. A. de Ediciones, 1958], II, 963 f in "Del sentimiento tragico de la vida," 1913)* This edition contains all of Unamuno's essays, first published in seven volumes (Madrid: Residencia de Estudiantes, 1916-1918); and, in addition, six other works: I— "La agonla del cristianismo," 1931, and II--"Vida de Don Quijote y San.cho," 1905; "Mi religi6n y otros ensayos breves," 1910; "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911; "Del sentimiento tragico de la vida," 1913; and "Contra esto y aquello," 1912; these are collections of essays and articles, some related and some not. All page references to the works of Unamuno, unless otherwise noted, are to this two-volume edition, hereafter cited as Ensayos. these Include: Ideas and language, beliefs, imagination and memory, perspective, metaphors, society, and aes thetic reality. These are "secondary" realities because they are not so vitally connected with human life as are the Circunstancia, Historical Reality, and Authenticity. Ortega himself calls these realities secondary since they are but parts of human life and bear upon the other reali ties rather than determine them completely. Hence, I have arranged this study into the following chapters (excluding this Introduction): II--Secondary Realities: Ideas and Language, Beliefs, Imagination and Memory, Perspective, Metaphors, Society, and Aesthetic Reality; III--La Cir cunstancia : IV--Historical Reality; V--Authenticity; VI--The Basic Reality of Human Life: the jro, human life, and immortality; VII--Divergencies between Unamuno and Ortega: Unamuno’s subjective vitalism and Ortega's objective ratio-vitalism; and VIII— Conclusion. There is necessarily a certain amount of overlapping in the sub jects treated due to the close relationship existing between them, but this classification will provide a sub stantial account of the problem of reality as treated and developed by Unamuno and Ortega, each approaching this problem somewhat differently: Unamuno is quite frankly and genuinely subjective while Ortega maintains a more detached objectivity. In preparing this study, I have purposely limited myself to the "essay” and "article”--the short essay— since Ortega wrote exclusively in these forms. Unamuno also wrote profusely in the "essay” and "article” forms, but with Unamuno the situation is complicated by the fact that he wrote in all the so-called genres: his novelistic characters have been termed "ideas with legs," and his poetry and drama are replete with thought content (ideas). Thus we find Unamuno developing his ideas and theories about the reality of human life and personal immortality in all his writings. Therefore, I shall have occasion to refer to Unamuno's so-called "novels” as I treat the development of his concept of reality (as, for example, in Niebla). Both Unamuno and Ortega are natural essayists; both write a clear and concise language, Unamuno being the more "talkative” and, consequently, somewhat more diffuse and repetitious. Both men write "poetry” in prose form. When one stops to reflect that Ortega devoted himself exclusively to the essay genre, it is apparently no mere coincidence that several of his works appeared in volumes bearing the title El Espectador (8 volumes, 1916-193^)* This name at once brings to mind that of another great literary talent in the field of the essay--Joseph Addison. CHAPTER II - SECONDARY REALITIES As I indicated in the Introduction (p. 4), a second ary reality is considered to be subordinate to the basic reality of human life and its eternal perpetuation in time and space. The secondary realities do contribute, however, in varying degree, to the basic reality of human life and may profoundly influence man's existence, though, again, not so profoundly as the other three more vital realities to be considered: the circunstancia, historical reality, and authenticity, which, in turn, go to make up the basic reality of human life. The secondary realities to be considered here (ideas and language, beliefs, imagi nation and memory, perspective, metaphors, society, and aesthetic reality) are realities that were suggested by Unamuno and Ortega, who write at length about them; and it is Ortega who calls them "secondary" realities. There is perforce much overlapping in these secondary realities owing to the complexity of human life, but they all are part of man's circunstancia (which means more than just "environment"), of the age in eternal history that man has inherited due to the simple fact of having been bora, of being where and what he is. 6 Ideas and Language Ideas are vital realities but are not to become the governing factor in man's existence: Man must not become the slave of his ideas. Ortega, very early in his career, i is concerned with ideas as a concept vital to human life. In "Adan en el paraiso,1 1 1910, he writes about ideas, cit ing Plato as the originator of the concept "idea." Plato called mathematical concepts "ideas" because ideas are similar to mental instruments that serve to construct "things," and without numbers--the plus and the minus, themselves ideas--"those imagined sensible realities that 2 we call things would not exist for us." Hence an idea must be applied to something concrete, with the obvious result that the true "idealist" will not "copy the ingenu ous obscurities" that occur to him; rather he will seek a "principle of orientation in order to control" such obscu rities and vagueness, in order to grasp the res, the things which are his main concern. Idealism should be * called by its right name: "realism" (< res, things). Unamuno is in agreement with this since he considers the idealist to be the one who reduces everything to ideas, to intellectual forms, which results in a type of 1See Obras, I, 13 ("Glosas," 1902), 115 ("Algunas notas," 190d), and 336 ("Meditaciones del Quijote," 1914). ^Obras, I, 486. 5Ibid. 8 sensualism akin to gluttony. Since with Hegel everything ideal is real and everything real is ideal, both idealism and realism are essentially the same thing; and both are "monistic," neither having the "pluralistic" or "dual- 4 istic" character of "spiritualism." Ortega continually insists throughout his writings that ideas are something man arrives at by using his thought processes and not something he inherits or acquires passively as he does a belief. Unamuno also makes this same point when he states that Blaise Pascal's Pensees were so labeled because they never terminated, re maining "seeds." Had Pascal seen fit to finish his thoughts, "round them out, and systematize them," they would have become ideas, since the thought is what is 5 dynamic, not the idea. For Unamuno, the idea is "form, similarity, species." But the form of what? Here lies the "mystery": "la realidad de que [la idea] es forma, la materia de que es figura, su contenido vivo," which is the "mystery" around which centered the intellectual battle See Miguel de Unamuno, De esto y de aquello, ed. Manuel Garcia Blanco, 4 vols. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, S. A., 1950-1954), III, 412; in "Sobre el paganismo de Goethe," 1915* This edition, hereafter cited as De esto, is a collection of Unamuno's hitherto unpub lished newspaper articles, which appeared in Spain and in Spanish America, especially in La Naci6n of Buenos Aires. The title of this collection was assigned by the editor. ^De esto, II, 236; in "En un rato de ocio," 1920. See also Ensayos, I, 1007-1008; in "La agonla del cris- tianismo," 1931, where Unamuno repeats this thesis. of the Middle Ages, a battle that is still in progress today.^ Ortega notes that a man cannot live as a human being without ideas because what man does depends largely on his ideas, and he cites the old Indian saying that "Our acts follow our thoughts [= ideas, here] as the cartwheel follows the hoof of the ox." He notes that in this sense, which in itself contains nothing "intellectualistic," man 7 xs his ideas. And he further notes that man's ideas and convictions may very well be anti-int.ellectualistic since his are so and, in general, the same is true for the ideas g and convictions of our times. In his allusion to non intellectual ideas, Ortega is veering away from Hegelian Idealism, which constitutes one of the strongest aversions of both him and Unamuno. But this mutual aversion does not mean to imply that either Unamuno or Ortega is anti idea since both firmly believe that ideas are vitally necessary to man, but they must be "essential" and must not tyrannize man. In his penetrating essay entitled "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932, Ortega makes his position on this point very clear when he writes: Lo que verdaderamente hay es lo real, lo que Inte gra el destino. Y lo real no es nunca species ^Ensayos, I, 247-248; in "Ideocracia," 1900. This is an extremely provocative essay, and is one I shall cite often. ^Obras, IV, 321; in "Misi6n de la Universidad," 1930. D Ibid • , n. 3 . 10 CNote what Unamuno said, p. 8.3, aspecto, especta- culo, objeto para un contemplador Has Hegel would have us believe]. Todo esto precisamente es lo irreal. Es nuestra idea, no nuestro ser. Europa necesita curarse de su "Idealismo"— unica manera de superar tambien todo materialismo, positivismo, utopismo. Las ideas estan siempre demasiado cerca de nuestro capricho, son d6ciles a el— son siempre revocables. Tenemos, sin duda, y cada vez mas, que vivir con ideas--pero tenemos que dejar de vivir desde nuestras ideas y aprender a vivir desde nues tro inexorable, irrevocable destino. Este tiene que decidir sobre nuestras ideas y no al reves.9 Unamuno feels even more strongly about the secondary position of ideas in human life because, to him, ideas are a disturbing reality, one with which he could easily dispense or at least push back into its own area of activity and importance. A person is of consequence to Unamuno, not because of his ideas, but because of the person himself. He does not care a whit whether or not another author agrees with his ideas, with what he calls "my ideas," because in order for Unamuno to think as he does, he is sufficient unto himself, and even too much for himself at times: "para yo me siento demasiado yo, yo mismo. Y cuando intento salir de ml, es para ir a buscar lo que me sea distinto. What difference does it really make if another author disagrees with him, if their ideas do not conform? It is not ideas that bring men together, nor should this be necessary. Unamuno bluntly states ^Obras, IV, 4l6. ^ Ensayos, I, 688; in "IRamplonerla1," 1905* 11 that he hates ideocracia Hence it is the idea "man" who is far more important: each man is an idea, an idea 12 encarnada. Passions, love, hatred, and anger are the things that matter, not ideas, which proves that for Unamuno ideas are indeed a reality— too much so for his own peace of mind. Ideas in relation to man may even be come insignificant realities, as Unamuno so clearly indi cates in "Sobre el fulanismo," 1903, where he observes that men who represent ideas (as politicians, for example) are much more real than the ideas they espouse; and the general public also attaches more importance to men than 13 to their ideas. Unamuno expresses a particularly deep- felt disdain for and fear of what he calls r , the tyranny of 14 ideas." But in spite of his strong feeling about ideas, he does not hesitate to contradict himself--something he does frequently— on this matter when he refers to them as ^ Ensayos, X, 688. 1 2 Ibid., p. 248j in "La ideocracia," 1900. ~*~^Ibid. , p. 472. See also ibid., XI, 566, in "A mis lectores," n. d., where Unamuno states the same theme. 14 Ibid., p. 2585 in "La ideocracia," 1900. See also Miguel de Unamuno, Obras completas, ed. Manuel Garcia Blanco, 7 vols. Cto date} (Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado, S. A., 1958)j H 1 » 84-85; in , f De la ensenanza superior en Espana," 1899- This projected edition of Unamuno's com plete works, hereafter cited as 0. C., is incomplete as of this date: only seven volumes have appeared'and of these only I, III, VI, and VII were used in this study, since the other volumes contain material that is irrelevant to the essay and the article. I shall have occasion to refer to volume II, which contains some of Unamuno's novels. ’ ’the supreme reality”: "hablando surge, la idea, que es la 15 suprema realidad." ^ Eleven years earlier, in 1913, he had written in Del sentimiento tragico de la vida that ”1 myself am the idea of myself.” Ideas also assume an important role in Unamuno's mind when he speaks of form and of the word as "the form of the idea" and then notes that when the word is truly a word, it becomes an idea; 17 and "idea means vision." Back in the year 1906, in his essay entitled "Sobre la consecuencia, la sinceridad," Unamuno had written about the reality of ideas, noting that they have two forms: an outer (exterior) and an inner (entrana) form. He speaks here of the "substance" of ideas, "su carne, su entrana," as being that which carries a motor element and a sensory element: "that which can either move us to action or provoke sensa- tions." The outside or surface of ideas is what Unamuno calls "mondaduras y peladuras logicas." Since a person is ^ De esto, II, 365; in "Etimologias; filosofia es filologia," 1924. Regarding Unamuno's frequent contradic tions, see Ensayos, XX, 52, where, in an undated personal letter written between 1900 and 1905, he states: "Mi vida toda se mueve por un principio de Intima contradiccion." Unamuno reserved the right to contradict himself at will. 16 Ensayos, II, 806. But see ibid., p. 1003, in the "Conclusion,"which is the twelfth essay comprising "Del sentimiento tragico de la vida," where Unamuno writes": "El hombre no es, al parecer, ni siquiera Tina idea." 17Pe esto, III, 86; in "Andologxa," 193^. x8 Ensayos, I, 860. also composed of two egos, an outer surface one and an inner yo profundo, his exterior ego, the one formed by his social circunstancia, is the one that employs exterior ideas and concepts, which are the concepts that can he transmitted. Unamuno gives an excellent example of the exterior surface idea he has to transmit when he speaks of God. He cannot express in words the "substance” of his concept of God, its content, the world of impressions and feeling that the name ”6od” awakens in him. This failure to communicate his concept of God is due to the fact that his inner ideas are not expressible or transmittible in 19 words that social man employs in speech. In this "inner man” where the mysterious fusions of the life of the spirit are fulfilled, it is not easy to distinguish "the most hidden part” (la entrana) of the man himself from "the most hidden part" of his thoughts; and this is be cause this "inner man" is also formed of these same "hid den parts." And in these two "hidden parts" Unamuno's 20 concept of God is merged with his own content. And to this Unamuno adds a significant statement concerning the ' reality of ideas: Refiriendonos a tales honduras, no cabe hablar de ideas y de espiritu como cosas distintas; alii vina idea es un espiritu o parte de el, y alii 1^Ensayos. I, 860. nuestro espiritu es. una idea, la mas compleja, la mas viva, la mas real, por ser la m&s ideal.21 The situation is altered when it is a matter of* the sur face or exterior in social life where we see only the "shells of ideas sent out and received by shells of men." Here man must not be ruled by ideas because such surface ideas, being mere "shells," the outer bark, as it were, 22 are false ideas and are nor to be trusted. But there are such things as authentic ideas, and of these and their relation to man's intellectual life Unamuno writes in "Disociacion de ideas," 191^• In this article Unamuno notes that he who would enrich his mind with new associa tions of ideas, "with new and fecund thoughts," must now and then devote himself to dislocating, "disassociating," the commonplaces "which are habits of his thinking"; and Unamuno adds that "quien no se adiestra en la comprensi6n de la paradoja [something of which Unamuno was very fond] 23 jamas renovara el caudal de sus ideas vivas." "Living ideas" are true, authentic ideas. Both Unamuno and Ortega discuss the idea and its relationship to the life that begets it. Unamuno, in an imagined conversation between himself and a friend, posits the thesis that ideas, like children, are not the property 21 Ensayos, I, 860. 22 * Ibid. 15 of* those who engendered them and gave them birth; but they do belong to those who raised, shaped, and educated them: to those who gave the ideas "their most adequate expres sion" and placed them among their companion ideas "in the complex and context" where they acquire "their total 24 value." Unamuno gives a good example of this when he observes that Mauser, the inventor of the gun that bears his name, is not necessarily the person who best knows how 25 to handle this weapon. And he further notes that a mis understood idea may give rise to great thoughts, and even errors are productive at times of ideas and concepts, as in the case of the Phoenix, that miraculous bird that is purported to be reborn from its own ashes. But there is no such bird I Nor was there ever any such bird. The truth of the matter is that the word phoenix in Greek meant two different things: the date palm tree and also a bird. The proverb originally concerned the date palm which sprouts anew from its ashes after it has burned to the ground. The confusion was due to people who later, ignorant of the original reference to the date palm, ascribed the miracle of resurrection to the bird, whose 24 , Ensayos, II, 536; in "Conversacion primera," n. d. This imagined "conversation" is the first of twenty-three essays on various subjects comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 535-726). 25Ibid., p. 537. 16 name was identical to that of the tree.^^ This gives us an excellent example of the reality of ideas, even the reality of a mistaken idea. Another instance of this same phenomenon of the mistaken idea is the ' ’ passing of a camel through the eye of a needle,” when what was originally intended was a "rope,” the two words "camel” and "rope” being similar in form and sound. And this leads directly to the subject of language and ideas. Ortega, having stated that language (expression) is merely an approximation to the idea it wishes to express, adds that the same thing occurs with ideas, which are far from what they appear to be, since ideas always stand out against a background of other ideas; and these other ideas constitute their context or background. Therefore, every idea contains within itself the reference to all those other background (contextual) ideas. But ideas are not incubated in a vacuum; quite the contrary, they are the reaction of a person to a determined, specific life situa tion. Thus it is that we only have the "reality of an idea, what it inherently is," if we take it as a "concrete reaction to a concrete situation," from which situation 27 the idea cannot be separated. Developing this concept 26 Ensayos, II, 537- **^Obras, VI, 391» in "A 'Historia de la filosofia,' de Emile Brehier," 1942. Note the statement about ideas that refer to "a concrete situation," and see p. 7» where I mention this same concept. 17 further, Ortega observes that the matter of thinking "is carrying on a dialogue" with one's circunstancia. And this is an indispensable condition of human existence and is the reason we understand one. another. But there is something more in this concept: "To understand the thought of another person, we must cause his circumstance [circunstancia, which means much more than the English word "circumstance" conveys] to stand clearly before our eyes," because if we should fail to do this, "it would be as if we possessed of a dialogue only that which one of the speakers is saying," and such a condition would 28 preclude any kind of communication. With this basic condition in mind, Ortega states that "here is the first principle of a new philology": "the idea is an action that man effects in view of a determined circumstance 29 [circunstancia] and with a precise purpose." He then proceeds to indicate what would happen if we dispensed with the circunstancia that produced the idea and also eliminated the design or purpose that inspired it. Under such adverse conditions we would have of the idea only a 2 8 Obras, VI, 391. See Chapter III for circunstancia. 29 , Obras, VI, 391* In "Del sentimiento tragico de la vida," 1913> Unamuno admits that ideas influence human actions and sometimes even determine these actions "by a process similar to suggestion on a hypnotized person, " and this is due to the tendency that every idea— an idea being "an inchoate or abortive act"— has in resolving itself into action (Ensayos, II, 963)* vague and abstract sketch or "skeleton," which is pre cisely what an idea by itself, without other reference, is. But the idea does not have its "authentic content" or its own precise "sense" without its fulfilling the active role or function that elicited it, that caused it to be thought. This is the foie of the idea as "action" in the ■30 face of the circunstancia that called it into being. For Ortega, there are no such things as abstract or "eternal" ideas since every idea is perforce "assigned to the situation [or circunstancia] in the presence of which it plays its active role and exercises its function." Thus ideas are only an authentic reality when they are functioning in an authentic human situation; and even when this situation is only a vague reference or an abstract allusion, as so often happens in life, we may ob tain some sense and understanding of the "supposed abso lute value" of the ideas involved. But even in such a situation what we have understood, which may be no more than the "blurred fragment of the idea," we understand due to the fact that we have referred it to "permanent 32 schemes of human life" and circunstancia. Since both 3°Obras, VI, 391. 31Ibid. 320bras, VI, 391-392. Note the vital role played by human life in Ortega's concept of the idea. Jose Ferrater Mora, Ortega y Gasset; An Outline of His Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957)» P • 23, say s: "the 19 human life and the circunstancia are concrete, no situa tion has ever existed that was merely a sketch or "skele ton.” Therefore, we shall truly understand the idea that is involved in a situation only if we have previously re constructed the concrete situation and have managed to ascertain the functional role the idea plays in this situ ation. To do anything else is to end up with the corpse or "mummy1 1 of an idea, and its content will be just as inexact as the human allusion the "mummy1 1 exhibits.33 Unamuno, who was Professor of Greek and the History of the Spanish Language, shows his vital concern with language and its relation to ideas in "La Lengua escrita y la hablada," 1900. In this article he observes the wide chasm that exists between the spontaneous spoken language, where much is left unsaid and implied (This is the "refer ence" to a human situation of which Ortega spoke above.), and the written language, which is composed of written symbols that in turn represent images and ideas. The written language precludes all those other aspects of communication that are so essential to the understanding of ideas: gestures, facial expressions, intonation, etc. relation between life and ideas is a central issue in Ortega’s philosophy." This work is hereafter cited as Ferrater Mora, Ortega. 33Obras, VI, 392. 3^De_dsto, IV, 460. 20 Hence the written language is inherently different from the spoken idiom and is actually a falsification of true communication. In still another article., "Dario de Regoyos," 1913» Unamuno speaks sympathetically of his compatriot by adoption (Regoyos was Asturian) and indi cates the vital reality of the idea and its expression when he writes of Regoyos, the painter who "painted fra ternally." and "felt" the brotherhood existing between "man and things" and felt "that we and they are made of the same soul"; and to this Unamuno adds: . . . que son las cosas las que metiendosenos en el alma nos la hacen al hacerse ideas y que somos nosotros, que son nuestras ideas las que al meterse en las cosas las hacen, dandoles almas. This is Unamuno's way of saying that the idea is a dia logue that we carry on with our circunstancia. He further notes that art, such as Regoyos', may be an initiation into philosophy: "iNo es la expresion [which is language in any form, be it art, music, or literature] el necesario peldaho de la concepcion [which is the genesis of the idea]?"56 The all pervading influence of the secondary reality « called language is especially evident in "Algunas conside- raciones sobre la literatura hispano-americana [sic]," 1905i where Unamuno, calling language "the blood of the 35Pe esto. IV, 335* 21 social spirit," cogently observes that man thinks with words; and any person who, as a child, thinks in Spanish will continue to think a la espanola whether he is aware of it or not. Though he may not have a drop of Spanish blood in his veins, his ideas will be Spanish ideas and nothing else. Unamuno then makes this cogent observation about the reality of language: La lengua es la sangre del esplritu social, y asi como la sangre es como el ambiente interior del cuerpo, asi la lengua es el ambiente interior del espiritu colectivo, el vehiculo de su nutricion ideal.37 In Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913j Unamuno notes that it is to no avail to attempt to suppress the anthropomorphic process and rationalize man's thought, as i if man thought only for the sake of thinking and knowing rather than for the purpose of living. He then proceeds to point out how language with which man thinks prevents him from rationalizing his thought, since language, the substance of thought and ideas, is a complicated system of metaphors that have a "mythical and anthropomorphic 38 base." In order to make a philosophy wholly rational ^ Enaayos, I, 878-879* Note Unamuno's habitual use of physiological terms when he is speaking of man's "soul" or his "spirit.." This unusual association of con cepts is admirably discussed by R. L. Predmore, "Flesh and Spirit in the Works of Unamuno," PMLA, LXX, iv, pt. 1 (Sept. 1935)) 587-605. Unamuno's physiologico-psychic associations reveal his subjective approach to life. 38Ibid., II, 859* 22 it would have to be constructed by means of algebraic formulas, or, we would have to create a new language— an inhuman language not suited to the vital needs of man, such as Richard Avenarius, Professor of Philosophy in Zurich, tried to do in his Kritik der reinen Erfahruhg. Such a procedure would be necessary in order to avoid "preconceptions,” the concepts already established in the 39 language by usage. Language is a reflection of a culture, a way of life, and, as such, it is a positive and potent reality. Philosophy, says Unamuno, does not work on the objective reality that we have before our senses; rather it uses "the complex of ideas, images, notions, perceptions, etc.," which are already present in the vocabulary of a language and which are trans mitted to us with this language by our ancestors. "What we call the world, the objective world, is a social tradition"; and so is language also. The world that man inherits when he is born is what Unamuno calls a "ready made" world.^ Language, more vital to man than race, "the blood of kl the soul, the vehicle of ideas," the reflection of the ^ Ensayos, II, 859-860. 40Ibid., p. 860. 41 Ibid., p. 1122; in "Rousseau, Voltaire, Nietzsche," , which is the twelfth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227). 23 circunstancia into which man is born, lives, loves, thinks, and dies, is, for Unamuno, an authentic and "potential” philosophy. He notes that Platonism is the Greek language "discoursing” in Plato; scholasticism is the "dead Latin” of the medieval era wrestling with the vulgar (popular) languages of the former Roman Empire; the French language "discourses” in Descartes, German in Kant and Hegel, and English in John Stuart Mill and Martin 42 Hume. For Unamuno, the logical departure for any philo sophical speculation is not the yu, nor is it any form of "representation"--Vorstellung. Nor is it the world as it appears at first glance to our senses. Being none of these things, the logical starting point of philosophical speculation is what Unamuno calls "mediate or historical representation, humanly elaborated" in the form it is given to us. in our language, which is our tool for know ing the world. And this "mediate or historical repre- 43 sentation" is spiritual and not psychic. What others thought who preceded us in our circunstancia, as well as what those with whom we live in our present circunstancia think, conditions our point of departure, since "thought is an inheritance" (as is language) that is passed on from one generation to the next. Hence Kant thought in 42 Ensayos, II, 1005 5 in "Del sentimiento . . . ," 1913- 43 Ibid. 24 German and translated into German Hume and Rousseau, who, in their turn, thought in English and French respectively; and Spinoza thought in Judeo-Portuguese which was ’ ’ blocked 44 by Dutch and struggling with it.” Thought itself* is based on pre-judgments (prejudices), which are inherent in language. Therefore, it is folly to attempt to philoso phize in algebraic formulas (Avenarius) or in Esperanto,^ Unamuno further maintains that all philosophy is phi lology, the science of language that, with its fertile law of analogical formations, in turn ascribes much to chance, to that which is irrational and incapable of 46 measurement. Reason is "inner language,” and repre sentation, as language, is "a social and racial product"; 47 "race, the blood of the spirit, is language." Unamuno, further pursuing the reality of language, observes that, in Socrates, dialogue gave us the first example of Western philosophy, which was conscious of itself. He further notes that it is profoundly signifi cant that the doctrine of "innate ideas, of the objective and normative value of ideas," of that which the scho lastics called "Realism," was formulated in dialogues; 44 Ensayos, II, 1005• ^5Ibid. ^6Ibid., p. 1006. 47 'Ibid. Note again the physiologico-psychic term. 25 "and these ideas, which constitute reality, are names, as 48 Nominalism pointed out." He observes that language is what gives man objective reality, and language is not merely a vehicle of objective reality but is as its true "flesh" (came) , of which all the rest, Mmute or inarticu late representation," is only a skeleton. This is the way logic operates upon aesthetics, and the concept operates upon expression and the word, and not upon "brute percep- 49 tion." Even an emotion as subtle as love does not re veal itself wholly until it is expressed in words, which 50 are the building blocks of language. It becomes quite apparent from what Unamuno says about the reality of language that the Biblical statement that "In the begin ning was the Word" is a fundamental and authentic assertion concerning this reality. Turning again to Ortega, it is to be noted that, for him also, ideas, language, and philosophy are closely and inseparably associated. He remarks that philosophy "is a system of living actions [as are ideas], as blows with the fist may be, only the fisticuffs of philosophy are 51 called ideas." This may be said only of the discipline 48 Ensayos, II, 1006. 49Ibid. 5°Ibid. ^Obras, VI, 392; in "A ’Historia de la filosofia,' de Emile Brehier," 1942. called philosophy where ideas are truly ideas, since the truth or falseness of an idea is a question of "inner politics" (politica interior) inside the "imaginary wOrld of our ideas." For Ortega "an idea is true when it cor responds to the idea we have of reality," but he hastens 52 to add that "our idea of reality is not our reality." Ortega explains the meaning he attributes to his politica interior when he notes that what is usually referred to as man's intimacy (intimidad, which Ortega also calls our dentro) is only his imaginary world, which is the world of ideas. Ortega employs the almost untranslatable word ensimismarse ("to enter into oneself," or "to lose oneself in deep thought within oneself") to refer to the "move ment" thanks to which man disregards objective reality for a few moments in order to pay heed to his ideas and from which ensimismamiento he re-emerges into objective reality, observing this reality now from the altered point of view of his "inner world," the world of his ideas (the "imaginary world of ideas"), some of which ideas were consolidated into beliefs. Thus man leads a "double life," being situated at one and the same time in "enig matic reality" (the area of beliefs) and in the "bright 52 Obras, V, 388; in "Ideas y creencias," 1934. Unamuno also speaks of "true" and "false" ideas: "No hay ni debe haber ideas legales ni ilegales; no hay mas que ideas verdaderas e ideas falsas, y de otra parte ideas en que se cree e ideas que se mienten" (Ensayos, I, 789; in "La patria y el ejercito," 1906). 27 world of Ideas that have occurred to him" (which is the area of "the imaginary existence," the area of ideas that are the result of thinking: living ideas). Consequently, man's "second existence" is "imaginary," and this "imagi nary existence" is an integral part of man's "absolute 53 reality." ^ Ortega thus considers "revelation" and "intu ition" to be false ideas because neither involves any 5 4 thinking, and only by thinking does man "live ideas." The foregoing will suffice to indicate that, for Unamuno and Ortega, ideas and language are true secondary realities and are inextricably associated with the cir cunstancia in which human life unfolds, with authenticity, and with the basic reality of human life itself. The ap proach of Ortega and Unamuno to the reality "ideas" is quite different. Unamuno is more radically opposed to ideas as such, which does not mean that he is more anti idea than Ortega, who also shuns ideas as the governing force in life. But Unamuno detests the "tyranny of ideas" (see p. 11) and bluntly states that he hates ideocracia (see p. 10). Here, as elsewhere,Unamuno is more per sonally, passionately, agonizantemente involved than is the more placid Ortega. Ortega is more coolly rational, less impassioned about the secondary reality of "ideas" ^Obras, V, 401; in "Ideas y creencias," 1934. ^Ibid., VI, 45-46} in "Historia como sistema," 1941. 28 than is his distinguished colleague from Salamanca. Both insist on authentic ideas, vital ideas, live ideas; but Unamuno insists more vociferously and with more urgency. Beliefs It is well at the outset to make perfectly clear that in this study I have considered ' ’ belief" and "faith" to be synonymous terms. Ortega seems to favor the word "belief" (creencia) while Unamuno tends to lean toward the word "faith" (fe). Unamuno's preference for the word fe^ is understandable in light of his passionate, even desperate, subjective longing for immortality and belief in God. On the other hand, Ortega's use of the word creencia reveals a more calmly objective and reasoned approach to the prob lem of human life in this world, not in the next. And further, belief has an opposite face, which is just as authentic a belief as belief itself; and this opposite face of belief is doubt, which is quite as much a reality as the more positive "belief." Both Unamuno and Ortega treat both "faces" of this reality, the positive (belief) and the negative (doubt). I shall consider "beliefs" first and then take up the reality that is its opposite: "doubt." Beliefs, something man clings to more tenaciously than he dpes to outmoded linguistic forms, must not be confused with ideas; and Ortega makes very certain that we understand the difference between "ideas" and "be liefs." He notes that beliefs are not something man ar rives at by using thought processes, as is the case with "living ideas," and Unamuno likewise maintains this same thesis. Beliefs constitute the "container" of man's life, and, consequently, they do not have the nature of private "contents" inside man's life. "Living ideas" do occupy a place in man's inner life; therefore, beliefs are not true ideas that man has but ideas that he i_s. And because be liefs are extremely deep-rooted, they are often confused with reality itself--beliefs being man's "world and his being"— and they do not, as a result, possess, the nature 55 of ideas, of thoughts that have occurred to man. Thus beliefs are secondary realities that man lives in and not something that he thinks out. And because man lives in his beliefs, his interpretation of objective reality is colored by what he believes this reality to be; and this conditions his "idea" of objective reality. Ortega does not want to be misinterpreted on this point, nor does he want us to believe that the "real world forces us only to react with scientific or philosophical ideas," since the "world of knowledge is only one of many interior worlds," such as, the "world of religion," the. "poetic world," and what Ortega calls the "world of sagesse" or world of "life ^Obras, V, 384; in "Ideas y creencias," 1934. 30 ,,56 experience." In this same manner the physicist, the man of science, lives in the imaginary world of his science, which is for him a true reality. But at the same time this same scientist continues to live in the "authentic 57 and primary reality of his own life." Ortega cogently observes that the language of the people, the popular speech which Unamuno so ardently de fends on every occasion, has wisely invented the telling expression estar en la creencia. This expression clearly reveals a basic truth: man is fundamentally and inher- 58 ently credulous and vitally needs belief to sustain him. Our concept of reality is based on beliefs which determine our conduct, including our intellectual activity. We 59 move and live in our beliefs. We are our beliefs, which may even shape the course of history.*^ Unamuno, the struggling (agonizante) seeker after ^Obras, V, 406. 57Ibid., p. 403. ts A ^ Ibid., p. 3^4. Unamuno goes even farther when he writes: "Solemos necesitar de que nos crean para creer- nos, y si no fuera monstruosa herejxa y hasta impiedad manifiesta, sostendria que Dios se alimenta de la fe que en El tenemos los hombres" (Ensayoa, II, 210; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905). ^Obras, V, 3^7* See also ibid., VI, 13-15j in "Historia como sistema., " 1941, where Ortega restates this same thesis. ^See ibid., VI, 13-19* This constitutes the core of Ortega's raz6n hist6rica, which I discuss in Chap. IV. 31 belief (faith), the disturbed vitalist, is a startling ex ample of everything that Ortega, has to say about the vital reality of beliefs. Unamuno iis his belief; he lives in his faith. Hence in almost everything that he writes references are to be found to this subject. For Unamuno the reality of belief is vital, ever present, and, so far as society is concerned, "the most genuinely and effec tively revolutionary, i. e., progressive, element, the most energetic spur to all progress, is religious enthusi asm, faith.Woe unto those people in whom shrinks or freezes that deep religious feeling that produced such great "rebels" as Dante, Luther, and Rousseau, because such people have lost the "cause of spiritual progress" and soon the cultured classes will "lose their appetite for living" and will fall into worldly pursuits such as gambling, sports, politics, all of which are forms of boredom.^ Unamuno is convinced that Voltairian skepti cism is the worst thing that has happened to Frenchmen, and he notes that peoples and individuals, after wander ing afield in all manner of digressions, always return to the "eternal principles of eternal faith and eternal ^Ensayos, II, 1125; in "Rousseau, Voltaire, Nietzsche," which-is the twelth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, XI, 1025-1227). 62 Ibid., p. 1127- Gambling, etc., are, for Unamuno, examples of unauthenticity (see Chapter V). 32 hope, which are the substance of* the life of the spirit. The evolution of Unamuno's anguished longing for faith--his unattainable reality of belief— had its begin ning in the year 1897, and two years later, in 1899, he devoted an entire essay (first delivered as a lecture in 1898) to an abortive attempt to recapture the faith of his childhood. This work, "Nicodemo el fariseo," an im passioned and anguished cry of a seeker after faith, is 64 the confession of a doubter. As the springboard for his discussion, Unamuno uses Nicodemus the Pharisee (Unamuno) and his nocturnal conversation with Christ concerning faith and salvation; and he leaves us totally in doubt re garding his own true conviction on the matter of belief. In the course of this "conversation" Unamuno says "faith does not consist so much of creating what we did not see 65 as of creating what we do not see. Only faith creates." v ^ Enaayoa, II, 1128. 64 See A. Sanchez Barbudo, "La formacion del pensa- miento de Unamuno. Una expresi6n decisiva: la crisis de 1897,” Hispanic Review. XVIII (1930), 218-243. Sanchez Barbudo states that Unamuno did not believe and that his wanting to believe must not be confused with true believ ing (p. 221). He also notes that this essay is a reflec tion of a spiritual crisis Unamuno experienced on a spring night in March of 1897 (PP* 222, 229) and that Nicodemus is Unamuno, who sought refuge in a monastery on the morn ing following the crisis, not at night as Nicodemus did (p. 229). 65q. C., Ill, 124. 33 He laments how little we think with our hearts about what faith is and what it means. It is not a question of "mere adherence to a formula" devoid of content nor is it the "affirmation of metaphysical or theological principles. Faith is an "act of abandonment and heartfelt [cordial] surrender of the will"; it is "a serene confidence in which nature and spirit come togetner to the same end," in which "by naturalizing the spirit we super-spiritualize 6 7 it and by spiritualizing nature we super-naturalize it." Faith is a firm confidence that truth dwells within man, that man is the vessel of truth, find that truth is conso lation, a firm confidence that on acting with pureness and simplicity of intention, man is serving a supreme design, 68 be that design what it may. 66 0. C., III, 124. See also Enaayos, II, 60-6l, where, in an undated personal letter written between 1900 and 1905, Unamuno expresses this same thesis. This is a recurrent theme with Unamuno. 670. C., Ill, 124. 68 Ibid. Not only is truth consolation, but faith is also, as Unamuno observes when he speaks of how Sancho misses Don Quijote while Sancho and his ass are buried in the pit (Qui.j. , II, 53)* Unamuno says that Sancho, alone and realizing how much he needs Don Quijote, how far from him he now is, is actually closest to his master because the more he regrets the distance separating them the nearer he is to Don Quijote. The same is true of man and his belief in God: ". . . cuanto mas sentimos el infinito que de El nos separa, mas cerca de El estamos, y cuanto menos acertaraoa a definirle y representarnoslo, mejor le conocemos y queremos mas" (Ensayos, II, 285-286; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905)• Sancho*s faith is vindicated when his ass brays and Don Quijote finds them and rescues them from the, pit. 34 That Unamuno considers faith to be a creative force in man becomes quite evident in Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913j where he speaks of the source of faith (in essay IX, "Fe, esperanza y caridad") and states that we do not hope because we believe; rather "we believe be cause we hope." This thought might be schematized as fol lows: man's longing for immortality > hope > belief (faith), and belief + hope > charity. It is man's hope for God, his ardent desire that God exist, a God who "will guarantee the eternity of consciousness," that leads man (and Unamuno) to believe in Him.^ But faith must have 70 dogma or matter upon which to work. Faith is based on uncertainty, but, in spite of this uncertainty, faith is a form of knowing even if this knowing only means being go Ensayos, II, 898* See also ibid., pp. II5O-II5I, in "La Epopeya de Artigas," the fifteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912, where Unamuno also speaks of hope: "Tal vez la eternidad misma no es mas que esperanza, esperanza sustancial, y £sta, madre de la fe, madre de Dios. tEsperemos, pues, aunque solo sea . . . CsicJ a la esperanza misma!" 70 Ibid. But see what Unamuno says about "dogma" in "La Fe," 1900, where he writes: "Entre luchas cruentas e incruentas, con infinito trabajo, con ansias intimas, con angustias y anhelos, con desesperaciones y jubilos, brot6 del alma de una comunidad un dogma, flor de una planta rebosante de vida, de una planta con raices y tallo y hojas y savia. Y la comunidad transmiti6 a sus mas jove- nes retonos esa flor preciada, que habria de dar fruto, o mejor aun, en la cual habrxa de dar fruto la planta. Y lo dioj pero al darlo muri6 la flor, como es forzoso. Y guardaron los fieles sus ajados petalos en un relicario, y bajo fanal los tienen y rinden culto a esos ajados petalos de la flor muerta" (Ensayos, I, 266-267)* In "La patria y el ejercito," 1906, Unamuno says "Dogmas have killed I 35 cognizant of our vital longing and formulating it into 71 something we can believe. Man's belief in a person pre sumes a personal, objective element: we tend to believe in a person in whom we have faith (con + fidem > confidem, the etymon of "confidence"), a person who tells us the 72 truth. Not being the adherence of the intellect to an abstract principle nor the recognition of a theoretical truth in which our will merely moves us to understand, faith is a matter of will (volition), "the movement of the soul toward a practical truth, toward a person, toward something that makes us live and not merely comprehend 7, life." Unamuno would prefer to call "faith" by the name of "will," the "will not to die, or [by the name ofj some other psychic force distinct from intelligence and volition and feeling" because then we would have feeling, knowing, willing, and believing or creating (synonymous terms for Unamuno), something that neither feeling nor intelligence nor will can do since they operate on faith" (ibid., p. 790). He had no more use for dogma than Ortega, whose description of this word is less poetic but no less effective: "Dogma es lo que queda de una idea cuando la ha aplastado un martillo pil6n" (Obras, V, 515- 516; in "El intelectual y el otro," 19(t0). 71Ensayos, II, 898-899. 72 1 Ibid. Cf. what I said about Unamuno and the idea "man" (p. 11). Man, the "man of flesh and bone," is uppermost at all times in Unamuno's mind. 73Ibid., p. 902. 36 74 material furnished them by faith. Because Unamuno as sumes that faith is the creative power in man, he sub jectively observes that "the power of creating a Hod in our own image and likeness, of personalizing the Uni verse," only means that man carries God within himself, as the substance of what man hopes for; and, by the same token, "God is continually creating us in His own image 75 and likeness."'^ To believe in God is to love Him and to fear Him lovingly; thus man begins "by loving Him even before knowing Him, and by loving Him, man ends by seeing * y £ L and discovering Him in all things." God even goes so far as to reveal Himself to the doubters, whose very doubt 74 Ensayos, II, 902. 75Ibid., p. 903- 76 Ibid., pp. 905-906. For Unamuno, faith is based on love and springs from the heart, not the head. From loving everything (rocks, trees, hills, etc.), man moves on to loving more permanent things which "he cannot grasp with his hands"; ". . . de amar los bienes pasamos a amar el Bien; de las cosas bellas, a la Belleza; de lo verda- dero, a la Verdad; de amar los goces, a amar la Felicidad, y, por ultimo, a amar el Amor. Se sale uno de si mismo para adentrarse mas en su Yo supremo; la conciencia indi vidual se nos sale a sumergirse en la Conciencia total de que forma parte, pero sin disolverse en ella. Y Dios no es sino el Amor que surge del dolor universal y se hace conciencia" (ibid., p. 906). Love causes man to believe in God, in whom man hopes and from whom he hopes for a future life; love makes mein believe in what the dream of hope creates for him (ibid., p. 909)* Love assumes the form of the "mother," and this "mother" concept is devel oped at length at the end of Unamuno's commentary on Quij., II, 67 (Ensayos, II, 332-337; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905)• For more about the "mother" concept, see Chap. VI, where I discuss sueno and its several meanings. 37 is an affirmation and. a creation of the God they try to In 1912, when he was in the process of writing Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, Unamuno says the he believes in God as he believes in his friends, because I feel the breath of His affection and His invisible and intangible hand that draws me and carries me and grasps me, because I possess an intimate consciousness of a particular providence J ~ J al mind that marks out for me my own In support of this belief, Unamuno states that during the course of his life, when he felt himself "hanging over the abyss" of doubt concerning which course in life to select from among the many that were presented to him, he felt the "impulse of a conscious, sovereign, and loving power" 79 that seemed to be guiding him. Thus he "feels" that the universe possesses a "certain consciousness" similar to his own, and he "feels" this because of the way in which the universe "conducts itself humanly" with him; he So "feels" that a "personality" environs him. Unamuno speaks is especially evident in his essays deal ing with his many peregrinations through Spain and Portugal (see especially "Por tierras de Portugal y de Espana," 1911, passim, and "Andanzas y visiones espano- las," 1922, passim, both included in 0. C., I). Unamuno, like others of the Generation of 1898, was a trailer. 77 destroy. Ibid 38 Belief does not depend on reason since man does not believe with his reason, nor over it, nor under it; rather he believes against his reason. Religious faith is not Qi only irrational, it is "contra-rational." Because of man's love, which hopes tirelessly because hope, which is faith, is also "contra-rktional," his faith in God is, j above all, hope in Him; and because God is eternal, he who hopes in God will live forever. Hence basic hope is the hope for immortality, which is "the root and stem" of all 82 man's hopes. If faith is "the substance of hope," hope is the "form" of faith, because before giving hope, faith is "formless, vague, chaotic, potential, the possibility Q jjp of believing, the longing to believe." ^ Because man must believe in something (See what Ortega says about this com pulsion, p. 30•)j be believes in what he hopes for, in 84 hope itself: "One recalls the past, knows the present, and believes only in the future. Believing what we did 85 not see is believing what we shall see." ^ The overlapping of realities becomes evident once Q-i Ensayos, II, 908. 82 Ibid., p. 909. 85Ibid. 84 Ibid. See p. 3^1 h. 69, where Unamuno expresses the same opinion concerning hope. This idea is repeated twice more on this same page (909)* Q g Ibid. See p. 32 for a variant of this concept. 39 again when Unamuno notes that faith is man's longing, the longing for God; and hope is "God's longing, the longing for immortality," for man's divinity, which, coming to meet man's longing for immortality and for God, elevates 86 man. Man aspxres to God through faith, and God, who is man's divinity, sends man hope in another life so that man may believe in immortality. Thus "hope is the reward for having faith," for believing; and "only he who believes really hopes, and only he who really hopes believes" Q authentically. The secondary reality that I have called "beliefs" appears to have many manifestations in Unamuno1s concept of faith and belief. For example, he says that the sacra ment of the Eucharist is merely the reflection of man's belief in immortality, the bread and the wine being 88 tangible symbols of eternal life. Belief is also an eternal struggle (agonia), and this becomes obvious when, on discussing Don Quijote's decision to become a shepherd during his enforced twelve-month abstention from chivalric enterprises after his defeat by the Knight of the White Moon (Quij., II, 67)* Unamuno reveals the depth of his own faith, his struggle (agonia) for belief in God and Ensayos, II, 909-910. 87Ibid., p. 910. DO Ibid., p. 788. 40 immortality. This struggle requires that man aspire day by day to the Kingdom of God, and this kingdom is the one that is going to descend to earth' since it is to be a kingdom of live people and not dead ones. Man has to create such a kingdom, and it cannot be done with prayers alone; it can only be accomplished with infinite struggle 89 , (lucha). This is the agonia of Unamuno that constitutes his approach to the reality of faith. Belief is also something that adheires to those whom we love, as does Don Quijote1s faith, which is so great and unsullied that it "sticks to" those who love him without his losing any of his own. Such is the nature of "living faith": "it in creases by pouring itself out, and, by sharing itself, it 90 grows," as does love if love is true and alive. Thus Sancho1s recalling to Don Quijote the promise of his insula was not a sign of greed but one of authentic faith. Faith is also transferable and can make one immortal, as did Sancho1s faith in Don Quijote when he implores Don Quijote not to die "because the greatest madness that a man can commit in this life is to let himself die just like that" (Quij., II, 74). Don Quijote’s faith had "stuck to" Sancho, who is now the believer, the "heroic" 89 Ensayos, II, 329; in. "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1903* 90 Ibid., p. 114. Note here the reference to "love" and see p. 36, n. 76, for what Unamuno has to say about love and faith. 4i one whose master lost his faith (by recovering his reason) and died, while Sancho, now mad, will never die because 91 Don Quijote’s faith is now treasured up in Sancho. And early in his commentary on Don Quijote the man, not the book, Unamuno observes that the knight’s faith ac complished its miracle in Sancho who has now acquired Don Quijote's soul; and Sancho no longer lives in himself, 92 but it is his master who lives in Sancho. X have spoken of man’s need for belief (see pp. 30 and 38) » an<i Unamuno makes this need very explicit in Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913j where he is discussing (in essay VII, "Amor, dolor, compasion y personalidad") the concept of God as being something ever renewed, as being something that stems from "the eternal feeling of [belief in] God in man," which belief is, in its turn, the eternal protest of life against reason, the 93 protest of the heart against the head. Unamuno says that man's belief in God is based on "the vital need of giving finality" to human existence, of making this life answer to a purpose: man needs God not in order to under stand the why, but in order to feel and sustain the 91 Ensayos, II, 351* 92 Ibid., p. 63; in the commentary on Quij., I, 23- 93 Ibid., p. 859* See Chapter VII for my discussion of Unamuno's subjective vitalism, of which this is a good example. - • 42 94 ultimate wherefore, to give meaning to the Universe. Unamuno maintains that since nto believe in God is to create Him," to wish that He exist, and since God is con tinually creating Himself in man, man "has created God" in order to save the Universe from nothingness, which it would result in if man did not long "furiously" to give finality to it, "to make it conscious and personal." The Universe would become a void because "what is not consciousness and eternal consciousness, conscious of its eternity and eternally conscious, is nothing but appear- 95 ance." Only that which "feels, suffers, pities, loves, and desires" is truly real; and consciousness is the only 96 thing that is truly substantial. Man needs God to save consciousness, not to think existence, as the rationalists 97 would have him do, but to live it. ' If man's belief in God should fail him, then love itself would be a contra- 98 dictxon. When it comes to a belief in God, Unamuno notes that he would answer the Pilates who ask "What is believing in God?" by abandoning logical faith, which is parallel to the truth called "logical," and, adhering to ^ Ensayos, II, 866-867* 95 Ibid., p. 868. Appearance is unauthentic. ^ Ibid., pp. 868-869. * 97 *Ibid. Ibid., p. 869. 98. 43 moral faith that corresponds to moral truth, he would tell them that to believe in God is to want that God exist, to 99 long for Him with all my soul.” Not only does Unamuno need a belief in God, he also needs a belief in the im mortality of his personal soul; and this is an urgent and vital need, illogical as it may be: Yo necesito la inmortalidad de mi alma; la per- sistencia indefinida de mi conciencia individual, la necesito; sin ella, sin la fe en ella, no puedo vivir, y la duda, la incredulidad de haber de lo- grarla, me atormenta. Y como la necesito, mi pasion me lleva a afirmarla, y a afirmarla arbitra- riamente, y cuando intento hacer creer los demas en ella, hacerme creer a mi mismo, violento la logica y me sirvo de argumentos que llaman ingeniosos y parad6jicos los pobres hombres sin pasion que se resignan a disolverse un dia del todo.100 I have cited this passage in Unamuno's own words in order to show how vital a reality belief is to this subjective seeker after faith. Another very good example of the reality of beliefs is Unamuno's concept of God, which concept he goes to great lengths to explain in Del sentimiento tr^gico de la vida (in essay VIII, "De Dios a Dios"). He observes that just as "ether" is a hypothesis about which man knows almost nothing but which helps to explain a great many things about light and air, something that is immediately felt, especially when it is lacking, as in a moment of ^ Ensayos, I, 804; in "AQue es verdad?," 1906. ^ ^ Ibid. , pp. 915-916} in "Sobre la europeizaci6n ," 1906. 44 suffocation or "air-hunger,, f in the same manner God Him self (not the "Idea-God") becomes a reality immediately felt and though man cannot explain Him as an idea nor with this "idea" the existence or the essence of the Universe, '•we have at times the direct feeling of God, especially in moments of spiritual suffocation. it is this feeling that Unamuno calls the "feeling of hunger for God, of the lack of God," and in such a feeling lies all that is tragic in it and constitutes the tragic sense of life. "To believe in God is, in the first instance . . . to wish that there be a God, not to be able to live without 102 Him." Unamuno confesses that his search for a justi fication of a belief in God through reason and rationalism led him only to skepticism, and in this "wasteland" he found himself in a state of "sentimental despair"; but then there was kindled in him "the hunger for God"; and the suffocation of spirit, the lack of God, made him feel His reality. "And I wanted that there be a God, that God exist. And God does not exist, but rather He super-exists and is sustaining our existence by existing us [existien- donos] . Unamuno'3 anguished attempt to believe in God causes lOlj > 'Ibid. 'Ensayos, II, 88l. 102. 103Ibid. 45 him to conceive of a God that is a "universal and personal God," quite different from the "individual God of the rigid metaphysical monotheism"; Unamuno's God is the "God of the heart" (the Dios cordial), who is "felt," the God of the living, the "Universe itself personalized"; He is 104 the "Consciousness of ihe Universe." Unamuno starts his discussion of what he conceives as his personal God by warning that individuality (something fihite) and person ality (something infinite) are two entirely different things. With this distinction clearly in mind, he notes that the revelation of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) makes the belief or concept of a vital God into a society; and society means "personality." Hence the God of faith is a personal God; He is a person because He in cludes three persons; and personality cannot be felt to be isolated since an isolated person ceases to be a person (a "society"). And Unamuno asks the simple question: "Whom would he love?" He must love or he is not a person, and one cannot love oneself, since one is singular, with- 105 out "splitting himself in two over love." He further notes that the cult of the Virgin Mary (Mariolatry) and her possible eventual divinity would provide additional evidence of the belief in the God-father being a i nU Ensayos, XI, 882. 105Ibid., p. 883. family-man concept. Thus the Trinity could well become a Quaternity, which would probably have already been ef fected if the Greek word for "spirit” had been feminine instead of neuter and Mary had become the incarnation or 106 humanization of the Holy Spirit. For Unamuno, in any event, the vital God is a family God, which seems to be the popular belief. Unamuno adds that his living yn *s a yo that is really a "we" since his living, personal yo 107 lives only "in other, of other, and by other yos." Hence he proceeds from a multitude of grandparents and carries them within himself in extract, and at the same time he carries within himself, potentially, a multitude of grandchildren; and God, who is the projection of his yo into infinity--"or rather, I, the projection of God into the infinite"— is also a multitude of people. Therefore, in order to save the personality of God, which personality is the "living God, we have faith's need [ = the need of feeling and imagination] for conceiving Him and feeling 100 Him [possessed of] a certain internal multiplicity." ^^^Ensayos, II, 884. Cf. ibid., p. 927 j where Unamuno writes about St. Bonaventura, "the troubadour of Mary": "Y la misma religion cristiana de los misticos . . . ino culmin6 acaso en el culto a la mujer divinizada, a la Virgen Madre? £Que es la mariolatrla de un San Buenaventura, el trovador de Maria? Y ello era el amor a la fuente de la vida, a la que nos salva de la muerte." 107Ibid., p. 885. ~^^Ibid., pp. 885-886. While deistic rationalism conceives of God as "Reason of the Universe," an impersonal reason or idea, deistic vi talism feels and imagines God as "Consciousness," as, consequently, a person or a society of persons (as the polytheistic pagans did). In like manner, each yn is com posed of several yos, and may even be composed of the yos 109 with whom one lives. Man's vital need "to live an il logical, irrational world, personal or divine," is so deep-rooted in him that even if he professes disbelief in God, he must perforce believe in something: an omen, a horseshoe, some little dream or other, etc.” 1 " 1^ The God in whom man must believe, for whom he hungers, is the One to whom he prays, the God of the Lord's Prayer. This is the God whom we ask to infuse in us belief in Him, whom we ask to exist in us, and that His will be done--His will, not His reason— feeling the while that His will can be none other than "the essence of our will, which is the desire 111 to persist forever." This is Unamuno1s "God of love" in whom man must believe whether he wants to or not. This is the God of man's imagination, whom he had beside him as a child, and who grew up with him, and in whom man 109 Ensayos, II, 887. The influence of other egos on the individual is an example of the secondary reality I call "society" and of the circunstancia. ^ ^ Ibid., p. 89O. Note the reiteration of man's need for belief (see pp. 41-43). 48 believes. If man believes in God, God will believe in man, and "by believing in you, He continually creates 112 you.” When all is said and done, man is only the idea God has of him; but it is a living idea "because the idea of a God living and conscious of Himself, of a God- Consciousness" is a reality. Apart from what man is in 113 the society of God, he is really nothing. y The problem of the existence of God, rationally in capable of solution, is at bottom mothing other than the problem of consciousness, "of the ex-istentia and not of in-sistentia of consciousness"; it is precisely the prob lem of the "substantial existence of the soul," the prob lem of the soul's immortality, the problem of the "human 114 finality of the Universe itself." Man's belief in a living and personal God, in an eternal and universal consciousness that knows and loves him, signifies his be lief that the Universe exists for man; and this means "for man or for a consciousness of the same order as human consciousness which is capable of knowing" man, "in the 115 depth of whose being" man's memory will live forever. ^ The feeling that man has for the divine causes him to want 112 Ena ayos, II, 891. 113ib±d. 11-4 Ibid., pp. 893-894. 115Ibid., p. 894. 49 and to believe that "everything is animated, that cons ciousness, to a greater or lesser degree, is extended to everything. And Unamuno says that this explains why man wants to save not only himself but the entire world from nothingness, and this is the reason for man's belief in God and in His finality, a belief that man feels, not reasons out. Belief is something without which life has 117 no meaning or value for Unamuno. ' Man's belief in God, not due to a rational need, is motivated by "a vital anguish," since to believe in God is to feel "hunger for God, hunger for divinity, to feel His lack and absence, to 1X3 want God to exist." From this vital longing or hunger for God spring hope, faith, the feeling for beauty, 119 finality, and goodness. Unamuno's concept of a personal God includes the ele ment of suffering, which, for him, is something divine. This "divine suffering" is "the scandal of Christianity, of the Cross," among the Greeks, Jews, Stoics, and Pharisees; and this "scandal of a God who becomes man in order to suffer and die and rise again because of having ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 894-895* Note the concept of the extension of consciousness to everything and see my re marks in n. 80, p. 37. 117Ibid., p. 895* ll8Ibid. 119Ibid. 120 suffered and died” is still present in the world. For Unamuno this is the revelation of what is "divine” in suf- who does not know Christ, the Son of Man, will not know Unamuno's concept of a personal God, suffering constitutes a basic element, "the eternal essence of a living human God." Since inert, dead things do not suffer, and know neither love nor compassion, they do not play any part in Unamuno's concept of a "living human God." Only persons who have experienced these play such a role in his con- 12 3 cept. Consequently, Unamuno's God is a person, which means a "society," who knows suffering, compassion, love, and all the other spiritual feelings man experiences. To sum up Unamuno's concept of belief, his declara tion of faith, we have only to turn to Unamuno himself who says that his religion is "to seek truth in life and life in truth," even though he knows he will never find it; it is a "constant and tireless" struggle "with the mystery, a struggle with God from dawn to dusk" since he cannot "com promise with the unknowable" nor with the idea that "Thou fering since "only what suffers is divine." 121 The man the Father, who is the "suffering God." 122 Therefore, in 120 Ensayos, II, 913* 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. Ibid shalt not pass beyond here." He rejects the ignorabimus and will attempt to scale that which is "inaccessible," He wants to fight his battle without bothering himself about the final victory, and he asks the meaningful ques tions: "ANo hay ej£rcitos y aun pueblos que van a una derrota segura? ANo elogiamos a los que se dejaron matar peleando antes que rendirse? Pues esta es mi reli- 124 gion." This is Unamuno and his belief. His £o refuses to permit him to classify himself as Lutheran, Calvinist, 125 Catholic, atheist, or anything else. He believes (?) in God because he wants to believe in Him, and that is all there is to it. He knows that God cannot be explained 126 rationally as existing or'not existing. His belief in God-depends on his will, which Catholicism satisfies; but Catholicism does not satisfy the demands of reason, de- 127 mands that are just as imperious. Hence, will (voli tion) is the first requirement for belief; and the second requisite is “cordial” (of the heart): belief in God is a matter of the heart, which means that Unamuno is not so 123 sure about the existence of God as he is that 2 + 2 = 4. 1 24 Ensayos, II, 570-371; in "Mi religion," 1907• 125Ibid., p. 371. 126Ibid., p. 372. ^2^Ibid., p. 799; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913* 1 pfl Ibid., p. 372; in "Mi religion," 1907- 52 If it were merely a matter of something that was not his "peace of conscience and the consolation of having been born," he would perhaps not trouble himself with this vi tal problem of belief in God. But such is not the case since in this problem lies all his "inner life and the T O Q incentive of all [hisj action." Hence he cannot accept "I do not know nor can I know." But he frankly admits: "No se, cierto es; tal vez no pueda saber nunca, pero 130 'quiero' saber. Lo quiero, y basta." This is Unamuno's agonia, in which he finds food and consolation. He cannot conceive an educated man who would ignore this problem, and if there should be such a person, he would be an unauthentic man, which is what the great majority of 131 Spaniards appear to be to Unamuno. He has been accused of imposing his £2. on others, and this is precisely what 132 he says he does in matters of religion. ^ I referred earlier to doubt as the opposite face of belief and as being as authentic a secondary reality as belief (see p. 28). This becomes quite evident when Ortega observes that "full and authentic reality is for us only that in which we believe," but he adds that "ideas ^^^Ensayos, II, 372. 130T. .. Ibid. 131Ibid., pp. 372-373. 132Ibid. See Chapter V for more on Unamuno's thesis of "imposing oneself on others" (imponerse). are born of doubt, in an empty space or hole in the 133 belief." He cogently observes that one must believe in his doubt in order for that doubt to be authentic and that the doubter is as "one who is lost in a pit,” who "is falling.” Thus doubt becomes the nullification of 134 life. ^ But, in spite of its negative character, doubt shares much in common with belief: it preserves of belief the quality of being something one is in, something that one does not create or set up for himself. Doubt is not an idea that man can choose to think or not to think, to sustain, criticize, and formulate; man i_s his doubt and believes his doubt. This must be so because if man doubted his doubt, it would become harmless, which doubt is not since it operates on the same level as belief in man's existence. Believing, then, does not constitute the difference existing between belief and doubt. "Doubting is not a 'not believing1 [no creer] in opposition to be lieving, nor is it a 'believing not' [creer que no] in 135 opposition to a 'believing so' [creer que sij.” For Ortega, the differential element is to be found in what is believed, and he notes that "faith believes that God 136 exists or that God does not exist." Thus faith places ^ ^ Obras, V, 398; in "Ideas y creencias, ” 1934. 1?^Ibid., p. 392. 155Ibid., p. 393- 54 man in a positive or negative reality, a reality that is unequivocable j and, consequently, being in this reality man feels himself situated in something unstable, in a 137 "sea of doubts." As a result, doubt is the opposite face of belief. Ortega again notes that the popular speech has pene trated the essence of a concept ("doubt" here) by refer ring to it as something unstable, and he recalls the "liquid" allusion in the speech of the common people when reference is made to the situation of being in doubt: hallarse en un mar de dudas. This is exactly the opposite of the "solid ground" of belief, and Ortega observes that ■I i j O tierra ("ground") derives from tersa ("dry" or "solid"). Thus the popular language has given us the terra firma of belief and the mar de dudas, the unstable "sea" of doubt. As I have already indicated (p. 30)> man is inher ently credulous, in spite.of occasional lapses into doubt, because the deepest stratum of his existence, the stratum that sustains all the rest of life, is formed by be- 139 liefs. ^ Unamuno's support of this is evident in Vida de Don Qui.jote y Sancho, 1905, when he speaks of Sancho1 s faith, which is not a "dead" faith, which would be an 1570bras, V, 393- 1?8Ibid., n. 1. 159Ibid., p. 392. 55 unauthentic belief based on ignorance; Sancho1s faith is a "live, true faith" which is nourished on doubts. Only the man who doubts truly believes, and he who does not doubt or "feel temptations against his faith," which would con stitute a "dead faith," does not really believe. True faith is maintained on doubt, "which is the food of be lief" and is conquered minute by minute. The same thing is true of real life, which is maintained on death and is 14q constantly renewed, "being a continuous creation." Faith is something that is kept alive by resolving doubts and then by again resolving those doubts that arise from Xkl the previous so-called solution. Unamuno explains how Sancho believed in Don Quijote and the insula and in Dulcinea and in her enchantment, and how Sancho1s head doubted but not his heart; his will carried him on against his understanding (reason), his faith prevailing in the 1^2 last analysis. In the struggle between head and heart, heart wins out; and faith conquers. Such is man’s belief in God and in a hereafter. Such was Unamuno’s abortive attempt at a belief in both. In Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913> (in essay III, "El hambre de inmortalidad"), Unamuno observes l 4o Ensayos, II, 224. 141 . . Ibid. 142 Ibid., p. 225. 56 that doubts have their positive effect because when they invade man and becloud his faith in the immortality of the soul, his yearning to perpetuate his name and fame gain in strength and impetus in order to attain at least a "shadow 143 of immortality." ^ This struggle between doubt and faith is even more vital than the struggle to live and "gives color and character to our civilization, in which the be- 144 lief in the immortal soul is vanishing." The "terrible danger" for Unamuno is not believing too much, but from "wanting to believe with reason and not with life," i. e., 145 with the head instead of with the heart. In 1917j Unamuno again observes that belief and doubt are both vital realities, and one is equally as important as the other. He also observes the horror of the fanatic who becomes a skeptic, who "falls into skeptical fanaticism," and becomes a "man possessed, a crazy man [energumenoj of 146 doubt, and even worse than of doubt, of negation." Thus nihilism is as much a fanaticism as any other: it is the fanaticism of nothingness. Four years later (1921) Unamuno, as Ortega, maintains that belief or disbelief ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 776. 144 Ibid. 145 This is another example of Unamuno’s subjective vitalism (see Chapter VII, pp. 56l-6lO). 146 De esto. III, 283; in. "El fanatico y el escep- tico," 1917. 57 (in God), belief in. a ’ 'No-God,’ 1 are both vital beliefs, vital realities. Doubt is just as authentic as belief, and this is also true of man's belief or doubt in a here- 147 after. In his very provocative and challenging La agonia del cristianismo, 1931» Unamuno gives a very good, but paradoxical, definition of "doubt” when he states that faith is the way of living, of struggling (agonizar or 148 luchar) for life and of living on this struggle. Hence life is struggle, and "Faith that does not doubt is dead 149 faith." 7 Unamuno further notes that dubitare and dueHum ("struggle") have the same root or etymon (duo, "two"), and the struggling doubt (la duda agonica) of a Pascal is the authentic doubt, not the Cartesian type of methodical doubt; the duda agonica implies the duality of the struggle .^° This leads him to observe that in the catechism he was taught that believing what he did not see was faith, and believing what he sees— and does not see— was reason, science. To believe what he will see in the future— or what he will not see— is hope. And all of this pertains to belief. He states the case as he sees it by ^ ^ De esto, III, l86; in "Bienestar y vida," 1921. See ibid., p. 334, in "Manuel Laranjeira," 1912, where he states: "La desilusiSn puede ser una fuerza de vida." 148 Bnaayos, I, 950- l49Ibld- 150Ibid. 58 s a y i n g t h a t h e a f f i r m s , " a s a p o e t , a s a c r e a t o r , l o o k i n g a t t h e p a s t , a t m e m o r y " ; h e d e n i e s , d i s b e l i e v e s , " a s a r e a s o n e r , a s a c i t i z e n , l o o k i n g a t t h e p r e s e n t " ; a n d h e d o u b t s , f i g h t s , s t r u g g l e s , " a s a m a n , a s a C h r i s t i a n , l o o k i n g a t t h e u n a t t a i n a b l e f u t u r e , a t e t e r n i t y . F rom m a n ' s d o u b t s s p r i n g h i s e f f o r t s t o t h i n k , w i t h h i s h e a d o r h i s h e a r t , a s t h e c a s e m ay b e ; a n d t h i s t h i n k i n g i s r e s o l v e d i n t o " l i v i n g i d e a s , " w h i c h c o n s t i t u t e t h e 152 r a w m a t e r i a l o f i m a g i n a t i o n . B e f o r e t u r n i n g my a t t e n t i o n t o t h e r e a l i t y o f i m a g i n a t i o n , I s h o u l d l i k e t o r e m a r k o n t h e d i s p a r a t e t r e a t m e n t o f t h e r e a l i t y o f b e l i e f - - a n d d o u b t - - b y U nam uno a n d O r t e g a : t h e f o r m e r m a k e s o f b e l i e f ( f a i t h ) — a n d d o u b t - - s o m e t h i n g t h a t i s d e e p l y p e r s o n a l , s o m e t h i n g t o b e h a n d l e d s u b j e c t i v e l y w i t h l o v e , w i t h c h a r i t y , w i t h p a s s i o n , a n d , p a r t i c u l a r l y , w i t h s t r u g g l e a n d s u f f e r i n g . B e l i e f f o r Unam uno i s o f t h e h e a r t ( c o r d i a l ) . W i t h O r t e g a , b e l i e f - - a n d d o u b t — i s a r e a l i t y t h a t man f a c e s o b j e c t i v e l y a s h e w o u l d a n y p r o b l e m i n l i f e , a p r o b l e m t h a t r e q u i r e d a s o l u t i o n d e v o i d o f u n d u e s u b j e c t i v e e m o t i o n a n d p e r s o n a l r e f e r e n c e s . O r t e g a i s , t h e r e f o r e , m o r e s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d i n h i s p r e s e n t a t i o n o f h i s c a s e . He i s m o r e h e a d t h a n h e a r t . 1 ^ 1 E n s a y o s , X, 950-951* ^"^^Ortega, Obras, V, 394; in "Ideas y creencias," 1934. 59 Imagination and Memory Imagination and memory are two of the most human as pects of man since these are the secondary realities that basically separate him from the animal. Ortega notes that "living is the work of imagination," which is "the reverse 153 of memory." Because man is most distinguishable from the animal due to his capacity for remembering, the re plete storehouse of memories of all those who preceded him in time makes it necessary for him to imagine a vast fu ture which includes his entire life and the world (cir- cunstancia) in which he is to live out his existence. In order to take the first step in this act of imagining his life man has "to anticipate all the rest" of the steps he will take "and plan the course and schematize the universe 154 on a topographical map." Man, by his very nature, com plicates life for himself; and the more profound and authentically human his living is the greater this com plication becomes. All of this because of man's "happy 155 misfortune of possessing a formidable imagination!" Ortega notes that the situation is quite different for the chimpanzee that lives for the moment, seeking the banana that will satisfy his immediate hunger. But man, when he ^^Obras, IV, 358; in "Los 'Nuevos' Estados Unidos," 1931. 154Ibid., p. 359- 6o imagines his entire life, "causes it to center on the in dividual step he is now going to take." Man wonders why he should take this step, and the answer is "in order that he may take the next and another one like it," proceeding step by step. And when man has imagined the last step, "when he has anticipated the totality of his existence," his imagination forces him to step aside and ask himself: "What has been the purpose of my whole life? What sense 156 does my living make?" I have already noted (p. 53) that Ortega considers the "holes" in our beliefs to be the vital spots into which we insert the ideas we have thought out. We try to replace the "unstable world" of doubt by another world in which the "ambiguity disappears," and we manage this by "imagining, inventing" new worlds. Hence the idea is im agination. Man finds the world to be a chaos in which the only things he is given are the penalties and joys of his existence. Conditioned by these two "gifts," man is forced to imagine his world, most of which he has inher ited from his elders and which, consequently, operates on 157 his life "as a system of firm beliefs." Man must deal with that which is doubtful or forms a question in his life, and to this end he essays "imaginary forms of worlds 1560bras, IV, 359. ~*~^^Ibid. , V, 39^5 in "Ideas y creencias," 193^* 61 and his possible conduct in each." From among these "im agined forms" he selects one which seems "ideally more secure" and this he calls "truth." Ortega cogently adds that "what is true, even what is scientifically true, is only a particular instance of that which is imagined." And to this he appends that there is no way to understand man wholly unless we note the fact that mathematics and poetry sprout from the same rootstock: the gift of imag- 158 xnation. Imagination is also a basic ingredient of human life for Unamuno, as he so well indicates when he speaks bit terly of the lack of it, which lack can cause our own per sonal pain or grief to be far more real to us than that of another person. Unamuno considers imagination to be "the most substantial faculty, the one that puts the substance of our spirit into the spirit of things and of our fellow men"; and the lack of this "faculty" is the source of the 159 lack of charity and of love. He also takes Spaniards and Spanish Americans to task for their lack of imagina tion and practical sense, which, for Unamuno, is tanta- IL6O mount to a lack of a sense of poetry. Unamuno 1580bras, V, 404. ^ ^ Ensayoa, I, 574; in "IPlenitud de plenitudes y todo plenitudl," 1904. ^ ^ Ibid. , p. 696; in "Algunas consideraciones sobre la literatura hispano-americana [sic]," 1905* 62 maintains that the people of the United States of America have more imagination, which accounts for the amazing ad vances of our business civilization. And the same could be said for the Germans and the English. But Spaniards, says Unamuno, lack imagination and therefore spend their time gambling, which "is a product of our imaginative poverty. The fellow who is incapable of imagining indus- " L 61 trial combinations devotes himself to tresillo." Im agination, then, has made the United States the great na tion that it is, and the lack of imagination has caused Spain's decline. Unamuno gives a good account of what he considers to be the function of imagination and the dis astrous results of the lack of it when he speaks of "poetry" and "literature," which are two entirely dif ferent things to him. He notes that neither railroads nor seaports nor factories nor agriculture are created with "literature"; and without "poetry" these things could never be created.1^2 He believes that what erodes energy in Spain and in Spanish America is not poetic imagination, not the free play of the imagination, not poetry, not idealism, not "knowing how to dream"; the eroding factor is "literature," which he would prefer to call litera- tismo, the continual repetition of the same worn-out ^ ^ Ensayos , I, 897* l62Ibid., p. 898. commonplaces, what Unamuno calls "spiritual tresillo" and vulgarity (ramploneria). Even business is handled in a "literary" manner (unauthentically) and not "poetically" 1 £ 1 7 (authentically). And this brings Unamuno around once again to one of his favorite topics: Don Quijote's Dulcinea del Toboso represents glory and the ideal, and happy are they who manage to convert coarse country girls into ideas— and ideals. The cult of Don Quijote, the man, is the foimtainhead of poetry; this cult itself Ts poetry. But the cult of Don Quijote, the book, is nothing more than "literature," wherein lies the great mistake: the 164 cult of letters instead of "souls." Man is more im portant than literatismo or ideas; both are realities, but man is the vital, basic one (see pp. 10-11). In his subjective Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913i Unamuno stresses the vital reality of imagination when he notes that the pain of another person elicits suffering on the part of the hearer (Unamuno) who feels pain when someone pulls off the branch of a tree; this is especially true when he has his imagination "alive," imagination "which is the faculty of intuition, of inward vision." Imagination is, for Unamuno, the "social ^ ^ Ensayos, I, 898. 1 64 Ibid., p. 899. 165Ibid., II, 856. s e n s e " ; a n d i m a g i n a t i o n a n i m a t e s t h a t w h i c h i s i n a n i m a t e a n d a n t h r o p o m o r p h i z e s e v e r y t h i n g , h u m a n i z e s e v e r y t h i n g , m a k i n g i t hum an a n d i d e n t i c a l t o m a n . M a n ' s t a s k , c o n s e q u e n t l y , i s t o " s u p e r n a t u r a l i z e " N a t u r e , m ak e i t d i v i n e b y h u m a n i z i n g i t , h e l p i n g i t t o b e c o m e c o n s c i o u s o f i t s e l f . T h i s i s t h e v i t a l r o l e o f i m a g i n a t i o n a s Unam uno s e e s i t . He a g a i n g i v e s a t y p i c a l l y s u b j e c t i v e a c c o u n t o f t h e r e a l i t y a n d v i t a l i t y o f i m a g i n a t i o n , a p p l y i n g i t t o s p i r i t u a l v a l u e s , a s u s u a l , w h e n ( i n e s s a y V I I I , "De D i o s a D i o s " ) h e o b s e r v e s t h a t r e a s o n d i s s o l v e s a n d a n n i h i l a t e s t h e r e a l i t y o f p e r c e p t i o n s , e s p e c i a l l y w h e n r e a s o n i s a p p l i e d t o t h e w o r l d o f t h e s p i r i t ; b u t i m a g i n a t i o n com p l e t e s , i n t e g r a t e s , o r t o t a l i z e s . R e a s o n b y i t s e l f k i l l s , b u t i m a g i n a t i o n g i v e s l i f e , e v e n t h o u g h b y g i v i n g u s l i m i t l e s s l i f e i t c a u s e s u s t o l o s e o u r i n d i v i d u a l i d e n t i t y i n t h e A l l a n d k i l l s u s t h r o u g h e x c e s s o f l i f e . " R e a s o n , o u r h e a d , t e l l s u s : ' N o t h i n g!1 I m a g i n a t i o n , o u r l66 h e a r t , t e l l s u s : ' A l l ! ' " And b e t w e e n a l l a n d n o t h i n g , b y t h e f u s i o n o f t h e a l l a n d t h e n o t h i n g w i t h i n o u r s e l v e s , "we l i v e i n G od , w ho i s A l l , a n d God l i v e s i n u s , who w i t h o u t H im a r e n o t h i n g . R e a s o n r e p e a t s : ' V a n i t y o f v a n i t i e s ! a l l i s v a n i t y ! ' And i m a g i n a t i o n r e p l i e s : 1 6 * 7 ' P l e n i t u d e o f p l e n i t u d e s ! a l l i s p l e n i t u d e ! ' " And i n ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 890. l 67I b i d . this way man lives the "vanity of plenitude or the pleni tude of vanity," which is one of Unamuno's typically para- l68 doxical statements of his point. In essay IX ("Fe, esperanza y caridad") of Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, Unamuno again stresses the reality of imagination when he states that it is the "creating and liberating energy, the incarnation of faith." And later he notes that imagination is what shapes memory into hope, which 169 itself is faith. In his commentary on the Bolivian Alcides Arguedas1 Pueblo enfermo, Unamuno gives a good description of imagination when he says that it is the faculty of creating images, not imitating them or repeat ing them; "it is, generally speaking, the faculty of re presenting to oneself in a living manner, and as if it were real, that which is not, and of putting oneself in the situation of another and seeing things as he would 170 see them." According to this definition of imagination many people are called "imaginative" that really are not, * 171 Jose Zorrilla, for Unamuno, is not an imaginative poet. l68Ensayos, II, 890. 169Ibid., p. 909. 170 Xbid., p. 106lj in "La imaginacion en Cochabamba," the fifth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227). ^^See De esto, I, 78-85; ME1 zorrillismo estetico," especially pp^ 79-82, where Unamuno speaks disparagingly of the "verbose bluff" of Zorrilla1s poetry. 66 According to Unamuno, and Ortega would agree with him on this, imagination "tires” Spaniards, who cannot tolerate paradox, which is "the most genuine product of the imagi- 172 nation," Time imagination is a matter of meditating and observing. Intolerance proceeds from the lack of im agination, from the inability to put oneself in the other 173 fellow's, situation and see things as he would see them. Those who possess the greatest gift of imagination are wont to contradict themselves (which Unamuno does fre quently) because they are able to imagine all sides of a 174 question. The satisfaction of the people of Cochabamba with their lot in life, their circunstancia, is a direct result of their lack of imagination: "Los pueblos que se 175 creen los mejores suelen ser pueblos inimaginativos." Life,*for the man of imagination, is a dream; and this is. so "because the dream is life, his dreams have the reality I h/ T of living things." Hence, such a man "dreams, repro duces, reconstructs, makes his very own that which he 177 sees," which makes him an enterprising person. The 172 Ensayos, II, 1062. 175Ibid., p. 1063. 174Ibid. 175Ibid., p. 1064. 176- Ibid. 177Ibid. 67 authentic businessman, who is enterprising, "dreams his transactions"; he is not the fellow who "stretches out in a hammock while thinking of his sweetheart's eyes."^^ According to Unamuno, the powerful imagination is sober, economical, precise; and if ideas are lacking, it is due directly to the poverty of imagination which is the wellspring of ideas. And if words are too profuse, this is due to an excess of memory which is the storehouse of 179 words. Verbosity, in the maimer of a Jose Zorrilla, does not indicate imagination; rather it indicates the lack of it. Englishmen do not poetize so easily as do Spaniards, but little truly lyric poetry is more authenti cally lyric than is English poetry, which "is more exqui- l80 site, more imaginative." If Spaniards do not have philosophy or science, it is due to their paucity of true imagination for creating a philosophy and a science worthy x 81 of the name. The only imagination that is authentic is the one that is serious and grave; all else is "bluff" and words,l82 As Ortega observes, the secondary realities of ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 1064 • ^ ^ Ibid. , p. 1066. 180_, . . Ibid. 1 fll Ibid., p. 1067. l82Ibid., p. 1068. imagination and memory are indispensable to man, because it is the gift of imagination that makes it possible for him to soar into the world of ideas and ideals; and his memory makes it unnecessary for him to have to repeat him self too often or to have completely to learn anew the lessons history has taught him. Because man has the gift of memory, and writes down his experiences, he does not have to learn by trial and error, as does the animal. Ortega makes this quite evident when he notes that because man lived with Rationalism, Practical Reason, Idealism, Positivism, Phenomenalism, etc., he does not have to re live these philosophical attempts at a solution to the n Q m problem of reality (ontology). Imagination and memory, for Ortega, also, form an integral part of human life to discover the essence of which "man Chas] no other recourse than to mobilize his intellectual apparatus, the principal 184 organ of which is imagination.1 1 And in this activity 185 Ortega sees "the purest symptom of vitality." The vital importance of memory to man is evidenced by what Unamuno says when he states that "reality is only an effort of memory to become hope, or an effort of hope to 183 Obras, IV, 507; iu "Max Scheler, un embriagado de esencias," 1928. ^ ^ Ibid., V, 4o4; in "Ideas y creencias," 1934* 1®^Ibid., II, 178, in "Azorin o primores de lo vulgar," 1917* 69 186 convert itself into memory." Therefore, the works cre ated by the artist outlive the creator of those works, and such works remain as a tacit memory and a hope. This is what Unamuno in this essay calls "auto-resurrection. In the first essay ("El hombre de came y hueso") of Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913j Unamuno again indi cates that memory is a basic ingredient of human life when he states that "Memory is the basis of the individual per sonality just as tradition is of the collective person- l88 ality of a people" (society). He further observes that man lives in memory and by memory, and, reverting to his usual thesis, he adds that "our spiritual life is, in sub stance , nothing other than the effort of our memory to persevere, to become hope, the effort of our past to be- 189 come future." Thus memory is basic to the principle of continuity and unity in human life, and memory gives us a perspective on life and on our circunstancia. Perspective At the outset it is necessary to distinguish between two degrees of perspective: the surface and the depth. What first meets the eye may not be the true reality of 186. Ensayos, I, 434-435? in "Viejos y jfivenes," 1902 l87Ibid., p. 435. l88Ibid., II, 736 l89Ibid. the object that we are viewing. Ortega elucidates this very well when he observes a wooden chair from a fixed distance, and his scrutiny of this object, as he walks around it, gives him a "series of effective visions” which do not represent the essence of the chair because when he moves closer to the same object, his perspective changes; and he now sees new aspects heretofore unnoticed: the grain and the rough areas in the wood, etc. The problem then becomes: Which one is the real chair, the first one viewed from a fixed distance or the second one viewed from closer range? This constitutes Ortega's "series of effec tive visions," a series that is continually changing as 190 the distance is decreased, as the perspective changes. This concept of surface and depth perspective is further elaborated in Meditaciones del Quijote, 191^, where Ortega uses a forest as his "object" of contemplation. He asks if the trees that he sees before him are really the forest and then states that the "true forest is composed of the 191 trees that X do not see." There is an objective reality that appears to be what it is, but there is also another reality which is the one we imagine objective reality to be. This "imagined" re ality is largely determined by our will (volition). One ^ ^ Obraa, I, 260; in "Nuevo libro de Azorin," 1913* 191Ibid., p. 330. must not see only the trees before him; he must also pene trate into the depth of "the forest” with his imagination. And in doing this, one's perspective will change. This imaginative penetration is what Ortega chooses to call the profundidad of a thing., which means what there is in some thing (as a forest) that is a "reflection of the rest, an allusion to the rest" (the trees he does not see). This "reflection" is, for Ortega, "the most sensible form of virtual existence of one thing in another." For him, the "sense" of a thing is "the supreme form of its coexistence with the remainder [of its forms]; it is its dimension of 192 depth." The materiality of the thing observed is not enough; Ortega wants to know the "sense" (sentido) the thing has. This "depth" of something observed is what he calls "the mystic shadow that the rest of the universe sheds on it. In the Fall of 1915 and the Spring of 1916, Ortega gave a course entitled "Conciencia, objeto y las tres 1920bras, I, 351. 193 IBld. Unamuno also speaks of "mystery" in connec tion with perspective when he notes that the world is broader for the child than for the wise man, "aunque sea cierto que a medida que crece lo que sabemos crece lo que ignoramos pues por cada problems resuelto surgen otros nuevos por resolver y el hombre que sabe mas, Csic] sabe que las cosas que ignoramos son mas que las que el igno rant e cree, aun asl conviene guardar siempre una reserva de misterio" (De esto, III, lj6; in "Robinson Crusoe," 1920). Had Robinson's perspective of his island been less limited, his island would have become much smaller to' him than it really was— his perspective would have altered. 72 distancias de este (Fragmentos de una leccion)," in which he indicates how an object (the Monastery of El Escorial) may well have three forms, depending on the distance the object is removed from the observer: 1) presence (when one has the object before him, as when he visits the Monastery located in El Escorial and sees it with his own eyes); 2) absence (when one looks at a picture of the Monastery of El Escorial, having only an image of the ob ject before him); and 3) distance (when an object has never been seen directly [presence] nor pictured or re called [absence!! is alluded to or referred to and perhaps described). Ortega, developing this concept, recalls how Don Quijote tries in vain to convince the merchants of Dulcinea's peerless beauty, but his attempts to picture to them his lady's qualities did not satisfy these "surface" men who had neither see Dulcinea (presence) nor had they imagined her (absence) prior to their encounter with Don Quijote; and the mere mention of her beauty (distance) was 194 not enough to convince them. They lacked the imagina tion necessary to "dream" Dulcinea, to make her live in their fantasy. Ortega notes that the "definitive being of the world is neither matter nor soul," no determined thing; it is, rather, "a perspective." And he shrewdly observes that "God is the perspective and the hierarchy," 19^Obras, II, 63-66. 73 19*5 and "the sin of* Satan was an error of perspective." f Ortega considers "each life" to be "a point of view on the universe," since what each life sees another cannot.^ 6 Unamuno also indicates that each life is a "point of view" and reveals the difficulty of penetrating the other per son's viewpoint on any matter. In "Elecciones y convic- ciones, dialogo divagatorio," 1892, he carries on an imaginary conversation with a politician named Don Candido, a man who declares roundly that he has "prin ciples" even though he does not feel right about voting for the man his party is supporting. But he will vote for this party man in spite of his "principles," and Unamuno cogently observes after they separate that never will he or the politician be able "to look over the curbstone of another's conscience to see how our fellow man views 197 things about which we all agree." He gives yet another example when he posits the case of two men, one of whom is constantly surrounded by a red belljar or glass (fanal) and the other by a blue one. If these two encased men 195 Obras, I, 321; in "Meditaciones del Quijote," 1914. 196 Ibid., Ill, 200; in "El tema de nuestro tiempo," 1923* See ibid., VI, 417; in. "A 'Historia de la filoso- fia,' de Emile Brehier," 19^2, where Ortega applies his "perspectivism" to the study of history. See also Ferrater Mora, Ortega, pp. 25-371 for a treatment of the subject of Ortega's "perspectivism." 197Pe esto, IV, 31. could communicate, they would certainly agree about the color of” things of this world and would both call each color by the same name since all colors would be co- ordinately transformed for them. They also might even be lieve that they saw the world in the same manner. Their respective positions with regard to the color vision (red and blue), both visions being absolute, erase any differ ence. But colors are not only elements of vision; the light of each color produces chemically and differently an influence on the organism, red being more dynamic and blue more depressive. Hence, although these two encased men agreed in their way of expressing the world as they saw it, their vital energy would be modified in a very dif ferent manner: "La sentencia del 'vanidad de vanidades y todo vanidad1 es sentencia azul, y la de 'plenitud de 198 plenitudes y todo plenitud1 lo es roja." Thus one's perspective, conditioned vitally by his circunstancia (here, the red or blue bell glass), determines his entire outlook on life and on objective reality. At this point it is pertinent to discuss Ortega's idea of the "concept," which, to him, is "the form, the 199 physical and moral meaning of things.". It is also the 198 Ensayos, I, 579; in "IPlenitud de plenitudes y todo plenitudI," 1904. 199 Obras, I, 351; in "Meditaciones del Quijote," 1914. "true Instrument or organ of the perception and grasp of things," and only "vision by means of the concept is a complete vision.”2^ Thus the concept sheds light on life 201 and on things; its role is no more nor less than this. Concept and meaning (sentido) are inseparable, and Ortega, speaking of the word "realism" as it is applied to litera ture, laments this application, noting that when man seeks reality, he looks for mere appearances (the surface per spective). But the Greeks understood reality to be some thing quite different; what is essential is real, "lo profundo y latente [the depth]; no la apariencia [the sur- 202 face], sino las fuentes vivas de toda la apariencia." Ortega elaborates on this when he speaks of the Retablo de Maese Pedro (Quij., II, 26), noting that the wings of the stage of Maese Pedro's puppet theater represent two spir itual frontiers: inwardly the retablo contains a world of fantasy articulated by the "genie of the impossible," and this is the area of adventure, imagination, and the myth (the depth aspect); outwardly we find a room filled with naive rustics, the kind to be seen at all hours busied about the matter of living (the surface aspect). And in the midst of these folk sits a simpleton, a nobleman from 2^^0bras, I, 35(t* This is a vision that includes both surface and depth. 2Q1Ibid., p. 358. 76 the local neighborhood who one fine day abandoned his home town "impelled by a small anatomical anomaly in his cere bral center.” Ortega notes that nothing prevents us from entering this room and breathing the air while rubbing elbows with men of our own stamp. Yet, this particular room is, in its turn, included in a book, which is an other retablo larger than Maese Pedro's. Xf perchance we should set foot in this room, we would be entering an ideal object and would be moving "in the concavity of an 203 aesthetic body." Ortega further illustrates his con cept of perspectivism when he shows us how Velazquez in Las Meninas has presented us a similar situation when, on painting a picture of the royal family, he simultaneously included his own study in the same painting. Likewise, in Las Hilanderas, Velazquez joined forever the legendary ac tion represented by a tapestry to the humble room in which 204: the tapestry was being fabricated. Ortega concludes 2°30bras, I, 38O-38I. 20 4 Ibid., p. 381. Unamuno also uses pictorial art to explain the reality of the perspective when he observes that there are several Spains and several Castiles since "the Spain seen and felt by [Joaquin] Sorolla" is not the same Spain "seen and felt by [Ignacio] Zuloaga"; and the Spain of Blasco Ibanez is different from that of Pio Baroja— and from that of Unamuno. He also notes, as does Ortega, that the appearance of visible reality that at tracts a painter's attention is closely associated with his manner of interpreting this reality, his preference for certain things to others: "Hay un mundo de claros- curo, hay otro mundo de color" (De esto, IV, 315; A*1 ”De arte pict6rica," 1912). Zuloaga's Spain is just as au thentic a reality as are all the other Spains conceived 77 his remarks on the retablo scene by observing that through the "conduit" of simpleness and dementia efluvia of one and the other "continent" come and go, from the retablo to the room and from the room to the retablo. And he ob serves further that he would say that the important thing here is precisely "the osmosis and endosmosis" between 205 the two "continents." This brings Ortega to the con clusion that the reality, or realism, of a novel does not become poetic nor does it enter into the work of art; rather it is only "that gesture or its movement in which by men. From this Unamuno deduces that it is very diffi cult, even in art, to dispense with "the doctrinal tend encies of the spirit" (ibid., p. 318). Painting may be either Christian or pagan, Catholic or progressive, heter odox or orthodox. Even in the painting of landscapes we find Christian and pagan landscapes: Dario de Regoyos is Christian Franciscan and Sorolla is Valencian pagan (ibid., p. 318)• To the different aspect of visual re ality seen and felt by the artist is joined a different way of interpreting reality. Hence we find the person ality of the painter, not in the subject he paints, but in his manner of interpreting these subjects--his perspec tive. Unamuno shows how Velazquez, a "soul enclosed within himself," a great gentleman, ennobled everything he painted, thus revealing in his art more of Velazquez him self than of the subjects he painted (ibid., pp. 318-319)* Zuloaga, through his sober, strong, and austere claroscuro manner, depicts the true, austere, and serious Catholicity of Spain while Sorolla depicts another Spain, equally real and authentic, a "pagan" Spain, the Spain "that wants to live and not think about death" (ibid., p, 319)* As Ortega, Unamuno also observes that light, angle, etc., affect the aspect of an object and change its appearance: "Donde hay mucha luz, exceso de luz, suele pasar algo de lo que pasa donde hay muy poca, y es que los matices se ahogan; un violento claroscuro los ahoga. El matiz es cosa de parses de niebla y de horas de crepiisculo" (ibid.). 2O50bras, I, 381* 78 it reabsorbs what is ideal. It is impossible to mention the retablo scene in this connection without also referring to yet other episodes in Cervantes' eternal novel, and this calls to mind the scene of the windmills on the barren fields of Montiel in La Mancha. Ortega points out that as we travel with Don Quijote and Sancho over this open and limitless plain, "we come to understand that things have two gradients": the meaning (sentido) of things, what they are when they are interpreted (i. e., their depth); the other gradient is the "materiality" of things, their positive substance, what they are constituted of before any attempt at inter- 207 pretation (i» e., their surface aspect). Everyone knows that giants have never existed, and yet: Sobre la llnea del horizonte en estas puestas de sol inyectadas de sangre— como si una vena del fir- mamento hubiera sido punzada— levantanse los molinos harineros de Criptana y hacen al ocaso sus aspavien- tos. Estos molinos tienen un sentido: como "sentido" estos molinos son gigantes. Verdad es que Don Quijote no anda en su juicio. Pero el problema no queda re- suelto porque Don Quijote sea declarado demente. Lo que en el es anormal, ha sido y seguira siento nor mal en la humanidad. Bien que estos gigantes no lo sean; pero . . . [sic] Ay los otros?, quiero decir, Ay los gigantes en general? Porque ni los hubo ni los hay en realidad. Fuere cuando fuere, la ocasi6n en que el hombre penso por vez primera los gigantes no se diferencia en nada esencial de esta escena cervantina. Siempre se trataria de una cosa que no era gigante, pero que mlrada desde su vertice ideal [its depth perspective] tendia a hacerse gigante. 20^0bras, I, 384. 207Ibid., p. 385. 79 En las aspas giratorias de estos molinos hay una alus±6n hacia unos brazos briareos. Si obedecemos al impulso de esa alusion y nos dejamos ir segun la curva alii anunciada Chere the metaphor of the arrow shot into the air and the arc it describes in its flight], llegaremos al gigante.20® Ortega observes that justice and truth, "the work of every spirit," are nothing but "mirages produced in matter," and that culture--"the ideal gradient of things"— attempts to establish itself as a world set apart and self-sufficient, to which we can transfer our hearts (entraflas). This is only an illusion, and "only viewed as an illusion, a 209 mirage on earth, is culture put in its place." There exists the eternal conflict between the "idea" or sentido (depth) of each and every thing and its materiality (sur face), which aspire to overlap one another. This presumes the victory of one or the other, the "depth" or the "sur face": if the idea triumphs, materiality is supplanted, and man lives in a state of illusion; if materiality wins out and, penetrating the "vapor" of the idea, reabsorbs 210 it, then man lives in a state of disillusion. Which situation is to be preferred, the ideal or the material? ^^^Obras, I, • I have quoted this passage in or der to show Ortega's facility with language and expres sion. It would be difficult to find anywhere a more poetic and beautiful defense of giants and windmills, or, for that matter, of any of the other unrealities that make up our material world. 2Q^Ibid. See ibid., IV, 321, 324, 342 (in "Mision de la universidad," 1930)* for more on "culture." 2l0Ibid., p. 386. Don Quijote and his windmil1-giants, magic caves, and Clavilenos, or a Mme Bovary, or, perhaps, a Raskolnikov? Ortega observes that the inert material thing renders of itself as many sentidos as we wish to give it: it stands before us “affirming its mute, terrible materiality in opposition to all the phantoms.” There we have what is called "realism" (the Mme Bovary or the Raskolnikov): to remove things to a distance, put them under a certain light, slant them so that their materiality is accentu ated.211 Thus our concept of something "sheds light" on that something. Don Quijote*s adventures are unreal, but the 212 will of the man is real and authentic. His adventures in the Cueva de Montesinos (Quij., II, 23) present a like situation, and Ortega so maintains in "Vida y perspec tive ," 1916, when he notes that "one part, a form, of what is real is imaginary, and in every complete perspec tive there is a plane where things desired dwell. Ortega also notes that the reality of our environment does not depend solely upon our physical makeup. We need only to observe how differently a hunter and a farmer "see and hear" the countryside, a difference due to the Pi 1 Obras, I, 386. 212Ibid.. p. 389. 215Ibid., II, 20. 81 utilitarian (surface) orientation of the farmer toward the land, while the hunter's terrain is much richer because it is a sportive landscape, which gives it depth perspective. Thus the shabby inns of the plain of La Mancha appeared to Don Quijote, a man of depth perspective, to be wondrous castles, while to Sancho, a surface creature of lesser attainments, these same inns were nothing more than dowdy, 214 run-down hostelries. Pursuing the idea of the "concept," which depends upon the surface-depth perspective of the beholder, be what is viewed a landscape, an adventure in a magic cave, windmills, or country hostelries, it is pertinent here to note that Ortega, when speaking of the "concept," says that the word is "an expressed concept"; and the "concept" is that "reality among realities that has the peculiarity of consisting of identity," of being constructed of "identity." When we speak of reality (ontology), we find ourselves having to be necessarily "faithful, at one and the same time, to the conditions of that which is real 214 Obras, II, 303; in "El 'Quijote' en la escuela," 1920. See ibid., VI, 151, in "Coraz6n y cabeza," 19271 where Ortega makes a similar observation about landscapes and how we view them. See ibid., III, 199* iu "El tema de nuestro tiempo," 1923j where he states that "La perspectiva es uno de los componentes de la realidad." For more on "perspective," see p . 73 > uT 196; Obras, II, 61-66, "Conciencia, objeto y las tres distancias de este (Fragmentos de una leccion)n. d.; and ibid., IV, 391j in "Prologo-conversacion" to "Pidieiido un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. about which we are thinking and the conditions of the thinking with which we Manipulate1 reality."^** He also speaks of philosophy and the "concept,” noting that a theory, which is a "theoretical bit of knowledge," is what we call philosophy. "Theory" is a collection of concepts, in the strict sense of the word "concept," which "strict sense" consists of a concept being "a mental content" capable of being enunciated. What cannot be said is not a concept, and knowledge that consists solely of an "inef fable vision" of the object conceived may be "the supreme form of knowledge" but it is not philosophy. And Ortega observes that if we imagined a philosophical system like that of Plotinus or Henri Bergson, which by means of con cepts shows us that true knowledge is a sort of ecstasy of the consciousness in which this consciousness transcends the bounds of that which is intellectual or conceptual and, consequently, makes direct contact with reality by dispensing with the intermediary of the concept, he would call such systems philosophies as long as they prove the necessity for ecstasy by non-ecstatic means; and they cease to be philosophies "when they cast themselves off the concept into the immersion in the mystic trance." ^^^Obras, VI, 29; in "Historia como sistema," 1941. *^^Ibid. , V, 457; in "Defensa del teologo frente al mlstico," 1929* The concept, therefore, is as vital to philosophy as a system of knowledge as it is to human life in general. Cogito quia vivot 83 Our surface or depth perspective determines how- little or how much we derive from that which we contem plate. Perspective, therefore, is a vital ingredient of human life and goes far to explain the "discoveries” we make on reading a great book, like Don Qui.jote or Faust for the second or third time. It also explains, inversely, their eternal youth and intrinsic greatness. The same can be said of all art: music, painting, sculpture, etc. Unamuno and Ortega see the vital effect on human life of perspective, and both recognize its significance. Metaphors Ortega builds more of a "case" for the secondary re ality called "metaphors" than does Unamuno. This reality has sundry vital ramifications, and its customary associa tion with purely literary concepts has somewhat restricted its usefulness as something that pertains to human life. Unamuno also considers the metaphor to be a reality, and he makes this clear when he writes of its relationship to the other vital reality called "imagination." It is not scholastics, but it is the metaphor that teaches him more, illuminates him more; and, especially, he finds "warmth beneath it, since imagination only operates at white 217 heat." For Unamuno the country is a metaphor, as he 217 0. C., I, 553; in "Por tierras de Portugal y de Espana," 1911, in the article entitled "Por Galicia." indicates in the article entitled "Paisaje teresiano," which is subtitled "El campo es una metafora." In this article Unamuno writes of Santa Teresa and of Avila with its "little domestic and family countryside" which served Santa Teresa for metaphors "in which she gave flesh to her 218 mystic doctrine." Unamuno asks if the country itself, "the painting of God," is anything other than a bouquet of metaphors or an entire metaphor. For him the whole vis ible universe (objective reality) is "a metaphor of the invisible one, of the soul, though it may seem to us to be 219 the reverse." He further notes that what a painter puts on canvas is really a recollection of what he sees or did see, because the artist paints the image he re ceives from the object that is at hand, and this image is a recollection. He recalls that Plato knew that all im agining and even knowing is a recollection. And he adds 220 that "all remembering is a metaphor." Continuing with the subject of the metaphor, Unamuno states that the ani mal does not recall an image as does man and adds that the metaphor is the basis of consciousness of what is eternal. "Y la concienca de lo eterno, el ansia de immortalidad, es la esencia del alma racional. Alma racional y 218 ~ 0. C. , I, 841 , * in Andanzas y visiones espanolas," 1922. 219Ibid., pp. 841-842. 22QIbid., pp. 842-843- 85 221 metaf 6rica. Speaking again of the metaphor, Unamuno notes that this word signifies a transfer, which is mo tion. The use of metaphors (metaforismo) is "the philos ophy of the cinematografic kaleidoscope," and, like history, the life of human consciousness is only a cine matographic kaleidoscope, human philosophy is "metaphor- 222 ism." Ortega considers the metaphor to be a truth, a knowledge of realities, which implies that in one of its "dimensions" poetry is a type of research insofar as it "discovers" facts that are as positive as those usually 223 found in scientific investigations. He also asserts that "the poetic metaphor insinuates the total identifica tion of two concrete things," while science restricts it self to "affirming the identity between the abstract parts of two things"; and this, for Ortega, "shows that the in tellectual activities employed in science are, more or less, the same that operate in poetry and in vital [life] 224 action." The only difference between these two 221 0. C., I, 843* Note in this quotation the "ansia de inmortalidad" and see Chapter VI, where I treat this aspect of Unamuno's concept of the basic reality of life. 222 De esto, IV, 212; in "Caleidoscopio cinemato graf ico," 1919* If man wants to live, he must "meta- phorize," move, be in via. because human life is motion and action (see Chapter VI, where I discuss the six "in gredients" of the basic reality of human life). 223 Obras, II, 391; in "Las dos grandes metaforas," 1924. 224Ibid., pp. 392-39 3. 86 applications of metaphors is not an essential one but is merely the different ordering and purpose to which they are subjected by poetry and science. The same thing occurs with metaphorical thought which, in science, is active and performs a different, even opposed, function to what it does in poetry. Poetry takes advantage of the partial identity of two things to affirm— falsely— their total identity (as the "surtidores de las fuentes" turned metaphorically by Lope de Vega into "lanzas de cristal que hieren el cielo," in his "Silva a la ciudad de Logrono”). For Ortega, such exaggeration of identity, extended be yond its truthful limits, is what gives "poetic value." For him the metaphor begins to irradiate beauty precisely 225 where its true portion ends. But, contrarily, there can be no poetic metaphor without the discovery of effect ive identities. All we have to-do is analyze any metaphor and see how in its essence, "with no vagueness whatever," it possesses a "positive" identity, a "scientific" iden tity, between the abstract elements inherent in the two 226 things employed in the metaphor. It is this thought that leads Ortega to consider the inadequacies of our Western (Latin) alphabet, the letters of which are incapable of expressing a single concept 2250bras, II, 393- 226Ibid. 87 when they are standing alone, out of context. And this elicits a comparison between our system of writing and the Chinese ideogram which can paint our "psychic intimacy" with such metaphorical expressions as "the autumn of my heart" (= sadness), a concept formed metaphorically by uniting two separate ideograms ("autumn" and "heart") to form a new concept. And this further elicits the fasci nating observation by Ortega concerning the evolution of the personal pronouns, especially the concept of the word "I." He asserts that the formation of the personal pro nouns tells the "story" of man's effort to express his psyche with words inadequate to the task and manifests how the concept of jro gradually was formed "in a slow ebb from 227 what is most external to what is most internal." He notes that man first said "my flesh," "my body," "my heart," "my breast," instead of "I." And he cogently ob serves that to this day when we pronounce the word "I" emphatically, we place our hand on our breast, "which is the residue of the ancient bodily [corporal] notion" of the individual. Ortega considers the concept "what is mine" (lo m£o) to be older than the concept "X." Later the stress shifts from "our" things to our social person. The figure we cut in society, "which is that which is most 227( l Ibid. Obras, II, 395* 228, 88 external of* our personality,” assumes the representation (metaphor) of our true being. And he further observes that the Japanese always speak of themselves in the third person, while the North-American Indian Hupa language pos sesses several meanings for the word "he" when speaking to 230 an adult, a child, or an old person. This, says Ortega, indicates that all such formal titles as "Tour Excellence,” "Your Grace” (the Old Spanish vuestra merced > vuesa merced > vuesarced, vueaauped > voace > vuce > vuced > vusted > Modern Spanish usted), were earlier forms 231 than the concept yn. v Ortega cogently observes that we are unable to speak of anything that is not connected with ourselves in a con scious, egocentric relationship: "Los dos objetos mas distintos que quepa imaginar tienen, no obstante, la nota comun de ser objeto para nuestra mente, de ser objetos 232 para un sujeto.” J Due to our consciousness we realize things, and because of this consciousness things appear to us; and this realization and appearing establish the relationship between the subject and the object realized. How do we determine what this appearing and this 2290bras, II, 395- 250Ibid. 251Ibid. 232Ibid., p. 396. consciousness are? This is the juncture at which the metaphor is both indispensable and unavoidable. This uni versal "phenomenon" of the relationship between the sub ject and the object, which is realizing, can only be conceived by comparing it to some particular, individual form of the relationship between objects; and the result 233 will be a metaphor. We always take the risk when we interpret Mthe universal phenomenon by means of another more accessible particular [individual] one," of forget ting that it is a question of a "scientific" metaphor, and of identifying, as in poetry, the one with the other. Here the "slip" is extremely dangerous because on the idea we form of consciousness depends our entire conception of the world, on which, in its turn, depends our ethic, our politics, and our art. This is the way the "whole edifice of the universe and of life comes to rest on the slight 234 aerial body of a metaphor." And here Ortega notes that the two major epochs of man's endeavor to think— the Age of Antiquity with its prolongation into the Middle Ages, and the Modern Era that was initiated by the Renaissance— "have lived on two similies: as Aeschylus would say, on 235 the shadow of two dramas." These are the two great 2550bras_, II, 396. 234Ibid., pp. 396-397- 255Ibid., p. 397- 90 metaphors of the history of philosophy, which, "considered poetically, are of [the] lowest order" since "the most modest poet would disdain them."2^ Proceeding with the concept of the metaphor, Ortega 237 speaks of the true intimacy or dentro of the human p f t heing (who is life + soul + spirit) J and says that this "inner man" is non-spatial. Therefore, it becomes neces sary, when speaking of intimidad or dentro, to use spatial figures of speech. This necessity for "spatial" expres sion is, according to Ortega, due to the fact that every expressive phenomenon implies a transposition, an essen tial metaphor. Gesture, the form (shape) of our bodies, is, for Ortega, "the pantomime of our souls." The outward 239 man is "the actor who represents the inner man." In support of this Ortega observes that we never see man's body as a "simple" body (such as a mineral), but always as flesh, which means that we see this body as a "spatial" form charged, "almost electrically," with allusions to an intimidad. When we observe a mineral our perception stops 2360bras, II, 397* 237 ^ See Chapter VI, where I discuss intimidad and dentro, which are synonymous terms in Ortega's concept. 238 See what Ortega has to say about the yo profundo in "Vitalidad, alma, espiritu," 1924, which I discuss in Chapter VI. 2^ 0bras. II, 579; in "Sobre la expresiSn fenomeno c6smico," 1925. 91 at its outward appearance, but when it comes to obserca- tion of the human body the outward aspect is not the terminus of our perception; rather this body suggests something lying beyond itself. Since minerals represent minerals and nothing else (being simple bodies), we need only to look at them; and this suffices. But the human body has the function of representing a soul, and, there fore, to look at the human body is "to interpret it,l ! since it is what it is plus something which it is not: a soul. Man's flesh, then, betrays something latent; it has significance and expresses a meaning (sentido). The Greeks, notes Ortega, called that which has meaning logos, and the Latins translated this word into verbo. In man the verbo becomes flesh, and, strictly speaking, all flesh incarnates a verbo, a meaning (sentido). This is so, says Ortega, because flesh is expression, a "patent symbol of a latent reality." Flesh is a "hieroglyph"; it is "expres- 24o sion as a cosmic phenomenon." Thus man, like the "crystal lances" of Lope de Vega (see p. 86), is a meta phor of his soul, his dentro. There has been much talk of "mutual influence" between body and soul, of psycho physical interaction, of parallelism; but to Ortega such comparisons are wholly one-sided and condemn man to the dilemma that manifestly exists between spiritualism and oin Obras, II, 580. 92 24i materialism. Ortega believes that now we can see that "beyond these CtwoJ ways of relating soul and world there exists between them a bond that is not physical, an unreal influence: the symbolic functionalism. The world as an 242 expression of the soul." Just as the world is a symbol of something else, so a human being is body plus soul in 243 an xnseparable unity--a grand metaphor. ^ Ortega’s essay entitled "Meditaci6n del Escorial," 1915, is a fine study of the monument in granite, which, for him, is nothing more than a metaphor of sheer effort (esfuerzo) and will (voluntad), akin to the esforzado that was Don Quixote, the tragicomic figure who is the incarna tion of melancholia, which is the end result of sheer effort. The Escorial and Don Quijote are "metaphors" of Spain, metaphors of sadness; they are Spain--the metaphor of sheer effort and consummate futility and frustration. Ortega will corroborate this in Espana invertebrada, 1921. It is abundantly evident that the metaphor is the key to much of man’s understanding of the basic reality of human life. It helps to explain much in man's existence that heretofore was nebulous and confused. According to oil Obras, II, 586. 8^8Ibid. 245Ibid. 93 Unamuno and Ortega, the metaphor, in its non-literary ap plications, unravels such enigmas as windniil1-giants, en chanted country maids, magic caves, wooden horses that fly through the air, man and his relationship to his soul-- his dentro— and to society, which is his collective yo. Society Society is a reality that vitally affects man; it is his collective ^o which may take the form of a nation or a civilization, which is the nation in a broader sense. Both Unamuno and Ortega treat this reality, but they ap proach it from different viewpoints, as is to be expected. Hence I shall first discuss Unamuno's concept of the reality of society, which he approaches from the aspect of the "nation" (patria). For Unamuno, the patria is not an end in itself; it is a means to a human and ideal end, which is both universal and eternal. He notes that Ignacio Zuloaga has been accused of being un-Spanish in his art, and he asks if perhaps Zuloaga1s "unpatriotic" art is not the most adequate picture of all Spain, which, for Unamuno, is nothing other than the synthesis of all the Spains extant in each individual Spaniard. Pure art, like that of Zuloaga, is capable of bringing to a people 244 the consciousness of being a nation, of being Spain. o/ l4 De esto, IV, 343-344; in "La labor patri6tica de Zuloaga," 1917- He observes that "historical nations," the only real na tions so far as Unamuno is concerned, live or want to live collectively; and this desire to live collectively does not depend on mere ethnological needs of race or language or on a mere "freedom of elective pact."^^'* According to Unamuno, human society originated as something opposed to "impious" nature and therefore becomes "the source of re flective consciousness and of the craving for immortality" 246 on the part of man. This social consciousness, "the daughter of love" and of "the instinct of perpetuation," is what brings man to the point of socializing everything, 247 converting all nature into an infinite society. And the vital reality of society can turn madness, any craze, into something vital and no longer madness when this aber ration becomes something collective, the possession of an entire society or of humanity in general. When this takes place, the hallucination becomes something collective, something popular and social, and ceases to be a halluci nation, becoming a true reality, something that is shared esto, III, 290» in ME1 principio de las natio- nalidades," 1919> a commentary on Rene Johannet's Le prin- cipe des nationality. A nation living ethnologically united is a reference to the German people and one living by elective pact refers to the French nation (see Chapter IV) . 246 Ensayos, II, 944; in "Del sentimiento . . . 1913- 247 ^ Ibid., p. 865. This is the "environing person ality" of which I spoke earlier (p. 37» and n. 80). 95 by all in the group. The social reality of the nation includes the concept of patriotism, and very early in his career Unamuno asso ciates the ideas of liberty and patriotism, noting that the "first work of liberty is to intimize [intimar] the nation, to forge it for ourselves within ourselves, to in dividualize it so that it may become a state of our soul, 049 as much as or moreso than a Cmere] social institution." To do this, he warns that "in vain shall we be a concen tration of our nation if it is not an extension of our selves" which then becomes the reality of the nation. He also notes that the Spanish society in which he lives and from which his spirit takes nourishment, the society of which he is the child, cannot be his nation if his feel- 250 ing and ideas find no place in it. v And this brings up Unamuno's thesis of "imposing oneself" (imponerse), which is true patriotism. This concept of self imposition is one of Unamuno's recurrent themes (see Chapter V). His application of this concept to the reality of society is in evidence when he observes that the central "nerve" of . his social ethic is "the effort of men and peoples to 248 Ensayos, II, 75 5 i*1 the "Prologo" to "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905- 249 0. C., III, 107; in "De la ensenanza superior en Espana," 1$99• 250 Ibid. Note the vital role of ideas in Unamuno's concept of la patria. Impose themselves on one another," which is also the "nerve of the Quixotic ethic." This, says Unamuno, is the 251 only way to rid oneself of his yo mezquino. ^ Many who appear to be the greatest egoists (Unamuno among them), w h o t r a m p l e e v e r y t h i n g u n d e r f o o t i n o r d e r t o c a r r y o u t their work, are really not egoists at all; they are "souls inflamed and overflowing with charity because they subject and subordinate their petty personal yos to the social yo 252 which has a mission to accomplish." Unamuno further develops this thesis when he says that giving oneself to others implies that one must first dominate others, since "it is not possible to dominate without being dominated," 255 a concept he develops at length. For Unamuno, "each one is nourished by the flesh of him whom he devours," but to dominate one's neighbor one must "know and love" his neighbor. He adds that by trying to impose his ideas on others he receives their ideas at the same time, and this is because the matter of loving our fellow man is wanting him to be like ourselves, wanting him to be another we, which means that we want ourselves to be the other fellow. It is the wish to erase the division existing between 251 De e s t o , I, 500; i n " S o b r e e l i m p e r i a l i s m © C a t a l a n , " 1911. 252 Ensayos, II, 921; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913. ^^See ibid., pp. 982-983; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913» in essay XI ("El problems practico"). 97 oneself and the other person, and this wish and its attendant effort to be fulfilled have vital social value, as Unamuno notes when he states that his effort to impose himself on others, to be and to live in others, to make others himself--which is the same as making them him— ”is what gives religious meaning to the community, to human 254 solidarity.” Since the yn is society, this sense of solidarity with others originates in this £o; and since this yu is society, it needs to make itself master of hu man society. Since this £0 is a social product, it must become ’ ’socialized”; and from ^o ”it proceeds to God-- which is £o projected to the All"--and from God this £0 is 255 projected to all its neighbors, which means ’ ’society.” ^ Man must exert himself so that his patriotism may become the living form of his tie with the ideal that he forges of humanity, not the carnal attachment to his native soil or to the conversation of ’ ’the old men who in life put us to sleep.” His patriotism must spring from the ’ ’institutions” of his spirit and not from those of the State. The root of patriotism is the ’ ’ motive for living,” and this is as applicable to the individual as it is to society because if man does not know for what purpose his country is to exist, he will never be a true 2^ Ensayos. II, 978. 255Ibid., pp. 978-979. 98 256 patriot. A motive for living the collective life, pa triotic faith that is the mistress not the slave of dogma, an ideal, the consciousness of a finality ad extra for the people since without this finality the people will never become a nation: this is Unamuno's formula for the social 257 reality of the patria. Having reflected on the social reality of the Counter Reformation and the Spanish Inqui sition and their failures and on the philosophy of con quest espoused by Englishmen, whom he calls "men of God" (such as Cecil Rhodes and Admiral Kidd), Unamuno observes that we should reflect on this and take a lesson from it, from the faith that crowns the immense surge of a people overflowing with vitality who believe in themselves and whose faith gives them an ideal. He notes that all people given to expansion form an idea of themselves and of their role in the affairs of the world, and he asks: "Which is 258 our role? What can we bring to the human spirit?" This ideal cannot be deferred. Man can have no part of the concept of "live first and then philosophize" (primun vivere, deinde philosophari). Such an attitude might lead to making a strong Spain, but Spaniards would no longer live as Spaniards. Therefore, they must philosophize 2560. C., Ill, 108. 257Ibid. 258Ibid., pp. 108-110. 99 first, in one way or another, with respect to the destiny 259 of Spain, their social reality. 77 Such is the role of patriotism in Unamuno's concept of the reality of society, the collective yo of the patria. Unamuno extends his concept of the reality of society and the nation to include civilization, and he compares this broader aspect of society to a tree that reproduces itself by means of the seeds it grows and scatters to the winds, providing food for the seedlings by the process of decay whereby the old tree dies— and lives. For Unamuno, civilization and culture do not progress in waves (as in the theory espoused by Giovanni Battista Vico), but rather this process is a series of expansions and qualitative contractions, a type of enrichment of the social environ ment in complexity in order that this complexity may be condensed later by being organized, "descending to the eternal depths of Humanity and thus facilitating new prog- 2 60 ress." It is a question here of a succession of seeds and trees, each seed being better than the preceding one and each tree, consequently, richer than its predecessor. By a process of expansions and contractions, differentia tions and integrations, Nature penetrates the Spirit, just as the latter penetrates the former. In this way 2^90. C.. Ill, 110. Ensayos, I, 306j in "Civilizaci6n y cultura," n . d. 100 civilizations are the matrices of cultures, and later these, freed from the civilizations that bore them, con verted from ’ ’ placenta into cysts," give rise to new 26l civilizations. Culture, which is a precipitate of civilization, is condensed from that civilization. Its social institutions foment the progress of socialization, but the very growing external complication ends by being an obstruction and the beginning of death, giving rise to 262 new and improved civilizations. Thus the analogy of the tree > seedling > tree applies to civilizations and nations as well as to plants. Language, says Unamuno, probably started from the need of man to reason and communicate with his fellow men, thus making language a social reality. Since thinking is speaking to oneself, we speak to ourselves because of hav ing had to communicate with fellow members of our society. In everyday life it often happens that we manage to obtain an idea we were seeking, manage to give it form, by taking it from the "nebula of obscure perceptions- which it re presents, thanks to the efforts we make to present it to 263 others." J Unamuno further notes that thought is inner language which originates from exterior language, with the ^ ^ Ensayos. I, 306 . 262Ibid., pp. 306-307. 265Ibid., II, 731-752; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913* 101 result that reason is social and common; and language is 264 a social reality born of man's need to communicate. Just as language is a by-product of the reality of society, also "social justice" is inseparably associated with the concept of society. Unamuno makes this very clear when he speaks of the meeting of Don Quijote and Sancho with Roque Guinart and his bandits (Quij., II, 60), noting that out of war springs peace and from brigandage 265 derives the punishment for theft. Society is forced to assume responsibility for crimes committed against it in order to free from these crimes and their attendant remorse those who make up the society. Unamuno wonders if there is not such a thing as social remorse dispersed among the members of society. There has to be, and the fact of such remorse, so little noticed ordinarily, is the 264 Ensayos, II, 752. ^ ^ Ibid., p. 308; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905. Unamuno considers war to be the greatest socializ ing factor in human life; it is the place where men learn to love one another, victor as well as vanquished. Thus war, strictly speaking, is "the sanctification of homi cide" (ibid., p. 979t in "Del sentimiento . . 1913)* One of the greatest services of the Cross is that, like a sword-hilt, "it protects the hand that wields it" (ibid.). Civilization had its beginning on the day that one man, subjugating another and obliging him to work for both victor and vanquished, was able to devote himself to the contemplation of the world and make his "slave" create works of luxury (ibid., pp. 979-980)• It was slavery that allowed Plato to speculate on the ideal republic, and war brought about slavery. Athene (Minerva) was not goddess of wisdom and war for no reason (ibid., p. 980). See De esto, 159-160, in "Robinson Crusoe," 1910, for more on problem of society, ruler and ruled. 102 principal incentive for all progress of the human spe- cies.^^ He notes that perhaps what causes man to be good and just with other members of his social group is ”a certain feeling that society itself is evil and unjust,” and he cogently observes that the collective remorse of a party of warring men is perhaps what moves them to render aid to one another and even, at times, to the conquered enemy. f He concludes that because of knowing the "inso lence” of their trade, Roque Guinart's companions kept 268 faith with one another. Roque's band is typical of Spanish brigandage, which has never wholly disappeared from the Spanish social scene; and Roque himself is the 269 ancestor of countless others of his same social class. This faith that man keeps with society is based on his in stinct for self-preservation, which is the creator of the material world. And man would tend to destroy himself if it were not for society which, by giving man the instinct for self-perpetuation, carries and impels him toward the All, toward his own etemalization of himself. Hence everything that man does in opposition to society in order to preserve himself is, for Unamuno, basically evil, while 266Ensayos, II, 308. 267Ibid. 268Ibid. 269Ibid., pp. 308-309. everything he does "as a social person” for the benefit of society (his circunstancia) in order to perpetuate his 270 society is basically good. Therefore, because man is a social product and does not belong entirely to himself, he must be prevented from wasting himself in fleshy indul gence . It is not enough that man dull his wits and become a fool; he must be prevented from doing so by the society 271 that begot him. Society may very well destroy a man, as Unamuno so well illustrates with a story in which he imagines a physician who wrote fantastic stories in his free hours. Because this doctor's stories had nothing whatever to do with his profession, people began to sus pect and distrust him. As his stories became more and more extravagant, his clients disappeared; and he was reduced to financial straits. But he already knew that society would destroy him; it had done so before and would do so again. He was determined to fail because he was expected by society to conform to a pre-established pat tern: physicians exist to heal the sick, and no fanciful flights of imagination can be tolerated. Thus the good 272 doctor was doomed to defeat and finally went insane. 270 Ensayos. II, 921; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913. ^ ^ Ibid. , p. 462; in "Sobre la lujuria," 1907* 2^ Ibld. , I, 501-517; "La locura del doctor Montarco," 1904. 104 Such is the vital reality of society which forces man to sacrifice his ^o to the demands of society. But society also has obligations to man, as Unamuno so aptly notes when, in his discussion of the origin of knowledge and its service to the need for living and the instinct for self- preservation, he says that this need has created in man the "organs of knowledge," giving them the development they now have, Man sees, hears, feels, tastes, and smells in order to conserve his life. In the event that any one of these senses becomes impaired, man is hard pressed to make up the deficiency. But society, in such a situation, comes to man's assistance and supplements his lost sense by seeing, hearing, or smelling for him. The blind man without a guide (society) could not live long. Hence society is, in reality, another sense, what Unamuno calls 273 "the true common sense." Society sometimes is too much for the individual, and he seeks to avoid too much social intercourse. This is precisely what Unamuno did when he chose to live in Salamanca instead of in some larger city. He dearly loved his "golden Salamanca" with its Plaza Mayor, its cathe dral, and its University; and he leaves no room for doubt on this when in "Grandes y pequenas ciudades" he deplores society as such, preferring the small city to the ^ ^ Enaayos, II, 750; in "Del sentimiento . . 1913- 105 metropolis, such as Madrid or Paris, both of* which he vio lently disliked. Social life, the life of society with its visits, conversations, small talk, also irked him very much. Thus the reality of society may become odious to a man: "Las visitas son, con el teatro, las dos grandes 274 fuentes de ramplonizaci6n ." Turning now to Ortega, we find an entirely different treatment of the reality called "society." He expends most of his effort and bitterness on the social reality of Spain, and his attitude is particularly noticeable in his trenchant Espana invertebrada, 1921, where he tells us that the leitmotiv is that national "living together" (convivencia) is an "active and dynamic reality" and not a "passive and static coexistence like the pile of stones 275 alongside the road." It is the lack of action and dynamism in Spaniards that Ortega inveighs against here, and he bitterly laments his countrymen *s congenital short sightedness, their "surface" perspective, observing that the more stupid Spaniards are and the narrower their horizon of curiosities and intuitions, the fewer things that will "inhabit" their landscape and, consequently, they will very easily forget that their fellow man 2 7 V. C. , I, 536-537} in "Por tierras de Portugal y de Espana," 1911, of which "Grandes y "pequenas ciudades" forms a chapter. 27^0bras, III, 73- Ortega recognizes the vast difference that exists in every social group between the masses (la masa vulgar) and the select minority, and he does not want this latter group to be confused with so-called "aristocracy.” Hence he proposes that we try to acquire a "clear intuition" about the reciprocal action between mass and select minority. This is, in his opinion, the basic fact in all societies and the "agent" of their evolution toward good 2 7 7 or evil. He speaks of the relationship between the select minority and the common masses and notes that a superior man may well command the docile respect of those j ) •yfi Obras, XXI, 82. Compare this statement with the "forest" discussion (pp. 70-71)* This is another example of Ortega's "perspectivism" (see Ferrater Mora, Ortega, pp. 25-37)* 2 ^ Ibid. , p. 1 0 3 . See also ibid. , I, 3°2, in "Vieja y nueva politica," 1914, where Ortega observes the need in Spain for a select minority to direct and vitalize the Spanish nation. Unamuno likewise laments the lack of true intelligent leadership, which lack is traceable directly to the lack of proper education. Dullness, illiteracy, the lack of desire to read when they can do so, all con tribute to the false social reality of Spanish democracy: "Pocajs mentiras hay en Espana, de las innumerables que nos envuelven y paralizan, mas mentirosas que la mentira de nuestra democracia, entendida como una 1oclocracia,' ana soberania de las muchedumbres, y de las muchedumbres anal- fabetas. IDemocracia, donde en la provincia mas ilustrada, Alava, llegan casi a la quinta parte, 19»79i los adultos que no saben leer, y en la provincia menos ilustrada, Jaen, pasan con mucho de la mitad, llegando a 65,79, y en Espaiia toda son cerca de la mitad de ellos analfabetos1 Esto es la analfabetocracia" (Ensayos, II, 448} in "GLLosas de la vida: Sobre la opiiii6n publica," 1904). 107 beneath him. Such an exemplary individual and those d o c i l e a n d o b e d i e n t t o h i m f o r m O r t e g a ’ s a u t h e n t i c s o c i e t y b e c a u s e t h o s e who a r e l e d b y s u c h a n i n d i v i d u a l t e n d t o i m i t a t e h i m , p e r f e c t i n g t h e m s e l v e s i n h i s s h a d o w . T h i s " i m p u l s e " o f t r a i n i n g t o w a r d s u p e r i o r m o d e l s , a n i m p u l s e t h a t m ay r e m a i n a l i v e i n a s o c i e t y c o n s t i t u t e s w h a t t h a t 2 7 A s o c i e t y h a s t h a t m a k e s i t t r u l y a s o c i e t y . The c o n c e p t o f c o l l e c t i v e l i v i n g f i g u r e s p r o m i n e n t l y i n La r e b e l i 6 n d e l a s m a s a s , 1 9 3 0 1 w h e r e O r t e g a i s c o n c e r n e d w i t h t h e p r o b l e m o f man a n d s o c i e t y . T h e t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y c r e a t i o n , w h i c h O r t e g a a p t l y l a b e l s t h e " m a ss -m a n " ( h o m b r e - m a s a ) , i s t h e p r i n c i p a l th e m e o f t h i s work. This "mass-man" is the politico-historical reality 2 7 9 o f o u r e r a . He d i f f e r s r a d i c a l l y f r o m t h e man b e l o n g i n g t o t h e " s e l e c t m i n o r i t y , " w h i c h p o s s e s s e s a n a u t h e n t i c n o b i l i t y . O r t e g a m a k e s c e r t a i n t h a t we u n d e r s t a n d w h a t h e m e a n s b y " n o b i l i t y " a n d " m a s s -m a n " w h en h e s t a t e s t h a t n o b i l i t y i s s y n o n y m o u s t o a l i f e o f e f f o r t a i m e d a l w a y s a t s u r p a s s i n g i t s e l f , a t " t r a n s c e n d i n g w h a t i t now i s t o w a r d w h a t i t p r o p o s e s f o r i t s e l f a s d u t y and e x i g e n c y . H e n c e t h i s t y p e o f n o b l e l i f e o f e f f o r t i s s e t u p a g a i n s t ^ ^ O b r a s , I I I , 1 0 6 . S p a i n i n t h e s e c o n d h a l f o f t h i s t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y i s f a r f r o m c o n f o r m i n g t o t h i s p r e c e p t f o r a h e a l t h y , p r o g r e s s i v e s o c i a l o r g a n i z a t i o n . 279Ibid., I V , 175-179. 280_. .. _Q_ I b i d . , p . I03 • the common, inert life that statically shuts itself up within itself, condemned to "perpetual immanence provided an exterior force does not oblige it to come out of it- self." This is Ortega's apt description of the "mass- man," not so called because he is so plentiful on earth 282 but because he is inert. Unfortunately the mass-man overshadows the select minority, and this constitutes an other social reality. This new type of individual differs radically from his predecessors, whose traditional idea of living was to feel themselves limited and thus forced to contend with that which limited them, because this new type "shouts" that living now has no limitations; conse quently, this means "to abandon oneself tranquilly to one self." For such a person nothing is impossible, nothing is dangerous, and, "in principle," no one is superior to anyone else. Such a complacent attitude has radically altered the traditional structure of life in this century and could well become the total destruction of life on this earth, an earth that is rapidly becoming too compli cated for mediocrities to handle. The mass-man of today is a "surface" individual, wholly lacking "depth" 28lObras. IV, I83. pflp Ibid. This definition of "nobility" and "mass- man" is identical to the one Ortega had already developed in Espana invert ebrada, 1921. 285Ibid., p. 180. 109 perspective and possessed of a very limited imagination. It is this type of person of whom Unamuno speaks when he observes the social reality of rural Spain, which in Unamuno's words "suffocates the city." For him the insensible masses, who are real savages on occasion, constitute a "terrible chain" that city folk wear around their ankles. In the back country of Spain all political and cultural progress becomes stultified, and, in 284 Unamuno's opinion, "ruralism is ruining us." This new individual, once governed and now governing, has managed to reach the top of the social ladder and has become the crass reality of twentieth-century life in the Western world. Ortega observes the psychological struc ture of this mass-man whose basic characteristics he aptly Bnsayos, II, 440; in "La civilizaci6n es civismo," 1907* For Dnamuno, the only solution to such a thorny problem is the industrialization of agriculture by intro ducing machinery to the back country and by fomenting the concentration of the rural masses in the cities (ibid., pp. 440-441). He observes that civilization started in the cities (Athens, Rome, Alexandria, Venice, London, Paris, etc.) and that Domingo F. Sarmiento was right in his assessment of Argentine life in Facundo; civilizacion o barbarie (ibid., p. 44l). Spanish Carlism is ruralism and constitutes the principal obstacle to Spanish civili zation (ibid.). "El campesino [even the Basque campesino] es, adem&s de s6rdido y despiadado, receloso y descon- fiado" (ibid.). With this "inertia" of the rural areas, with this trememdous dead weight, with this fatal insen sibility Spain must govern: "Todo eso envla al Parlamento un mont6n de grandes propietarios o de criados de ellos, de senoritos ignorantes, de sportsmen incultos, de ninos goticos, de ricachos empedernidos y, sobre todo, de in- significantes que estan a merced de la voluntad del que manda" (ibid., pp. 441-442). It was just this sort of social reality, Unamuno's "boorish sportsman," to whom 110 describes: this fellow possesses 1) a negative and radi cal notion that life is easy, abundant, devoid of tragic limitations, thus giving each average person a "sensation of dominion and triumph which 2) invites him to assert himself just as he is, to consider his ethical and intel lectual stock to be good and complete." This self content shuts him off from every exterior entreaty and causes him to be deaf to everything, not to doubt his own opinions or count on others. His intimate "feeling of dominion con stantly incites him to exercise predominance," causing him to act as if he and his kind were the only people existing Cervantes dedicated the first part of Don Quijote: the Duque de Bejar, whom some suspect of not knowing how to read but who regularly hunted on his vast estates, a typi cal campesino ricacho, whose real name was Alonso Diego Lopez de Zuniga y Sotomayor. And on top of all this, crowning' and stamping it "se alza la mas huera y mas in- sustancial abogacia. La abogacia es uno de los peores azotes de nuestra Espana contemporanea. Casi todos nuestros caudillos politicos son abogados--tengan o no bufete— , y no son menos abogados los que no poseen si- quiera el titulo de licenciados en Derecho" (Ibid.,p. 442). Abogacia is one of Unamuno's favorite words for describing the social reality of political Spain. He uses this word to imply the way in which politicians "line up" matters as if they were involved in a lawsuit before a court of law, "o la especial sofisteria que se cultiva en estrados" (ibid.). Lawyers and rustics feel for each other a mutual antipathy: the rustic is a "litigious" person at heart, and his mentality rarely goes beyond that of things abogadescas, a favorite adjective of Unamuno, which he applies often to indicate something false (ibid.). Neither rustic nor lawyer-politician is sincere (authentic). The city is "civism" and "civism is civil ization": This is a "social phenomenon" (ibid., p. 443). Unamuno considers Barcelona to be a real city, while Madrid is merely the corte, or center of government (ibid.). Ill on earth.. Consequently, 5) k© will intervene in every thing, imposing his commonplace opinion, without circum spection, contemplation, logical procedure, or reserve, 285 acting "according to his regimen of 'direct action'.” Our mass-man, differing radically from the primitive who was docile to superior intelligence, is the "spoiled child" (niilo mimado) who pullulates the contemporary world. He is the product of too many "gadgets," too much easy living, too much freedom of action, too many un limited opportunities. He is "one of the countless 286 deformities that luxury produces in human matter." Since all human life is the "struggle, the effort to be 287 itself" (to be authentic), the hereditary aristocracy finds its task of representing a former, now outmoded way of life unendurable and must inevitably degenerate and disappear. The "spoiled child" of this present era is in the same situation, and more so is the mass-man: the stir- plus of means has been their undoing. Ortega cogently observes that human life has arisen and progressed only when the means on which it could count were equivalent to 288 the problems it felt facing it. And this observation 2850bras, IV, 207. 286Ibid., p. 208. 287lbid. nOO Ibid., p. 210. 112 elicits the statement by Ortega that the English people, exasperating because of their defects and shortcomings, something all people share in common, are exceptional and original because of their way of being a society, their way of knowing how to live collectively. In this the 289 English are unique. Further developing the theme of mediocrity, Ortega has much to say about woman in general and her propensity for selecting a mediocre consort. Women have never been interested in geniuses except "per accidens, i. e., when to genius are joined conditions not very compatible with 290 genius." Woman is basically not interested erotically in those qualities in a man that make for genius and human progress. Does she really care whether or not her husband 291 is a great mathematician, physicist, or politician? Hence, all those qualities and talents that make for human advance and bettferment have rarely attracted woman; rather she is lured by those qualities that are the least fruit ful for the "general perfection of the species," the same qualities that interest most men the least. For woman the 289 Obras, IV, 282} in the "Epilogo para ingleses," 1938» appended to Part II ("AQuien manda en el mundo?") of "La rebelion de las masas," 1930. Note what Unamuno said about Americans and their imagination, which is also ap plicable to the English (p. 62). ^ ^ Ibid. , V, 624; in "La eleccion en amor," 1927* 291 Ortega later in this same essay mentions the fu tile love affairs of Napoleon. And we might add Goethe. 113 genius is "an interesting man1 ' who is also equally 2 92 uninteresting to the great mass of men. From the standpoint of human selection and improvement, this pref erence for the non-select and non-genius in a mate is deleterious to the human race; and this tends to eliminate the best masculine individuals, those who undertake ’ ’ high enterprises,” revealing a "decided enthusiasm for medio- 293 crity." Woman, in spite of her protests to the con trary, "is seen to swim comfortably, as if in her element, 294 when she is circulating among mediocre men." 292 Obras, V, 624-625* Unamuno also notes that , in general, society (men and women) prefers the mediocre per son, who is Unamuno's hombre de sociedad, the man who is exceptional in no respect: "La excepcion molesta siempre" (0. C., I, 537; in "Por tierras de Portugal y de Espana," 19lU. Ibid., p. 626. Unamuno also vigorously attacks commonness and mediocrity, .what he calls vulgaridad and ramplonaria (Ensayos, II, 671-676; "Vulgaridad," n. d., the seventeenth of twenty-three essays comprising "Soli- loquios y conversaciones," 1911 [ibid., pp. 533“726]). The Press is equally to blame for this lamentable situa tion since newspapermen come from and live among the people (ibid., p. 679; in "Publico y prensa," n. d., the eighteenth of the essays in "Soliloquios y conversa ciones") : "La Prensa, en general, lejos de tratar de corregir los prejuicios y las presunciones del publico, tiende a confirmarlos" (ibid., p. 681). As Ortega, Unamuno laments the lack of a select minority: ". . . lo malo es que no tenemos sino una enorme masa de plebe in- telectual y una muy escasa aristocracia de la misma es- pecie. Nos falta clase media de la cultura, nos falta algo asi como una burguesxa del esplritu deseosa de ilustrarse" (ibid., p. 682). 294 Ibid. This startling observation by Ortega gives one pause for meditation on the possible future for man kind. Is "leveled mediocrity" to be man's goal? 114 Addressing himself now to the subject of the "select minority," Ortega observes that there are people who be come very irritated when mention of such a topic is made. Who constitutes this social elite? The answer to this is that nobody chooses the "select minority" since belonging to this group does not constitute any kind of a reward or sinecure that is granted to an individual. Quite the con trary, since belonging to the "select minority" implies "a greater burden and graver compromises." The "select man selects himself" when he demands more of himself than do the rest. Belonging to Ortega's select minority sig nifies a privilege of pain and effort, as in feudal times; and this select man must aspire from one level of perfec tion and demands upon himself to a higher plane of demands and perfections. Hence he is a man for whom life is a training program, and Ortega notes that the Spanish entre- namiento exactly translates the Greek concept for "ascet- - • „295 lcism." Obras, IV, 487-488; in "Cosmopolitismo," 1924. Unamuno's aristocracia de talento is the same as Ortega's "select minority." This "talented aristocracy" consti tutes the thinkers whose ideas are not their masters, who are "la parte m&s elevada de entre los que piensan; los que se dan cuenta de las cosas por si mismos y se crean sus ideas, en cuanto esto es posible, mas bien que tomar- las hechas, suelen encontrarse en multitud de cuestiones mucho mas cerca del sentir y el pensar del pueblo indoc- to . . (Ensayos, I, 470; in. "Sobre el fulanismo," 1903). Ortega's nino mimado becomes Unamuno's intelectual whose culture is obtained from books and whose understand ing is more "warehouse than factory" (ibid.). In "Don Quijote y Bolivar," n. d., the last of the 115 Before concluding this section on the reality of society, it will be necessary to note what Ortega has to say about this subject in his illuminating essay , r En torno a Galileo," 1933* Here he notes that the reality called "company" or "society" can only exist between two things that mutually "exchange their being, which are recipro cally one another," which means that "I accompany or am in society with you to the extent that you feel that you exist for me and are in me, that you fill a part of my being. jje concludes: en suma, yo te acompano, convivo o estoy en socie- dad contigo en la medida en que yo sea tu. Por el contrario, en la medida en que yo no soy tu, en que no existes para mi ni para ningun otro projimo, en esa medida estas solo, estas en soledad y no en so- ciedad o companxa.297 In spite of man's basic need for solitude, there is in human life "an indescribable eagerness for company, for 298 society, for collective living." "Love" is a good twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversa- ciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 333-726), Unamuno speaks of the effort implied in building a true man or civilization when he notes that "thought is the flower of action, and the philosophic, poetic, and scientific culture of a people does not flower and become exalted until, through dolorous struggles, it [the people] has constituted itself in view of a more or less common ideal" (Ensayos, II, 721) . ^ ^ Obras, V, 6l. 297 'Ibid. See Chapter V for more on man's need for solitude. 298 Ibid. 116 example of man’s yearning for company, his zest for fusing 299 his ego with that of his beloved. Man lives his indi vidual life in the world, in the physical and social world.He is unconditionally a member of the group, inwardly as well as outwardly. Hence, man is not in so ciety; rather society is in man. We are what our prede cessors and our contemporaries have thought and done. Therefore, if there is no such thing as a community with out individuals, there is also no such thing as indivi- 301 duals without a community. Ortega notes that it becomes evident that human reality has two forms: the collective (social) and the individual, which mutually 302 imply one another. He also probes into the intrusion of the past into the present of man's existence, the "accumulation of the past without which man could not be man, . . . a progressive entity," and shows how man's past (his history) must be converted into a reality which strangely enough, being a human reality, does not possess the most basic characteristics of that which is human, namely: man's past, unlike his individual life, is inde pendent of his will (volition) and is, consequently, 2990bras, V, 6l. ^ ^ Ibid., p, 201; in "Un rasgo de la vida alemana," 1935. 501Ibid. 3°2ibid. 117 "impersonal, irresponsible, and automatic." These are also the characteristics of the physical world of "brute nature." This is precisely what is social, collective, since everything proceeding from society is "impersonal, automatic, irresponsible, and brutal. Despite this, Ortega cogently observes that all these adjectives refer to human things and not to physical ones, to ways of thinking (public opinion), to acting (ethical practices, law), to men and not to material movements or physical reactions or zoological processes. He says that what is social, collective, is, then, "what is human dehumanized, 304 quasi-materialized, naturalized."^ Man is, as a result of this, in society as in a second nature; and that is ■505 why "being human is so inhuman."-^ To be a man, man needs society; but "everything there is in society came from individuals and in [society everything] becomes de-individualized in order to make new individuals possible." As a result, society becomes something intercalated between personal lives, something that is born of these lives and flows into them. The role of society, its rank or nature, being a constituent of man, 3050bras, V, 203. 3°4ibid. 5°*Ibid. 3°6Ibid. 118 is merely a partial role, serving as a "utensil and ap paratus"; consequently, society's role is secondary to the role and rank of one's personal life.^"^ This second ary role of society in human life is again made evident by Ortega when he states that "La vida organizada, la vida como uso de organos Csociety] es vida secundaria y deri- vada, es vida de segunda clase." The primary and basic ijp « Q life is la vida organizante. It is abundantly evident that society— the collective life of man, the reality which forms a large part of his circunstancia (see Chapter III)— is a secondary reality that plays a vital role in the matter of living. Man can not live outside society, though on occasions some few have tried to do so. Man is, by his very nature, gregari ous and must live in society, in the collective group of which he is only a part. In this able manner Ortega has resolved the knotty problem of individualism as contrasted to collectivism.^^ 5°70bras, V, 203. •^^Ibid., II, 282; in "El 'Quijote* en la escuela," 1920. The vida organizante is Ortega's concept of human life as a faciendum and as movement (see Chapter VI). 309 Ortega's cogent observation about collective life being a "dehumanizing" experience is a most apposite way of explaining such anomalies of so-called "civilization" as war, social upheavals, our current world-wide race for "atomic" and "space" supremacy, and "mein's inhumanity to man" throughout the ages. 119 Aesthetic Reality The problem of aesthetic reality is handled quite differently by Unamuno and Ortega. The former approaches this problem rather desultorily, touching on the subject here and there and now and again. He makes no concerted effort to cope with aesthetic reality from a wholly objective point of view and as something individually worthy of detailed study. Hence I shall consider Ortega's concept of this secondary reality, introducing Unamuno's remarks when the occasion demands and his remarks are pertinent to the main discussion of this topic. In cases where his observations are pertinent to Ortega's discus sion of aesthetic reality, I shall speak of Unamuno after having treated Ortega, who in his usual thorough and detached manner presents a clear and sharply defined picture of this problem. In one of his most significant works, the penetrating and highly suggestive Deshumaniisaci6n del arte, 1925, Ortega comes directly to grips with aesthetic reality by imaginatively creating a situation which illustrates his thesis of the perspective, which here he calls "the scale of spiritual distances between [objective!] reality and ourselves" (the beholders). In this imagined phenomenolo gical situation he places a famous man who is at death's door and whose death agony is being witnessed by four people: they dying man's wife, his physician, a 120 newspaperman, and a painter who has "dropped in” to pay his respects. Each of these four persons represents a greater or lesser degree of proximity to the fact of death: the wife is in closest proximity sentimentally (spiritually); next comes the physician who is profes sionally concerned with the moribund patient; further removed than these two is the reporter who has come to record the fact of death; and furthest removed is the painter whose attitude is one of detached aesthetic con templation of the death scene. The wife, being emotion ally most closely associated with her dying husband, "lives” the death scene; the doctor, professionally in volved, partially "lives" this situation; the reporter, here for a "story,” is in a more "contemplative" position due to his assignment; and the painter, a detached artist, is in a wholly "contemplative" attitude with respect to this death since all he does is consider the aesthetics of the scene before him, and, being the furthest removed sentimentally, he represents the minimum of "sentimental 310 intervention.”^ In this able manner Ortega creates his "scale of spiritual distances between [objective] reality [death, here] and ourselves." In this "scale" the degrees of proximity are equivalent to the degrees of sentimental involvement in the facts (death), and, contrariwise, the 3100bras, III, 36O-362. 121 degrees of removal signify degrees of liberation from the objective reality (death) in which we objectivisse the life event by converting it into a "pure theme of contempla tion." Situated at one of the extremes of this "scale," we meet with an aspect of the world— people, things, situ ations— which is ’ ’lived” reality (sentimental proximity); and at the opposite extreme (sentimental distancing) we observe everything in its aspect of ’ ’contemplated” 311 reality. It is the realidad vivida that is vital to the understanding of art, as when we compare the redness of a girl’s cheek to that of an apple. Because we know the ’ ’living” reality of the redness of an apple, the com parison of this quality to a feminine cheek gives the simile ’ ’life" and makes it intelligible. Thus it is with 312 all art. The concept of "sentimental proximity" means that in the scale of realities corresponding to the "lived” reality there is a peculiar primacy that obliges us to consider this to be the most authentic reality. In stead of calling this "lived" reality, Ortega suggests the 313 term "human reality."*^ ^ From this point of reference, the painter who passively witnesses the death scene seems "inhuman"; thus the human point of view is the one in 3110bras, III, 362. 312Ibid. 513Ibid. 122 314 which we "live" situations, persons, things. So, con versely, "all realities are human— woman, landscape, situ ation— when they present the aspect under which they are 315 customarily lived.^ The role of the perspective again comes to the fore in what Ortega observes about the re alities we call "ideas," which constitute our world. He says that we use ideas humanly when we think things with them, i. e., when we think of Napoleon, the normal thing is to consider the "great man" who was Napoleon. The psychologist, however, adopting "an abnormal point of view," an "inhuman" point of view, divests himself of the "man" Napoleon and, looking within himself, tries to ana lyse his "idea" as such of Napoleon, who now becomes the "idea" Napoleon. Here it is a matter of a contrary per spective that is opposed to the one we adopt in "sponta neous life." Instead of the idea being the instrument with which we think an object, the idea itself becomes 316 the object and end of our thought. In this same remarkable series of essays comprising La deshumanizacion del arte, 19251 Ortega notes an un deniably new aesthetic sensibility that applies not only to the artists who create new things but also to those 5l40bras, III, 363. 315 316 Ibid. Note the vital influence of "ideas" on human life. who appreciate them— the passive beholders. Comparing the modern artist to the painter of the 1860*8, Ortega ob serves that the nineteenth-century artist would paint a man, a mountain, or a house as ' ’lived” realities, which means that they looked like a man, a mountain, or a house. But such is not the case with modern art: a house is no longer a house as such, nor is a man a man, nor is a moun tain a real mountain ; we now have to work to find any resemblance. The modern painter, instead of reproducing "lived” realities, has withdrawn from these toward a "con templative" perspective, the perspective of the artist who was witnessing the death scene; and in this "game” the 317 modern artist has "dehumanized" art. Therefore, in order to be able to appreciate and, more important, to ' understand modern art, we must improvise a new approach or perspective that is entirely different from the usual "living" of things. For this "new life" we must "create and invent unedited acts Cor actions!! that are adequate to those unusual figures." This "new" life, implying its having been "invented" with the previous revocation of the 317 Obras, III, 364-365* Unamuno, unlike Ortega, de plores modern art in any form, attributing its inspiration to a "finalist, utilitarian concept" of history that has not only vitiated history but has also devitalized aes thetics: "Ha producido una degeneracion del arte, que es el arte progresista. Su mas repugnante producto mercantil son los dramas de tesis, los dramas sociol6gicos, resis- tentes al estilo" (De esto, IV, 608; in "A1 rededor del estilo, XXIV," 19247^ 124 spontaneous life, is precisely what is called "artistic comprehension find enjoyment." This art does not lack sentiment and passion, but obviously the sentiment and passion of modern art belong to a different "psychic flora" from that which decorates the landscapes of our primary human life. They are secondary emotions "which in our inner artist those ultra-objects provoke"; they are specifically aesthetic sentiments. Ortega, in a foot note to this last statement, observes that "'ultraism' is one of the most exact names that has been created to de- Q note the new sensibility." Ortega also observes that attempts to avoid human forms in art— house, man, mountain— are not only imprac tical but amount to stark failures; and he cites Pablo Picasso and the "Dadaist joke" as glaring examples of the 319 abortive efforts in this direction. For Ortega the most significant aspect of modern art is not only its "inhumanness" but also its active and overt attempt to "dehumanize," its flight from everything that is human, its attempt to paint something that resembles a man, a house, or a mountain as little as possible, the less the better. The "aesthetic pleasure" for the modern artist stems from his triumph over what is human: "por esto es ^ ^ Obras, III, 3&5 and n. 1. Salvador Dali is an excellent example of this new extremist art. 519Ibid., p. 366. 125 precise concretar la victoria y presentar en cada caso la *20 victima estrangulada." Hence the modern artist is trying to evade objective reality, which is not easy to 321 do. Man must progress aesthetically as well as in every other respect In 1923 Ortega anticipated what he was to write in 1925 when he placed modern art in its rightful position with respect to human life, noting that the change now being effected (1923) is much more basic than, for ex ample, the change which took place in literature from neo- Classicism to Romanticism. In art the change has not been so much in the objects as in the basic subjective attitude toward art itself, which no longer occupies its position of being something serious in man's existence; now art is not serious but a "game," Philistinism, non-art. If we attempt to take modern art seriously, as we do life, it 323 becomes wholly unintelligible nonsense. Ortega notes 3200bras, III, 366. 321 ^ Does not this new attitude also help to explain modern music and its jarring dissonances? Who is in error? The artist or his audience? 322Obras, III, 367* In "El sentido historico de la teoria de Einstein," n. d., Ortega says much the same things about change and the need for moving forward (see Chapter VI, pp. 420-422, under the heading "Perspec- tivism"). This is just as true of language as it is of people• 3230bras, III, 194; in "El tema de nuestro tiempo," 1923. This helps us to understand modern music and to accept it as the "game" it is. 126 that when a painting renounces the attempt to emulate reality, it is converted into what it authentically is: a painting, an unreality, an idea. Expressionism, Cubism, etc., have, to a certain extent, been attempts to renounce objective reality; and from painting things (a man, a mountain, a house) we have progressed to the point of painting ideas: the artist has become blinded to the exterior world of objective realities and has turned his 325 gaze toward inner subjective landscapes. v Luigi Pirandello's Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore, Ortega maintains, is perhaps the only work in recent years that "provokes the meditation of him who is fond of the aes- 326 thetics of the drama." In this play Ortega sees "a clear example" of the inversion of the artistic theme. Here we do not witness the usual drama of human emotions. Pirandello's characters manage to interest as personages, as ideas, or pure schema. Hence, for Ortega, this play is "the first 'drama of ideas,' strictly speaking, that has «27 [ever] been composed."^ All those earlier plays, con sidered to be "dramas of ideas" were really not what they seemed to be; they were merely dramas "among 32Vbras, III, 376. 525Ibid. 526Ibid. 527Ibid. 127 pseudo-personages who symbolized ideas." In Pirandello's Sei personaggi the sad fate of the characters is mere pretext and becomes devitalized; on the other hand, here we witness "the real drama of ideas as such, of subjective phantoms that gesticulate in the author's mind." Ortega considers this play to be an extremely clear intent to "528 "dehumanize" art, and it is successful. He further notes that the general public cannot quite become used to this new concept of dramatic art and, therefore, seeks out the traditional fare, resenting the "deception" and find ing little pleasure in "the delightful fraud of art, Cwhich is3 the more exquisite the better it manifests its 329 fraudulent texture."^ This recalls the statement Ortega had made in "El tema de nuestro tiempo": We must "take art as it is, as entertainment, as a game, as a diver sion," because any other approach is to ask of art the 330 impossible. The modern artist, antagonistic toward the living forms of past art, is indulging in the "dehumanization" of his own art with a vigor that is "in direct proportion 328 „ Obras, III, 377* Jacinto Grau, in El senor de Pigmali6n , 1921, creates puppets who represent ideas and thus assume the reality of human beings. This is another excellent example of the "dehumanization" process that Ortega sees in evidence in most modern art. ^ibia . 330 Ibid., p. 194. 128 to the [spiritual] distances."^1 This general assault on the art of bygone days represents a firm resolve on the part of the moderns to rebel against the fortress of Art itself, and this revolt, says Ortega, is due primarily to the current hatred of all previous art, a hatred that masks itself under the pretext of the love of pure art. ^ 2 This paradox of love and hatred for the same thing is apparent when Ortega notes that the first generation of Romanticism was "the subversion of the classics and the 333 absolutism of Poetics." Thus each new literary genera tion tends to overthrow the "old" and present a new pro gram, which is usually the negation of all that preceded. Artistic liberalism, as all liberalism, is an attitude of combat, a "state of intellectual war," which really means a simple negation since it is a liberation from tradition. Barbey d'Aurevilly1s affirmation of blasphemy establishes poetry in "the dramatic emotion of blasphemy," which is "the frenzy of annihilation"; thus Barbey had to be a traditionalist in order to be able to curse the past and 334 God. Baudelaire’s black Venus is "the poetic negation 5310bras, III, 380. 552Ibid. ^^^Ibid., VI, 228j in "En un banquete en su honor en ’Pombo1,” 1922, a "toast" proffered by Ortega on this oc casion . 129 of* the classic candid Venus.” The great assault on pic torial Bastilles began in 1870 against the galleries and their traditions, and painters also "are going to open the ■535 series of subversive programs.” ^ Present-day art finds its inspiration in what Ortega calls lo comico, constituting and presenting an ever present irony that is the salvation of art and also its triumph. The ability of art to make fun of itself is its forte: this mockery of itself is art's ’ ’ magic gift” be cause this gesture of annihilation of itself continues to be art, ’ ’and by a wondrous dialectic, its negation is its 336 preservation and its triumph.And this resolves the apparent "contradiction" between love and hatred for the same thing (art, here), which I noted above (p. 128). This "comic” element in modern art constitutes the "game” that modern art is, and it must be accepted as such. Despite its many shortcomings, modern art is proof of the fact that man cannot revert to past ages. Modern art may yet produce something of really great and lasting value. All the objections to it may be justified, but such objections really miss the main point when they un conditionally condemn it. To these objections we must add one more item: "the insinuation of another road for art 3350bras, VI, 228. 336Ibid., Ill, 382. 130 [of the future] that is not this dehumanizing one nor one that reiterates the used and abused routes.” Since art is something more than the material of which something is constructed, as is the case with human life, it needs a subject. But just as human life is something more than mere chemical processes, so art is something more than just a subject. Art is art because of the formal struc ture it imposes upon the subject or the material with which it works. When art is considered critically, this formal structure is referred to as "style"; and this term is particularly applicable to literature, as Ortega notes when he writes of "style" and the reality of the poet and states that the peculiar manner of each poet for making things "unreal" is what he calls that poet’s "style." Y como, mirado por la otra cara, la desrealizaciSn no se logra si no es por una supeditaci6n de la parte que en la imagen mira al objeto a la parte que ella tiene de subjetiva, de sentimental, de porciuncula de un £2. — se comprende que haya podido decirse: el estilo es el hombre.339 3370bras, III, 386. 538Ibid., p. 399• 33^Ibid., VI, 263; in "Ensayo de estetica a manera de prologo," 1914. Unamuno also maintains that "style" is something personal, and he is scandalized by a suggestion of Eusebio Blasco to the effect that "chairs of style" should be established. Unamuno, too, feels that the style is the man, and in a typically subjective manner he writes of the futility of "chairs of style," adding: "Lo intimo del estilo, mi modo de ver la realidad, la indole de mis metaforas, el giro'que de a mi pensamiento correspondera 131 For Ortega, the ;jro of each poet "is a new dictionary, a new language" which provides us with new concepts hereto fore unknown. In the real world we can have things before we have the words to name them} in the aesthetic world it is "style" that is at once "word and hand and pupil [of 340 the eye]." What one style imparts another cannot express: some are rich and portray innumerable secrets mined from the "mysterious quarry" of language, and there are less copious styles, possessing only "three or four terms," that still may provide us "corners of beauty" otherwise unnoticed by us. This is why every authentic poet, be he abundant or meagre, is, for this very reason, 341 an irreplaceable artist. s i e m p r e a l a e s p e c i a l i d a d d e m i e x p r e s i o n , i q u i e n v a a e n s e n a r m e l o ? i Q u i e n me v a a e n s e f i a r a s e r y o ? S e me d i r a q u e p u e d e n a y u d a r m e a q u e m e d e s c u b r a m e j o r . L o d u d o . Lo que haran es empenarse en que me refunda en el troquel connin" (De esto, IV, 458; in "tCatedras de estilo1," 1900). Also in _"A1 rededor del estilo, III," 1924, the third of twenty-nine articles that Unamuno wrote in Euerteventura and Paris during his exile from Spain (1924- 1930), of which two articles were lost (XVI and XXVIII), he again indicates the vital importance of the aesthetic reality of "style" when he writes that . .el hombre que descubre el papel que Dios . . . le asigno en la tragicomedia de la historia, se descubre a si mismo, y halla su estilo" (ibid., p. 550). He further maintains that all who know their role in life have style (ibid.). See Chapter V ("Authenticity") for the vital importance of authenticity and style. 5^°0bras, VI, 263. 341 Ibid. Unamuno likewise believes that poetry and poets are unique and irreplaceable, since for him all true creative work is "poetry." He often extols the merits of this art, which he considers to be a true reality, one of 132 No authentic art can be imitation, and style is a unique reality that is the possession of but one artist, one poet, one composer of great music, one great prose the most important since it is an expression of the "man of passion.'1 He observes that when poetry does not surge "overflowing as a spring from the depths Centranas] of the spirit, swollen with it, it is idle to seek tbeauty] by means of mere external stimuli" (Ensayos, I, 869-87O; in "Algunas consideraciones sobre la literatura hispano- americana [sic]," 1905). For Unamuno, painting is not "mute poetry" nor is poetry "painting that speaks" (ibid., II, 1148; in "La Epopeya de Artigas," n, d., the fifteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 [Ensayos, II, 1025-1227])* Both are unique realities each in its own right, and for both he has a deep affection. He notes that the greatest poets have meditated long, in one way or another, about the mystery of human life, about the beginning and end of things; or, at least, they have felt it. He notes that he progres sively feels more dislike for purely sensational poetry-- "odors, colors, sounds, gusts of wind, etc."— which fails to get to the "soul" of things. He grants the value of pictorial, literary, musical, sculptural, or oratorical poetry; but he prefers "poetic poetry, the revolution of the soul of things." For him, poetry is nature translated into spirit. He adds that here he is not attempting to raise his concept of poetry to the status of an objective principle, but, so far as he is concerned, he subordinates his own literary production to this concept (ibid., pp. 34-35} in an undated personal letter written between 1900 and 1905)* Unamuno was a great admirer of Goethe and maintained that Goethe's varied interests (science, nature, etc.) are the reasons he became a literary great. Ortega, on the other hand, considers Goethe to be the eternal youth and, therefore, unauthentic as a whole man, which is something quite different when we are considering aesthetic reality (not authenticity). Unamuno also considers Carducci and Guerra Junqueiro to be truly great poets (see Ensayos, II, 1165-1173, "A proposito de Josue Carducci," n. d.; and De esto, III, 373-377* "En memoria de Guerra Junqueiro," 1923, for his appraisal of these two poets.). Unamuno's concept of the aesthetic reality of beauty, which he joins to his concept of immortality, is excep tionally keen, as can be seen when he observes that in art man seeks a "copy" or "image" of immortality because, if man's spirit, but for a brief moment, finds peace and 133 writer such as Cervantes or Shakespeare.^^ Ortega observes that we "only know well what something is when it is not a reality to us, but [is] an idea"; and this becomes obvious if we reflect on what poetry means to 343 man. The "poetic world" is the "most transparent" of the "inner worlds," because in the "poetic world appear with careless cynicism and as in the open air" those con ditions that are appropriate to the "inner worlds." We realize that something is a pure invention of ours, en gendered by our fantasy; we do not take it for reality; solace in his contemplation of what is beautiful, wherever this beauty may be found, even though this contemplation may not cure the spirit's distress, the reason for this respite of quietude is that "what is beautiful is the revelation of what is eternal, of that which is divine in things" (Ensayos, II, 910; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913)• He considers beauty to be the "perpetuation of momentaneity," and "just as truth is the goal of rational knowledge, so beauty is the goal of hope, which is, in essence, perhaps irrational" (ibid.). Considering beauty to be man's individual essence, Unamuno asks if the beauty of something is anything other than its "eternal essence, that which unites its past with its future, that [element] of it which rests and remains in the womb [entranas] of‘eternity" (ibid., p. 911)* What is this but the "revelation of its divinity" (ibid.). Beauty, the root of eternity for Unamuno, is revealed to man only by love; and beauty is "the greatest revelation of the love of God and the token that we are to conquer time" (ibid.). 342 See Ensayos, I, 34, in "En torno al casticismo," 1895» where Unamuno states that the "being" of everything is its center or entranas, its spark of warmth to be found at its very core. Hence art, literature, and music, un like science, are either Spanish, French, Italian, etc. While music is said to be the universal language, it is, in essence, wholly national: Spanish, French, Italian, etc. ^^Obraa, V, 403; An "Ideas y creencias," 1934. 134 yet we busy ourselves with its objects as we do with the objects of the exterior world, i. e., since living is to be occupied with something, we spend many moments in the "poetic world" and remain aloof from the world of re- -i 3 4 4 alxty. Turning now specifically to Unamuno, we note that he does not study aesthetic reality with the objective thoroughness of Ortega, which does not mean to imply that he is unaware of this reality. Quite the contrary, since he gives ample evidence of his awareness of aesthetics in his many scattered statements on the subject. I have already cited his remarks on poetry and beauty. He also writes much about painting, which, with poetry, appears to 345 have been his favorite art. Speaking of contemporary art in Spain, he observes that no painter should be obliged to choose specific subjects, such as rich, satis fied, healthy men or poor, sad, sick folk, because pic- 346 torial art is not a matter of preaching. Art is not literature of any type, and if there is any such literary 344 i Obras, V, 403. This makes possible such total impossibilities as windmill-giants and a thousand and one other "unreal" realities that make this world a better place in which to live— and of life something more than mere existing. 345 xMusic held little attraction for Unamuno, as he himself states (see De esto, IV, 308; in "De arte picto- rica," 1912) . ^ ^ De esto, IV, 313; I*1 "De arte pictorica," 1912. 135 element in art, it is the worst part of art and the least pertinent to the craft, as is the legend affixed to some 347 paintings. Such titles misrepresent rather than ex plain art— especially modern art— and Unamuno has no use for the cubistic, ’ ’algebraic, cerebral" art of a Picasso: "Eso ni es pintura ni es nada artistico. The capacity of pictorial art, as an aesthetic reality, to portray a people is made very clear by Unamuno when he writes about Ignacio Zuloaga's El Cristo de la Sangre, noting how this Basque painter has captured in this work the reality of Spain, not as in a photograph, but as something symboli cal. Unamuno notes that there are those who will say that Zuloaga's painting does not truly depict "our present-day Spanish reality," and to this he retorts that they would be correct; but it is precisely on this lack that he bases Zuloaga's excellence and "his artistic or representative truth." All the elements of this painting are taken from reality, and what the artist has added is "his symbolic combination." This is a symbolic combination and not allegorical, which makes this painting, for Unamuno, one that has a profound inner truth: "es profundamente reve- lador. No dire que de lo mas comun de nuestra Espana, pero acaso si de lo mas profundo de lo eterno de 3^7Pe esto, IV, 313-314* 3^8Ibid., p. 321. 136 ella.»3^9 Spanish art, which Unamuno knew best, held great attraction for him so long as it was not too ultra-modern (see p. 123) • 317)• He notes that Spain has always known how "to dare, to desire, to aspire,'1 but she has not known how "to express what was desired," that what was desired was "an inefable and intangible wish," something akin to the desire of "the Castilian high, barren plain [p&ramoj, which at sunset seems to rise to the sky as if to bury it in its bosom": hence, "hemos querido enterrar 350 al cielo, meterlo dentro de la tierra.,,y Nothing, says Unamuno, better expresses this vital urge than painting, which is "a mute art": "iEsos cielos tenebrosos de Zuloaga no son tierra sutil? iY sus tierras no son cielos, no son ensuenos de los hombres tan terrenos que ~ 351 las lienan y las suenan?" Zuloaga, says Unamuno, has given Spain no mirages but has provided in his paintings, "filled with men outside of time and history," a mirror 352 of the soul of Spain. In another context Unamuno gives a fine example of the aesthetic reality of painting when he compares three pictures: El Bobo de Coria of 3^9Pe esto, IV, 317. *550 Ibid • » P* 3^6; "La Labor patri6tica de Zuloaga," 1917. 351Ibid. 352Ibid. 137 Velazquez, El Carlos II of Juan CarreiLo de Miranda, and El Jacob of Jose de Ribera ("El Espanoleto") . He maintains that these three paintings teach a profound lesson about the Spanish consciousnesst Velazquez is epic, Ribera dramatic, and Carreno biographic. These three speak to us of the consciousness of espanolidad, and Unamuno adds that the best of the "philosophy" of the Spanish soul will IK? issue from "the aesthetics" of Spanish pictorial art. Sculpturing also held charms for Unamuno, and he con siders classical sculpture to be the most authentic and universal reality among the arts. Though he did not speak often of this art, he is quite definite about its aesthetic worth when he writes that: . . . la escultura propia, la estatuaria clasica, es el arte en el que . . . mejor se nos patentiza la vision amorosa de lo universal y eterno del horn- bre, de la forma humana; es el arte mas profundo y mas entranadamente humano. Y en el es donde la honradez triunfa.35^ Unamuno regards his Basque countryman, Nemesio Mogrobejo, as one of the few Spaniards to have mastered the art of sculpture. For Mogrobejo the human form was a "soul" and a "spirit," and no one felt, not the resurrection, but the 355 immortality of the flesh as did this Basque. esto, XV, 351; in "En el Museo del Prado, Ante el Carlos II de Carreno," 1919* 35*t Ibid., p. 3265 in "La escultura honrada," 1913* 555Ibid., p. 327. 138 The fact that both Unamuno and Ortega have devoted so much space to the subject of aesthetic reality is eloquent testimony to the vital importance of this branch of the subject of ontology. Ortega specifically indicates that he considers aesthetics to be a vital, though secondary, reality when he states that all art should be taken at its face value, as something set before us for our entertain ment, and not as something to be taken seriously or for something that it is not. Art is a "game" and nothing more. To ask art to be serious, as Unamuno would have us do, is, for Ortega, to kill art. I have presented in this chapter those secondary realities that are considered by both Unamuno and Ortega to be the most vital to man and to his life on this earth. Those that I have treated provide a true panorama of this aspect of the concept of ontology: they constitute an integral part of man's existence. CHAPTER III LA CIRCUNSTANCIA The word circunstancia, which translates approxi mately the English "circumstance(s)M or "environment," or both concepts, forms an integral part of man's reality. Here again, it is really impossible to separate the cir cunstancia from the concept of human life as the basic re ality.1 The circunstancia, an indispensable adjunct of man's existence, is something he always has with him, into which he is born, in which he lives, and with which he must contend so long as he is in this life. It is some thing that frequently appears in the contexts of Unamuno and Ortega whenever they speak of human life. Ferrater Mora ably expresses the vital role of the circunstancia, which he translates as "circumstances": [Theyj are, so to speak, the umbilical cord that ties us to the rest of the universe. We must ac cept them as starting points and perhaps as land marks of our philosophical inquiry. . . . They are also an essential element of our lives.2 And Julian Marias, echoing Ortega, observes that 1See the allusions I have already made to this re ality in Chapter II, passim. 2 Ortega, p. 26. 139 140 La existencia humana incluye inexorablemente un ' mundo, una circunstancia, que no es en modo alguno un mtindo aparencial de muertas cosas, sino el mundo en que esta el hoabre, la circum-stantia que esta en torno a ese hoabre real, que de verdad vive.3 Such is the vital reality Ortega calls the circunstancia, which occupies a position in the total concept of ontology that precludes its being assigned a secondary status. In spite of Unamuno's assertion that he dispensed with the circunstancia in his novels, as he notes in "El heroismo de Espana," 1922, he did not wholly do so. He writes that when a novel, as a novel, interests me, especially if it has dramatic value, I have difficulty endur ing the descriptions of landscapes; and I skip them, the same descriptions that I perhaps would read with pleasure if they were separated from the rest of the story. And, therefore in my last novels--Abel Sanchez, La tia Tula, Tres novelas ejemplares--! have taken care not to dull and distract the dramatic narrative with descriptions of places or of another sort [of description]. Avoiding at the same time ^ local and temporal color, geography, and chronology. This surface aspect of the circunstancia Unamuno could very well try to omit, but there is a more subtle circuns tancia which, like the. roots of a tree, does not appear to the naked eye but which is a vital force nevertheless. Unamuno is well aware of this aspect of this reality when Miguel de Unamuno (Buenos Aires: Emece Editores, S. A. , 1953) j p"* 92, hereafter cited as Marias. 4 De esto, III, 483-484. See Marias, p, 93» where he states that in spite of Unamuno's assertions to the con trary, he could not wholly dispense with the circuns tancia, try as he might. l4l he discusses the Spaniard (the Castilian) and his innate individualism, noting that each individual determines the society of which he forms a part, ’ ’from whose integration arises something like a collective soul that flows back over the individual components themselves”; and these latter, having been thus modified, again work on the whole and this on them at the same time in an endless process of mutual reactions: "El individuo socializado individualiza g a la sociedad, que por su parte socializa a aquel." He admits that the life of the entire organism, even that of its "most hidden little cells" (celdillas), is reflected in one way or another in the general nervous system. He notes further that from our whole "mechanism" rise "echoes" that constitute our general sensibility, what is called cenestesia in psychology, the individual manner, the temperament, of which personal character may well be the basis. And all these "echoes" function as a "tonic" to the impressions man receives from his environment (cir cunstancia)— his outer as well as his inner environment — impressions, says Unamuno, that "by becoming integrated" give consciousness. He adds that in the extremely rich depth of the subconscious, in the vast field of impres sions that "do not go beyond the threshold of conscious ness," is the place where this consciousness "has its **De esto, III, 516 j in "I Mas sociabilidad I , " 1908. 142 roots as the tree [does] below the ground,"^ The vital reality of the circunstancia is also re flected in language, ’ ’the coffer of national tradition," which is the foundation of this tradition; and language, a. vital part of our circunstancia, holds the entire tradi tion of a people, even its contradictions of that tradi tion, all its religion and all its mythology. Unamuno asserts that it is not possible to teach a child to have consciousness of the language in which his parents and his companions think without that child acquiring a conscious ness of their tradition, their religion, and their mythol ogy. Nor is it possible to teach the youth to think in their national language, which makes thought possible, without inducing youth to make value judgments about the 7 tradition expressed by their language. The importance of the circunstancia and its effect on man is made crystal clear by Unamuno when he speaks of the animal's natural adaptation to its environment, of which 6Pe esto, III, 516. • 7 Ibid., p. 446; in "Dostoyeusqui sobre la lengua," 1933• See also Ensayos, I, 403, in "La cuesti6n del vascuence," 1902, where Unamuno speaks of the status of the Basque language, which he sees doomed to disappear, revealing in his assessment the vital role of the environ-, mental aspect of the circunstancia1 "La primera necesidad es la de vivir,. y la necesidad de vivir trae consigo la de acomodamos y adaptarnos al arabiente. El pueblo vasco tiene que vivir, y para ello tiene que adaptarse al am- biente de cultura [which is not Basque] en medio del cual vive, y para esa adaptacion le estorba el vascuence." 143 the animal is an integral part and without which it would find it almost impossible to adapt itself: "El gato fuera g de la casa conocida se esconde aterrado." But man, the rational animal, finding himself in his circunstancia and, consequently, also the child of this circunstancia, quite "differently faces this reality, working on it, modifying it, changing it, thus creating for himself what Unamuno calls an "inner" circunstancia. And man effects this by first applying force and later his intelligence: first "possessed" by the land, man begins to possess it not only by his physical labor but also by his understanding of his world, by "reducing it to a living ideal representation." And in this act man "not only creates a world within him self" which is a reflection of his exterior world but he also dominates his outer world by applying his "inner 9 world" to it. In this connection, Unamuno recalls that science controls force, "an old truth that will never be sufficiently thought about. He is convinced that human history is wholly the work of man on the circunstancia in which he lives.1' 1 ' In "La labor patri6tica de Zuloaga," 1917j where he comments on Zuloaga and what he signifies g Ensayos, I, 285; in "La crisis del patriotismo," [1898?]. 9Ibid. 10-r^ . . Xbxd. 11Ibid. 144 as an explanation of things Spanish, Unamuno asks: "What is the soul of a man but his vision of that which sur rounds him and maintains him?" He further notes that "perhaps the Castilian landscape is a prolongation [or 12 projection} of the soul of the people who inhabit it." He develops this concept by noting that man, though he started by being "made" by the geographical circunstancia of Castile, managed to react to this reality by converting some of it into a garden, the work of his hands (by his energy). And here he made his home. But not just here since he followed yet another course, which was to resign himself first to this harsh land, "all rock and heart," and then "to assimilate it to himself and cover it with 12 De esto, IV, 345- Ortega observes that the most recent biological studies consider a unit to consist of a body plus its particular medium (circunstancia), and he states that the vital process is not only the adaptation of the body to its medium but also the adaptation of the medium to the body. The hand attempts to mold the ma terial object in order better to grasp it, but, at the same time, every material object "hides a previous affin ity with a definite hand": "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia, y si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo. Benefac loco illi quo natus es, leemos en la Biblia. Y en la escuela pla- tonica se nos da como empresa de toda cultura esta: 1sal- var las apariencias,1 los fenomenos. Es decir, buscar—el sentido de lo que nos rodea" (Obras, I, 322; in "Medita- ciones del Quijote," 1914). Ortega considers the body to be only half of the living being since his other half is composed of the objects that exist for him, that incite him to bestir himself and live: "De aqui se desprende que para entender una vida, sea ella la que quiera, humana o animal, habra que hacer antes el inventario de los objetos que integran su medio propio o, como yo prefiero decir, su paisaje" (Obras, II, 299; in HE1 'Quijote' en la escuela," 1920) . 145 his spirit," which, says Unamuno, is "the robust work of asceticism"; and this latter is the work of his under- 13 standing. According to Unamuno, gardens, the industrial work of the hand of man, are outside man's soul; but the beloved wasteland of the hermit (Castile) is inside his soul. He observes that Antonio Machado, considered by Unamuno to be Spain's greatest poet, has said that the fields of Alvar Gonzalez are so Sad that they have a soul. And Unamuno agrees that this is so since these fields have the soul infused into them by a people who "have buried their soul in them, who have made the land their soul, who have embraced the soil that is left in order not to be l4 blown away by the air that wafts by." Unamuno cites Ortega's statement to the effect that Spain's landscape is "baroque" and nptes that it is "our way of seeing it, of caressing it with our glance, of longing to fuse ourselves 15 into it," that makes it baroque. This is but one more example of Unamuno's subjective attitude toward reality, in this instance the vital reality of the circunstancia of Castile. It is also an excellent example of perspectivism (see Chapter II). Again, in "Contra el purismo," 1903? Unamuno observes that one's passive adaptation to his l3Pe esto, IV, 345- i4T. Ibid. 15Ibid. 146 environment (circunstancia) is characteristic of the ani mal; but man in order to be "more man" must adapt the en vironment to himself, "hacerse el mundo, manera la mas noble de hacerse al mundo. Very early in his long and productive career Ortega gives clear evidence of the vital role of the circuns tancia in his concept of ontology: ILa circunstancia! ICircum-stantiaI lLas cosas mudas que estan en nuestro proximo derredor! Muy cerca, muy cerca de nosotros levantan sus tacitas fisonomias con un gesto de humildad y de anhelo, corao menesterosas de que aceptemos su ofrenda y a la par avergonzadas por la simplicidad aparente de su donativo. Y marchamos entre ellas ciegos para ellas, fija la mirada en remotas empresas, proyec- tados hacia la conquista de lejahas ciudades esque- maticas . -*-7 In our search for "greener pastures" we thoughtlessly tread on the "violets of love and affection" that lie un heeded at our feet. We are unaware that only parts exist in any reality, that the whole is merely the abstraction of the parts and needs these parts in order to become whole. We are unmindful that, in the same manner, there can be no better thing except where other good things exist; and only by taking a vital interest in these latter will what is best achieve its full rank and value. And ^Snsayos, I, 420. Unamuno repeats his concept of the mutual influence of the circunstancia on man and man on the circunstancia in "La crisis del patriotismo," C1898?] fib id. 1 p"I 285) and in "Civilizacion y cultura," n. d. (ibid., p. 304). ^Obras, I, 319 * in "Meditaciones del Quijote," 1914. 147 Ortega pointedly asks: "What is a captain without sol diers?"1® Ortega observes that his natural egress into the world is by way of the gates of the Guadarrama Mountains or through the fields of Ontlgola, and this sector of re ality forms the other half of his person: "only through Cthis sector of my circunstancia] can I integrate myself 19 and be completely myself." Hence Ortega's statement that "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia" becomes the corner- 20 stone of his entire philosophical "system." The cir cunstancia , consequently, is a central theme of Ortega’s ontology. It appears in most of his writings after 1914. When he speaks of the "problem" of human life (see 1 o Obras, I, 321. 19Ibid., p. 322. 20 Ibid. Ortega will repeat this concept in 1932 when in a prologue appearing in the Revista de Occidente of that year he wrote: "’Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia.' Esta expresion, que aparece en mi primer libro CMedita- ciones del Quijo.te, 1914] y que condensa en dltimo volu- men mi pensamiento filosofico, no significa solo la doctrina que mi obra expone y propone, sino que mi obra es un caso ejecutivo de la misma doctrina. Mi obra es, por esencia y presencia, circunstancial. Con esto quiero de- cir que lo es deliberadamente, porque sin deliberacion, y aim contra todo proposito opuesto, claro es que jamas ha hecho el hombre cosa alguna en el mundo que no fuera cir- cunstancial. Esto es precisamente lo que el lema citado manifiesta. El hecho radical, el hecho de todos los he cho s— esto es, aquel dentro del cual se dan todos los demas como detalles e ingredientes de el--, es la vida de cada cual. Toda otra realidad que no sea la de mi vida es una realidad secundaria, virtual, interior a rai vida, y que en esta tiene su raiz o su hontanar" (Obras, VI, 347-348; in "A una edicion de sus obras," 1932i. 1A8 Chapter VI), he stresses the role of the circ u e stancia, noting that this "problem," like the "forced foot'1 by which the poet is restricted, is our circunstancia. Man is perforce assigned to a unique and inescapable circuns tancia that with an "ideal profile" m. rks out for him 21 what he must do. Ortega further notes that it has been his lot to find his circunstancia in Spain, a nation that "was suffering and is suffering from a deficit of an in- 22 tellectual nature." Given this inexorable condition of life, he has had to work out his existence to the best 21 Obras, IV, 367? in "El quehacer del hombre," 1932, recorded on a disc by the Centro de Estudios Historicos. 22 Ibid. In this connection it is pertinent to note what Unamuno says about the circunstaacia when he writes about one of the lectures included in the Uruguayan Carlos Vaz Ferreira's Moral para intelectuales, 1908. Unamuno agrees with Vaz Ferreira and notes that Spanish and Spanish-American intellectuals (scientists, physicians, philosophers, dramatists, novelists, etc.) do not enjoy the same prestige that intellectuals in other more power ful nations do. One does not, for example, consider Anatole France and Juan Valera in the same class, as one scandalized Peruvian author notes had been done (Ensayos, II, 660; in "El pedestal," n. d., the fifteenth of twenty- three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 [ibid., pp. 533-726j). Here it is not a question of the literary merit of either novelist; it is rather a mat ter of political circunstancia: France, being the son of a powerful nation, is ipso facto superior to Valera, the son of a weak country. Valera's politically inferior cir cunstancia adversely influenced unbiased critical judg ment. As Americo Castro so aptly observes, the same thing occurs with Spanish literature in general when it is com pared to the literatures of France, Germany, or England, whose literary production is vastly overrated because these nations enjoy superior political and economic de velopment. No one would presume to question the "value" of Voltaire's works because Voltaire belonged to a power ful nation, but any hack may take a notion to condemn 149 his ability in the circunstancia in which he happened to 2 * * 5 be born. This situation is made even more patent, in the wider, social sense, when Ortega again stresses the vital importance of the circunstancia, noting that "half of our being is rooted in what the others [in our circuns tancia] ! are, 1 1 and we must not forget that "our profile de- 24 pends in large measure on the void others leave for us." Lope de Vega for his "excessive fecundity, his haste in composing plays, his superficiality, and many other fail ings." Had Spain had a powerful armed force and economic wealth, the tone of foreign historians would have been quite different (see Americo Castro, The Structure of Spanish History, trans. Edmund L. King [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19543, p. 10). ^^See Unamuno (Ensayos, II, 992-993? in "Del senti- miento . . .," 1913) who also stresses this same inexo rable aspect of the circunstancia when, at the end of essay XI ("El problema practico"), he speaks of "the tragic sense of life in men and peoples," adding that this is the Spaniards' tragic sense of life "as it is reflected in my consciousness, which is a Spanish consciousness, made in Spain." Don Quijote, "the Spanish Christ," is likewise a product, like Unamuno, of the Spanish circuns tancia (ibid., p. 993)* oh. Obras, II, 498? in "Sobre el fascismo," 1925. Unamuno cites the observation made by Oliver Wendell Holmes (in "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table") that each person is basically "three Johns": the one he really is, the one he thinks he is, and the one others think he is. Unamuno says that all of us have in us "three Johns," but the idea of what we think we are is more influenced by the idea others have about us: "Juan tal cual es, el Juan jprimitivo y radical, podra vivir preso de Juan tal cual el se cree ser; pero vive mucho mas preso del Juan que los demas se han forjado (Ensayos, I, 849? in "Sobre la con- secuencia, la sinceridad," 1906). This concept, which includes the perspective (see Chapter II), constituting the "shell" of conditioning by our social milieu or cir- cunstancia, becomes our "prison" and often causes us to betray ourselves for the sake of what others may think, thus making us falsify ourselves (see Chapter V). 150 In La rebeli6n de las masas, 1950, Ortega leaves no room for doubt concerning the close relationship existing between human life and its circunstancia when he states that it is really the same thing to say that we live as to say that we find ourselves in an environment of determined possibilities. And this environment is usually called our circunstancia or "world." He notes that elsewhere he has called "world" by the name of "horizon" (in "Las Atlantidas," 1924). He further notes that the circuns tancia is a vital reality of the first order, stating that this reality and decision are the basic elements of which human life is composed; and circunstancia, which means "possibilities," is that which in life is given to us and imposed upon us, constituting what we call the 25 world. For Ortega, living is dealing with this "world," acting and occupying oneself with it.2* * Thus the "world" (or "horizon") and the circunstancia (including the "pos sibilities") are one and the same, and this is also true of human life and its circunstancia, which are so closely allied that they become equal ingredients of the same whole: Ya en este viejo libro mio [Meditaciones del Quijote, 1914] se sugiere que yo no soy mas que 2**Obras , IV, 170. 2**Ibid. , II, 607; in "El origen deportivo del estado," 1924. 151 un ingrediente de esa realidad radical "mi vida,1 1 cuyo otro ingrediente es la circunstancia.27 In this same ’ ’old book” Ortega had said that ’ ’individual life, what is immediate, the circunstancia, are different names for the same thing: those portions of life from which the spirit they enclose has not yet been extracted, 28 their logos.” At the University of Granada, on the occasion of the celebration of its fourth centennial, Ortega had stated that we cannot escape the circunstancia which forms a part of our being, which favors or compli- 29 cates the vital "project" that we are. This "complica tion" of the life project is clearly indicated by Unamuno in "La soledad de la Espana castellana," 1916, where he discusses the profound and vital role played by the cir cunstancia (in this instance, the Castilian geographical one). He notes that Castile is an inland province and as the head of the Spanish State its inland situation has given its life an inland outlook: "Hay en Espana lo que podriamos llamar una concepcion y un sentimiento para- m&ricos, de paramo central, de nuestra posicion 27 Obras, VI, 34, n * 2; in "Historia como sistema," 1941. 28 Ibid., I, 520. 29 Ibid., V, 467; "En el centenario de una Univer- sidad," 1932. This article was unknown to Manuel Garcia Blanco, editor of Unamuno's complete works (see Pe eato, IV, 434, n. 1: "No he encontrado este articulo de Ortega y Gassett en la edicion de sus Obras conjpletas [?], e ignoro, por ello, su txtulo."). 152 *50 internacional. This inland circunstancia of Castilian life has caused Spanish international policy to become aloof (neutrality in both World Wars), to hold itself, as a nation, apart from the rest of Europe. Unamuno wonders what political life in Spain might have been had Philip II or his successors established the capitol of Spain in Barcelona, Lisbon, or Seville, instead of in Madrid, iso- 31 lated in the center of the vast Castilian meseta. It is 3°Pe esto, III, 542-543. 3 1 Ibid., p. 539* The latent effect of the geographi cal aspect of the circunstancia, vital so far as Unamuno and Spain are concerned, is made very explicit by Ortega, who calls this reality razon geografica or topografica in his "Introduccion a un 'Don Juan1," 1921. Here he stresses the importance of the city of Seville to an understanding of Don Juan. He notes that the land, being the "stage" of man's life, will always provide "subtle allusions to a certain type of life" that will be devel oped against this setting. This is Ortega's razon geografica for each locality, which will produce a pre formed type of life, given the geographical circunstancia. There is present in every locality "a possible human destiny" which at each instant seems to be struggling to realize itself and which acts as an "atmospheric imper ative" on the people who inhabit the area. And, in its turn, "every typical form of human life projects before itself the complement of a similar landscape." It is this affinity that Ortega finds between Don Juan and Seville (Obras, VI,128-129). He indicates how unsympathetic to Don Juan the rugged, forbidding terrain in and around Toledo would have been; it would have constituted an im possible vital patria chica for Don Juan, who is wholly Sevillian and Andalusian (ibid., pp. 129-132). Perhaps it is this same razon topografica that ac counts for Unamuno's bitterness about Spanish acedia, which acedia makes his Spanish circunstancia so depressing to him, as it also was to Ortega (see De esto. III, 561- 564; "La estrella Ajenjo," 1919)* See also ibid., IV, 44, in "Hay que hacerse niho," 1900, where Unamuno complains of this same acedia. An extension of this same Spanish bitterness (acedia) is to be found in what Unamuno says 153 the all pervasive and negative effect produced by this Castilian circunstancia that causes Unamuno, in a subse quent article, to express the need for Spaniards to leave Spain in order to have "a keen and clear consciousness of their Spanishness [espanolidad]. As examples of this urgency to expatriate, Unamuno cites the Cid, Don Quijote, Cervantes, and, we might add, Unamuno himself, who says that the patria of every Spaniard worthy of the name, of "every brother of Don Quijote," is not in Spain where the "squealers" (mestureros), such as Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzman de Alfarache, Marcos de Obregon, Rinconete and Cortadillo, and all the politicians of that era, prosper in Madrid. The Spaniards' patria is in exile from Spain.^ Ortega writes of the abortive attempts in past ages to minimize the vital importance of the circunstancia, and he expresses his wholehearted disapproval of such about Spanish politics and. Spaniards' treatment of this problem. He compares a puncture (pinchazo), which re lieves a morbid condition (such as caciquismo) but does not cure it, to the cutting out (corte)of the malignant tumor, which is far more to be deerired. But Spaniards-- his circunstancia— prefer the puncture to the cutting (De esto" III, 565-568; "El espanol pincha mas que corta," 1919). 5 0 De esto, III, 546} in "Los salidos y los mesture ros," 1916. •^Ibid. , p. 548. No one knew this better than Unamuno himself who had spent six years (1924-1930) in voluntary exile from his beloved Salamanca. 154 endeavors. He states that he has no sympathy for the crazy man or the mystic, but the man who takes charge of his circunstancia, provided he not overlook any, has all 34 his heartfelt enthusiasm. This circunstancia is "nature,” which Goethe felt and loved so deeply. The superficial person disdains this aspect of life, thinking only of a "definitive situation," an abstraction which, of course, never materializes. Human life consists of "an endless series of circunstancias that succeed and deny one another." None is perfect, but every circunstancia and every reality contains within itself a possible perfec tion; and this margin of perfecting the circunstancia is what the good and vital craftsman calls "ideal" and makes an effort to augment. And in this way what is standing around us (lo circunstante) not only inspires art and science but also incites moral sensibility and political 55 inventiveness. The circunstancia, like human life, is constantly changing. The secondary reality I called "beliefs" also is in timately connected with Ortega's concept of the reality of the circunstancia, and this is made patent in "En torao a 3 4 Obras, I, 564; in "Vejamen del orador," 1911. ^Ibid., IV, 493-494; in "Reforma de la intelegen- cia," 1926. 36 See Chapter VI, where I discuss the mutability of human life. Galileo,” 1933) where he writes of these two indispensable realities, stating that there are two principles that con stitute "clear truths”: 1) every human life starts froin certain basic convictions about the world and man's place in it, and man proceeds to move about within these con victions; and 2) every life finds itself perforce in a circunstancia with more or less technique or dominion over its material surroundings. Ortega considers these to be two permanent functions, two essential aspects or facts of every human life, which functions mutually influence 37 each other: "ideology and technique."^ But this is not the whole story since man's life is also composed of two inseparable dimensions which pertain to his beliefs and to his circunstancia. In its primary dimension living con sists of "my being ;jro," the ^o of each one of us, in a circunstancia with which X must contend willy-nilly. And this necessity imposes on life a second dimension which is that of having to ascertain what our circunstancia is. In its first, primary dimension, what we face on living is "pure problem"; and in the second dimension we have an effort or intent to solve this "problem." We think about our circunstancia, and this thought creates an idea, a plan or "architecture" of the "pure problem," of the chaos which is the basic reality of the circunstancia. Our Obras, V, 26. 156 thought about this problem, our interpretation of it, we call "world" or "universe,1 1 which is not handed to us but is manufactured by our convictions.^ And our convictions depend in large measure on the circunstancia into which fate has cast us. Thus man is born free, but his so- called "freedom" has definite limitations. The task of living consists of the problem of dealing with the circunstancia, which is with us at all times. In order to maintain ourselves in this reality we must always "do something," and this "doing" we must decide for our selves. Ortega writes about the possibilities of being and doing in "Historia como sistema," 19^1, showing how our "possibilities" are determined by our circunstancia. These "possibilities" are likewise not "given" to us; we must invent them for ourselves either originally or by re ceiving them from the rest of the men included in the en vironment of our lives. We invent projects of "doing and being" in view of the circunstancia, which is the only 39 thing that is "handed" to us gratis. As a result of this condition, we have the task of "making" ourselves in the light of our circunstancia, and this constitutes our vital problem in which this reality is an integral part of the basic problem of human life. Ortega attacks this v O Obras, V, 2k. See Chapter II for my discussion of "beliefs" (pp. 28-58). 39Ibid., VI, 3k. 157 problem of dealing with the circunstancia by noting that we have to live with the body and soul that have fallen to our lot, and these are the things closest to us with which we must live in our circunstancia. We must exert ourselves to keep afloat in our environment by being oc cupied with something at all times, which implies first deciding what to do. But this decision must be preceded by our concept or general interpretation of our circuns tancia , by forming "a system of convictions'* about what our environment is, which "system" will serve as our plan 40 of action "among and on things" in our environment. We must make an overt effort to solve our problematical ex ist ence and learn about our circunstancia, putting it to the most advantageous use possible. Our success or fail ure in this vital exercise depends in large measure upon our interpretation of our circunstancia. Ortega makes much of the omnipresence of the circuns tancia , and the best example of his concern with this as pect of the reality called circunstancia is to be found also in "En torno a Galileo," 1933? in "Lecci6n X: Esta- dios del pensamiento cristiano," where he again notes that man finds himself, without knowing how nor why, having to live in a definite and inescapable circunstancia; he must live here and now and has no other recourse but to face Obras, V, 59-60. this problem squarely. This circunstancia in which man has to be and maintain himself constitutes his material surroundings, and also his social milieu, the society into which he has been catapulted. Since these surroundings are, by dint of being surroundings, something other than man himself, something foreign to him, being in the cir cunstancia cannot mean a "passive lying in it by forming a part of it." It cannot mean this because man is not a part of his circunstancia: quite the contrary, since he is always before it, outside of it; and living is pre cisely the obligation man has to be doing something so that his circunstancia may not annihilate him, as it does , 4l xn so many instances. , As I indicated at the beginning of this chapter (p. 139) > the circunstancia consists of more than the physical world that surrounds us, in which we live. In his "Medi- tacion de la tecnica" (included in "Ensimismamiento y alteracion," 1939)> Ortega makes this added meaning very explicit. For him, existing is finding himself suddenly faced with the imperative of "realizing the pretension" that he is in the determined circunstancia in which he finds himself. Man does not have the opportunity to se lect beforehand the circunstancia in which he is to spend his life; rather he finds himself, without his prior ^Obras, V, 123- 159 consent, submerged in an environment, "in a world which is here and now." And this circunstancia in which man is thus submerged is not only the landscape that surrounds 42 him; it is also his body and his soul. In this broader interpretation of this reality man is his circunstancia. Hence my observations on the English translations of this word (p. 139)• Since man Ls his circunstancia. he can "converse" with it; and Ortega speaks of having a "dialogue" with our 43 circunstancia. This felicitous concept of conversing with our surroundings is to be found in "Las Atlantidas," 1924, where Ortega discusses the vital role of this reality. He states that "life is essentially a dialogue with [our] surroundings," and it is just this in its simplest physiological functions as well as in its most sublime psychic functions. To live is to live with (convivir), and what we live with is our surrounding world. No vital act can be divorced from the circuns tancia which called this act into being and to which this vital act is directed. Ortega aptly notes that if we were to believe that hawks were born to live in cages, their Herculean gestures at flying would appear to us to be superlative, frenetic, and absurd. Hence, in order to 4 2 Obras, V, 339- 43 See Chapter II, pp. 17-20, where I note this con cept of the "dialogue" with the circunstancia. 160 understand a ’ ’dialogue' 1 we must reciprocally interpret the two monologues of which it consists. Thus the wing of the hawk corresponds to the open skies just as the pincers of 44 the ant correspond to the grain of cereal. Ortega wisely points out that we often misinterpret the actions of others because we fail to take into account the cir cunstancia in and with which others have to live, the vital elements in their surroundings that may well not coincide with those in our own. Each individual possesses his own ’ ’landscape’ ’ in relation to which he conducts him self, and his ’ ’landscape” may or may not coincide with 44 Obras, III, 291- Unamuno also stresses the concept of the ’ ’dialogue” which he carried on with his circunstan cia , in this case with mountains and nature. One entire essay in ”Por tierras de Portugal y de Espana,” 1911, en titled ”E1 sentimiento de la Naturaleza," (0. C., I, 588- 597), is a eulogy of nature, a vital part of our circuns tancia . Here Unamuno clearly shows his deep, subjective affection for mountains, valleys, plains, glens, etc., which he ’ ’loved” and with which he ’ ’felt” entirely at home. This same affection for nature is to be found in "Andanzas y visiones espanolas, ’ ’ 1922 (0. C., I, 599-847), especially in the essay entitled ”De vuelta de la cumbre" (ibid., pp. 607-614), where Unamuno's circunstancia be comes an integral and vital part of his life: the eternal mountain— a type of sanctuary— where he could divest his "soul” of all the encumbrances of social existence. See also ibid., pp. 615-622, ”E1 silencio de la cima,” another essay included in "Andanzas y visiones espanolas.” Unamuno further stresses, the vital role of the cir cunstancia in ”A proposito de Josue Carducci," the seven teenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, IX, 1025-1227), where he cites a statement made by the Portuguese poet Guerra Junqueiro, whom Unamuno so admired and respected. Unamuno had said that perhaps Spain has poets that are not patriotic, and to this Guerra Junqueiro replied that if a man did not feel what he has around him (his physical circunstancia), what is concrete and tangible, one's country, he could be l6l ours. The naive supposition that there is only one vital medium wherein all living beings are immersed is, in Ortega's opinion, a "capricious" notion which lacks 45 any basis in fact. Man's "dialogue" with his circuns tancia is again highlighted by Ortega when he asserts that life is a constant preoccupation with the things that surround us, a "dynamic dialogue with the environ ment." From these surroundings come "incessant excita tions" which provoke reactions on our part. They "fence us in" with their countless "physiognomies," that tire lessly work upon our sensibilities, "threatening us or offending us, insinuating us and attracting us." And whether he will or not, the basic and radical task in life is this "struggle with tilings, this task of domi nating" and controlling that which surrounds us (lo "a great philosopher, a great thinker, a great sociolo gist ," but never a great poet. Unamuno corroborates this assertion by noting that perhaps Guerra Junqueiro1s greatest poem, the one in which "he reaches the greatest poetic intensity," is his Patria, "a cry of indignation and sincerity" that Portugal's "shame" tore from Guerra Junqueiro's soul (Ensayos, II, 1168). Unamuno repeats this thesis in "Arte y cosmopolitisroo," the nineteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," observing that: "Es dentro y no fuera donde hemos de buscar al Hombre; en las entranas de lo local y circuns- crito, lo universal, y en las entranas de lo temporal y pasajero lo eterno" (ibid., p. 1189)* A little farther on Unamuno says that he also sought, inspiration for his "obra de arte y poesia" in his Basque circunstancia, which included valleys, mountains, the bay, and the bom bardment of Bilbao during the Carlist Wars (ibid., p. 119D. ^Obras, III, 291. 162 46 circunstante) . This ''struggle" that constitutes man's effort to dominate his circunstancia is made manifest by Ortega when he observes that life, before it can adapt itself to this reality and before it can react to it, 47 must in some way receive the circunstancia and feel it. And this is what constitutes our "dialogue" with the cir cunstancia . Before concluding my discussion of this vital 46 Obras, VI, 154; in "La percepcion del projimo," 1929* Unamuno also implies the vital effect of the cir cunstancia , which he felt keenly, when he notes that he "feels" the landscape with the deepest part of his being, his entranas: "La primera honda leccion de patriotismo se recibe cuando se logra cobrar conciencia clara y arrai- gada del paisaje de la Patria, despues de haberlo hecho estado de conciencia, reflexionar sobre este y elevarlo a idea. Muy cierto que la comarca hace a la casta, el pai- saje— y el celaje con el--al paisanaje; pero no tan solo en un sentido terreno y corporeo, material, y Gomo de tierra a cuerpo— todo barro— , sino ademas, y acaso muy principalmente, en otro sentido mas intimo, especulativo y espiritual, de vision a espiritu todo barro. Quiero decir que no es solo como alimento de estomago, y por su gea y clima y fauna y flora, como nuestra tierra nos moldea y hiere el alma, sino como vision, entrandonos por los sentidos" (0. C. , I, 737; "Andanzas y visiones espanolas," 1922). Unamuno continues by noting that if several men were to keep on viewing the same object or vista for a long time, they would end by agreeing and uniting their idea of this object or vista, basing their idea on what they have collectively been observing (ibid., PP* 737-738)* The simple fact is that our best and most personal ideas, the "soft core" of our spirit, come to us "as a nourishing fruit" from the "vision we have of the world before us." And this is true even if we later transform this vision, "with the juice of our logic," into an ideal "chyme" from which we later extract the "chyle" that sustains us (ibid., p. 738). 47 Ibid., II, 298; in "El 'Quijote1 en la escuela," 1920. reality, it is pertinent to note one more significant statement by Ortega concerning the circunstancia, a statement that clearly indicates the close relationship that exists between human life and its environment. He observes that his "incessant battle" against Utopianism has been nothing else but the result of having discovered two basic truths: life, in the sense of human life and not in the sense of something that is a "biological phenomenon," is the basic fact (reality); and life is the circunstancia in which life must struggle, willy-nilly, to keep afloat. Human life, being essentially circum stantial, requires that everything man does in life be done in view of the circunstancias. This is the case even when we create the illusion that we think or want something sub specie aeternitatis since when we create such an illusion, it is because of a "circumstantial necessity." Furthermore, man’s idea of eternity, of being "unconditioned," ubiquitous, surges in him because of his need for immortality as a saving bulwark against his inescapable circunstancialidad■ It grieves man to be ascribed to one epoch and to one environment, and the complaint of this assignment to the "spatial-temporal clod of earth" resounds in his thinking under the head ing of immortality: man desperately wants to be eternal (as Unamuno; see Chapter VI) precisely because he is not 164 48 so, as Ortega so wisely notes. Finite man is uncondi tionally assigned to the "spatial-temporal clod of earth” which is his circunstancia, as Ortega so well indicates when he states: "Lo que yo hubiera de ser tenia que 4q serlo en Espana, en la circunstancia espanola.” From the foregoing it is more than apparent that the circunstancia is a truly vital reality that forms an inte gral part of human life and from which existence it is inseparable. Yet the circunstancia, significant, vital, and inescapable as it is, is not the basic reality of human life. Before I can adequately discuss this latter, it will be necessary to consider two other highly impor tant realities that constitute Unamuno's and Ortega's ontology. The first of these realities is what Ortega calls "historical reality" (raz6n historica), and the second is "authenticity." Obras, VI, 3^8; in "A una edicion de sus obras," 1932. 49 Ibid. Note the similarity of Ortega's statement about his Spanish circunstancia to what Unamuno says about this same Spanish reality and his assignment to it (see p . 149j n. 23). CHAPTER IV HISTORICAL REALITY Both Unamuno and Ortega consider the reality of his tory not to be the mere recording of names and dates but as something extremely vital to human life and as insepa rable from it as the circunstancia, but they do not ap proach this reality in the same manner. Here again it is Ortega who probes the vitals of this problem. It is, therefore, appropriate to discuss Ortega's concepts first, introducing Unamuno's remarks when they are relevant. A great deal of what Unamuno has to say about historical reality will have to be left for discussion after I have treated Ortega's concepts. At the outset it is important to understand precisely what Ortega means by razon (rea son) in the expression razon historica, which recurs in his discussion of historical reality. With Ortega the word razon is applicable to more than mere intellectual activities, and he maintains that the "decisive dimension" of this word has been sterilized by limiting its applica tion to intellectual endeavorsThe word razon, in the strict authentic sense, is "all intellectual activity that Obras, VI, 46; in "Historia como sistema," 1941. 165 166 places us in contact with reality, by means of which rea- o son we encounter what is transcendental." All else ap plied to the meaning of razon is "mere child's play" and inconsequential, which "first amuses man, then corrupts him, and finally drives him to despair and causes him to depreciate himself." Hence, with Ortega razon has a much broader application than it did with the Rationalists. It is also necessary to understand what Ortega means by "historical sense" (sentido historico), which is some thing quite different from what Unamuno implies when he uses this same expression. The concept of "historical sense" will help to explain Ortega's razon historica and "historical reality" which are integral parts of the basic reality of human life (see Chapter VI), Ortega makes the meaning of sentido historico very clear when he notes that history "is the attempt that man makes to understand the rest of mankind." He calls "ideals" everything that has definitive value for each individual, for example: when we are considering things Spanish Ortega's "ideals" would be such things as science, certain ethical or religious norms, certain, styles of beauty. Culture is the "system of these ideals," which explains why that which is ef fective for one people may be not at all so for another. ^Obras, VI, 46-47. 3Ibid., p. 47- What Ortega calls "historical sense" is the ability to lay aside what is effective for our culture and era and accept hypothetically that there have been other effective cul tures in other eras and other places. The pluralism of cultures is one and the same thing in Ortega's historical 4 methodology. Until the end of the nineteenth century, historians had considered only the "surface" aspects of history; they had never taken into account the simple truth that "the ethnological fact is a biological phe nomenon that can only exist and have meaning in the unity 5 of an organism." Ortega posits a simple fact: "Life cannot be atomized. The vital 'a-tom' is precisely the in-dividual. Both terms contain a sage admonition that we not divide what is indivisible."^ History must return upon itself and resolve the vital question of what its purpose really is. Fragments of history, such as the murder of Caesar, do not constitute historical reality; they are merely the surface manifestations of much deeper sociological currents. The same is true of a single word in an unknown language, or in a known one, for that matter; this isolated word has meaning (and linguistic reality) only when it is found included in a context of ^ * Obras, III, 252; in "Las ideas de Leon Frobenius," 1924. ^Ibid., p. 297; in "Las Atlantidas," 1924. 6Ibid. 168 ■which it constitutes a vital element. Thus an ethnolog ical element is inseparable from the culture (circuns- g tancia) that gave it birth. The nineteenth-century idea that there was unity in everything— science, history, society— has been replaced in the twentieth century by the belief that heterogeneousness is the true reality. Ortega comes to the conclusion that there is no obvious elemental continuity of cultures; discontinuity is the reality in this instance. Hence there exists a universal pluralism, and to substantiate this assertion Ortega cites the quanta theory of Plank, Einstein's theory of relativity, and the work of Jakob von Uexkiill and Oswald Spengler, and others, not to mention works in the biological and anthropological 9 sciences. History is universal, which means that we must always keep in mind the "historical horizon" (the circuns tancia ) since life is an inevitable gesture toward what we call our universe. Even the most insignificant act, the one that refers to the nearest object, has a universal perspective. And this results in causing the "configura tion of our horizon" (our circunstancia) to become a pat tern or mold that is imprinted on all our movements, passions, and ideas. By the same token, the "deepest ^Obras, III, 297* o Ibid., p. 299- ^Ibid., p. 303, n. 1. 169 symptom of a serious historical transformation will be the change in the configuration of the ethnic horizon," its contraction or its spread: The nomadic Arabs, living in tents, have a concept of the world as something finite, hemmed in by the sky, while the Gana Negro, who lives in a mud house surrounded by hills, has a notion of the uni verse that is infinite.1^ History is "subjectively universal" and our "horizon" (circunstancia) determines our cultural development. Until this twentieth century, the historian's "horizon" was his own rather than that of the historical reality of things: the pluralism of man's cultures. We acquire the "historical, sense" when we realize that men of the past were different from us, that their cultural circunstancia was nothing like ours, for example: the circunstancia of the Greeks about whom we really know very little.^1 The "historical sense" perceives the psychological distance, which is a qualitative one, between life in other times and places and sees how that life differs from 12 existence in our era and in our cultural circunstancia. 100bras, III, 305. 11Ibid., pp. 308 and 309-311- 12 Ibid., p. 308- it is pertinent here to note Unamuno's concept of "historical sense," which is tradi tional, when he speaks of the association or reassembling of ideas and metaphors by joining different adjectives to old concepts— disassociating old, commonplace ideas and reassembling them into new combinations that give us new 170 Ortega notes that variety is the essence of historical 13 reality, and to verify this we have only to recognize and penetrate the psychological fact that the categories of the human mind have not always been the same. Ortega notes that the "psychology of evolution" proposes to re construct these sundry systems of categories that have appeared in historical time, and in this connection he concepts. A study of the Ancient languages makes us do just this sort of thing, and by this discipline Unamuno arrives at the problem of the "historical sense": "El sentido historico, esa la mas profunda adquisicion de la cultura acaso, se debe tanto a procesos disociativos como asociativos. El sentido historico, de que carecen todos los sectarios, y principalmente los anarquistas, cuya men- talidad es esencialmente infantil y simplista, se funda en asociaciones construldas sobre previas disociaciones. (Pero no, claro esta, las aparentes disociaciones anar quistas o acraticas.) Y el sentido historico es el que aduna el cientifico y el artlstico. La historia es la que ayunta a la logica con la estetica, mostrandonos la este- ticidad de la logica y la logicidad de la estetica" (De esto, IV, 517; in "Disociacion de ideas," 1914). Unamuno again speaks of the "historical sense," again using the term in a different sense from Ortega, when he comments on Rene Johannet1s Le principe des nationalites, noting that most historians lack "historical sense" when they write history, the Germans being deterministic and the French spiritualistic. He further notes that "Las naciones his- toricas, unicas de hecho, y su querer vivir— o mas bien convivir--colectivo, no dependen ni de una pura necesidad etnografica de raza o lengua, ni de una pura libertad de pacto colectivo" (De esto. III, 290; in "El principio de las nacionalidades," 1919)* Farther on he states: "El unico patriotismo fecundo en frutos de civilidad y civili- zacion es el que nace de la conciencia historica de un pueblo, del sentimiento patrio alumbrado por el conoci- miento de la tradicion" (ibid., p. 291)• ■^See Obras, V, 495? in "Vives," 1940, where Ortega says: "La historia es el modo de ser propio a una reali dad, cuya sustancia es, precisamente, la variacion; por lo tanto, lo contrario de toda sustancia." 171 wisely observes that the Australian of the kangaroo totem believes himself to be both man and kangaroo, an unintel ligible confusion that constitutes a "historical problem" for us. Ortega states that he believes the categories of the primitive mind are, in part, the same as those that operate in us when we dream, because in dreams such con tradictions are not infrequent. Only treated in this man ner can the genesis of myths be ascertained. Ortega further notes that for centuries dreams were "the master, 14 guide, and poet of man." Oswald Spengler1s Per Unter- gang des Abendlandes, in spite of its merits, fails to note such phenomena, as also does Leon Probenius, and thus they miss the essence of the history of man and the rela- 15 tivity of cultures, of historical human facts. Such a work as Spengler's is only the first step in the direction of attempting to penetrate the "absolute" of man's his torical reality. Ortega intimates what the next step might be when he observes that beyond cultures there is an "eternal and invariable cosmos of which man is beginning to get glimpses" in "a millennial and integral effort," the kind not effected only by means of thought but by employing the entire organism; and for this effort the individual is not enough, since what is required is the 14 Obras, III, 311. 15Ibid., p. 312. 172 effective collaboration of an entire people. Ortega notes that periods and races — cultures— are the Mgigantic organs" that manage to perceive some small part of that "absolute beyond." He adds: Mai puede existir una cultura que sea la verdadera cuando todas ellas poseen solo un significado ins trumental y son sensorios amplisimos exigidos por la vision de lo absoluto.l6 In order to acquire the "historical sense" we must learn to make of the other person, wherever he may be in his tory, an alter ego, in whom both terms--the alter and the ego--are to be taken in their fullest meaning. This is a difficult task for our reasoning powers, but our own life 17 is "the universal interpreter." Ortega offers a pos sible solution for this task, noting four steps to be taken in the mental process of proceeding from our life to that of the other person: 1) Ignoring the exclusiveness of our own life, we naively project this reality onto others in our circunstancia; thus all must think, feel, and want as we do. 2) Then our y_o notes that the life of its fellow man is not "present and patent" as is that of our 22.* rather of his life our 22 obtains symptoms which manifest certain abstract characteristics similar to the life of our 22* Thus ihis person is assumed to possess l60bras, III, 313. 17Ibid., VI, 385-386; in "A 'Historia de filosofia,' de Bmile Brehier," 19^2. 173 something that is also life. But, at the same time, cer tain characteristics appear that imply other disparate in gredients that are different and foreign, unintelligible; and then our fellow man "rises up before us like a mon ster, who shows the ill breeding to be different from us." Now our yo realizes that life is not always "present, patent, and intelligible," that there exists a "hidden" life that is impenetrable and alien.- This first private life that our yo discovers is the tu (thou) in the pres ence of whom and against whose "monstrousness" our yo collides, becoming conscious of the fact that yo is only yo. Thus the yo. *s conceived after the tu and in op position to it, "as a kick that the terrible discovery of the tu, of the fellow man as such, of the one who has the 1 ^ insolence to be the other fellow gives us." 3) Once our yo has alienated the fellow man and he has been con verted for us into the mystery of the tu, we make an ef fort to assimilate him to our yo, starting from our yo1s life which now is only yo^ and is the only thing "present, patent, and intelligible" on which our yo can count; our yo tries to construct this fellow man as a yo who is another yo— an alter ego, something at once near and distant. This, as Ortega observes, is the name of one of life's great tasks: the understanding of our fellow l80bras, VI, 386. 174 19 man. 4) The fellow man present, who was a "monster," is now partially assimilated or made like our 212. » which is what we expect our contemporaries to be. Though they may be different, our yo always thinks that, in principle, they could be we. This hope is what fosters friendship and love. But the situation is different when it comes to our ancestors who are not contemporaries, who cannot become our yo nor the tu, who must be the other one (el otro). Their being non-contemporary makes them irrevo cably incapable of being our fellow man, our neighbor, because their being the other one is not mere factitious ness. Those who were, the dead, cannot change and must remain unconditionally ascribed to that which they were. This is quite different from the living who might change. Hence with our ancestors there is no assimilation pos sible because if there were, the human past could again exist and be converted into the present. We could then have another Caesar or Cleopatra. But our ancestor is past not in the time sense but because he cannot revive and repeat himself in the present. Hence his reality is basically different from our present reality. This an cestor is also quite different from our fellow man since 20 the ancestor's reality is "distant" and "ancient." This 190bras, VI, 386. on Ibid., pp. 386-387. 175 constitutes Ortega’s "perspective” or "historical optics”: the vision of what is far removed, something irrevocably distant, the discovery of antiquity, which presupposes the 21 basic alienation of the ancestor. Therefore we have to imagine this forebear, try to resemble him, make ourselves into the other fellow of yore. "The technique of this 22 intellectual altruism is historical science.” Ortega concludes this discussion by stating that since in the "consciousness of the tu" we form and nourish that of the yo, so in this "superlative of the tu, of the other one who is the ancient, present-day man obtains a superior 23 consciousness of his exclusive yn." Ortega’s "historical sense" is "a function and an or gan of the vision of that which is distant," and such a "vision" represents the maximum escape from oneself that man is capable of achieving; and this, by retroaction, provides him the ultimate clarity about himself. By hav ing to discover the hypotheses on which the ancestor lived and, consequently, his limitations, man discovers, by "re flection" (repercusion), the "tacit" hypotheses on which he himself lives. He thus knows by means of "the detour that is history" his own limitations, and this is the only pi Obras, VI, 387. 22Ibid. 25Ibid. way granted to man to transcend his own limitations. This constitutes Ortega's sentido historico which forms such a vital and basic part of man's knowledge about him self and about’ his ancestors. To be able to know our selves we must learn to know the other person. In like manner we must not reduce the dead to merely the works they left behind since that would be cruel and inhuman: "Recojamos lo que auu queda de ellos en el aire y revi- vamos sus virtudes. IResucitemos a los muertos virtuosos 25 de entre los muertosI" By the same token, what is "classic" as such must not be ignored merely because it belongs to the past; it, too, has a valid historical reality. Culture, which is tradition, signifies the "elaboration and progressive increase of that which is specifically human." Without progression, the word "cul ture" has no meaning; and it cannot be fully appreciated if we do not presume a direction, if we do not throw a "guide line" over the progression that the steps in the advance later are to mark. Here, Ortega believes, is the entire problem of historical methodology, of history as a 2 4 Obras, VI, 388. 25 Ibid., I, 62; in "Canto a los muertos, a los debe- res y a los ideales," 1906. Quite early in his career Unamuno had observed that the past, historical and psycho social, is a groping toward a better present and that only on the ruins of a dead past can man build a more secure present (De esto, I, 470i in "'Oraciones,1 por Santiago Rusinol," 1898)• 177 science; and the solution of this problem "the Demiurge has commended to this dark [twentieth] century.1 1 Histori cal facts as such do not exist; rather what exists is a long ''nightmare" of grayish and insignificant events "where chronology sets the monotonous rhythm of the loom." The mere "sifting" of this nightmare in order to select from it some clearer happenings that we call representa tive and which we anoint with the privilege of historical facts, is not possible without that "sovereign line" that 26 gives meaning and affirmation to culture. Cultures must advance, but progress in human history does not consist of man's today annihilating his yesterday. Quite the con trary, it means preserving the essence of the yesterday 2 7 that had the virtue to create a better today. Ideas and beliefs (see Chapter II) also play an im portant role in Ortega's concept of historical reality. The idea and its relationship to historical methodology figures largely in "Guillermo Dilthey y la idea de la vida," 1933-1934, where Ortega observes that the historian has to search for the source of every idea that has ap peared on man's horizon at a given date, and this implies the search for another prior idea that gave rise to the 26 * Obras, I, 655 in "Sobre los estudios clasicos," 1907. *^Ibid., II, 428; in "Notas del vago estxo," 1925- Ortega's ideas concerning his sentido historico had not essentially changed in the interim between 1907 and 1925• 178 subsequent one. This means a rigorous search for the "di rect, precise, and unquestionable influence of one indi vidual” through this individual or his work on another individual. This is Ortega's concept of the science of history. Ideas are not spurious and without basis in his- 28 tory, which is a "perfect continuity*'? Ortega further notes that every idea of his comes from another of his ideas or from the idea of somebody else since there is no 28 Obras, VI, 167. According to Unamuno, history is also something continuing and eternal. In 1895 he stated that eternal tradition is the basis of man's being; man is his history as this history unfolds; he is his past plusjais present (Enaayos, I, 40; in "La tradicion eterna.," the first of five essays comprising "En torno al casticismo”). See also De esto, II, 4l, in "Glosas a un paisaje del cervantino Fielding," 1917> where Unamuno says that true history, which is "spiritual history that lives in literature, arts, and philosophy, persists, is the memory of facts that are already forever in the human soul." Again in "Otra vez Oliverio Cromwell," 1920: ". . . para vivir la historia siempre presente, la histo- ria eterna, no hay mejor que acudir a lo que mas estric- tamente se llama historia, al relato de la historia pasada. iPasada? No, la historia no pasa. IY no es que se repita, no! La historia no se repite. Es que se con- tinua. Ni lo que llamamos progreso es otra cosa que la historia misma" (ibid., III, 168). Unamuno repeats this thesis of ever present history in "Sobre la tragedia del Principe constante," 1918 (ibid., p. 362). In "Al rededor del estilo, XXIV," 1924, he states that history has no beginning and no end; rather it "has its end— or better, its center— in itself, or be it that it has no end, that it begins and ends at each moment, that it is not a drama with a plot, crisis, and denouement" (ibid., IV, 608). History, for Unamuno, is a work of the human will (ibid., Ill, 187; in "Bienestar y vida," 1921); and, like life, it cannot be enclosed in a frame: "Se puede cbrtar la historia por donde se quiera al narrarla; pero esos cortes son arbitrarios, aunque comodos. Ningun relato de histo ria tiene principio ni fin" (ibid., p. 598; in "Al rededor del estilo, XXI," 1924). Unamuno notes that for the sake of convenience we narrate the biography of a man by 179 such thing as spontaneous generation: Omnia cellula e pellula. He asks us to try to imagine an idea that does not come from another one and go toward (become) still another one, and he notes that coming from and going to 29 (becoming) are "constituent attributes of every idea." starting with his birth and ending with his death. But this is not his entire history since said history started before the man was born and lives on after his death (ibid.). On a visit he paid to San Juan de la Pena near Jaca, Aragon, Unamuno relates his "vision" as he viewed the crypts of various historical personages; and he re flects on the subject of eternal history versus legend: "Y empezo uno a meditar en como vuelve lo que se fue, y es la repeticion el alma de la Historia, que se produce, como los castos mundos estelares, en espiral. Vanse las leyen- das, dando paso a lo que creemos historia. IPero este de Dios que se vaya la historia . . . dando paso a las leyen- dasI No nos quede lo que pasS, lo que sucedio, sino lo que los hombres, por haberlo vivido, sonaron que pasaba, que sucedla, y trasmitieron, con sus suenos creadores a sus sucesores" (0. C., I, 108l; in "En San Juan de la Pena," 1932). In "Espanolidad y espanolismo," 1916, Unamuno, somewhat modifying his 1895 statement about tra dition, notes that history is not the past alone, nor is it tradition, nor is it the future, nor mere progress, nor improvement: "La historia es el presente eterno. Y es el crecimiento intimo, de dentro a fuera, el enriqueci- miento del contenido espiritual. En la historia vive el pasado con el provenir y engendrandolo en un presente eterno. Porque la historia es el espiritu y el espiritu es la creacion" (De esto, III, 551)* Eternal history also is mentioned in "Vida e historia," 1917» where Unamuno, answering Ortega, links spiritual life to historical life: ". . . la Historia es la vida del espiritu humano colec- tivo. Y sabe [Ortega] que el espiritu es eterno y que la Historia es eternizacion. Y sabe [Ortega] que vivir his- toricamente es sobrevivir, es eternizarse, es crear valo- res para siempre" (ibid., I, 2). In order to live a people must create history (ibid., p. 3^4) . Unamuno re peats this thesis of history as "creation" in "El princi- pio de las nacionalidades," 1919» noting that history is both creation and liberty (ibid., III, 291)* 290bras, VI, 167. Back of the idea stands the belief, a basic element of Ortega's historical reality. The vital role of beliefs in man's history is quite apparent in "Historia como sis- tema," 1941. Here Ortega comes to grips with beliefs and history, noting that beliefs form "the basic and deepest stratum of the architecture of our life." Because we live on beliefs, we are not wont to think about them. We tend to think about something that is a problem for us, which beliefs are not. Hence we have this or that idea, but we 70 are our beliefs (see Chapter II). Because our beliefs are not articulated in a helter-skelter fashion permits us to discover their secret order and, as a result, to under stand not only our own life but also the other person's, 31 the life of today and that of other times. Ortega ob serves that in history there exist two kinds of faith: "living faith" and its counterpart, "inert" or "dead faith." He distinguishes between these two by calling "living faith" that which we believe when this believing suffices for living, and we believe in something with "dead, inert faith" when, without having abandoned it, when we are still in it, it does not effectively function 32 in our life. This latter type of faith is something we ^ Obras , VI, 18 . ^ Ibid. , pp. 14-15 ■ 52Ibid., p. 17. drag along behind us, which still forms a part of us, lies inactive "in the attic of our souls."^ "Living faith," on the other hand, is the "permanent and extremely active presence of the entity in which we believe." Hence the mystics spoke of "the presence of God." And love that is alive, as distinguished from love that is dead, is not something we have to seek out intentionally because it is ever present. In fact, we have to work hard to keep such ■sZt a "living" love from interfering with our daily routine. From this penetrating beginning, Ortega proceeds to discuss the role of beliefs in science, beliefs which do not represent an individual but a social (collective) opinion; and this condition makes of beliefs a reality that is independent of individuals, "outside them like the 35 stones on the landscape."^ We have to deal with such beliefs willy-nilly, and this we must do in spite of our personal opinion about them. The only specific thing about such a collective opinion is that its existence does not depend on our individual acceptance or rejection of it because from our individual perspective "public opinion [belief] appears as if it were something physical." Such a collective belief imposes its reality on us and obliges 330bras, VI, 17. 3^Ibid. 35Ibid. 182 us to accept it. This nature of social faith Ortega calls vigencia ("being in force"), as occurs with laws that are in force and do not require our recognition of their va lidity to make them effective. The same applies to the collective belief which can exist and be in force without the adherence of the individual members of society.^ And this sort of collective belief is what Ortega calls "so- 37 cial dogma." Elaborating on this, Ortega observes that Europe’s faith in science has, in the past twenty years (prior to 19^1), passed from a living faith to an inert 38 . , one. This is due to the fact that science, his razon fisico-matematica, is not able by itself to answer the burning questions about man's basic problem: man him- 39 self. It is Ortega's belief that scientists should keep to their science and not try to transfer us to Never-Never Land, the calendas griegas, from which, says Ortega, has emanated his philosophical thought, due to the utter 560bras, VI, 19. 37 Recall Ortega's apt definition of "dogma" (see p. 33, end of n . 70. 38 Obras, VI, 20. Though written so long ago, this evaluation of our faith in science is still true. 39 ^ Ibid., pp. 20-21. This is particularly true of our post World War II atomic age. Americo Castro wisely notes that "It might justly be said that one of the character istics of the present time is the disequilibrium between what we 'know' and what we 'understand'" (The Structure of Spanish History, trans. Edmund L. King [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 195(U , p. 11) . 183 failure of physico-mathematical reason to solve man's 4o basic problems. This, therefore, is the propitious time for man to look elsewhere for an explanation and a solu tion. This accounts for Ortega's "historical reason" (razon historica) and his "ratio-vitalism" (see Chapter VII). He notes that what is human slips by physico- 4l mathematical reason "as water through a sieve." Man's faith in science has left him shipwrecked on the shoals of doubt, and he must now look elsewhere for his salvation. This brings us directly to the subject of historical reality, which Ortega discusses at length in La rebelion de las masas, 1930. Here he states that "history is the reality of man," who has no other (but see Chapter VI). In history man has become just what he is, and it is not of any importance to deny the past, that which is really 42 "natural" about man. Man must integrate the past. The political and cultural aspects of history are only the surface aspects because "historical reality is, before that and deeper than that, a sheer eagerness [afan] to live, a power comparable to the cosmic [forces]." It is, of course, not the same as cosmic forces, but it is a "sister" of the power that "stirs the sea, fertilizes the 400bras, VI, 22-23- ^1Ibid., p. 24. hO Ibid., IV, 125- 184 wild beast, causes the tree to bloom and the stars to 43 twinkle.'1 Ortega asks the cogent question: "What is, in short, the altitude [alturaj of our times?" His answer is classic: No es plenitud de los tiempos, y, sin embargo, se siente sobre todos los tiempos sidos y por encima de todas las conocidas plenitudes. No es facil de for- mular la impresion que de si misma tiene nuestra epoca: cree ser mas que las demas, y a la par se siente como un comienzo, sin estar segura de no ser una agonia. &Que expresi6n elegiriamos? Tal vez esta: mas que los demas tiempos e inferior a si misma. Fortisima y a la vez insegura de su destino. Orgullosa de sus fuerzas y a la vez temiendolas.^^ When it comes to the subject of the law, Ortega notes that historical reality changes periodically and radically clashes with the stability of the law, which is essen tially a regulation for a "paralytic reality," a type of 45 strait jacket. Man needs a dynamic law that can change with historical metamorphoses and adapt itself to all times and climes, as political and civil law have often done in the past. It is in international law that this ^50bras, IV, 160. 44 / - Ibid., p. 162. It would be difficult to find a more accurate evaluation of the historical reality of this mid-twentieth century. We have "smashed" the atom and circled the moon and live, as a result of these scientific feats, in a state of constant apprehension lest some irre sponsible mediocrity unleash total destruction upon the earth. As Americo Castro so well observes (see p. 182, n. 39)j man's knowledge is outstripping his wisdom to control his discoveries. Is this the altura of our era? 45 . •^Ibid. . p. ?92j in the "Epilogo para ingleses, " appended to "La rebelion . . ." and bearing the title "En cuanto al pacifismo . . . Lsic]," 1937* 185 incongruity between the stability of justice and changing 46 reality reaches its maximum force. From the standpoint of the law, history is primarily the change and distribu tion of power on earth; and so long as there are no prin ciples of justice which, even in theory, satisfactorily regulate these changes in power, all pacifism is love's labor lost. Because if historical reality is change, which it most certainly is, the greatest injury is the status quo. It is no wonder, then, that the League of Nations failed, that "gigantic apparatus built to admin- 47 ister the status quo." In a very sensitive and penetrating essay ("Max Scheler, un embriagado de esencias," 1928), Ortega writes fondly of Scheler, whom our Spaniard considers to be one of the truly great, if not the greatest, thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century. Influenced by the phenomenalism of Edmund Husserl, Scheler breathed fresh insight into the matter of the comprehension of 46 Obras, IV, 292. 47 'Ibid., pp. 292-293* Here is another admirable example of historical reality to explain the failure of the League of Nations after World War I. Here is Ortega's razon histories functioning in connection with the reality of history. Note that we are here not concerned with dates, facts, things, "sino la evolucion que con esos ma- teriales fundidos, fluidificados, se construye La His toria moviliza, y de lo quieto nace lo raudo" (ibxd., p. 4435 in "Sobre el punto de vista en las artes," 1924, an entire essay that is another fine example of Ortega's "perspectivism" [see Chapter II, pp. 69-83, and Ferrater Mora, Ortega, pp. 25-37])* 186 "essences11} and in regard to the change effected by this new insight, Ortega notes the changes that take place in history and man's way of thinking by comparing our out look on things to what happens when we look into a pool of water from a recumbent position, lying on our stomach. All we see at first glance is water that appears to be all the more water the clearer it is. But suddenly, by slightly changing our "ocular accommodation," we see the same pool now filled with a landscape: the garden and the apples "swim" in the water reflected by it, the first moon of t^ie evening "passes over it its inspecting diver's face." Something similar happens in great historical changes which are due, in essence, merely to a simple variation of man's mental apparatus which causes him to 48 catch reflections that he formerly did not notice. This is Ortega's concept of historical change as a reflection- variation of our mental apparatus and, consequently, of our attitude toward objective reality. Ortega speaks of the "dead end" (via muerta) that historians had been following and notes once again that data as such are not history. He wisely observes that historical methodology has been intent on overloading "history" studies with mere data, and history itself pretends to know all about historical reality; but this 48 Obras, IV, 510. reality, according to Ortega, never consists of data dug up by "the philologian or the archivist," just as the re ality of the sun is not the visual image of its floating 4o disc, "the size of a shield," as Don Quijote stated. Data are only "symptoms or manifestations of reality" which are given to somebody for some purpose, and this "somebody," in this instance, is the true historian, not "the philologian or the archivist," and the something thus given is historical reality. Ortega states that this his torical reality is to be found in each moment, composed of a "number of variable ingredients and a nucleus of invari able ingredients" which are relatively or absolutely con stant. And these "constants of the historical fact or reality" are a priori its basic and categorical structure, which, being a priori, in principle does not depend on the variation of historical data. Quite the contrary since it is the variation that causes the philologian and the ar chivist to look for the determining data necessary for the historical reconstruction of the concrete epoch. It is the determination of this "categorical nucleus," of what is historically essential, that constitutes the primary 50 theme of Ortega's historiology. This is Ortega's con cept of historical reality which is something "lived" and ^90bras, IV, 533-53^; in "La 'Filosofia de la his toria ' de Hegel y la Historiologia," 1928. 5°Ibid., p. 53^- constantly changing, as is human life itself. He notes what is needed to vitalize the study of history in order to make it an authentic science. To the customary tech nique of historical research we must add, even cause to precede, another technique of an incomparably higher or der: "the ontology of historical reality, the a priori study of its essential structure." This, says Ortega, is the only way to make history into a true science: "es decir, en reconstruccion de lo real mediante una construc- cion a priori de lo que en esa realidad— en este caso la r 51 vida histories— haya de invariante." Up to the present, says Ortega, the philosophy of history has consisted of two things: "either the intent to construct the contents of History [sic] by means of philosophical categories sensu stricto (Hegel) or the reflection on the intellec tual form that historiography practices (Rickert)." The latter is logics and the former is a metaphysics of his- 52 tory. But historiology is neither of these things, and Ortega observes that "only thinking has and gives form to 53 that which lacks it." The so-called "pure reason" of the nineteenth century has been nothing more than one more 51 Obras, IV, 537- This emphasis on "structure" is worthy of note and reveals a new trend in the writing of history. 52Ibid., pp. 537-538. 55Ibid., p. 538. material acquisition that has availed man but little. Historiology, too, has structure; it is not a methodolog ical reflection on historia rerum gestarum, or historiog raphy, but an immediate analysis of the res gesta, of 54 historical reality. What are the ingredients, the onto logical texture, of this reality? What are its primary dimensions? In order to answer these questions Ortega investigates the essence of the individual life and that .of the "inter-individual," what he calls vida anonima (the anonymous social life), his realidad sobreindiyidual (society), which, as a psychological approach to man and his history, is not enough; it is merely Hegel's "objec tive spirit." Ortega then proceeds to show us what he means by "historical reality" sensu stricto. He notes that social life is always something that proceeds from a past, from another "preterite social life"; and it is al ways going toward a future social life. Our customary three-generations concept of contemporary society is evi dence that our present social life is but a section of an extremely ample whole that has indefinite limits backward (past) and forward (future) in time, losing itself in both directions. This is, strictly speaking, life or histori- 55 cal reality. Ortega does not call this "human" or 54 ? Obras, IV, 339. 55Ibid., p. 541. 190 ’ ’ universal’ 1 life because one of the historiological themes is to determine if the words "humanity," in its ecumenical sense, and "universality" or "worldness" (mundialidad) are effective forms of historical reality or merely idealiza tions. This "maximum vital circle" is what is historical, % but it is not said what is the real meaning of its "inner circles," lor example, whether the individual living sub merged in what is historical "like the drop of water in the sea," is, nevertheless, and in some sense or other, an independent being within himself, or whether society, a people, state, race, etc., is. Nor is it said in what way and to what extent these "circles" influence one another. Neither is it said that this "maximum circle," which is "a social life with its past and its future, is, in its turn, independent and forming an orb apart, or is only a fragment, an "authentic, definite, and unique 'historical world'." All that is said here is that there is no ul- 56 terior transcendency of this "circle" possible. In a footnote Ortega observes that the individual’s life tends to date itself from a specific moment--birth--and extend itself from any present to a time when death is to come, and this certain conclusion acts anticipatively on "our days"; it is "the great tomorrow" that conditions our to day. Ortega further notes that on this subject we can 560bras, IV, 5^1. 191 find ’ ’fine truths and fine errors” in Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit, 1927i where we can also find an a priori difference between the structure of what is historical and that of individual life. History never dies, and, therefore, its movements are not governed by the "idea of an end and con- 57 summation.” Ortega's razon historica is closely allied to his concept of historical reality, and this alliance is at once evident when he says that we are unable to under stand anything historical--"and everything human is his torical,” man being "in substance only history”--unless we situate it in its proper setting inside the "enormous chain" that is history. The reason for this is quite ob vious: what happens to man today happens in a certain way and manner because something else happened to him yester day, and so on. Hence we cannot understand what is hap pening today if we are not told the story of what took place yesterday and the day before that. We cannot ^Obras, IV, 541, n. 1. See p. 178* n. 28, for Unamuno's concept of "eternal history." Ortega devotes much space to the subject of historical reality, the dis cussion of which would be redundant here. For further information on this topic see Obras, VI, 392 (in "A 'His toria de la filosofia,1 de Emile Brehier," 1942)? also ibid., p. 480 (in "A 'Veinte anos de caza mayor,' del Conde de Yebes," 1942), both of these being "prologues" Ortega wrote for the Revista de Occidents. For the effect of woman-mother on historical reality see Obras, V, 619- 621} and for the historical effect of the influence of woman on the average man see ibid., pp. 621-622 (both to be found in "Estudios sobre el amor," 1941). 192 understand the occurrences of today without the background of the past, which is nthe key and the cause of the pre sent.” Ortega maintains that the reason for. things human is ”a reason the reasoning of which consists of relating, telling stories [histories]; it is narrative reason 58 [which] is historical reason."^ He shrewdly observes that a man's second love is inevitably different from his first one, and this is because his second love is bora "carrying on its shoulders the experience of the first one." And what is history but "a melody of experiences in which each note presupposes all the preceding ones” emerg- 59 ing from them naturally? History, as Unamuno also ob serves (see p. 178, n. 28), is a matter of continuity. The foregoing makes it reasonable to conclude that Ortega's concept of historical and vital reason (razon hist6rica and razon vital) are inseparably joined. This becomes amply evident when he speaks of both concepts in the same paragraph, noting that in human life every other reality is included; human life "is the basic reality, the only one there really is”; and it is transcendental. This explains why history is "the superior science, the science of the basic reality.And again, when he defines his ^ Obras, VI, 236-237; in "En la Xnstitucion Cultural de Buenos Aires," 1939* 59Ibid., p. 237. 6°Ibid., V, 95; in "En torno a Galileo," 1933* 193 concept of razon historica, he says that the prime concern is to find in history itself its ’ ’original and indigenous reason” for existing; and this is why we must thoroughly understand the term "historical reason,” which is not an "extra-historical reason" that seems to be fulfilled in history, but, literally "what has happened to man, consti tuting the substantive reason, the revelation of a reality [that is] transcendent to the theories of man and which [reality] man himself is underneath his theories. Therefore, historical reason is "ratio, logos, a rigorous concept," and about this there must be not the slightest 6 2 doubt, We are not conceding to irrationalism when we set historical reason against physico-mathematical reason. Quite the contrary, since historical reason is even more rational, more rigorous, and more exacting than physico- mathematical reason. This is so because historical reason accepts nothing as mere fact; rather it "fluidifies" every fact into the fieri whence it originates; "it sees how ^ Obras, VI, 50; in "Historia como sistema," 19^1* ^Ibid. Ortega is very explicit about distinguish ing between razon and racionalismo (see Chapter VII). 63 ^Unamuno also states that "history is not so much what has been done as what is being done," and he adds that if we write historia hecha, which is "dead history," looking at the past, we are creating "live history," his tory in fieri that looks toward the future (De esto. I, 295 5 ih humanidad y los vivos," 191(0* In "Culto al porvenir," 1913» Unamuno, supporting the concept of the "cult of the future," writes: ". . . las esperanzas se construyen con recuerdos y . . . aquel que no tiene 194 the fact is made." There is nothing of trying to explain human phenomena by ’ ’reducing them to a repertory of in stincts and ’faculties',” which would be nothing more than ’ ’ brute facts” comparable to collision and attraction. Rather it shows what man does with these instincts and faculties and also makes clear how these ’ ’facts” come into being--the instincts and faculties which obviously are only ideas, interpretations that man has fabricated at a pasado, que no tiene historia, no puede prever su por- venir. El camino por recorrer no es sino proyeccifin del camino recorrido. Toda nuestra vida se basa en la previ sion, y la previsifin supone el conocimiento del pasado. . . . Un porvenir sin pasado es un . . . vaclo” (De esto, III, 55). Unamuno1s reason for his ”cult” of the future ”es por culto al porvenir por lo que predico el culto al pasado” (ibid., p. 58)• Thus Salamanca best epitomizes his philosophical attitude regarding the past (history) and eternity (the future), as he indicates in his ode ’ ’Salamanca.” Unamuno comments on the French movement, Clairte, headed by Anatole France and Henri Barhusse, whose program was nothing less than the total reconstruc tion of the law of ’ ’common life”— an illusion which, as Unamuno notes, is nothing new in human relations: "No es la vida otra cosa que el conflicto entre lo que fue y lo que sera, o si se quiere, el presente no es otra cosa que el esfuerzo del pasado por hacerse porvenir. 0 sea la tradici6n en movimiento, que es cambio” (ibid., p. 297? in "El manifiesto del grupo ’Claridad1," 1919)• Again: ”En el sentido mas abstracto social lo que progress es la tra- dicion, lo que camina al porvenir es el pasado” (ibid., p. 299)* Thus historical reality implies constant change: "Porque la historia humana se acaba y concluye y cierra en cada momento de su curso y en cada momento de el vuelve a empezar, a iniciarse y a abrirse. Cada momento es fin y cada momento es medio. El verdadero finalismo consiste en aceptar un fin siempre presente" (ibid., p. 300). This struggle of the past to become future is a recurrent theme of Unamuno (See ibid., II, 252, in "El tiempo va- cio," 1921; Ensayos, 11^ ?8, in an undated letter written between 1900 and 1905? and ibid., p. 1153> in "La Epopeya de Artigas," n. d., where the same theme is repeated). 195 64 certain juncture in his life process. In light of these statements, it is irrelevant to the problem that I am here investigating to discuss the possible separation of his torical and vital reason since both are authentic real ities of prime significance to Ortega's concept of human life as the basic reality. Man is not an abstraction, a mere idea; nor is his history. Both are inseparable realities of the first order. It is highly instructive to observe how Ortega applies his concept of historical reason. In La rebelion de las masas, 1950, in Part II ("iQuien manda en el mun- do?"), he probes the meaning of the word "state," which, to him, means movement, something that is always "coming from" and "going toward." As with all motion, it has "a 65 terminus a quo and a terminus ad quern." He wisely notes that there were no "France" and no "Spain" prior to their 66 existence as "states." He further observes that blood ^ Obras, VI, 50. 65Ibid., IV, 258-259. 66 Ibid., pp. 260-261. Americo Castro maintains that prior to the Moslem invasion of 711 there was nothing on the Iberian Peninsula that could rightly be called "Span ish" because if the Iberians, Celts, Romans, Visigoths, etc., who inhabited this area before 711 are called "Spanish," we must find another name to apply to those who lived and fought on this Peninsula after the tenth cen tury (The Structure of Spanish History, trans. Edmund L. King [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954], p. 46). Here Castro is applying historical reason to the study of Spanish history, and he does so with considerable success. and language also do not create nations since in both France and Spain exist people of different racial and lin- 67 guistic stock (Basques, Catalans, etc.). Nor do national boundaries explain the existence of states. The historical reality of "natural frontiers" consists merely of their being "an obstruction to the natural expansion of the people." Thus all such things as blood, language, natural frontiers, etc., are the result of unification, 68 usually by force; and they are not the cause of it. The state, regardless of its form— primitive, ancient, medieval, or modern— is always "an invitation" that is made by one group of men to other human groups to execute together some project, and this enterprise entails the organization of a type of common existence. Thus "state and life project, the program of human tasks or conduct, 69 are inseparable terms." The different kinds of states originate from the manner in which the enterprising group establishes the collaboration of the "others" in this collective endeavor. Thus the ancient state was never able to fuse with these others. Rome commanded and edu cated the Italic peoples (Ladinds, Samnites, Umbrians, Oscans) and the provinces (Hispaniae, Gallia), but it 6 7 Obras, IV, 26l. Disunity and separatism often result from such an admixture. 68 Ibid., pp. 262-263* 69Ibid., p. 263. 197 never elevated them to a status of* equality and union with Rome. Even in the Eternal City itself the political fu sion of the citizens was never consummated. Rome was in reality two Romes: the Senate and the people, two enti ties that remained ever strangers to one another. This explains why the Roman Empire, threatened by attack, could not count on the patriotic support of the "others" and had to defend itself wholly by its "bureaucratic means of ad- 70 ministration and war."' The ancient states of Greece and Rome consisted simply, elementally, of rulers and ruled, men who were free and the slaves who served them. But the modern "state" carries a less material interpretation of this political system since if the modern state is "a pro ject of common enterprise, its reality is purely dynamic, a doing, the community in action." As a result, everyone who has an active part in the common "enterprise" is a "political subject"; and "race, blood, geographic assign ment, social class" take second place. The collective "doing" decides the modern state, not what went before in the form of tradition, which was something "fatal or un- ref ormable ." It is no longer a question of what we were yesterday, but the important thing is what we are going to do tomorrow together; and it is this latter collective decision to do together that causes men to join forces 7°Obras, IV, 263-264. 198 71 and form the modern state. Hence the facility with which political unity in the Western world has exceeded 72 the bounds that "imprisoned” the ancient state. This explains why the European, compared to the ancients,,con ducts himself "open to the future," living "consciously installed" in this future from which he decides his con- 73 duct in the present. ^ This is Ortega's raison d'etre of the modern state and is an excellent example of the ap plication of historical reason to the reality of modern political history. We find another good example of Ortega's historical reason and its application to historical reality in what he has to say about the double aspect of things, such as war or slavery, when viewed from the perspective of their inception as human institutions and, when they are no longer vital to the society that invented them, they have been replaced by newer attitudes and forms of life. In his "Epxlogo para ingleses," appended to La rebelion de las masas (in the essay entitled "En cuanto al pacifismo * * • CsicJi” 1937), Ortega speaks of war and slavery, noting their two aspects: that of their vogue at the time of their inception and that of their vogue at the time of 710bras, IV, 264. 72Ibid. 73Ibid. 199 their replacement. In its inception war was thought to be an invention that signified an incalculable advance. Today, when man lives in the hope of outmoding war as a means of the solution of disputes between nations, he sees only the horror and waste and uselessness of it. In the • same way we condemn slavery today as something barbaric, failing to note that in its day slavery represented a wondrous advance since prior to taking slaves the con quered peoples were slaughtered wholesale. Hence slavery was the invention of a benefactor of humanity. Ortega notes that Auguste Comte, who he says had a "great human sense," which means "historical sense" (Note the union of these two concepts.), considered slavery in this humani tarian light, "freeing himself from the foolishness that Rousseau had said about it." Thus we must take a lesson from Comte "by learning to view all things human from this double perspective," namely: The aspect things have when they arrive in history and the aspect they have when they 74 leave the historical scene. In like manner, pacifism has abhorred war and has wanted to abolish it simply by not engaging in the holocaust of armed conflict. But the situation is not quite so easy to remedy as it appears. Peace is something man has to work hard at all the time, just as he must work at everything that constitutes 740bras, IV, 287-288. 200 progress for humanity. Man is "given" nothing of real importance in this life; he must create whatever he has of worth for himself: "For eso, el titulo mas claro de nuestra especie [homo sapiens] es ser homo faber."7^ Turning now to Unamuno's concept of historical real ity, we find no such organized treatment of this problem, nor does he present a new approach to this reality. He writes widely and desultorily about this problem, and as early as 1898 he notes that under the surface aspect of history (nations under one king and one flag) there lies "another profound history of permanent facts." This deeper history is what Unamuno calls "silent history," that of the poor farm workers who day after day, and with out respite, rise before dawn to work on their lands and who are ever the victims of authoritarian demands. "Los cuatro bulleses que meten ruido en la historia de los sucesos no dejan oxr el silencio de la historia de los 77 hechos." Unamuno further notes that if we could go back in history to the age of the great battles, and if we could live in the field of the conquests, these latter 75 Obras, IV, 288. For additional statements about razon historica see ibid., p. 249, n. 2; V, 124-134, 538- 540; VI, 37-38, 40, 41, 45, 185, and 310-311. Further discussion here of these references would result in needless repitition. 76 Ensayos, I, 287; in "La crisis del patriotismo," I898. 77Ibid., pp. 287-288. 201 would appear to us to be something quite different from what history books tell us. He further notes that there are coral islands in the ocean which display above water only a very small part of their total bulk, and he com pares these to the vase "silent and slow labor of the dark 78 [unseen] social madrepores buried in the depths" upon which the surface aspects of history rest; but these are not true history. The villager's concept of "nation" is, when all is said and done, a profoundly historical concept that constitutes "a historical fact, not a more or less 79 lasting event." The humble villager is the chalice that preserves "the living, sensitive, and concrete roots of patriotism," in the true sense of the word. He is histor ically more of a fact (reality) than is the great land- 8 0 owner. Man, for Unamuno, is "the supreme historic 8l product; he is the great fact of history." This is Unamuno's concept of "historical man," which constitutes a historical reality. He again makes this concept quite clear when he states that Malinche, Cortes' Indian woman, is a historical reality as well as a symbol, which gives ^ Ensayos, I, 288. 79Ibid. 80 Ibid. In this connection, recall Unamuno's flat condemnation of the rural masses of Spain which "suffocate the city" (see Chapter II, p. 109). O-i Ibid., p. 290. 202 82 her a deeper historical reality. In La agonla del cristianiamo, 1931) Unamuno states that the man who lives in the flesh is "the body of death," but "the other one, the one who lives in others, in History, is historical D 17 man.1 1 History, then, is as much, if not more, of a reality than is nature. The person is a thing (< res = causa > cosa), and by narrating history, this reality is 84 created. Unamuno observes that Karl Marx's personal doctrines, those of Marx the Sadducean Jew who believed that things make men (a materialistic philosophy), pro duced things such as the Russian Revolution (1917)• Thus Lenin was much closer to historical reality when, replying to the statement that something might be contrary to real- 85 ity, said: "So much the worse for reality." ^ Therefore, history, as human life, is basically a problem. Unamuno notes that history is an internal struggle between oppo sites, and if this struggle were to end, we would have Utopia, which is death. Hence the main problem of history is its reality: "La historia es un eterno problema, un problema que nunca se resuelve" (see Chapter VI, where I 82 0. C.. I, 573; in "Por tierras de Portugal y de Kspana," 1911. Unamuno wonders if perhaps there may not be one or several Canary Island (guanche) Malinches (ibid.). Q 5 Ensayos, I, 962. 8^Ibid., pp. 962-963. 85Ibid., p. 963. 203 86 discuss the "problem" of human life). The person who wants to find a final solution to the problem of history is asking the impossible since men will always disagree economically, socially, and politically. It is as if one were to ask for the "plot" of the history of humanity as he would the "plot" of a novel, and this would be the same as "asking for the plot of a beautiful starry night.1 1 Unamuno extends his concept of "historical man" to include fictional "people" and notes the greater histor ical reality of such characters than that of their crea tors (see also Chapter VI, "Immortality"). Don Quijote and Sancho have more reality than Cervantes, their crea- 88 tor; they created Cervantes and not he them. Don Quijote, the man, was one of Unamuno's favorite personages and he appears in many of his works, as, for example, in "En un lugar de la Mancha . . . [sic]," 1932, where he states that history is not what materially took place; rather it is what mortals dreamed was taking place. And this is the form in which they have transmitted history to us, and we continue to dream and tell what happened. History, then, is the dream that remains; and in this way Don Quijote and Sancho are men of spiritual flesh and 86 De esto, IV, 250; in "El ideal historico," 1922. 87Ibid., p. 251. OO Ibid., II, 63; in "San Quijote de la Mancha," 1923. bone and blood, historical, immaterial, thanks to [the man] Cervantes”; and Cervantes is "historical" and "imma terial" thanks to Don Quijote and Sancho. If Cervantes 89 lives, it is because Don Quijote, in his turn, lives. Perhaps the finest example of Unamuno's appreciation of the man Don Quijote is to be found in Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, 1905* In this work Unamuno observes that "work ing follows being," and only what works exists," since existing is working. If Don Quijote works in all who know him, who are "works of life," Don Quijote is much more historical and real than all the names to be found in the Bachiller's chronicles. Unamuno maintains that the ques tion of determining whether or not a person existed origi nates in our insistence on closing our eyes to "the mystery of time": "Lo que fue y ya no es, no es mas que lo que no es, pero sera algun dia; el pasado no existe mas que el porvenir ni obra mas que el sobre el presente. And he wonders what we would think of the traveler who insisted on denying the road still to be traveled and who considered to be true and valid only that which he had 89 De esto, II, 75- In "El caballero de la triste figura," 1896, Unamuno pointedly asks whether Don Quijote or his creator Cide Hamete Benengeli is remembered, Homer or Achilles. Would Homer be "alive" without Achilles? Unamuno is convinced that he would not (Ensayos, I, 195- 199)* See also Niebla, chap. XXXI, where Unamuno, the author, "argues" with Augusto Perez, his creation, about the reality of his existence (0. C., II, 973-982). ^^Ensayos, II, l84. 205 already traversed. Unamuno thus considers Don Quijote and Sancho to be as much historical realities as Caesar and Henry VIII, and he says he intends to write a book some day proving the true and authentic existence of Don Quijote and Sancho and the historical reality of their 91 adventures and everything that happened to them. Unamuno also applies his concept of historical real ity to the history of literature which should not be bio graphical and bibliographical notices of authors and their works. The true history of Spanish literature, says Unamuno, is still to be written. The only way to achieve real literary history is to read again the eternal authors and their immortal works with a spirit that seeks life, 92 not mere data. For Unamuno the only authentic history is "truth lived and changeable by itself"; it is not news- 93 paper writing as Leopardi observed. This accounts for 91 Ensayos, II, 185* Note this idealistic approach to historical reality as contrasted to Ortega's practical and objective handling of this concept. So far as I know, Unamuno never wrote the book here promised. He repeats his theme that "solo existe lo que obra" when he speaks of Don Quijote*s discourse on the reality of the Cid, Amadis de Gaula, Fierabras, et al., in the commentary to Quijote, I, 49 (ibid., pp. 205-206). 92 De esto, II, 45; in "La traza cervantesca," 1916. Unamuno repeats his assessment of the reality of authentic literary history in "Glosa a un pasaje del cervantino Fielding," 1917 (ibid., p. 4l): not names, genres, and dates, but living reality. 93 ^Ibid., III, 79; in "Leopardi y el periodismo," 1920. 206 Unamuno's esteem for Fyodor Dostoievsky as a creator of history. The Russian novel, says Unamuno does not belong to any genre nor is it literature or fiction as such. It is creation, something corporeal, history in the making and not merely narrated. As history in the making this novel is prophecy. Dostoievsky, the anti-revolutionist, is a prophet of the present (1920) Russian revolution; he is "the father of Lenin," who, in turn, issued from the novels of Dostoievsky and has all the intimate reality of these novels. And Lenin, who is "the dream of a shadow," weighs upon Europe like a nightmare, a nightmare that has the same reality as Hamlet, Don Quijote, Faust, and Charles Moore. Hence this nightmare is more of a reality than the citizens registered in the civil register and who appear as mere numbers in "the demographic municipal 94 statistics." Among other applications of historical reality that Unamuno makes is his consideration of the Spanish Church and Christianity and their historical relation to the Spanish state. He maintains that Catholicism in Spain is political, and this must be so since it constitutes the social reality of the Spanish theocratic state. For Unamuno, Christ's redemption, Christian redemption, was a "profound and essentially political work," and he notes ^ De esto, III, 442-443; in "Sobre el genero nove- lesco," 192C. 207 that to want to separate religion from politics is a "mad ness as great or greater" than the desire to separate economy and politics: "No ya el catolicismo, sino el cristianismo y toda religion, tiene que ser polltica. Since politics is a true reality of democracy, it should not be restricted, because it is not a specialty but a way of conceiving, setting up, and solving problems. Politics is "a housing" for every public problem, and we have po litical economy, religious politics, sanitary politics, cultural politics, all of which constitute the great human 96 questions in a democracy. Politics, then, according to Unamuno, is a vital ingredient of the historical reality of any authentic living societyj and where this ingredient is lacking, sciences, arts, and even industries, wane and 97 die. He insists that Spaniards must dispense with the antisocial, of "unsocial," feeling that is so prevalent in Spain. All governments in all countries give and take 95 Ensayos, II, 71°; in "Los antipolit icistas, " n. d., the twenty-second of twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533- 726) . 96 Ibid. Unamuno's use of the word "democracy" is not to be construed in our sense of this term. 97 Ibid. Unamuno is speaking here of politics m the Greek sense of the word. Hence, he notes that "Yo . . . creo ser uno de los espanoles que ha hecho mas politica en mi patria y, sin embargo, no figuro afiliado a n in gun par- tido. Lo cual no creo que sea recomendable en cada caso; pero a mi me da una gran libertad de movimientos" (ibid., p. 718). 208 away much and often take away more than they give. Where there is not an intense political life, culture is adrift 98 and does not take root. The historical reality of Christianity figures largely in essay VII ("El supuesto cristianismo social") of La agonia del cristianismo, 1931, where Unamuno frankly states that authentic Christianity is a-social and a-cultural, a condition that has led to all manner of misinterpretations and misapplications of so-called economical, political, social Christianity. This attempt to apply Christianity to social, economic, or political problems, an attempt to make of Christianity something that it authentically is not, given its a-social and a-cultural nature, constitutes the agonia (struggle) of this faith. The result of such a basic and inherent contradiction is made patent by Unamuno, who states that because Christianity cannot live without civilization and culture, it lives in agonia. But this is not all since "Christian civilization is an intimate contradiction," which is also an agonia. And on this basic agonia live both Christianity and the civilization we call Graeco- Roman or Occidental. The death of one would signify the death of the other: "Si muere la fe cristiana, la fe desesperada y agonica, morira nuestra civilizacion; si muere nuestra civilizacion, morira la fe cristiana"; and 98 Ensayos, II, 717* 209 99 this constitutes our agonia. Because of this basic condition, Unamuno has no use for the Jesuit creed of the social Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He considers the Jesuits to be the "degenerate children of Ignacio de Loyola. The fourth Gospel of John, considered to be the least materialistically historical of the four Gospels of John, is the most idealistically, personally, and symbolically historical of them all.^^ Worldly peace and war are basically irrelevant to Christianity whose struggle 102 (agonia) is not one of world peace or war. Oswald Spengler's Per Untergang des Abendlandes is, according to Unamuno, nothing other than the agonia of Christianity. Civil, historical progress is not an "itinerary of the soul to God"; and this constitutes another agonia for 103 Christianity. This twofold condition is something basic to the agonia of Christianity and to the agonia of Western civilization, and the historical reality of this dichotomy is clearly portrayed in Blaise Pascal's Pensees 104 and also in his Lettres provinciales. Such is the 99 Ensayo S, I, 992. 100.^ . , Ibid., p. 989. 101T, . . Ibid., P. 993- 102Ibid., P. 994. 105Ibid., absoluto"). p, 1000; in essay VIII ("El individualismo io4t. Ibid., p. 1010; in essay IX ("La fe pascaliana"). 210 historical reality of Western Christianity as Unamuno sees it. Unamuno speaks of war and peoples and notes that when men engage in armed combat they become better acquainted with one another due to this strained "association" and, consequently, tend to progress more than they might other wise have d o n e I n this same reciprocal manner, Christianity itself, "the foolishness of the Cross, the irrational faith that Christ rose from the dead in order to raise us from the dead," was saved by rationalistic Hellenic culture, which, in turn, was saved by Christi anity. And without Christianity the Renaissance would not have come about because without the Gospel, without St. Paul, the people who survived the Middle Ages would not have understood either Plato or Aristotle. Hence it is a historical reality that "a purely rationalistic tra- dition is as impossible as a purely religious" one. The Reform was the result of both the Renaissance and the protest against it. Likewise, in answer to the statement that revived Greek classics led men like Erasmus back to St. Paul and to primitive Christianity, we can state that St. Paul and the Christian irrationality underlying his ■^^See Chapter II, p. 101, n. 265, for another state ment by Unamuno about war as a socializing factor in life. 1 Ensayos, II, 830; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913t essay VI ("En el-fondo del abismo"). 211 Catholic theology was what led men like Erasmus back to the Greek and Latin classics. The historical reality is that man emerged from the Middle Ages, from the medieval faith as ardent as it was at heart despairing, with its inward and abysmal uncertainties, and entered the Age of 107 Reason, likewise with its doubts and uncertainties. Faith in reason is exposed to precisely the same rational indefensibility as are all other faiths, and, as Robert Browning so aptly said: All we have gained then by our unbelief Is a life of doubt diversified by faith For one of faith diversified by doubt. 3.0 6 (Bishop Blougram's Apology.) Unamuno has much to say about the historical reality of Spain and Spanish America. In "Sobre la europeiza- cion," 1906, he writes of the Spanish soul and how little it is understood by outsiders— even by Spaniards them selves. He notes that Spain is composed of those now liv ing in the nation (1906) and of all those who preceded, the ancestors. The souls now living in Spain understand their country the least; they are the souls that "least 107Ensayos, II, 830-831* 108 Ibid., p. 831* Ortega notes that Christianity was man's escape from this life into a hereafter; it was an evasion. This attitude of evasion was typical of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance and Humanism issued in the Modern Age in which man regained faith in himself with the discoveries of Galileo and Descartes and began to live from himself rather than from the hereafter (Obras, V, 120-121; in "En torno a Galileo," 1933)* live in it, because our soul does not enter into that of our country until we have given Tour soul] up, until after our temporal death." The contemporaries are too close to the tree to see the forest, which is a matter of histori cal perspective (see Chapter II, pp. 70-71)* To attempt to imitate others is futile and results in a sterile "hybridization," which is a falsification of the Spanish 1 0 9 yo. Another manifestation of the historical reality of Spain at a particular moment in her eternal history is Erausism, and of this movement Unamuno states that Krausism— not Hegelianism or Kantism--prevailed in Spain because Krausism had pietist rootc; and pietism has specifically Catholic roots and may be described as the "persistence of Catholic mysticism in the heart of Pro testantism." Hegel and Kant failed to penetrate Spanish culture because these men were Protestants, and Kant, moreover, was Lutheran, and "Kantism" Protestant. Hence Krausism took root in Catholic Spain, which, not having felt the impact of the Reformation, could not possibly "feel" the impact of Protestant Hegel and Lutheran Kant."*"^ This is Unamuno’s explanation of the historical reality of the latter nineteenth-century philosophical movement known as "Krausism"--a very secondary philosophy ^^^Ensayos, I, 912-913* 110Ibid., II, 992; in "Del sentimiento . . 1913 (in essay XI entitled "El problema practico"). In no way comparable to Hegelianism or Eantism. Unamuno highlights the historical reality of the pietist Counter- Reformation and those who supported and fostered it, who were mostly Spaniards. He notes Spain's contribution to European life during the era of the Renaissance, Reforma tion, and Counter-Reformation and wonders if without the Counter-Reformation the Reformation itself would have followed the course it did pursue. Might not the Refor mation, deprived of the support of pietism, have perished in the gross rationality of the Aufklarung, of the Age of Enlightenment, had the Counter-Reformation not existed? Without Charles I of Spain (Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire), Philip II, would everything have been exactly the same?^'*' Unamuno, who felt himself possessed of "a medi eval soul," is convinced that Spain, having passed through the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revolution, learned something from all of them; but her soul remained untouched by all these historical changes. Hence Spain preserves "the spiritual heritage" of the so-called "Dark Ages," and "Quixotism is merely the most desperate part of the struggle of the Middle Ages against the Renaissance 112 which emerged from it." This is part of the historical reality of modern Spain, at least as Unamuno conceives it. ^^^Ensayos, II, 1003; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913 (in essay XII entitled "Conclusion"). Ibid.. p. 1015. 214 In a very penetrating essay entitled "Espanolidad y espanolismoj" 1916, Unamuno tells us the meaning of these two literally untranslatable words which denote quite different things. He states that those who feel strongly the individual and concrete personality, the one limited by an animate and conscious body, believe that the supreme moral goal of a nation--in this case, Spain--is to make "historical men," in this instance, Spaniards. He con siders the value of Spain to be her ability to make Spaniards, men who have a special concept of life and the world "within the concept and the feeling" every edu cated— historical--man has of life and the world. Y a esa cualidad, a ese tenor, a ese aire espiritual que especifica el alma de un espanol, haciendo que podamos distinguirla de otra alma no espahola, le llamaremos espanolidad. Que no es lo mismo que es- panolismo y a las veces puede serle adversa. For espanolidad puede un espanol hacerse antiespanolista. Que no es tampoco lo mismo huraanidad que humanismo. Thus Unamuno describes what he means by espanolidad, and, with this definition in mind, he notes that it is impos sible to have Spaniards without having Spain and vice versa. He grants that it would, be possible to have Span iards without having Spain just as there are Jews without there being a Judea, but this is true only if we consider Spain as a geographical or territorial category; and this is espanolismo. He also grants that we could assume a 11?De esto, III, 550. 215 Spain without Spaniards when, the latter having disap peared, Spain might persist as an historical value in the manner of1 an Ancient Egypt or a Babylonia; and this is espanolidad * He further states that there are basically two Spains: the geographical, territorial, or corporeal Spain, with all that pertains to it, such as economics, etc. (espaiiolismo); and the historical reality called "Spain," which is the historical and spiritual Spain, the support of a culture (espanolidad). He is not speaking of the Spain of the past when he speaks of "historical" Spain since "history is the future and so is the historical pre sent." By means of historical or spiritual espanolidad one can and, at times, must combat territorial or economic ~ 114 espaholismo. It is much easier for a Spaniard to de clare himself to be an espaholista, which reveals his es- panolismo, than it is for him to achieve within himself his own espanolidad, which implies becoming his history and thus contributing to the creation of a national (Span- 11 C ish) history. Hence Unamuno considers Domingo Faustino Sarmiento to have been so genuinely Spanish when he spoke or wrote negatively about Spain; and Unamuno makes certain that he be understood when he refers to Sarmiento's ad verse criticism of Spain, something very Spanish for a 11^De_esto, III, 551. 115Ibid., p. 552. 216 true Spaniard to do— a sign of his espanolidad. This neg ative evaluation of one's homeland is characteristic of most people: Russians, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, and Englishmen. And it must be so: "Nadie piensa de mi mas fieramente que yo mismo. Y lo que no hacemos en confesion 116 individual lo hacemos en la colectiva." Unamuno is convinced that the Portuguese have a keener sense of their spiritual historicity (their portuguesidad) than do most Spaniards. This spiritual concept of the Portuguese con cerning Portugal is what "creates the collective spirit 117 and makes history." As examples of this, Unamuno cites Camoens, Antonio Norbe, and Guerra Junqueiro, who form the raw material of which the historical reality of Portugal is made. Thus Unamuno's plea to Spaniards to become au thentic Spaniards and make a historical reality of Spain: Hagamos . . . los espanoles, haciendonos, la Espana inmortal y que nos 11amen como quieran los espanolistas. Ahonde yo , ahond&ndome, en mi espa nolidad y que me ladren los espanolistas que por haragania espiritual--que puede muy bien conciliarse con cierta laboriosidad economica, a las veces dis- frazada de literaria--hallan mas comodo cultivar el espanolismo. Hay quien no tiene ganas de trabajar de veras, sacandose sangre, y hay quien tiene ganas de no trajabar. Que aunque parecen ser una sola cosa son dofi.H® When he speaks of Spanish America, which is Spain ll6Pe esto, III, 552. 117Ibid., p. 553* ll8Ibid., p. 554. transplanted to the New World, Unamuno has much to say about the historical reality of this Spanish area. He makes very clear what he considers to be the historical reality of Spanish America when he observes that a people become a historical reality when they have become homo geneous and have constituted themselves definitively, when the consciousness of the patria colectiva has blossomed in the people and they no longer live for the sole purpose of living. Only when a people have an ideal can they fully understand and "feel" their glories and can "broadcast1 1 their collective thought to the world: "Homero llega cuando estan risuenas las luchas en que intervino Aquiles, cuando de Troya no quedan sino las ruinas y es Helena 119 polvo." Unamuno stresses the historical reality of the vital effect that Spanish-American cities exercise on the formation of these nations: Buenos Aires > Argentina, Montevideo > Uruguay, Santiago and Valparaiso > Chile, Caracas > Venezuela, Mexico City > Mexico, etc. Patri otism, vital to historical reality so far as Unamuno is X20 concerned, means "citizen" (< civitgtem > ciudad). The common language shared by Castile and Spanish America 11^EnaayoB, II, 721-722; in "Don Quijote y Bolivar," n. d., the last of twenty-three essays comprising "Soli- loquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). 1 20 Ibid., pp. 1139-11^6; "La ciudad y la patria," n. d., the fourteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227). also contributes much to the historical reality of the latter. Unamuno notes that many so-called "Indian" words in the Spanish-American lexicon are really quite Castilian though they may not appear in the Dictionary of the Span ish Academy. These "Indian" words are as Spanish as are the unrecorded regionalisms of the Iberian Peninsula itself. Spanish-American Spanish, customs, and traditions are as "Spanish" as anything to be found in Spain. The linguistic peculiarities that occur in Spanish America are directly traceable to the historical fact that the largest number of emigrants to the Spanish New World came from Andalusia and Extremadura rather than from other regions in Spain. The port of Seville is, in part, the reason for this Andalusian-Extremaduran exodus to the New World. Because of this historical reality, the Spanish of America contains fewer castellanismos than Castile itself; but the vast majority of the American-Spanish lexicon reveals a Peninsular origin, a lexicon that can be found today in 121 the provinces of Spain. The foregoing will serve to give ample proof that historical reality plays an extremely important and vital role in the ontology of both Unamuno and Ortega. Though these two Spaniards approach this problem from entirely 1 01 Ensayos, II, 1077-1078; in "De cepa criolla," n. d., the sixth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227). 219 different viewpoints (perspectives), Unamuno being more diffuse and subjective than the precise, objective Ortega, this reality is a vital part of the basic reality of human life. I shall have occasion to refer again to historical reason (razon histories), which is so essential to histor ical reality, when, in Chapter VX, the subjects of history and life once more join to form the core of Ortega's ontology. Before I can consider the basic reality of human life, I shall have to discuss another vitally significant aspect of ontology: authenticity, which con stitutes a major portion of the ontology of both Unamuno and Ortega y Gasset. CHAPTER V AUTHENTICITY Since human life is the basic reality, our existence must necessarily be a full one, something lived to the utmost of our capabilities, something, in a word, that is authentic and not a falsification of itself, which would then be a "living suicide," unauthentic. non-existence. Unamuno and Ortega are very definite about this basic ingredient of human life and leave no room for doubt con cerning what they mean by this vital reality. Unamuno, who does not actually employ the word "authenticity," speaks of being "a whole man and nothing less than a whole man"5 and Ortega calls it being authentically all that one is capable of being in this life. Perhaps the most spe cific statement by Ortega concerning this reality is that "True 'integrity, 1 1 GLriindlichkeit, ' is not devoting one self to one thing only but in being all the [things!] that are necessary."'*' Authenticity constitutes for both Unamuno and Ortega one of the most vitally important and urgent needs of our times. This concept recurs in almost ^Obras, V, 191; in "Un rasgo de la vida alemana," 1935- 220 221 all their writings that deal with the most varied sub jects. Authenticity is something that is also closely associated with historical reality and human life itself. It is so vital to the basic reality of human life that it becomes inseparable from it. Authenticity, like beliefs, has an opposite "face” which is just as much a reality as the possitive authen ticity; and this negative face is unauthenticity or the falsification of one's basic reality--human life. Being "unauthentic" signifies that a person is failing to do his utmost to live his life to the fullest, to better himself continually, to live to the fullest of his capacity or his limitations. Unamuno has much to say about this negative aspect of authenticity, and with him it takes many forms. Perhaps the first of these expressions by Unamuno, and perhaps also among the most profuse, except for unauthen tic living itself, is his fervent and continued attack on literary unauthenticity. One of his earliest outbursts on this subject is his assault on literary and intel lectual poseurs whom he considers to be suffering from 2 downright impotency. And in "IAdentro£," 1900, he warns ^De esto, II, 114; in "Los melenudos," 1901. See also ibid., pp. l43-l49» "La feliz ignorancia," 1907» where Unamuno belabors the literary poseurs who fail to familiarize themselves with the great philosophers whose works are so essential and vital to the understanding of eternal values. Ignorance, for Unamuno, is not a bliss; but it is the beginning of knowledge (Ensayos, I, 639-640, in "Los naturales y los espirituales," I9O5TT In Del 222 that each individual is "a living idea” and not something that can be pigeonholed by dogmatists. Since man is not a "quantity," each person is no better nor worse than the 3 next one. Each individual is unique and irreplaceable. Therefore, Unamuno flails "literary aesthetes" in Spain and in Spanish America, stating that he cares nothing for sentimiento . . ., 1913, he states that "True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant; advocacy Cabogacla = unauthentic science or knowledge] neither doubts nor believes that it is ignorant. It needs a solu tion" (Ensayos, II, 813). See also ibid., I, 653-672, "Sobre la lectura e interpretacion del 'Quijote'," 1905, where he lampoons the critics who miss the authentic Quijote--the man— in their pedantic quest for "literary" data. No true poetry, just literature! 3 Ensayos, I, 242. This concept of man's uniqueness and irreplaceabiiity is often repeated by Unamuno. See Deesto, II, 113-115, "Los melenudos," 1901; ibid., Ill, 224, in "Una base de accion," 1912; Ensayos, I, 771, in "Sobre el rango y el merito," 1906; ibid., II, 976, in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913, where he ties this theme of the irreplaceable man and his search for goodness and im mortality to the concept of doing one's civil occupation to the best of one's ability. In this same essay (XI, "El problema practico"), he tells the story of the three shoe makers (the same story he had already used in "Una base de acci6n"[see above]), the first of whom makes shoes with the care needed to insure their sale and keep his clien tele; the second, who lives on a somewhat higher spiritual plane, due to his self-love tries to become the best shoe maker in the city, though this may not bring him more money or more customers; the third, who represents a still higher degree of moral perfection as a shoemaker, is the one who strives with all his might to become unique and irreplaceable, the one who, when dead, will truly be missed and whose death will be considered to have been a gross injustice (ibid., p. 974). Unamuno observes that Spaniards lack this latter moral perfection so vital to an authentic life, and this lack is most evident in their faulty sense of social obligation, be they workers, man agers , or government employees. Hence worker, owner, and product are only second best (De esto, III, 225-226; in "Una base de accion," 1912). 223 the lot of them, that what is vital to him are "men of flesh and bone" whom he can see "laughing or crying," to whom "affection or repugnance" join him; and he notes that repugnance also unites men. Of the others, the 4 aesthetes, only their works are of importance to Unamuno. Such literary diletantes are anathema to our Spaniard who hates them "with all my soul" because, among their other "vices," he finds hypocrisy and pretense. "The poet [= literary artist of any genre] should have short hair 5 and a long soul." Fashionable writers are the central 4 De esto, II, 135; in "Sarta sin cuerda," 1907. 5 Ensayos, II, 597; in "El escritor y el hombre," n. d., the eighth of twenty-three essays comprising "Solilo- quios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 553-726). Unamuno admired the Chilean Barros Arana whose writings may lack style but who is a man: "A life can be a poem" (ibid., p. 399)• Likewise, Alphonse de Lamartine is a man who served France well, as opposed to Victor Hugo who did France a disservice (ibid., p. 601). Unamuno also con sidered Giosue Carducci Cl835-1907) to be an outstanding example of the authentic man and poet. In "A propfisito de Josue Carducci," n. d., the seventeenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensa- vos, II, 1025-1227)> Unamuno clearly indicates his esti mate of Carducci as one of the few authentic poets of the latter half of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries (ibid., p. II67). He wonders why Carducci exerted so little influence on Spanish speaking countries when French poets are imitated so pro fusely (ibid., p. 1169). The Italian language and prosody are much more akin to Spanish than is French. Moreover, "Italian poetry is, generally speaking, more poetry, . . . more poetic them, the French," which is surfeited with "science, skill, artifice, and formal logical spirit" (ibid.). Frenchmen, says Unamuno, are much too geometric and far too good as critics to be truly good poets (ibid.). He attributes the preference for the Mussets and Verlaines to men like Carducci to the Spaniards' "weak mental stomaches," to their dislike of having to think 22% target of Unamuno's verbal barbs. Modernism, as a literary movement, is soundly con demned by Unamuno who considers this to be a sheer fad. "Modernists" lack passion, are disoriented and vague, and in general seem to Unamuno to be "false." They have long (ibid., 1169-1170)* Carducci, being a "discursive" poet, writes songs that have "a lyrical plot," a prevailing idea that is at once clear and precise and "is developed pro- cessionally and with supreme pomp," because "the poetic association of images and thoughts is internal and robust" (ibid., p. 1170). As a great poet, not a rhymster, Carducci can be translated into other languages, something that cannot be done with the nonsense poetry that rhymes and nothing more, as does the poetry of Jose Zorrilla, who, when translated into English, French, or German, would result in total nonsense without the sonsonete (jingle) of the "alluvium of commonplaces" that abound in his verse (ibid.). Campoamor, on the contrary, is trans latable, as are Dante, Homer, Shakespeare, and Goethe: "Lo que cantan es de suyo poeticoj sus cantos estan for- mados con materia poetica. Y es poetica la forma interna de ellos" (ibid.). Carducci's poetry, not devoid of har mony and beauty, is a "robust music of short flight and sparse volume," which is characteristic of all true lyrical inspiration, which is of high and firm but short flight (ibid., p. 1171). Carducci, like Unamuno, was not a professional poet; he was a university professor in Bologna. ^See De esto, IV, 55-61, "Un dialogo miserable," 1907• Fashionable writers of this stripe are what Unamuno aptly calls "goldsmiths" and their literary output is or- febreria (see ibid., pp. %8%-%88, "Orfebreria literaria," 1913) • See also Ensayos, II, 1213-12191 "Literature y literatos," n. d., the twenty-second of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensa yos , II, 1025-1227)i where Unamuno has the same negative things to say about pseudo-literature and the literary "goldsmiths shut up in their ivory towers chiseling some literary trinket or other" (ibid., p.121%). In "Litera- tura de modisteria," 1920, he again berates the fashion able writers who pen unauthentic nonsense for a public that is not much better and whose literary tastes have been jaded by such trivialities (De esto, IV, 532). 225 7 since outlived their youthful pose. Modernism, according to Unamuno, is impersonal, neutral, and basically ignorant 7 De esto, II, 141; in ME1 modernismo," 1907- Unamuno also notes that cosmopolitanism is not authentic litera ture because it tries to create a ”type-manor "schematic man," who has nothing about him that could be called truly human. What Unamuno seeks in literature is humanity and universality, two things that are fecund and alive and to be found in the entranas. of every man; it is the humanity that is "incarnate in race, religion, language, and country," and not something existing outside them (Ensa yos , II, 1190; in "Arte y cosmopolitismo," n. d., the nineteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 [Ensayos, II, 1025-1227]). He won ders if genius is anything else than that which is univer sal revealing itself in what is individual, temporal, and eternal. He notes that Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, and Ibsen are human by dint of being English, Florentine, Castilian, and Norwegian respectively (ibid.). Dante, the most Italian of the Italian fourteenth century, reached the "eternal rock of the man of Italy in that century, the man of all times and lands, the Man" (ibid.). Unamuno admits the possibility of a "cosmopolitan poetry," which would have no flavor of "race, religion, or country, and lacking the flavor of language would have to be written in Esperanto." But such poetry lives "only in the shadow of" true poetry; left to itself, it would fade away "because it is sterile," like the graft of a cultivated olive tree on a wild one (ibid., p. 1193)* Thus, for Unamuno, French literature, somewhat despotencializada, is not cosmopoli tan (ibid.). He admonishes Argentineans not to be afraid to appear to be rare birds, because it is the truly indig enous Argentina that is the most vital and authentic, as is clearly shown by Martin Fierro, a work that is the real Argentina in sentiment, language, and setting, all of which make Argentine life wholly Argentinean and not some thing else, something "cosmopolitan" (ibid., pp. 1193- 1194). Unamuno esteems Martin Fierro, the man, as he does Don Quijote, the man. He notes that authentic art "inten sifies that which is alive, but it does not give life, nor does it revive, that which is dead. We cottld make an Achilles out of Martin Fierro, something we could not create with a homunculus brewed in a chemical retort. We could also, in a chemistry laboratory, decant the juice of the vine, but we would not produce champagne, Jerez, or Oporto wines. They try to give us Iliads created of such stuff, but Martin Fierro is much closer to a true Iliad (ibid., p. 1194). of history; it is unpatriotic and filled with "lyrico- g novelistic nonsense." Modernism is "a manner" and not a true style, and what remains of this literary movement is Q sheer "tailoring" and nothing more. In conjunction with the preceding, Unamuno has some very uncomplimentary things to say about the "oily prose" of Spanish-American writers. When he tries to read such "cabinetwork prose," he has to revert to reading Plato or Benvenuto Cellini, whose loose paragraphs contain constructions that make sense not according to grammatical rules. Theirs is "a spoken style" and not the "written style" of the modern g Ensayos, II, 1210; in "Historia y novela," n. d., the twenty-first of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227)- In this same article Unamuno says that he prefers history to novels because the novel is a transitory literary form while history is permanent (ibid., p. 1207). He believes that perhaps the most profound role of the novel has been to impel "the historic genre toward a more imaginative reform" (ibid., p. 1208). He excludes Don Quijote in his assessment of the novel because in this masterpiece the story is the vehicle for more profound thoughts, and who, after having read Don Quijote, could endure reading Persiles y Sigismunda by the same Cervantes? (ibid.). Persiles is what Unamuno calls a "novelistic novel," and the taste for such a novel reveals in an individual or a people "a certain spiritual fatigue" or "weakness of spirit" (ibid.). History that is all facts is "a fine quarry but not a good building," having "neither poetry nor philosophy" (ibid.). Unamuno believes that the ex clusive reading of novels generally leads to "vague and inactive dreaming, to the indetermination of purposes, to misanthropy," while the reading of history--imaginative and philosophic history--leads generally to virile action. Q De esto, IV, 533? in "Literetura de modisteria," 1920. Such "modiste" literature is the same as the "gold smith" hack work noted earlier (see p. 224, n. 6). 227 hack writers.^^ This "spoken style" gives Unamuno the impression of a living man who thinks freely and aloud. He prefers "books that talk like men" to those "men who talk like books," and, therefore, Sarmiento's prose "talks" like a vital, living person.’ 1 '1 Those prose pol ishers who seek the precise word are, for Unamuno, unau- thentic writers; and his favorite adjective for such 1^Ensayos, II, 1223} in "Prosa aceitada," n. d., the last of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos. II, 1023-1227). 11Ibid. Unamuno greatly admired Sarmiento, whom he calls "a whole man" possessed of an authentic, individual style, one not labored and artificial. Sarmiento has "style" because "he did not worry about having it, nor was he a goldsmith [orfebre]"; rather he was "a robust black smith who beat the hot iron on an anvil set up in the middle of the field in the open air and not in an ivory tower": "Y, sobre todo, porque fue un hombre patriots, preocupado por problemas que importaban a su pueblo" (ibid., pp. 1214-1213, in "Literatura y literatos," n. d., the twenty-second of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello"). Professional literature is un- authentic so far as Unamuno is concerned, and he again cites Carducci as a 'Vhole" Italian and, consequently, no "ivory tower goldsmith"; rather a "blacksmith who forged things universally and eternally Italian" (ibid., p. 12i5) . Dante was another Italian who was no literato and who, like Carducci, was one of the "great disdainers who pursued their fellow men" (ibid., p. 1216). Unamuno adds: "iDesden? Si, IdesdenI Toda pasion bien dirigida es ira- cunda. Iracundos fueron Moises y Pablo de Tarso, el ap6s- tol de los gentiles, y desdenosos el Dante y Carducci y el saboyano Jose de Maistre" (ibid.). All else is bagatelle and unauthentic nonsense, orfebreria, superficiality, and sheer ignorance (ibid.). Of the Peninsular Spanish poets of his day (ca. 1912), Unamuno feels that Enrique Diez- Canedo ("La visita del sol") is truly authentic (ibid., pp. 1217-1218). Unamuno roundly condemns the Francophiles who, he says, are ruining Spanish literature and life. He acknowledges some worthwhile French writers, but not those who pass judgment on foreign (non-French) literatures (ibid.. p. 1219). unauthentic writers is "simpering" or "scribbling," which he calls garambainas. For Unamuno, literatismo, the plague of“ present-day (1912) Spanish and Spanish-American literatures, is "the hangman of poetry"; virtuosity is a 12 chronic disease. There is no fundamental lack of ide als, not only ethical but also aesthetic and even purely literary ideals. What is vitally and urgently needed are some "barbarians" like Shakespeare, Cervantes, or Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, "like a barbarian, invaded the field of Law and Jurisprudence" and "revived them with a 13 new breath of life." Barbarians are not ignoramuses; they merely have different prejudices and a different sense of values. The modern "literary societies" or "unions" are "closed shops" with "sacred and intangible principles," and woe unto him who violates these precepts 14 by going his own individual, authentic way! Unamuno laments the dearth of intensity and austerity of sentiment, depth of spirit, in Spanish-American litera ture. He feels that "the vivifying breath of the great and noble disquietudes" has not passed over the books and literature of Spanish America. He finds here none of that authentic preoccupation with eternal values. Hence, 12 Ensayos, II, 1225* 15Ibid., p. 1226. 14 Ibid. 229 lacking ' ’this depth of eternal disquietude, ever renewed and never satisfied,” which preoccupation has produced all the great works of the human spirit, outward civilization (industrial and commercial progress) languishesThus Unamuno considers Spanish life to be unauthentic and mate rialistic, and religion is a sham and a formality, as are the so-called "freethinkers" in Spain who profess freedom of thought "a la catolica espanola," substituting ’ ’the superstition of Science and Reason.Unamuno soundly 15 Ensayos, II, 403-404; in ”E1 resorte moral," 1906. A good example of what Unamuno means by "eternal disquie tude" is to be found in his evaluation of Don Quijote and what this work really is, not what it appears to be. In his commentary on Quijote, II, 56, which concerns the apparently happy solution of Dona Rodriguez’ problem, he beautifully sums up the authentic reality of this master piece, noting that Don Quijote is purported to have bepn written as a joke in order to burlesque heroism, but this work is far from a jest or a mockery; it is the most trag ically poignant work ever penned by the hand of man. He tells us what the book authentically represents for .Spain: "En una obra de burlas se condenso el fruto de nuestro heroismo; en una obra de burlas se etenri^o la pasajera grandeza de nuestra Espana; en una obra de burlas se cifra y compendia nuestra filosofxa espanola, la unica verdadera y hondamente tal; con una obra de burlas llego el alma de ^ nuestro pueblo, encaraada en hombre, a los abismos del misterio de la vida. Y esa obra de burlas es la mas triste historia que jamas se ha escrito; la mas triste, si, pero tambien la mas consoladora para cuantos saben gustar en las lagrimas de la risa la redenciSn de la mise rable cordura a que la esclavitud de la vida present® nos condena [19053” (ibid., p. 289} in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905). Unamuno concludes this particular com mentary with a lament for the gravity of Spanish life, which is a false gravity that reveals a basic illness of the Spaniards. The bitter Quevedo is enjoyed by Spanish readers more than any other satirist (ibid., pp. 289-290). l6Ibid., p. 404. 230 condemns all forms of vacuous writing and speaking, to 17 say nothing of thinking. The contemporary theater is the object of Unamuno's wholehearted disapproval and represents one of the best examples of his concept of unauthenticity. For him, the alta comedia is unmitigated nonsense; he prefers tragedy 3 - 8 to such drivel. One of the butts of Unamuno's barbs was the fashionable theater of the day, and he admits that he rarely attended a performance. But he tells about having witnessed for six consecutive nights a certain actor perform several different roles, and this calls forth Unamuno's severe and adverse criticism of those players who overact and pantomime excessively, thus reduc ing the theater to a motion-picture type of presentation. This sort of melodrama is not only unauthentic theater, but it is ruining the legitimate stage because when the theater becomes the butt of the ridicule of the patrons, 19 it is finished as an art form, as authentic theater. Unamuno assails the "pantomiming" affected by actors of X 7 See De esto, IV, 473-477; "La oquedad sonora," 1913- 18 0. C., I, 538; in "Por tierras de Portugal y de Espana," 1911• Unamuno considered Ibsen to be one of the greatest writers of tragedy. When Ibsen treats the sub ject of love, it is not sexual passion, as with Don Juan Tenorio, but something transcending sexual love, a type of agonia (Ensayos, II, 417; in "Ibsen y Kierkegaard," 1907). esto, IV, 371-376; "De vuelta del teatro (Impre- siones de espectaculo), " 1913* 231 his day, and he notes that Hamlet, "a drama of shadings and intimate subterranean rumors,M a tragedy that is gen uine tragedy, which authentically reveals the inherent tragedy of human life, all life--"the only universal tragedy1 '--was the one play of the six he attended that was enjoyed the least by the theatergoers because it contained the least pantomime. He notes that if the superb verses of Hamlet were deleted, the little pantomime there is in this play would not carry it; and the drama would result in something incoherent and tedious. Theatergoers want action— pantomime, acrobatics— not something that makes them "feel." This unauthentic "show" aspect of the modern theater will be its downfall, according to Unamuno. When he discusses Ibsen's The Apparition, he feels that the show disrupts the "dolorous poem"; and he says that he does not enjoy clinical studies (insanity, here) as topics for the stage because this type of thing is pantomime, 20 sheer facade, and not the marrow of true drama. In an 20 De esto, IV, 3795 I*1 "Impresiones de teatro," 1913- Unamuno adds: "Cuando la tragedia o la comedia va muy por dentro [as in Hamlet or Ibsen's Brand], el publico no se da cuenta de ella. For lo menos nuestro publico actual [19133 > y con la grandisima deficiencia de educacion estetica de que padece, nuestro publico va mas a ver el espectaculo que a oir el drama" (ibid., p. 381)* The "ladies" of fashionable society who, as those in Los mal- hechores del frien of Benavente, completely falsify not only themselves but everyone and everything they contact, and their male "shadows," the gentlemen and sons of such unauthentic women, are also a falsification of human life (ibid., pp. 363-3705 "Las senoras del teatro," 1912). 232 article inspired by his reading of Ortega's "Elogio del murcielago," 1921 (Obras, IX, 319-327)i Unamuno presents us with one more denunciation of the "show" aspect of the contemporary theater. He takes issue with Ortega concern ing the importance of the actor's or speaker's roles. For Unamuno, Ortega's attitude regarding the modern theater is incomprehensible and, worse, is unauthentic. Unamuno is quite bitter and deals severely with Ortega on this point . ^ One of Unamuno's principal concerns was the subject of "style," which he considered to be something wholly individual and personal. In a series of articles, which were written partially in Fuerteventura and in Paris in 1924, entitled "A1 rededor del estilo" (of which XVI and XXVIII were never published), he discusses this topic at length. Very early in this series he notes that at times it takes a person a long time to discover his "style," which may very well mean that such a person takes a long time to discover himself, to discover "his own person ality." The style is the man, and if his style is au- 22 thentic, so is the man. In article X (entitled 21Pe esto. IV, 384-388; "Teatro y cine," 1921. 22 Ibid., p. 3^85 in "A1 rededor del estilo," 1924. In article VII of this series, Unamuno notes that "en el estilo vuelven a fundirse el alma y el cuerpo; el estilo es el alma hecha cuerpo y es el cuerpo hecho alma. De donde se saca que solo tiene estilo aquello que es vivo, y que carecen de estilo, tanto un cuerpo sin alma, un 233 "Bxografxa y biologia" by Garcia Blanco, ed.) , Unamuno clearly relates the style of the writer to the writer him self, noting that biography, not biology, is the most in timate subject matter of style. All authentic style is biographical; it describes a human life. It may even be "autobiographical” since it describes the life of the man who does the writing, the man whose style is his very own. Hence every biographer with style is an "autobiographer” who describes himself, who narrates the best of himself, 25 the man he wanted to become authentically. For Unamuno, the "man of passion," the "man of style" makes thoughts with ideas and "even fuses diamonds with liquid lava" (thoughts), while the unauthentic person is "the fool who 24 converts into ideas the thoughts of others." Thus the "style of impersonality" is no style at all; it is the cadaver, como un alma sin cuerpo. Toda obra de arte que carezca de estilo es que carece de vida, o sea que, como obra de arte, no existe" (ibid., p. 561). Ortega also notes that art that is not art is to be shunned, as is everything that is unauthentic, be that what it may. He observes that "anecdotal art is not art," and this is said in reference to artists who, unlike Zuloaga, do not depict "the tragic Spanish theme" (Obras, I, 5431 "La estetica de 'El Enano Gregorio el botero'," 1911)• Unamuno pleads for moderation and naturalness in art, be this art literature, music, or painting. All else is false art, bombast, co lossal, and unauthentic (De esto, IV, 521-524; "I El estilo koolosall," 1914). 2^ De esto, IV, 569-570* Unamuno notes that "lo mas propio, lo m&s Intimo, lo mas profundo de uno no es lo que es, sino lo que quiere ser" (ibid., p. 556; in article V of "A1 rededor del estilo," 1924). ^ Ibid. . p. 625} in article XXX. 234 "style of* irresponsibility," which is what Unamuno calls "collective style." The collective spirit is inarticulate and, therefore, has no authentic style. Anyone that creates "art" by using this "collective style" is a no- 25 body; he is unauthentic. Unamuno would have us distin guish carefully between "style" and "type": "style" is something personal, individual, and authentic; and "type" is something impersonal, collective, and personally unau thentic. He notes that he can write in a Romantic, Classic, or Symbolic "type"; it could even be Ultraistic. But the "style" would be his own: ". . . como escriba con el caracter de la letra que escriba, en el trazo se me rj ^ conocera. No siendo un falsificador." Unamuno con cludes this series of articles on authentic style by observing that "style" as such is neither classifiable nor definable; rather it is something qualitative, that which artists call the "quality" of a work of art. "Style is 27 the quality of artistic expression." * That which is qualitative cannot be reduced to mere quantity; it cannot be measured or defined geometrically or mathematically. O c De esto, IV, 625. Unamuno adds: "Es nadie si se le separa de la colectividad, porque en esta es un indivi- duo, es un numero, no una persona, no una potencia" (ibid., p. 626). 26Ibid., p. 627; in article XXXI. 2?Ibid. 235 What is most qualitative is that which is psychip, human, 2 8 and historical. We cannot define or measure Velazquez, Philip II, Ignacio de Loyola, or Quevedo; nor can we clas- 29 sify them or their style. Unamuno observes that the art of speaking and writing is the personal manner one has of carrying the ideas that are given to him "toward the right or the left, upward or downward, forward or backward," doing this with the rapidity that becomes him, "in a straight line or in rectilinear zigzags" or in a "curved line" the curvature of which depends on his own personal 30 preference. This is what he calls "rhythm,” which is the root and essence of authentic style; and in this authentic style "goes the rhythm of the man." To this Unamuno adds the significant statement that it is true that "the blood of a man sings in each one of his works of eternity," in each one of those works in which his human- 31 ity is expressed. Written style is something more than mannerism; it is something organic and not something mechanical. Authentic written style derives from spoken, spontaneous style and reflects an authentic man and thinker. Thus the style of Santa Teresa, which lacks 28 De esto, IV, 627. 29Ibid. 5°Ibid., p. 629. 51Ibid., p. 630. 236 syntax (architecture) as such, is organic development; it is Santa Teresa herself speaking directly to us.^ Unamuno roundly condemns those who adversely criti cize an author because of his private life instead of evaluating his work on its own merits. He cites Edgar Allan Poe, whose life and habits caused many to discredit his literary achievement. Unanruno feels that to do this type of thing is to falsify the facts and to be unauthen tic in one's own person. The artist should be judged by his art and not by his private life, which is basically irrelevant to art, since "the artist explains himself by means of his work and not his work by means of him." We judge the actor as an actor and the poet as a poet. The one who suffered from a very serious moral illness was Poe's detractor, Griswold, who was suffering from the envy so characteristic of those who enjoy only common sense and lack an authentic sense of their own, being wholly inca pable of acquiring this personal sense for themselves: "Y 33 la envidia es la pasion demagogies por excelencia." ^ De esto, XV, 534; i - 11 "Sintaxis mecanica," 1921. Unamuno fears that writing on the typewriter (as playing the piano) and not with pen in hand, a far more personal way of writing, is going to mechanize syntax (ibid., p. 536) . ^ Ibid., III, 454; in "La moralidad artistica," 1923- Unamuno adds that "one must believe but very little in the good intentions of the mediocrities" who judge literary works by the personal life of the artist (ibid., p. 455)* In "El publico no opina," 1932, he expresses a similar disdain for the common mass of mankind that is likewise Unamuno discusses politics and letters and clearly indicates the utter falseness of most politicians, who are forgotten soon after they die. This situation is quite different from what happens to men of letters and science, who are remembered— who are immortal— because of their works (Cervantes, Pasteur, Ramon y Cajal, and others). But who remembers the deputies to the Cortes? Politics is an illness that "corrodes" nations like Spain where the agora and the forum are traditional, and at the same time that it ruins politics itself, it ruins sciences and letters, deforming not a few intelligences that might be adept at the cultivation of science or letters. And be cause such literary or scientific persons, who concentrate their talents on politics, become "ambiguous beings" (un authentic people), they contaminate the "pure" politi cians , who constitute the authentic people whose true vocation is politics and who have the innate capacity to 34 become authentic statesmen. Unamuno cogently observes that writers and politicians basically mistrust one another, and he adds that the writers of the "Generation of 1898" have tried to save their personal dignity from the "general shipwreck." They have done so not "to wash unauthentic in its judgments of the artist and the man of letters (ibid., pp. 456-438). ^ De esto, IV, 4ll-4l8j "La politica y las letras," 1907. 238 their hands” of the business but because they sought to have the "absolute ideal worth of each one” recognized, the worth of the writers as well as the politicians. They did not want to revert to ”the shame of a Campoamor, deputy for Romero Robledo,” because they knew and still know (1916) all that there is in their country that is humiliating and degrading about the business of the poli tical and Maecenas-like patronage of Spain. They did not want to be favored or sponsored, but they did want to be 35 recognized and respected. ^ This is Unamuno's concept of the authenticity of the man of letters and science. Unamuno censures ugliness in any form as something wholly unauthentic and misrepresentative of human life. He speaks of the ugly crucifix of San Juan de Barbalos, and this leads him to consider ugliness in general, which is something that is too prevalent and too commonplace. This same aspect of mediocrity Unamuno finds in the so- called "happiness” of peoples, and he observes that from a ^ De esto, XV, 420-421,' in "Escritores y politicos,” 1916. In an embattled lecture delivered in the Ateneo de Madrid on November 25, 1914, Unamuno, who had just been dismissed from the rectorship (presidency) of the Univer sity of Salamanca, presented a typically subjective— and strong— case in his defense. He observes here that "La mas profunda inmoralidad de un politico estriba en care- cer de ideas, en no tener un concept© normative y claro de lo que ha de ser el Estado, y de su finalidad y destino” (0. C., VII, 879? in "Lo que ha de ser un Rector en Es- pana”). This is one more example of the reality I call "authenticity.” Note the stress on ideas (see Chapter II) . 239 city of such a ’ ’ happy soil” he was forced to flee because such "professional happiness" is unauthentic. It is as unbearable as "professional" sadness or gravity, which are also something affected and sought out. This city, says Unamuno, which to many seemed to be gay, really masked a basic foolishness that "gushed from the environment." It was a "macabre" joy which at times assumed "funereal ac- ij£ cents. This manner of living is unauthentic and re pulses Unamuno as it does Ortega. Commonness {vulgaridad) is to be avoided at all costs. We must seek out the au thentic characteristics of a man because these distinctive traits are what make this man an authentic and worthwhile 37 person. Unamuno takes Luis de Eguilaz and Manuel Breton de los Herreros to task for presenting Spaniards with run- » Q of-the-mill mediocrities in their dramas. The situation, even to Unamuno, is not hopeless, as he indicates on many occasions. One of the most typical statements on the possibility for improvement can be found in "Aprender haciendo," 1913> which originally appeared as "Conversacion" (The present title was assigned by Garcia Blanco, ed.). While he does not use the word "authentic," Unamuno writes of this vital reality in his commentary on •^De esto, IV, 3^0“3^1? in "El Cristo de San Juan de Barbalos," 191^* ^^Ibid., p. 3^i» 58Ibid. 240 Samuel Butler's "Don't learn to do, but learn doing." He notes that he has always sought "the person of the writer" in everything he read. But this "person" is not what most readers seek in a literary work, and this shying away from the "person" of the writer causes Unamuno to suspect that the general reader, who is bothered by a strange and dif ferent personality, really has no authentic personality of his own, or, for some tragic motive or other, is trying "to smother it and forget" himself, which constitutes the 39 falsification of one's yo. ' Unamuno states that he is most himself (Unamuno), most his yo, when the person whom he is reading is most himself, most authentically his own 4o yo. This xs due to the fact that such a strong person ality— which is an authentic yo— helps Unamuno to discover 4l his own personality in that of the writer he is reading. Thus he seeks his thought in that of others, as this whole 4- •, i ^ 2 artxcle reveals. 39Pe esto, XV, 500. 40 Ibid., p. 501. 41 Ibid., p. 268; in "Pan y toros," 1932. Unamuno also states here that we learn to know ourselves by get ting to know our fellow man (ibid.). 42 Ibid., p. 504; in "Aprender haciendo," 1913* See also Enaayoa, II, 35, where, in an undated personal letter written between 1900 and 1905, Unamuno laments the unau thenticity of Spanish-American poets and their works, in which he fails to see the "man." See also ibid., pp. 34 and 36-37, where, in sundry quotations from letters, he speaks of contemporary literature in general and decries its artificiality (unauthenticity). Perhaps one of the most outspoken examples of all of Unamuno1s denunciations of falsehood in any form is to be found in Vida de Don Qui.jote y Sancho, where he discusses the episode of Maese Pedro and his Retablo (Qui.jote. XI, 26). Here he states that ostentation should die and all the retablos, "all the sanctioned fictions” should be abolished once and for all. He notes that Don Quijote, who takes the play seriously, can only seem to be ridicu lous to those who take seriously that which is comical and make a puppet show out of life. He asks whether we have not noticed how nothing is more unbearable than the requirement that we observe scrupulously "all the rites, formalities, and rules of things that are sheer show,” and how the people who act as "masters of ceremonies" are the very ones who least respect the true seriousness of life? Such people know when to wear a black tie and when to wear a white one, until what hour to wear a frock coat and from what hour to wear full dress; but these same people will not know how to seek their God, nor what is to be their ultimate destiny. And we shall not mention those who, rebelling against ethics, want to impose upon us the tyranny of aesthetics, replacing our moral consciousness 43 with "that enigma they call good taste." Being university professors, both Unamuno and Ortega 4 * ^Ensayos, II, 248. Thus Don Quijote is vindicated in his attack on the puppet-show figurines of Maese Pedro. have much to say about Spanish universities and what they authentically should be and where they fall short of this ideal. In his five trenchant essays comprising Mision de la Pniyeraidad, 1930» Ortega speaks of scholars and schools and states that the basic principle of education is that the school, as the normal institution of a nation, depends much more on the "public air in which it floats than on the pedagogical air artificially produced within 44 its walls." Hence a school is authentic only when the air pressure inside the institution and outside it is equal. But such is not the situation since professor's, by being content to imitate and evade the imperative of thinking or re-thinking basic questions for themselves, live wholly in a spirit fifteen to twenty years behind the times. They do this in spite of the fact that they may be up to date in their subject fields. This is "the tragic lag" of everyone who wants "to avoid the effort to be au- 45 thentic, to create his own convictions." If the uni versity is to be authentic, it must create anew the teach ing of "the culture or system of living ideas that the age possesses." This is the basic task; "this is what the 46 university must be before anything else." Instruction 44 Obras, IV, 316. ^5Ibid., pp. 316-317. 46 Ibid., p. 323. 243 of this type is needed in order that the future citizen "may walk prudently in the jungle of life”; to be cultured and educated at the same time is a dire necessity. Ortega admits that studying is a problem, but he has a solution which entails not decreeing that we not study but that we basically reform the human matter of studying and of being a student. To do this we must "turn teaching inside out" and say that "teaching is primarily and fundamentally nothing other than teaching the need for a science and not teaching the science the need for which it is impos- 47 sible to make the student feel." Instead of concentrating its effort on the superior students, the university should devote itself to the man of average talents, because this individual constitutes the vast majority. Ortega maintains that it is impossible for the average student to learn effectively all that the university pretends to teach him, that it has become l essential to university life to accept this failure. All of which means that today the effective norm consists of admitting in advance as unreal what the university pre tends to be. Hence we accept the lie of institutional life itself thereby making the essence of the institution its very falsification; and this is the root of all its 4 7 Obras, IV, 554; in "Sobre el estudiar y el estu- diante; Primera leccion de un curso," 1933* In this article Ortega substantiates the thesis he had earlier stated (1930) . 244 ills, "as it always is in life, be it individual or col lective. Original sin lias its roots in" this: "not to 48 be authentically what one is." Leonardo da Vinci's motto Chi non puo quel che yuol, quel che puo voglia must become the motto that basically guides "all university reform" since "only an impassioned resolution to be strictly what one is can create something." Not only university life but "all new life has to be made with a 4q material the name of which is authenticity." 7 Applying the "principle of economy as an ax," we must "prune" mercilessly from the forest of university course offerings. This does not suggest that it is merely a question of economizing and cutting down the amount of subjects taught; it also means that "in the organization of higher education, in the construction of the University one must start with the student, not with the knowledge of the professor." It is the university that must become "the institutional projection of the student, whose two essential dimensions are": the meagerness of his acquis itive faculty for knowledge and what he needs in order to live.^ The university, then, must be centered anew in the student himself and not in the professor} when it was / 48 Obras, IV, 326-327- 49 Ibid., p. 327- This is Ortega's first direct plea for authenticity as such. ^°Ibid., p. 332. 245 student centered, the university was most authentic.^ How do we determine the courses to be included in and the ones to be deleted from the curriculum? Ortega's answer is that we must submit the fabulous multitude of knowledge to "a double selection": first, by keeping only that knowledge which is considered to be strictly necessary for the life of the man who the student of today is to become, thus taking as our criterion effective life and its re quirements) secondly, what is left after this "pruning" of ccurse offerings, what has been judged basically neces sary, must be further reduced to that which "the student can learn with ease and plenitude." It is not enough that something be necessary if practically it exceeds the student's possibilities. Only that which can truly be learned should be taught, and on this point there is no doubt.^ 51 Obras, IV, 333- But elsewhere Ortega notes that "the student is a falsification of the man" since man is, strictly speaking, only what he authentically is due to an intimate and inexorable necessity. Being a man does not mean doing or being just anything; it means being what one must unconditionally be. There are many different ways of being a man, and all these ways are equally au thentic: one may be a man of science, a businessman, a politician, a priest, because all these are "essential and immediate needs of the human condition." But no man, on his own account, would ever be a student any more than he would, on his own account, pay taxes. Man has to pay taxes, and he has to study; but he is neither taxpayer nor student. To be either of these things is something arti ficial which man is obliged to be (ibid., V, 551{ iu "So bre el estudiar y el estudiante," 1933) • ^ Ibid., pp. 333-334. This would "weed out" a number 246 Ortega's stand on "authenticity" as applied to the university is valid, but what he says about the "average student" and, especially, about youth in general, does not substantiate his university position. Both Unamuno and Ortega consider youth to be something unauthentic, and their statements on this subject are legion. For example in "Sobre los Estados Unidos," 1932, Ortega bluntly states that "to be young is not to be yet," which is tantamount to saying that youth is not authentic. Unamuno also considers youth, not childhood, to be wholly unauthentic. In En torno al casticismo, 1895> he laments the stagnation of* modern Spain (1902) and notes that there is no youth of "filler" courses that could well be deleted from the university curriculum. In view of what Ortega had said in La rebelion de las masas, 1930, and even earlier in Espana invertebrada, 1921, about the "select minority" and its vital importance to mankind, this university program con stitutes an apparent contradiction of his earlier thesis. No one will deny that the university curriculum contains much that is superfluous, and even deleterious, to the average student} but what about the "gifted" student? Where does he fit into Ortega *s-plan? The superior stu dent certainly belongs to Ortega's "select minority." ^Obras, IV, 378. In "Pidiendo un Goethe desde den- tro," 1932, Ortega says precisely the same things about the unauthenticity of youth when he observes that "life is abondODJnent to being available," which availability is characteristic of youth, as opposed to maturity. Youth represents the possibility of being everything because it is not yet something definite and irrevocable, and this constitutes youth's grace and its "petulance." Feeling itself capable of everything, youth comes to believe that it already is everything, that nothing is impossible. Only the increasing insecurity of age eliminates these infinite possibilities and tends to mature the crassness of youth (ibid., p. 417). 247 54 xn Spain, no spontaneity. In "La juventud 'intelectual1 espanola," 1897, Unamuno devoted an entire essay to an impassioned invective against the ’ ’intellectual’ 1 youth of Spain, young people who are hollow nothingness, a falsi- 55 fication of authentic youth. ^ George Bernard Shaw is 54 See Ensayos, I, 127. 55 Ibid., pp. 293-301* Also in "Novedades y nuevos," 1920, Unamuno says that "Los jovenes suelen ser los menos originales” (De esto, II, 171). That Unamuno had no use for senoritos becomes evident in "Tres generaciones,” 1907, a tale of three generations of a La Montana Basque family: grandfather, father, and grandson. Grandfather and father are honest, hardworking men, but the grandson, raised in the opulence earned by his father in the New World, is a pampered dandy, prudish and contemptuous, a typical nino mimado, who is the- target of Unamuno's biting satire. Unamuno sees little hope, as does Ortega, if civilization is to be entrusted to such people (Ensayos, II, 449-455)* See also 0. C. , I, 1105, in ’ ’Pais, paisaje y paisanaje," 1933) "where, two years after the establish ment of the Second Republic, Unamuno speaks of those youths who foment "regional nationalism," youths who will never become true paisanos, "hombres del pais, del pago, de la patria que en el paisaje se revela y simboliza; no serxan paisanos o si se quiere aldeanos. Y sin ser alde- ano, paisano, no cabe llegar a ciudadano. El espiritu, el pneuma, el alma historica [that which is authenticj no se hace sino sobre el anima, la psique, el alma natural, geogrufica y geologica si se quiere" (ibid.). These regional nationalists are "senoritos de aldea," a type of "city rabble rousers" who have invented the subject of foreigners: "Elios se creen, a su manera, arios. No verdaderos aldeanos, paisanos hombres del pais— y del paisaje— , no cabreros o Sanchos, sino Bachilleres Carrascos. En el fondo resentidos; resentidos por fracaso nativo" (ibid.). Such youth is not "Spanish" in any sense of the wordj it is unauthentic and disdainful to both Unamuno and Ortega. Childhood, however, is something Unamuno considers to be authentic, as he clearly indicates in "La soledad de la ninez," 1922, where he speaks of the vital need for child hood if a nation— or a man— is to be truly genuine. He notes that men of the most intense intimate life, who have had the most authentic and active public life, which is 248 purported to have aaid: "What a precious thing youth is to waste on youth!” Youth does not, nor can it know its the life of the most historical value, have been men who have enjoyed a "long" childhood. They have not been pre cocious children but men "whose childhood innocence was prolonged," men who are "in their spirits" like the ele phant's body which undergoes a long growing up period (De esto. II, 309)* Unamuno comments on Don Quijote's meeting with the labradores who are carrying images of saints (Qui.i • 1 Il"i 5371 and he notes Don Quijote's observation that these saints fought a lo divino while he fights a lo hmnano, revealing in these words his awareness of the futility of his endeavors. This, says Unamuno, is the saddest passage in the entire epic because here "the tem poral madness of the knight Don Quijote melts into the eternal goodness of the gentleman Alonso el Bueno." Here Don Quijote penetrates his innermost self and becomes a "child" again, returning to his "spiritual childhood" in the remembrance of which is "the alleviation of our soul" since it is "the child we all carry within ourselves," the child that one day is "to justify us" if we would enter the Kingdom of heaven (Ensayos, II, 292} in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905. This is Ortega's "nino incorre- gible," the "pequeno cazador de mariposas" that we all carry within ourselves [Obras, III, 18-19} in "Estafeta romantica," 1918, in the story of Amal and the King's Let ter Carrier by Rabindranath Tagore]). In "Hay que hacerse nino," 1900, Unamuno notes the undue and false gravity of Spaniards (Castilians), and he observes how they really miss the business of living an authentic life. He adds: "IDesgraciado de quien no sepa reir y jugar, reir con toda el alma, libremente, de alegrxa, por derrame de salud es- piritual, sin p^oposito de corregir nada, sin fin satirico moralizador! El que asx no sepa reir, tampoco sabra llorar con. toda el alma" (De esto, IV, 42). Cervantes was perhaps the only authentic humorist Spain ever had. Undue gravity betrays a moral sickness, a "dryness of heart, and extremely dismal ossification of consciousness, a lack of tenderness" and humanity. Thus Spaniards need to become children and learn how to laugh genuinely, not satirically and with moralizing intent, as do most Spanish "humor ists," such as Quevedo, Lazarillo, etc. (ibid.). Unamuno says that "en los ninos habla, mucho mas que en los mayores, el espxritu genial del linaje humano, el- genio de la humanidad"} and ". . .la genialidad no es mas que la infantilidad, la ninez del espiritu. La cual, a su vez, no es mas que la originalidad" (ibid., II, 353-35^} in "La originalidad de la ninez," 1923") • 249 limitations, which constitutes a sign of immaturity; and about this Ortega has much to say in his Mision de la Universidad. 1930. Here he notes that the "imperative” to do something in life, to obtain something effectively, causes us perforce to limit ourselves, which constitutes the basic authenticity of life. Thus all life is destiny. If this need for limitation did not exist and life were without restrictions in possible forms and duration, there would be no such thing as destiny. Authentic life con sists of "the joyful acceptance of the inexorable destiny, 56 of our nonexchangeable limitation.” What Ortega is seeking is a truly liberal education that does not attempt to make "specialists” out of all university students. He would prefer to have them learn to live fully--authentically--the life they have within the circle of their inborn limitations. Most definitely "el hombre que no vive a la altura de su tiempo, vive por debajo de lo que seria su autentica vida, es decir, falsi- 57 fica o estafa su propia vida, la desvive." ' When he considers the serious damage done in Europe by the "Press,” he suggests a possible vital role for the uni versity to play in European life. The university must 560bras, IV, 338. 57 Ibid., p. 344. Considering his attitude toward the "mass-man” and the "spoiled child" of this twentieth cen tury, Ortega's support of the education of the average university student may not be so exaggerated as it seems. 250 take an active part in present-day life in the form of the university itself, dealing with the great "themes" of our time from the university's point of view— cultural, pro fessional, or scientific. Ortega notes parenthetically that "it is inconceivable that, faced with the problem of change [1930] that so much concerns Spain, the University does not offer the serious public a course on such a dif- 58 ficult economic subject.""^ If the university did this sort of thing, it would not be an institution only for students, merely "an enclosure ad usum delphinis," but, "placed in the midst of life and its urgencies, its passions," it would impose itself as a higher "spiritual power" in opposition to the Press, representing serenity in opposition to frenzy, serious keenness in opposition to frivolity and utter stupidity. Then, and only then, would the university again be what it was in its best hour: "a 59 principal promotor of European history." ^80bras, IV, 353, n. 1. 59 ^Ibid., p. 353* Unamuno's concept of the role of the university is somewhat different in that he conceives as the function of the university the teaching of "heroism of work and the cult of truth." For him, the university is, above all, "the school of work and the temple of truth," and of this temple he says: "Sobre el ara del sa- crificio, sobre la santa mesa del trabajo, la Verdad, la verdad amplia y generosa, que a todos se da sin dividirse, presentando a cada cual el cuerpo en que mejor guste y comparta de ella, sin excluirse y sin cerrado dogma; la Verdad, que es algo mas hondo y mas vivo y mas fecundo que la raz6n" (0. C. , III, 113? in r , De la ensenanza superior en Espana," 1899). Oae of the first tasks of the genuine university is to study the people, to be the organs of the 251 Ortega’s opinion of university professors is no less trenchant— and enlightening. Here Unamuno is in complete collective "know thyself.” In this task the chairs of Literature could organize the harvest of popular tales and songs ’ ’instead of relating the biography of Calderon"; the chairs of Economics could carry out works like those of Mr. Le Play and his school, gather data on the ambient economic life; the chairs of Law could give impetus to the enormous work undertaken by Joaquin Costa, gather the com-, mon law; the chairs of Botany, Zoology, etc., have a full time task with the Spanish terrain, flora, and fauna. It is necessary to reveal Spain to the Spaniards, and this is the only way to have what is called "Spanish” science. The Royal Academy of the Language must undertake the study of the popular languages of the provinces (Aragon, LeSn, Extremadura, etc.). There are two converging tasks that are incumbent on the university: to probe Spain's collec tive spirit, reach its roots, intraespanolizarnos; and to open Spain to the outside world, the European circunstan- cia (Unamuno does not mean to "Europeanize" Spain.). Hte notes that Spaniards, in order to become more Spanish and also more European, must start in "the bed of our entra- nas," in the depths of the Spanish to seek man, that which unites Spaniards to their fellow man (0. C ., III, 96-97- This constitutes Unamuno's raices intrahistoricas. See Jose Ferrater Mora, Unamuno: Bosquejo de una filoso- fia [Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, S. A., 19573) pp. 80-8l, hereafter cited as Ferrater Mora, Unamuno.). Authentic progress, says Unamuno, is based on tradition; and "progreso sin tradici6n es trayectoria sin movil, para forma matematica, parabola ideal que no tiene en cuenta la realidad de cada una de las sucesivas posiciones del cuerpo que marcha" (ibid., pp. 116-117)- These "posi tions" of the intellectual march can only be determined in "the bosom of the public institutions of instruction." The nation is tradition, and the university is the best qualified institution to be the nation's principal factor of progress (ibid., p. 117). Unless the university ful fills the mission set for it, it may as well disappear into thin air: "Aqui hay que hacer la unidad honda, la espiritual, la comunion mas bien. Mientras no comulguemos en un ideal lo bastante ampllo para que en el quepamos todos los espanoles, no habra patria espanola. La vieja resulta ya un poco estrecha; hay que ensancharla por dentro, en espiritu y en verdad. Alma de tolerancia; mente hospitalaria5 culto a la verdad, sintiendola viva, proteica y multiforme; comprension, a las mas opuestas concepciones, abierta; odio al formalismo; atencion al 252 agreement with Ortega, who considers most professors to be specialists and research men rather than authentic and dedicated teachers. Ortega notes that one of the evils caused by ’ ’the confusion of science,” which has been side tracked from its true purpose— to serve humanity, not itself— has been the handing over of the professorships, according to the craze of the times, to researchers, who are ’ ’almost always the very worst teachers, who feel teaching [to be] a theft of hours from their laboratory or archival” labors. He observes that this was true of his professors in Germany with whom he lived, some of the most significant men of science of the time. But he never met a first-class teacher among them, though he does admit of a few exceptions: ’ ’JPara que venga nadie a contarme que 6 o la Universidad alemana es, como institucion, modelol” Unamuno also speaks of the authentic teacher, Antonio Gonzalez Garbxn, whom he recalls by means of a personal letter he had received from this man, who was Angel pueblo; heroxsmo del trabajoj sumersion en la realidad concreta, fija la vista en la mas alta idealidad abs tracts . . . [sic]" (0. C., Ill, 117-118). Spanish public education cannot be cured with medicines and therapeutics --though these are needed— as its ills are curable only through hygiene and the teachers’ faith (ibid., p* 118). Obras, IV, 348. In ’ ’Goethe el libertador,” 1932, the second of two essays on Goethe, Ortega states that mere activity is not living the authentic life (ibid., p. 422). Sheer busy work is not tantamount to authentic liv ing or being an authentic person (a true reality). We who teach may well take this observation to heart. What is our authentic reality as university professors? Ganivet's former teacher of Greek. Unamuno notes that this man had written no treatises on Greek language or literature and had made no discoveries that added any new knowledge to the fund of man's supply of information, but Gonzalez Garbin was a man, a whole, authentic man, whom Ganivet considered to be his greatest teacher and mentor. And this is quite enough for Unamuno, who himself tried to inspire in his students a love of serious things and who also fondly recalls his own teacher of Greek, Lazaro BardoD.. Bardon was also not a catedratico of the Greek language, but he was a whole man whose memory will ever remain fresh and alive in Unamuno’s mind.^ Bardon was one of those rare teachers who made a lasting impression on his students, not only by what he said but by his way of saying it: "the gesture, tone of voice, authority, in short, with which he pronounced those insignificant things. The most commonplace things were transformed on his lips into the most noble ones.'1^ Unamuno believes that the secret of such "authority" lies in the fact- * ’ that men, like Walt Whitman, for example, are fundamentally serious about everything, even their jokes and their play. Such men feel "the august seriousness of life" and are ^ Ensayos, II, 1202; in "Sobre la carta de un maes tro," n. d., the twentieth of twenty-three articles com prising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 102J- 1227)• 62Ibid., p. 1203. 254 6 ^ authentic individuals in the best sense of the word. As Ortega, Unamuno has little use for the pedant, especially when he is a teacher; and he roundly condemns "intellectu- 64 alisra" as something wholly unauthentic. A professor like Lazaro Bardon is what Unamuno calls a "spiritual1 1 ^ Ensayos, II, 1203* 64 See 0. C., III, 118, in "Nicodemo el fariseo," 1899, where Unamuno discusses the "illness" of intellec- tualism which has been imported from France. Unamuno's young "intellectuals” are the ninos mimados of Ortega. Unamuno admits that he too suffers from intellectualism, but he continually fights against it (ibid., p. 126). Nicodemus was also an intellectual and, therefore, was a falsification of himself (ibid., p. 127). See also "In- telectualidad y espiritualidad," 1904, where Unamuno speaks of the three classes of men whom St. Paul desig nated ("Epistle to the Romans," chap. VII, vs. 14; and "Epistle to the Corinthians," chap. XV, vs. 44, which aret the carnal men (sarcinos), the animal men (psiqui- cos), and the spiritual men (pneumaticos) (Ensayos, I 527V. This is not the same as Ortega's tripartite division of the psyche into vitality, soul, and spirit [see Chapter VI].). Unamuno is concerned with the two latter types of men: the animal (= intellectual) and the spiritual. Of the former Unamuno notes that he occupies the middle region, at equal distances from the carnal and the spirit ual man, the former being unauthentic and the latter authentic. In a broad sense, this classification corre sponds to Ortega's hombre-masa and his ainoria selecta, For Unamuno, the "natural" state of the common people is closer to that of the poet (the spiritual man) than to that of the intellectuals (see Ensayos, I, 635-653; i - n "Los naturales y los espirituales," 1905)• The authen ticity of this "natural" state of the people is again stressed by Unamuno in "Solitarios de lugar," 1933> where he notes that the authentic Spaniard is the villager (lugareno), who is the backbone of authentic Spain: "Esos solitarios son la continuidad de la nacion. Elios, uni- versalmente nacionales; ellos, que viven y suenan la co- tidiana historia universal aldeana; ellos, no ya la flor, sino la raigambre de la casta, son lo contrario, aun mas lo contradictorio de esos otros a quienes se llama cas- tizos" (0. C., I, 1110). 255 man, who is his authentic person and not a mere intellec tual. Theology and dogma belong to the intellectual's area of interest, and, as Unamuno aptly observes, neither 6*5 has anything to do with authentic faith. The authentic university professor is not an erudite who spends his time fumbling with minutiae instead of grappling with the basic problems of life. The pedant, says Unamuno, never enters the "temple" but remains forever in the "vestibule." Nor does he go out into the fresh air; he does not do this because he is afraid of the inclemencies of the weather outside this vestibule. Hence for many such erudites 66 "science is only a narcotic of life." An authentic work, a work of passion, is "the daughter of true love," which means it is "dolorous," because when, in a work of 65 Ensayos, I, 64l 5 in "Los naturales y los espiri- tuales," 1905• In "Lectura e interpretacion del •Quijote'," 19051 Unamuno maintains that because Spain has never had a true flowering of heresy, she has never had authentic theologians; their work is merely "routine" and a means of "killing time and busying their spiritual lazi ness as a falsification of work" (ibid., p. 658). Unamuno again expresses his distaste for intellectualism, observ ing that a possible cure for this illness can be found in Don Quijote, the man; ". . .el toque esta en desatinar sin ocasion [as Don Quijote does in the Sierra Morena during his penance for Dulcinea], en generosa rebelion contra la logica, durisima tirana del espiritu. . . . La locura, la verdadera locura, nos esta haciendo mucha falta, a ver si nos cura de esta peste del sentido comun [ramploneria] que nos tiene a cada uno ahogado el propio" (ibid., II, 165; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905). ^^Ibid., II, 493i in "El portico del templo: Dialogo divagatorio entre Ramon y Sabino, dos amigos," 1906. This is another good example of Unamuno's intellectualism, which is unauthentic living. 256 erudition we find wisdom, there is no doubt whatever that a ’ ’passion" dictated this work, a "dolorous passion" and one that was much deeper and entranable than the unauthen tic, time-wasting curiosity evinced by too many research * 7 scholars. Unamuno remarks on M. Camille Pitollet's adverse criticism of Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, which remarks call forth Unamuno's comments on scholarship and authenticity. Too many erudites, Unamuno here repeats, seek refuge in research in order to avoid the real prob lems that life presents, in order "to lull to sleep inti mate inquietudes of the spirit," which act constitutes an evasion, a falsification. This flight from life Unamuno compares to the glance of the Sphynx which such scholars refuse to face; they prefer "to count the hairs on its tail." This is a tacit refusal to face one’s conscience squarely, that conscience that "asks one about his own destiny and about his origin." Unamuno speaks of a person whom he knew who, fleeing religious disquietude and fear ful of senselessly erring if he left "the imposed ortho dox faith of his parents," devoted himself to erudite Ensayos, II, 494. Unamuno further notes that man must seek "the door to the temple" himself; no one else can show him the way (ibid.). If those who wait in the vestibule were truly humble, the great door would be opened to them (ibid., p. 495)* When Sabino asks Roman (Unamuno) what these benighted souls must do, Roman answers: "Desesperarse y contarnos su desesperacion o esperanzarse y contarnos sus esperanzas. 1 Cantar I" (ibid., p . 496). '257 research on liturgy ; and this "is indeed counting the 68 hairs on the tail of the Sphynx." In the case of these erudites and critics, Unamuno notes that at the base of their prevalent attitude lies the profound dulling of the sense of personal dignity. Such persons do not esteem man for himself, for what he basically is in himself. Thus they fail to see "the man behind the books," seeing only "books behind the man." Their souls are brewed with 69 printer's type or paleographic characters." 68 Ensayos, I, 725-726; in "Sobre la erudicion y la crxtica," 1905. 69 Ibid., p. 733* Unamuno also flails pseudo- intellectualism in "Cientificismo," 1907, which intellec tualism is "una enfermedad de que no estan libres ni aim los hombres de verdadera ciencia, sobre todo si esta es muy especializada, pero que hace presa en la mesocracia intelectual, en la clase media de la cultura, en la bur- guesia del intelectualismo" (ibid., II, 511)• This sounds exactly like Ortega's "mass-man," who, devoid of any philosophical culture, worships locomotives, the tele graph, space-ships, etc. "The happy mortals who live under the spell of Cthis] illness know neither doubt nor despair," and they are as "blissful as the professional freethinkers," who constitute Unamuno's unauthentic youthful intellectuals (ibid., pp. 511-512). Auguste Comte's apparent positivism is a good example of Unamuno's cientificismo. Comte, says Unamuno, was more of a theo logian than a positivist (ibid., p. 512). Emile Zola's Dr. Pascal is another example of cientificismo, as is Zola himself. Dr. Pascal is "an unconscious caricature" which comes from "the head of a man who suffered,from, cientifi- clsmo by virtue of how little and how bad his philosophy was" (ibid., p. 513)* Unamuno's description of the cien tif icista is a perfect portrait of Ortega's "mass-man": "El cientificista, en efecto, es un democrats intelectual. Se imagina que la jerarqula mental se adquiere, como la politics, por sufragio, y que es la ley de las mayorias la que decide de la genialidad de un hombre, con lo cual no hace sino exaltarse a si mismo. Porque la base de sem- jante democracia, y aun de cualquier otra, no es sino la 258 Unamuno observes that, though he teaches Greek lan guage and literature, he is not a "Hellenic erudite"? and he has no use for and is even afraid of such erudites, who lack a "soul," except for perhaps one in twenty that he knows about who do have a "soul." This, he maintains, is no denigration of erudition as such.^ Philosophy, such as the Greeks had, is "knowing solely for the sake of knowing," which is something quite different from that soberbia gratuita, tanto mayor cuanto menos tiene un suje- to de que ensoberbecerse" (Ensayos, II, 514). These cientificistas, envious of every superior spirit, wreak their spleen on such superior people by calling them crazy, as they did- Sarmiento (ibid.). They elevate to a position of respectability such "representative" superi ority as that enjoyed by Victor Hugo, Herbert Spencer, and Zola; but such men as Leconte de Lisle, Gustave Flaubert, or John Stuart Mill do not enjoy such "representative" respectability or superiority because the cientificista does not have the necessary philosophic or intellectual background to appreciate true excellence (ibid., p. 515)- This haughty bourgeois intellectualism does not admit the value of that which it does not understand, nor does it concede any importance to that which escapes its limited intelligence (ibid.). And Unamuno concludes: "Parodiando una frase celebre, puede decirse que poca ciencia lleva el Cial?3 cientificismo y ntucha nos aparta de 51. La semi- ciencia, que no es sino una semiignorancia, es la que ha producido el cientificismo. Los cientificistas— no hay que confudirlos con los cientificos . . .— apenas sospe- chan el mar desconocido que se extiende por todas partes en torno al islote de la ciencia, ni sospechan que a medida que ascendemos por la montafia que corona al islote, ese mar cre.ce y se ensancha a nuestros ojos, que por cada problems resuelto surgen veinte problemas por resolver * • • (ibid., p. 516). Unamuno also flails cientificistas in "La vertical de Le Dantec," n. d., the tenth of twenty- three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227). 70 Ensayos, II, 1045; in "La Grecia de Carrillo," n. d., the third of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello." 259 "science that springs from the stomach," which is "advo cacy [abogaciaj, not philosophy"; but even this Greek phi- 7 1 losophy does not satisfy us. Between Greek Hellenic reason and ourselves stands the Cross (Christianity),."the 72 sublime madness of the Cross." Thus, for Unamuno, Hippolyte Taine was not a philosopher of history; his phi losophy is "so dry, so geometrical, so coldly Cartesian" that it lacks the basic ingredients of authentic histori ography, which requires the historian to set aside his philosophy and "let the facts themselves speak and philos- 73 ophize." Taine!s historical figures are not living people; they are ideas and nothing more. Taine's ideas do not proceed from the facts; rather these facts, skill- 74 fully marshalled, are corroborations of the ideas. They are what Unamuno calls "literary sculptures" that portray 75 a moment of life, but not a whole life. Unamuno notes ^ Ensayos , II, 1049 • 72Ibid., p. 1050. 7 1 ? Ibid. , p. H 58; in "Taine, caricaturists, 1 1 n. d., the sixteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227). 7^Ibid. 7 5 Ibid., p. 1159. In "La Epopeya de Artigas," n. d., the fifteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Coivtra esto y aquello," Unamuno comments on Juan Zorrilla de San Martin's La Epopeya de Artigas: Historia de los tiempos heroicos del Uruguay, 1907 ( ? ) • Here he speaks of hero ism, which is more action them attitude of mind; and though it has roots in eternity, it is manifested in time. This constitutes, for Unamuno, the principal defect in 260 that Sarmiento also caricaturized in Facundo, highlighting some traits and attenuating others; but this is authentic caricature, according to Unamuno, who, by ’ ’caricature," does not mean something grotesque or comical, because "there are epic deformations that aggrandize that which is 76 deformed.” Sarmiento's caricatures of Facundo Quiroga, Rosas, Aldao, the priest Castro, Don Domingo de Oro are certainly deformations, but vastly different from Taine's. Taine deformed coldly, using rule and compass, according Taine1s historical figures, which are conceived stati cally, sculpturally, in a given moment, lacking life and showing no evolution or intimate contradictions. "They are developed psychological equations, not a life” (Ensayos, IX, 1150). Zorrilla's conception of Artigas is not a sculpture; his account of this Uruguayan patriot has "more action than attitude”5 Artigas lives in these pages and, therefore, is poetic, which means, for Unamuno, that he is authentic and vital: "Pareceme que con poesia se llega mejor a la entraha, a la verdad verdadera de la Historia, que no con filosofias sistematicas. [Jules] Michelet es mas verdadero que Taine. No depende de la documentacion" (ibid., p. 1151). Unamuno further dis cusses Taine and Michelet in "Taine, caricaturista" (cited on p. 259> 73)i where he writes: "Taine no creia en la individualidad ni en el alma personal, y sus personajes, si bien se mira, carecen de alma. No hay sino compararlos con los de Michelet, aquel historiador portentoso, lleno de vision y de entusiasmo, o con los de Carlyle. Michelet, si, Michelet sentxa a los hombres y los resuci- taba ante nuestros o jo.s . Claro esta, como que es suya aquella energies y entranable exclamaci6n: ’IMi yo, que me arrebatan mi yo 1" (ibid., pp. 1157-1158). Zorrilla1s principal guide was Carlyle (ibid., p. 115l)t who was also one of Unamuno's favorite historians (see Carlos Claveria, "Unamuno y Carlyle," in Temas de Unamuno [Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1953]» PP» 9-5$)• Unamuno translated Carlyle's History of the French Revolution into Spanish and he considered Carlyle to be a true poet, which is the highest praise he could give to an author. ^ Ensayos, II , 1159. 261 t o "a s y s t e m o f c o - o r d i n a t e s , " w i t h t h e o r d e r o f a " m e c h a n i s t i c p s y c h o l o g y " ; w h i l e S a r m i e n t o d i s t o r t e d " w a r m ly , b e c a u s e o f h a t r e d o r l o v e , t h r o u g h p a s s i o n , ” w h i c h i s a u t h e n t i c ’ c a r i c a t u r e . T a i n e c a r i c a t u r i z e d w i t h h i s h e a d ( r e a s o n = u n a u t h e n t i c ) a n d S a r m i e n t o w i t h h i s h e a r t ( = a u - 7 7 t h e n t i c ) . L i k e w i s e , B a r t o l o m e M i t r e , i n h i s H i s t o r i a d e S a n M a r t i n , 1 8 9 0 , w r o t e m o r e g e n u i n e a n d p a s s i o n a t e h i s t o r y ; a n d h i s f i g u r e s a r e h u m a n , l i v i n g p e o p l e , t h o u g h drawn, w i t h l e s s r e l i e f t h a n S a r m i e n t o * s c h a r a c t e r s . B o t h S a r m i e n t o a n d M i t r e r e f l e c t t h e a u t h e n t i c " p a s s i o n a t e p a t r i o t i s m " o f t h e S p a n i a r d , w h i l e T a i n e i s "a p e r f e c t e x a m p l e o f t h e i n t e l l e c t u a l i s t i c F r e n c h s p i r i t , C w h ic h i s ] 7 O c o l d , g e o m e t r i c , d e s a b u s e , a n d C a r t e s i a n . " U n a m u n o o b s e r v e s t h a t T a i n e w a s s i n c e r e a n d h o n e s t , a n d n o o n e c a n d o u b t h i s s e v e r e v i r t u e s a s a s t u d i o u s p e r s o n n o r t h e s i n c e r i t y o f h i s i d e a s . A man c a n b e s t u d i o u s , s i n c e r e , a n d a l o v e r o f t r u t h a n d s t i l l f a l s i f y a n d c a r i c a t u r i z e — 7 9 p r e c i s e l y w h a t T a i n e ' s g e n i u s i m p e l l e d h i m t o d o . U n a m u n o n o t e s t h a t t h e s a m e m ay b e s a i d o f F l a u b e r t , w ho ^ E n s a y o s , I I , l l 6 0 . 7ft I b i d . U n a m u n o n o t e s t h a t V i c t o r H u g o a l s o d e f o r m e d f a c t s o f h i s t o r y , b u t , u n l i k e T a i n e , H u g o ' s u n a u t h e n t i c t r e a t m e n t o f h i s t o r y w a s d u e t o i g n o r a n c e a n d w a s n o t s y s t e m a t i c ( i b i d . , p . I l 6 l ) . 79 ' I b i d . , p . I l 6 l . U n a m u n o d o u b t s t h a t T a i n e p u t o n c o l o r e d g l a s s e s i n o r d e r t o s e e t h i n g s a s h e d i d , b u t h i s " s p e c i a l D a l t o n i s m " c a u s e d h i m t o v i e w t h i n g s i n h i s own p e c u l i a r w a y . T a i n e i s p r o f o u n d l y s u b j e c t i v e i n s p i t e o f h i s o b j e c t i v i t y ( i b i d . ) . 262 also caricaturized falsely. This is an attitude all too frequent in French writers: lack of passion, no windmill- giants. They are impersonally scientific and objective with f,a hypercritical faculty" that ends by destroying "concrete reality," and in place of deeds and facts "they 80 give us either congealed laws or the dust of facts." Unamuno's distrust of things French becomes espe cially evident in what he has to say about afrancesados, those Spaniards and Spanish Americans who imitate French life and ideas. In a "prologue" that he wrote for Manuel Ugarte's Paisajes parisienses, Unamuno is wholly dismayed by the Bohemian life Ugarte describes. For Unamuno, the vitalist, such a life is neither paisaje nor authentic living; and these Bohemians are mere shadows that gestic ulate, "cardboard figurines without flesh, blood, nerves, or muscles." After reading this book, Unamuno said he had to escape into the Castilian countryside to breathe deeply and rub his eyes "with the comforting vision of the aus- tere and grave Castilian plain." Unamuno severely criticizes two tendencies he sees in evidence in most 80 Ensayos, II, 1162. Herbert Spencer, says Unamuno, is another Taine and just as dangerous, being likewise incapable of the metaphysical speculation of a John Stuart Mill (ibid.). 8l Ibid., I, 314; in "La reforma del castellano: Pro logo de tin libro en prensa," 1901. Ugarte's book is a glaring example of what life is not. Even the language is more French than Spanish, but this may not be too bad, since Castillian needs rejuvenating (ibid., pp. 316-319)- 263 Spanish Americans: first, the tendency to look to Paris as the sole repository of culture and civilization; and, second, the tendency to consider Latin peoples to be in ferior to Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples. Unamuno con siders these two tendencies to be vicious and vitiating, in a word, manifestations of unauthenticity and a falsi- 82 fication of the great Iberian tradition. I alluded earlier (p. 254, n. 64) to the fact that Unamuno blames the afrancesados for many of Spain's ills, for her un authenticity. He laments the havoc they have wreaked on Spanish literature, and he points out that France has pro duced no true mystics (such as Santa Teresa and San Juan de la Cruz). This ''Frenchifying” tendency is bad for Spain since French logic does not suit the Spanish man of passion, the man who is more African than European and Latin. Conceptismo and gongorismo are authentic products of the Iberian man of passion, not of the common-sense man of logic. J The man of passion, by the same token, is the only authentic rebel. The subject of unauthentic living figures largely in the concept of ontology of both Unamuno and Ortega, but it is the former who has the most to say about this topic. 82 Ensayos, II, 1034-1035} in "Algo sobre la crltica," n. d., the first of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227)• ^ Ibid.. I, 915; in "Sobre la europeizaci6n ," 1906. 264 Early in his career Unamuno states that there are tvro roads to be followed in life: "the one of deep, radical, and essential seriousness [the authentic road] that leads us to live and work for eternity; and the tragicomic road that causes us to work only for history, attentive to the 84 gallery." One of the forms of unauthentic living that Unamuno mentions most is what he calls ramplonerla (vul garity, commonness), which is the title of one of his essays in which he assails this manifestation of false living. Everywhere about him he sees and, worse, hears the same old vulgar and coarse commonplaces; and he is surfeited with them. But he does offer a solution to this unahppy situation, a solution that consists of fighting to free all the others addicted to such nonsense; and, to obtain this goal, there is but one route open: each in dividual must struggle to free himself, which means being admitted to one's own full plenitude, to interest oneself not in his "things" but in his own self, his yo. In order to free oneself, "to become free," one must get his fellow men to recognize that people are worth far more than their 84 De esto, III, 52; in "Olgiati," 1900. Geronimo Olgiati, regicide of Galeazzo Maria Sforza in fifteenth- century Italy, is the subject of this article. Unamuno notes that there is nothing more lasting than the figure of Erostratus, "the firsft actor" (ibid.) . As Unamuno observes in Amor y pedagogia, erostratismo is "the longing for immortality, which, if we doubt our persistence in eternity, causes us to long to leave at least eternal name and fame" (ibid., II, 22; in "Glosas al 'Quijote1: el fondo del quijotismo," 1902). 265 ideas or ours, that any man is worth more than the whole 0 { - universe. Another form of unauthentic living is evident in what Unamuno says about fanatical skepticism, which reveals the superficiality of people. Skepticism or fa natical agnosticism do not frighten Unamuno so much as the skepticism of surface individuals, of those who are dis illusioned or surfeited with life. Such unauthentic skep ticism is nothing more than "a ridiculous pedantry," the basis of which is "coldness of heart," or, worse, having "hearts of sand." For Unamuno, there is nothing more terrible than frivolity, superficiality, what he calls "sandiness" (arenosidad). The people of the fashionable world whose only concern is social life ("society") have "souls of sand." Where such people predominate gives one reason to tremble. That a man should become fashionable in such a false society constitutes the worst thing that 86 could happen to him. In connection with his idea of fanatical skepticism, Unamuno gives a good account of his ^ Ensayos, I, 680; in "IRamploneriaI," 1905* Compare this with what I noted in Chapter II, pp. 10-11, concern ing ideas and their secondary position in relation to the concept "man." 86 Ibid., II, 522; in "Escepticismo fanatico," 1908. This is a form of ramploneria, another example of which is to be found in "Leyendo a Flaubert," n. d., the second of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227)» where Unamuno Says that he admires Flaubert because in his writings he "feels the man," his "personality" (ibid., p. 1059). The unauthen ticity of mental "mediocrity and.routine" causes Unamuno "physical pain" (ibid., p. 1040K Why should he go out of 266 idea of an unauthentic person, the a-social individual who ’ ’ties the working of love, of spiritualization, of libera tion, to transitory and individualized forms, crucifies God in matter." Such an individual "makes the ideal serve O * 7 his own temporal interests or his worldly glory." This type of unauthentic person is Unamuno's "deicide." The authentic work of charity, which is also the work of "the love of God, is to try to liberate Him from brute matter, to try to spiritualize Him, give consciousness to or uni versalize everything." This is Unamuno's "conscious uni verse" wherein he dreams that everything, including rocks, "may come to speak and work in accordance with that 88 dream," that "the Word may revive." Unamuno's disdain for commonness is particularly evident when he speaks caustically of the unauthenticity of "common sense." He observes that those wbo read his Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, and all his other writings that have been created his house into the street just to hear monarchical or republican stupidities, liberal or conservative nonsense, or the drivel of "the believing fool who has never doubted or that of the freethinking fool who does not doubt either" (ibid., p. 1044)? Unamuno prefers "holy solitude" (something vitally authentic) to such futile and unauthen tic encounters in the street or elsewhere (ibid.). ^ Ensayos, IX, 921; in "Del sentimiento . . 1913) in essay IX ("Fe, esperanza y caridad"). 88 Ibid. See Chapter II, p. 37, n. 80, where I have noted the "environing personality" of Unamuno's physical world, This reflects his subjectively vitalistic approach to the reality of human life. 267 with passion and love, will say that he is only trying to be subtle and ingeniously paradoxical in order to pass himself off as original. To such people he would say that if they fail to see and feel all that he has put of soul ful passion and understanding, of deep disquietude and ardent longings into his commentaries on his "senor Don Quijote" and his squire Sancho, the same as he has done in # his other works, he feels sorry for such surface people and considers them to be "miserable slaves of common sense," mere "spirits who only have appearance and walk among shadows reciting in chorus the old couplets of Calainos." Unamuno, meanwhile, commends himself to "our senora Dulcinea, who in the end will give an account of 89 them and of me." For both Unamuno and Ortega modern twentieth-century Spain is unauthentic, as is the modern era in general. Unamuno, noting that man is of no interest to man, says that in Spain, the land of personalism, persons, as such, 90 count for very little. The real curse of the Spaniards 91 is their false modesty. Even Jose Maria de Pereda was unauthentic in his appreciation and treatment of nature; he did not really enjoy nature, something he spent a 89 Ensayos , = II, 17Ij in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905• . 9^Ibid., I, 683; in "IRamploneria1," 1905* 91Ibid., p. 684. 268 lifetime describing in his novels. He saw the landscape but did not feel it t "his privileged retina kept on see ing, after his eyes were closed, that which once it had 9 2 seen; but. his heart took no interest in it."^ Had Pereda been vitally interested, had he reached that which is lyrical in nature, had he converted his landscapes into his own states of consciousness and made a joy of a sun rise or a heartfelt "nostalgia" of a sunset, his land scapes would not have been attractive to the all-pervading vulgarity (ramploneria).93 Unamuno maintains that such an "absorption Ccompenetracion] of the spirit" with nature reveals d,eep feelings to us, feelings that are more "mu sical" than anything else. Pereda1s style and manner are anything but musical. Unamuno is referring here to "inner music, the rhythm of thought," not to bhe cadenced sing song of the language. Pereda set himself in front of the mountain, saw it, stoied away the sight, went home and described it with "rare technical ability"; but the moun- t tain never captured his heart, never "sang within him," 94 nor does it "sing" in his books. According to this negative opinion of Pereda as a writer, the nature he describes is certainly nature, but it is a "dead nature" ^ Ensayos, I, 685. 93Ibid. 9^Ibid., pp. 685-686. 269 95 which does not "sing." In "Sobre la erudicion y la critica," 1905} Unamuno had expressly stated that his Vida de Don Qui.jote y Sancho was his own personal interpreta tion of the ”manH Don Quijote, not the "book,1 1 that he purposely omitted Cervantes from his considerations, which are his own philosophical— and emotional— opinions, that his Vida was only ""the pretext to weave my own ideas and 96 digressions." And this is precisely what Unamuno does in this work when, for example, he writes of "moral cour age" in his commentary on Quijote, I, 45. For Unamuno, moral courage is an authentic necessity, as Don Quijote clearly showed when he averred that the barber's basin was the helmet of Mambrino and in so doing was able to win the support of those present at the inn. Authentic moral courage is that which stands firm in the face of being taken for foolish or insane; it is the kind of courage that Don Quijote demonstrated in this instance. Then Unamuno digresses on Spain's lack of such moral courage, whiph lack has paralyzed her soul and made her uncultured, weak, poor, and deficient in proper irrigation systems, 97 crops, etc. ' Unamuno, as Ortega, is firmly convinced 95 Ensayos, I, 686. Unamuno is probably the only Spanish writer of note who has taken Pereda so severely to task, Pereda, who is considered by most critics to be one of the best prose writers since Cervantes. 96Ibid., p. 720. 97 Ensayos, II, 196. He adds: ". . . todo nuestro 270 that Spain is unauthentic, and she will never be anything but poor and benighted unless Spaniards discover how "to inflame in the heart of our people the fire of the eternal disquietudes," nor can Spaniards be anything but unauthen tic by living from lies: &No oxs ese burro grave que abre la boca y dice: "lEso no puede decirse aqui!" iNo ois hablar de paz, de una paz mas mortal que la muerte misma, a todos los miserables que viven presos de la menti- ra? iNo os dice nada ese terrible articulo padron de ignominia para nuestro pueblo, que figura en los reglamentos de casi todas las Sociedades de recreo de Espaha, y que dice: "Se prohiben discusiones polxticas y religiosas"?98 In his passionate zeal for something authentic for Spain, Unamuno went so far as to declare that she needed a war, a civil war; and he cites the Bible to sustain his point: Christ said that He did not come to bring peace but war, and that through Him those of every house would be divided, fathers against sons, brothers against brothers. In order to establish this kingdom of sincerity and truth, 99 man must have war Unamuno wistfully wishes that he had lived in one of mal es la cobardxa moral, la falta de arranque para afir- mar cada una su verdad, su fe, y defenderla [as did Don Quijote]. La mentira envuelve y agarrota las almas de esta casta de borregos modorros, estupidos por opilacion de sensatez" (ibid., p. 197)• ^ Ensayos, II, 198. ^ Ibid., pp. 198-190- The war of which Unamuno speaks here has nothing whatever to do with the holocaust that befell Spain between 1936 and 1939- 271 those epochs of arduous faith, "in the bosom of a people agitated by an infinite passion,” in an era such as that of the Crusades or among the Albigenses or in the columns of Oliver Cromwell, among the Huguenots of Coligny. He deplores the banquets given by one's friends to celebrate his social or political elevation. Such unauthentic liv ing is anathema to Unamuno, who says that when he is forced by "the inevitable exigencies of social slavery" to attend one of these homena.jes, he feels very much like rising and stating: "Brothers, let us think about death!" Thereupon he would proceed to give a sermon to the assem bled multitude. He admits that he never does this because it would avail him nothing, not because he is afraid of ridicule. Men of the world, the "social" world, are only shadows, unauthentic phantoms, so far as Unamuno is con- , 100 ceraed. Naivete and the Spaniards' innate fear of it draw Unamuno's fire in "La imaginacion en Cochabamba," n. d., ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 592; in "Oesahogo lirico," n. d., the seventh of twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). Spanish "society" is no less deadly so far as Ortega is concerned: "Es curioso asistir a una reunion de 'sociedad' en nuestro pais: la falta de vibraci6n en el dialogo y en los gestos pronto revela que se esta entre gentes dormidas— los bio logos Hainan vita minima a la modorra invernal de ciertas especies--, las cuales no van a e^igir nada a la hora que pasa, ni esperan nada los unos de los otros, ni, en gene ral, de la existencia. Desde mi punto de vista es inmo ral que un ser no se esfuerce en hacer cada instante de su vida lo mas intenso posible" (Obras, IV, 478j n. 1; in "Para la psicologia del hombre interesante," 1925)* where he notes that from childhood Spanish children are reared to be "suspicious" and "malicious," "to pull the other fellow's leg,” which Unamuno considers to be a stigma on Spanish life. The cleverness (viveza) of Span iards is something censurable; it is the child of malice which takes the form of jokes and pranks, of "duping” the other fellow. The most profound intelligence eschews the clever prank and feline ability on the part of his fellow man.^^ The stupid cleverness of the Spaniard is "the daughter of fear and envy," and it produces bad faith, 102 whence flow all manner of perfidies. One manifestation of this "fear" of which Unamuno speaks is evidenced in a short story in which he ably satirizes the type of person who makes statements which in reality amount to absolutely nothing— non.-sense, as in a perogrullada— and who is, consequently, basically afraid of life. Such a person, the Carrascos who pullulate our modern world, is the typical "spoiled child" of whom Ortega writes so well in La rebelion de las masas, 1930: he is a non-entity, a 103 sham, a falsification of human existence. It is not only the Carrascos who are unauthentic, but also equally ^^^Ensayos, II, 1068; in the fifth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (En- sayos, II, 1025-1227). 102Ibid., p. IO69. 10^See De esto, II, 511-515J "Don Silvestre Carrasco, hombre efectivo," subtitled "Semblanza en arabesco," 1917* unauthentic is the rapid pace at which some nations (as the United States of America) tend to live. Unamuno speaks of "acceleration" as a national trait of ours and wonders what our hurry is all about, what it profits a man "to get there." faster if he has missed everything along the way. He tells us not to doubt that a people who speak almost exclusively of business deals— of "tricks and bar- gains"--and of pleasures is a people in whom a sad pes simism will not take long to burgeon, and this will not be the pessimism that is attributable to hunger, but a worse sort of pessimism, that of superabundance, satiety--that 104 of glut and emptiness. Addressing a Mr. M. B. L. (probably living in Argentina since this article was first published in La Nacion of Buenos Aires), Unamuno, stress ing the reality of authenticity by using unauthenticity as his starting point, notes that Mr. M. B. L., judging by the "eternal result" (here, Salamanca), is quite logical; and Unamuno would even presume more: that his correspond ent would judge the value of a work by its economic return in dollars and cents, the worth of a person by what he earns in silver or whatever medium of exchange he cares to employ. Unamuno recalls to Mr. M. B. L. what he (Unamuno) has often said, namely, that one must know how to be poor. "We are poor in money; you are poor in other wealth." It . C., I, 6795 in "Andanzas y visiones espanolas," 1922. This is also what Ortega calls unauthentic living. 2 . 7 k 105 is all the same, one way or the other. ^ Unamuno had paid a visit to Las Hurdes in Extremadura, and he comments on the fortitude of the inhabitants of this forsaken area, the contemplation of which leads him to comment on a similar "illness" to be found in more favored regions. Those who "drink" only pure, mathematical ideas, distilled as is the water in Las Erias in Las Hurdes, a liquid de void of salts and iodine from the impure soil, end by suffering "spiritual goiter and cretinism" since "the soul that lives on categories remains dwarfed."^^ Unauthenticity is evidenced by sundry things, as Unamuno notes when he speaks of lust, envy, and spiritual pride. The first of these manifestations of unauthentic living forms the title of one of hist early essays ("Sobre la lujuria," 1907), and here he shows his wholehearted disapproval of any form of licentiousness, which is some thing debasing. Sexual obsession in a person betrays a deficit of spirituality rather than an abundance of vi tality. Men who lust after women are, generally, of low mentality and free from "spiritual disquietudes." Their intelligence is like that of the strongly sexualized ram: 10*5 0. C., I, 684. This is a justified criticism of our materialistic yardstick of success, a measure of the worth of men that reveals an unauthentic evaluation of a man’s true worth— and his true reality. ^ ^ Ibid. , p. 703* This is also what Ortega calls a "living suicide," which is unauthentic life at its very worst. 275 107 it is notably stupid. Thus Don Juan Tenorio is, for Unamuno, the most despicable and false of men, one of 1Qg those who should be "kicked out" of any male gathering. An epoch or a people distinguished for its sexual develop ment is an epoch or a people of very low cultural develop ment. Lust is perhaps worse than alcoholism and gambling, 109 both of which are curses to mankind. To be a good man one must be a good animal, but not so much of an animal that one fails to remain a human being. Authentic passion is not sexuality, which is basically unauthentic in man. None of the great historical or literary men of passion has been a voluptuary, and thwarted passion leads either to the cloister or to heroism, either of which is an au thentic life. Voluptuousness leads only to boredom and ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 458-459* lo8Ibid., p. 459. ^ ^ Ibid. , p. 460. In "Sobre el ajedrez," n. d., the eighteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227), Unamuno stresses the evils of chess-playing, showing how the players really never become acquainted with one another, never really communicate with each other by means of their ideas and "souls." Gambling dens must become centers for the exchange of ideas and intimate conversations (ibid., p. Il80). In the casino no one talks about what is most vital to mankind: religion (ibid.). Tresillo at least teaches one the art of chance, and to know how to make use of chance is the supreme art of life (ibid., p. 1183)* For Unamuno, "chance is mystery, and the strength of man lies in his knowing how to control chance; it is knowing how to make use of the mystery." Unamuno notes that in telligence, as such, has very little to do with playing chess (ibid., p. 1184). 276 bestiality Don. Juan Tenorio once more becomes the object of Unamuno's opprobrium when he comments on Victor Said Armesto's La leyenda de Don Juan: Origenes poeticoa de El Burlador de Sevilla y el Condenado de Piedra, which proves Don Juan to be wholly Spanish and not Italian, as Farinelli would have him be. Unamuno imagines a meeting between Don Quijote and Don Juan and remarks on what he would have given to have witnessed such an encounter. The noble knight who wandered about for twelve years enamored of Dulcinea (Aldonza Lorenzo) without ever having declared his love for her, what would such a whole man have said to the swift seducer of Dona Ines! Unamuno, convinced that such a meeting took place, considers that the person who could penetrate "the mystery" of that encounter and manage ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ^ Ensayos, II, 46l. Unamuno says practically the same things about pornography in general in "Sobre la por- nografia," 1907, an essay written as a commentary on Ramiro de Maeztu's "Antipornography League" (see ibid., pp. 463-469, especially p. 465)* Farther on in this same essay, Unamuno reiterates his thesis on what is wrong with modern Spain (1907): ME1 desarrollo de la poraografia aqui se debe a la falta de altos y fecundos ideales, a la carencia de hondas inquietudes espirituales, a la ausencia de preocupaciones religiosas, a la muerte del romanticis- mo. Los que han inventado eso de la alegria de vivir y el seudopaganismo de similor son los mismos que 11aman 'lata' a cualquier hondo estudio . . ." (ibid., pp. 467-468). He concludes this essay with the statement that only the tem perate nations will ever occupy a place of glory and play a role of nobility in history; only they are capable of carrying out works of lasting value to civilization. Lechery, gambling, and drunkenness dull people and bring them dangerously close to the brute animal. "Si por cada escuela que se abra no se logra cerrar una casa de juego, una casa de prostitucion y una taberna, es que la escuela no sirve" (ibid., p. 469)* 277 to communicate it to us as it happened, would give us perhaps the most beautiful page of which Spanish litera- 111 ture could boast. Envy, the corroding passion that Unamuno so ably portrays in Abel S&nchez, is the most disturbing aspect of Spanish life. Spaniards' propensity for indulging this passion is one of the "plagues" of Spanish society, "the gangrene of the Spanish soul." It is envy, "the blood of Cain," that has made Spaniards easily displeased, rebel- 112 lious, and belicose. Envy begets mediocrity, something which Unamuno, as Ortega, loathes; and here the circuns- 113 tancia plays a vital role. Envy also betrays mental superficiality and the lack of great intimate preoccupa tions with the vital problems of life and death, and envy blossoms in countries where the true religions spring, the faith that creates and not that which "vegetates parasit- ically on dogma [and] has become rusted." Envy, "the daughter of spiritual idleness," is the companion of dog matism. Hence not for nothing has the odium theologicum ^^^Ensayos, II, 477-478; in "Sobre Don Juan Tenorio," 1908. Don Quijote is the authentic man, while Don Juan is the farsante, estupido, and lujurioso. the epitome of everything that is unauthentic. 112 Ibid., p. 409; in "La envidia espanola," 1909* Unamuno considers Carlos Reyles' La raza de Cain, 1900, to be "the terrible poem of envy" (ibid .T ~ . Note Unamuno's use of the word "poem" when he refers to this novel; "poem" signifies authentic life and literature to Unamuno. 115Ibid., p. 410. 278 become proverbial. Unamuno notes that envy, more than any other of the seven capital sins, "is the pre-eminently clerical vice"; it is the intimate moral infection (rona) of the convents; and it proceeds from "spiritual idle- 114 ness." According to Unamuno, peace and democracy best engender envy, and the most efficient cure for this ill ness is -war, war against oneself, against "the mystery of 115 our life and destiny." Democracies have abolished the titled nobility but not titles, which is indicative of a basic envy that is directly traceable to "spiritual lassitude . The third major indication of unauthentic living (in addition to lust and envy) is spiritual pride, which takes the form of arrogance. This vice reveals the lack of simplicity and sincerity, which are two authentic mani festations of authentic living; and it disrupts and ruins everything. Spiritual pride must not be something that we worry about, trying to feign humility, which is the most refined arrogance imaginable. It is better to leave it alone and be what we really are, baring our souls and abandoning ourselves to our first impulse. "Todos esos ^ ^ Ensayos , II, 412. 115 Ibid. Compare this with what Unamuno said about war in Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho (see p. 270). See also p. 101, n. 265, for another reference to "war." ll6Ibid., pp. 415-414. tiquis miquis espirituales no hacen sino enconar la herida y envenenar la sangre del alma." To leave it alone is the H 3 surest cure. Unamuno often complains of the lack of intimacy and profundity, two qualities that constitute both his and Ortega's concept of the authentic whole man. Unamuno says that he obtains most of his information about Argentine life from Caras y Caretas, which, like Blanco y Negro of Madrid, is probably the most accurate reflection (account) of life in Buenos Aires. He notes that he has read Sarmiento, Bunge, Paz, Lopez, Estrada, and others; but these wi’iters mostly reflect a European viewpoint rather than something authentically Argentinean. He speaks of the bonairenses who seek publicity in one way or another and notes that this "morbid furor, the child of the lack of intimacy and profundity in life, produces the 119 two plagues of the interview and the post card." Such "snobism" corrodes the spirit and causes all life to be come superficial, one's living from appearances. We could say that "people spend half their lives amassing a fortune 120 and the other half buying vanity with [this fortune!." Unamuno has much to say about the role of woman in the business of authentic living, but not all of his 1 1 f t Ensayos, I, 627; in "Sobre la soberbia," 1904. ^ ^ Ibid. , II, 401; in "El resorte moral," 1906. 120Ibid. 280 remarks are favorable to woman. In one context he notes that women are the true preservers of authentic tradition, the ones who "are making the soul of the United States." 121 Women are the ones who stir up the eternal questions. But elsewhere, replying to two articles written by Ernesto Vergara Biedma of Argentina concerning certain points made by Unamuno in "El resorte moral," he wants to clarify one vital point: women. Unamuno takes issue with Vergara Biedma concerning the authenticity of Spanish women, on whom Unamuno is very severe. He is convinced that they are more chaste than other European women, but their religiosity is something quite different; it is to be 122 mistrusted, being a false religiousness. Even woman's participation in public life is a game (something unau thentic), and her charity is insincere, something akin to that portrayed by Benavente in Los malhechores del 123 bien. This "meanness of spirit" of the Spanish woman 121Ensayos, II, 402. 122 Ibid., pp. 685-693; "Nuestras mujeres," n. d., the nineteenth of twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Bnsayos, II, 533-726). Unamuno's negative attitude concerning women in Spain is devastat ing: "De nada hay que desconfiar mas que de la supuesta religiosidad de la mujer. Va a misa como va al teatro, y rige sus devociones por la ley de la moda. Es en los paises catolicos por buen tono. Juega al juego masculino de las Comisiones y las Juntas, formando Asociaciones en que una representa la presidencia y otra la secretarla. Y suele llevar a esas Sociedades y Cofradias toda la estre- cha mezquindad de un esplritu limitado" (ibid.,p. 687)- 123Ibid., p. 689. 281 is the correlative of the lack of high and noble ambitions on the part of Spanish men. What can we expect of the women if their men are content to pursue such life goals 124 as position and wealth? Thus Spanish women are no more 125 unauthentic than Spanish men. Spaniards are converting their women into overgrown children: "CLa mujerl lee puerilidades, aprende puerilidades, repite puerilidades y 126 de puerilidades vive." Proof of this is to be found 127 in the things she reads. But Unamuno does not give up hope for the role woman is to play in life, and this role, according to him, is basically that of being a mother. In his essay entitled "A una aspirante a escritora," n. d., he tells a certain unnamed young lady that women seldom turn out to be good writers because their femininity must necessarily compete with the masculine world of writers. When women writers try to emulate male authors, they become masculine and unauthentic. But women can find a place in science, where they could capitalize on their 128 feminine "objectivity.1 1 According to Unamuno, women 124 y Ensayos, II, 69O. 125Ibid., p. 691. 126Ibid. ^~2^Ibid. , p. 692. 1 28 Ibid., pp. 700-70^5 the twentieth of twenty- three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). 2 82 are authentically mothers, and everything else they do is 1 2 9 extraneous to this basic reality. Even her love for her husband or lover is essentially maternal.^^ Woman sacrifices herself for her children, but a man gives up his life for his country: man makes civilization, and 131 woman preserves the race. Thus each has his authentic role in life. More than loving, a man is loved; and love in man is pride and, in woman it is compassion. But if we examine this situation closely, we find that in man love reveals his need of being sheltered and protected, while in woman it signifies her need for sheltering and protect- 132 ing her man. J Reverting to Ortega and unauthenticity, we note that he considers classic Greek life to have been basically 129Ensayos, II, 701. 130t. . . Ibid. 131Ibid., pp. 701-702. 1 50 Ibid* > P* 702. In the next essay (f , A la senora Mab, " n . d.) in "Soliloquios y conversaciones," Unamuno answers a feminine correspondent who apparently took him to task for some of the things he said in "A una aspirante a escritora." Here Unamuno willingly asserts that man is much more servile than woman, much more prone "to herd in flocks"; and woman is much more conservative. Few men, says Unamuno, possess a true "inner spiritual liberty" (ibid., p. 704). For Unamuno, the writer, if he is a man, "cuando no es enfatico e hinchado es seco y escueto, o, hablando a la espahola, cuando no es gongorino es culterano. Rara vez sabe ser jugoso sin hojarasca y sencillo sin afectacion" (ibid., p. 707)* And when woman sets out to write as a man, she accentuates these defects (ibid.). 283 unauthentic. Our present-day pose to the contrary is more of a pose or a fear than if we honestly faced the facts. We betray our yn in this attitude: it is unauthentic and 133 a falsification of our true selves. ^ Classic life was composed of ' ’topics," which does not mean that its ideas were not valid, its values of a high nobility; but clas sic life possessed the abstract, generic, and vagrant 133 Obras, IV, 514-515 i i - 1 1 “Sobre la sinceridad triun- fante,” 1924. Unamuno also considers sincerity to be something authentic, as he clearly indicates in "Sobre la consecuencia, la sinceridad,” 1906, where he notes that the man who has ideas and theories and refuses to alter them, regardless of the conditions, is being consistent (consecuente); and this usually signifies being a true hypocrite, which even poisons the very fountains of one's intimate moral life (Ensayos, I, 847). The opposite of this hypocrite is the man who is sincere and changes his ideas and theories according to the dictates of conditions and his own conscience. Unamuno makes sure that his readers do not misinterpret him: he is here defending the inconsistency (inconsecuencia) that derives from sincerity wherein the changes of expression are “reflections of changes in thinking, and in no manner the inconsistency of the opportunist Lvividor]” (ibid., p. 851). Only basi cally simple spirits conserve a consistency in their thinking, and they are the dogmatists (ibid., pp. 854- 855* See Chapter II, p. 34, n. 70.). Sophists and dog matic people are the same type of unauthentic individual, though Unamuno prefers sophists since they protect society from the dogmatists (ibid., p. 855)* This entire essay on consistency and sincerity hinges upon Unamuno's earlier concept of the subservience of man to ideas, a state of being that is loathesome to Unamuno, who is convinced that man should be the master of ideas and not their slave (ibid., p. 859* See Chapter II, p. 11.). He notes that while we have within us many men, each one has two spe cific persons inside: a "yo profundo, radical, perma- nente, el yo que llaman ahora subliminal— de debajo del limen o nivel de la conciencia— , y otro yo superficial, pegadizo y pasajero, el supraliminal” (ibid.). He says that ideas have the same double face, a surface and a substance or interior, what he calls entrana (ibid.). 284 134 condition common to all topics. Our twentieth-century sensibility is diametrically opposed to this because, for us, living means to flee the topical and resort to our own 135 most personal reaction. Greek life and Classicism were basically insincere (unauthentic) since all classic art and life were "constituted conventionality." Only when men become conventional in their very substance, which the Greeks were not, "can the admirable structure of a classicism be raised." ^ By comparison, primitive man, 137 according to Ortega, was far more authentic. ^ When compared with the personal life (the ]yo), collective life (society) is more or less false, hence, unauthentic.^^ Man tends to seek an inward justification for his exist ence, but more than once he unwittingly thinks: I am doing this or that in order to live, but this living of mine, taken as a whole from birth to death, has it any meaning? If my whole life has no justification, the rela tive justification that the acts of this life can have has 1^Obras, IV, 515* 1 Ijc See ibid., p. 516, where Ortega maintains that in this twentieth century we are living a sincere (authentic) existence, to the extent that we oppose all standardization of concepts. 136Ibid., p. 515. 157Ibid., II, 283-284? in "El 'Quijote' en la escuela," 1920. ■^^Ibid., V, 232; in "Mision del bibliotecario," 1935- 285 little merit. It would be necessary for something that I do in living to have an absolute value. There is nothing in my life that seems wholly satisfactory and that can be justified for itself alone, which implies that life is in itself something devoid of meaning, "a strange reality that consists of being something that, definitively, is nothing; it is nothing being [existing}; it is the pre sumption of something positive that remains a pure, frustrated presumption." Hence all the inner justifica tions I find for its actions are an "error of perspective" if in its totality living lacks meaning, if one lives for nothing. One imposes a radical change on the perspective; 139 one imposes another perspective. Ortega notes that all of us at some time or other have asked precisely this sort of inward question, but, too often, lured by the attract ive surface aspects of living, we have failed to see our selves as we really are: a falsification of our authentic 140 yo • Another manifestation of unauthenticity is camou flage, which is something that appears to be what it is not; it is a form of mirage. In every fact of historical camouflage there are two realities that are superimposed on one another: one is deep, effective, and substantial; 1^ Obras, V, 118; in "En torno a Galileo," 1933. 1^°Ibid., p. 119. 286 the other is apparent, accidental, and superficial. Ortega gives as an example of camouflage what took place in Russia, which adopted Marxism, which, in its turn, was something (ideas) thought out in Europe in view of Euro pean realities and problems. The young Russian experi ment , like all youthful enterprises, adopted Marxism as something superficial, a pretext. New York is another example of something built on non-American ideas: tech nique was European and was adopted by us, who were the youth living on pretext. America is a good example of l4l Ortega's historical reality of new peoples. Ortega wisely notes that a book preserves only the words, the ashes, of effective thought. In order to become an authentic reality, the thought expressed in words in a book must be thought out again by a man, who thus reproduces in his person the vital situation to which the thought corresponds. When, this is not done, when we read much and think little, a book becomes a "terribly efficacious instrument for the falsification of human 142 life." Ortega observes that man, each mortal one of us, is always in danger of not being the irreplaceable and non-transfenable himself that he is. Most of us endlessly ^ ^ Obras , IV, 240-241} in "AQuien manda en el mundo?" (Part II of La rebelion de las masas, 1930). lip Ibid., V, 234} in "Mision del bibliotecario," 1935. 287 betray this ourselves which is always "expecting to be." Our personal individuality is a person that is never fully realized, "an inciting utopia, a secret legend that each 143 one keeps in the innermost part of his breast." Turning now more specifically to the reality of authenticity as such, which will not wholly exclude unau thenticity as a corollary, we note that Ortega stresses what he calls the yo profundo, which is the authentic ego. He maintains that the basic reality consists of our living up to our yo profundo, of being true to our innermost self. For Ortega, Pio Baroja best represents the man who is faithful to his secret ^o; and he is more important for what he feels than for his theories or his mode of think- 144 m g or writing. In 1937j Ortega strengthens this point of view with another on philosophy, stating that this discipline, which is authentic life taking possession of itself, is useful for life only and applies to nothing that is alien to life. In philosophy man is a servant only to himself, which means that only in philosophy is * 145 man his own master. In La rebelion de las masas, 1930, Ortega speaks of 143 ^ Obras, V, 305; in "Ensimismamiento y alteracton," . 1939- ~*~^Ibid. , II, 84-87; in "Ideas sobre Pio Baroja," n . d. ~^^Ibid., V, 278; in "Bronca en la fisica," 1937* 288 what "destiny" really means for man, what he has or has not to be vitally (authentically). This is not a matter for argument; it is either accepted or rejected. If we accept our destiny, we are authentic; and if we refuse to accept it, we are falsifications of ourselves. Our des tiny is not a matter of what we "feel like" doing; rather it is the necessity of having to do what we do not feel 146 like doing. Ortega has much to say about mein's des tiny, which, for him, is the only "lump of earth" in which human life and all its aspirations can take root; all else is falsification, "life in the air," devoid of vital 147 authenticity and indigenous reality. Ortega is quite concerned about Goethe's failure (which is quite apparent to Ortega) to discover his true destiny. He firmly believes that Goethe was an unauthentic person, and he gives many examples to reinforce his thesis. When he 146 Obras, IV, 212-213- In a footnote to this, Ortega wisely observes: "Envilecimiento, encanallamiento, no es otra cosa que el modo de vida que le queda al que se ha negado a ser el que tiene que ser. Este su autentico ser no muere por esc, sino que se convierte en sombra acusa- dora, en fantasma, que le hace sentir constantemente la inferioridad de la existencia que lleva respecto a la que tenia que llevar. El envilecido es el suicida supervi- viente" (ibid., p. 212, n. 2). See also ibid., p. 321, in "Mision de la Universidad," 1930? where Ortega says that "Culture is what saves [us] from the vital [life] ship wreck, what permits man to live without his life being a senseless tragedy or a radical debasement." This is unau thenticity and the price man must pay when he is satisfied with less than his true destiny (= authenticity) in life. ^''ibid. , p. 350; in ^'Mision de la Universidad," 1930. 4 289 speaks of Goethe’s outward aspects of stiffness, ill humor, bitter facial expression, and of how biographers praise this German's intellect and his other good qual ities, Ortega notes that "the life of a man is not the functioning of the exquisite mechanism that Providence placed in him. What is decisive is to ask oneself in 148 whose service they were functioning." Was the man, not the intellect, Goethe in the service of his vocation, or l4o was he a perpetual "deserter of his intimate destiny"? Goethe's unauthenticity, observes Ortega, becomes evident in his renunciation of his youthful loves, his flight to Weimar, thence to Rome; everything he did represents a life of flight, of evasion, which constitutes an unau thentic existence. Ortega proceeds to indicate the need for individualization in human life: when we speak of life, "every term has to be completed with the opportune index of individualization"; and this unhappy necessity is already part of man's destiny insofar as he is a man. In order to live in the singular man has to speak in 150 general terms. Goethe was not basically and fully anything he attempted to be: he served as a cabinet minister who was not seriously a minister; a r^gisseur who 148 Obras, IV, 410; in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. 15°Ibld.. p. 411. 290 hated the theater, who was hot really a manager; a natu ralist who never ceased to be one; and since, irremediably and by "special divine decree," he was a poet, he forced this poet to visit the Ilmenau mine in order to recruit soldiers, and he did this mounted on a horse called "Poetry." For Ortega, Goethe is a "terrible example of how man can have only one authentic life, that demanded by 151 his vocation." He cogently observes that when Goethe's freedom caused him to deny his "irrevocable yx>" and re place it with another arbitrary one, arbitrary although based on the most respectable "reasons," Goethe "drags" his life "without saturation, spectral," between "poetry and reality" (Dichtung und Wahrheit). And because he became accustomed to this evasion, he ended by not needing reality, and, like Midas, everything turned to gold in his 152 hands, everything became a symbol. Hence Goethe's quasi love affairs with Charlotte von Stein and Madame Villemer, which quasi-adventures definitely explain the "capacity for unreality" at which Goethe had arrived. Once we accept life as a symbol, one thing is the same as another: it is the same "to sleep with 'Christelchen'" as to marry, in an "ideal-Pigmalion" sense, a sculpture in the Palazzo Caraffa Colobrano. But destiny is quite 1^1Qbras, IV, 413-414. 152Ibid., p. 4l4. 291 2. 5*5 opposite to "it's all the same to me" or symbolism. Ortega proceeds to indicate what true authentic destiny really means: it is the unavoidable exigency of deter mining oneself, of "fitting into one's exclusive destiny," of accepting this destiny and resolving "to be it." We must realize our "person" whether we want to or not-. We must realize our vocation, our "vital program" (our entelequia). Due to the lack of names for "that terrible reality that is our authentic ^o, it will not remain behind" us, which means that li\~ing consists of an impera tive that is wholly and basically opposite to that which Goethe proposed when he urged us to retire from the "con crete periphery in which life draws its exclusive limits" to the "abstract center" of life, "toward the Urleben," from "effective being to being potentially," which is the 154 "Urpflanze and the Urleben: limitlejss potentiality." Ortega often remarks that the authentic life feels the need for self-justification. I shall cite only the most characteristic of these remarks in order to indicate this vital necessity. One of the most explicit statements of the need for self-justification is to be found in the 1^30bras, IV, 4l4. ^ ^ Ibid., p. 415- Goethe's habitual evasion of his destiny, his constant "availability," his possession of unlimited potentiality kept him ever the eternal youth who never grew up; and youth is unauthentic, being a mere beginning and nothing more (see pp. 246-249 for the unauthenticity of youth)." 292 Mision de la Univeraidad, 1930 i where Ortega states that ’ ’every life willy-nilly needs to justify itself in its own eyes.M This self-justification is a "consubstantial ingredient’ * of human life. It is the same thing to say that life is living according to a plan as to say that it 155 xs ceaseless justification of itself. And again in "Los 'Nuevos' Estados Unidos," 19311 he stresses this "basic ingredient'* of human life when he states that man is the only living thing who must justify his existence in order to live, something he cannot avoid if he wants to live authentically. And he who has discovered this basic element--man 1s need to justify his life in his* own eyes — has discovered the "key" to many secrets of our existence, because this vital need makes up an essential component of , . . 156 every lxf e. Solitude is also a basic ingredient of the authentic life, and on this subject both Unamuno and Ortega have something to say. Unamuno stresses the vital need man has for solitude in "Soledad," 1905* where he notes that only solitude meets that "thick layer of modesty that isolates us from one another.” It is only in solitude that we find ourselves and, at the same time, find "our brothers in 1550bras, IV, 3^2. ^ ^ Ibid., p. 370} in "Sobre los Estados Unidos," 1932, a continuation of "Los 'Nuevos* Estados Unidos," 1931. solitude.1 * Unamuno believes that solitude unites us as much as society separates us, and if we do not know how "to love ourselves,'* it is because we do not know how to 157 be alone. Solitude not only seals off man from his fellow man, but also from God; and the only true dialogue is that which, in solitude, we hold with ourselves and our God. Alone we get to know ourselves as well as the other 158 fellow, seeing our yo in other yos. Our intimate life which is lived in solitude, our only authentic life, is a dialogue with all men; and Unamuno implores us to seek solitude "because for a long time X have been wanting to 159 speak to you alone." Unamuno says that he sought solitude in order to be able to discover truth. He has learned others' secrets because they told them to him in solitude, when he neither saw nor heard them, nor did they see or hear him, either of which would have resulted in lies and falsifications had they existed.Unamuno observes that lyric poetry is truly authentic because in ^ ^ Ensayos, I, 692. 158Ibid., pp. 692-693- 159Ibid., p. 695 * i8^Ibid., p. 696. Unamuno's description of this dialogue in solitude is quite poetic: "... me los [secretos] has dicho en el eco apagado y lejano de aque- llas palabras de mentira que vertiste en mi corajzon. Su mentira se disipo con el grosero vibrar del aire material que me las metio en el oido de la came 5 su verdad se desnudo al alejarte tu de mi presencia” (ibid.). poetry the poet divests himself of falsehood, as occurs in the Psalms. And that is why Unamuno has always sought refuge in lyric poetry--and solitude: "Porque en la lirica no se miente nunca, aunque uno se proponga en ella mentir."^^ Unamuno pursues his theme of solitude, regretting that the only way people can communicate is by means of touch, at best, contact, and through the "hard shells that isolate us from one another." He is convinced that this "shell" becomes thinner and weakens in solitude until it becomes a very tenuous membrane that permits spiritual osmosis and "exosmosis." This is why, he says, solitude is what makes men truly social and truly human beings.The solitary man, the man of solitude, as Unamuno calls him, is an entire society; he is legion. Hence his "society" derives from this. The person with the most personality is the one who "treasures up within himself the most generality, the one who carries within 163 himself the most of others." Solitude imposes silence 1^1Ensayos, I, 696. Unamuno is referring here to lyricism in general, not merely lyric poetry. That which is lyrical is, for him, authentic literature, regardless of the genre. Ibid., p. 700. ^ ^ Ibid. , p. 709* He further notes: "Los grandes solitarios son, en efecto, los que mas han derramado sus espiritus entre los hontbres: los mas sociales. "iQuien describio la hermosa union de los hombres mas arrebata- doramente que quien se quedo solitario en la vida?," dice Kierkegaard, uno de los mas grandes solitarios" (ibid.). 295 on us with the result that an "inner conversation” ensues, 164 which is the only authentic one. In "Fecundidad del aislamiento,M 1918, Unamuno says that ”the most intimate and fecund truth” that an individual can discover is his own soul; and he admires Walt Whitman (in the poem "Walt Whitman” by this American) for his joyous discovery of his own soul. In the process of discovering his own soul, Whitman discovered the soul of mankind and of history. In solitude one manages to find himself, not the ' ’ primitive, prehistoric, or troglodytic man,” but the ’ ’ new man, the man himself. Solitude, for Unamuno, as for Ortega, is a vital ingredient of the authentic life. Only the soli tary people— the heterodox ones— really understand one another and themselves. Here the perspective contri butes to this concept, as Unamuno notes when he states that if twenty soldiers look at the same tree, they will see twenty different trees; and each will be the concept of the individual viewer. Thus by each one's calling the 1 6 7 tree by his name they will understand one another. Unamuno speaks sympathetically of the solitude of Lazarus 164 Ensayos, II, 545; in "Conversacion primera,” n. d., the second of twenty-three essays comprising "Solilo- quios y conversaciones,” 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). l6^Pe esto, III, 475- l66T, . , Ibid. l67 Ibid., p. 476. This is "perspectivism" (see Chapter II, pp. 69-83)* 296 and of bow he suffered patiently because of his love for Jesus: "Las lagrimas de Jesus, rocio de lo eterno, fueron 168 el bautismo de su segunda vida." Unamuno himself had felt the solitude of Lazarus when on a "fathomless, moon less night, silent and cloudless, looking at the stars" he felt the "weight of the cross of solitude" on his 169 heart. He cites a sonnet that he wrote in 1910 ("Nuestro secreto") and he observes that it is not fitting that we know completely "the desert island of our soul." Solitude itself can be a treasure because in solitude man may learn to conquer himself and become a whole (i. e., 170 authentic) man.. Unamuno describes Robinson Crusoe’s terror on finding a human footprint in the sands of his beach, and Robinson proceeds to fortify his "castle," not against an enemy, but against the invasion of his soli- 171 tude, his solitary communion with his God. Ortega remarks on a certain lady who betakes herself unto herself and retires into solitude, a vital need of the authentic life. He notes that there are certain crystalizations in chemistry that are produced only in extremely quiet places, free from all vibrations, in the l68 Ensayos, II, 389 5 in "De la correspondencia de un luchador," n . d. l69Ibid. ^ ^ De esto. III, 157; in "Robinson Crusoe," 1920. 171Ibid., pp. 158-159. 297 most recondite corner of the laboratory. It is thus with "the best spiritual reactions that enrich and polish the individual," and for this purpose they need calm, a pro found leisure (ocio) in order that this "miraculous germination" may take place. Thus this woman remains absent, leaving the best part of herself ascribed to its solitude. And herein lies our interest: what is assumed and not seen is what interests. This particular woman has 1 7 2 what Ortega calls a Hinterland. ' Thus the authenticity 173 of a life is measured by its amount of solitude. Only he who knows solitude knows intimacy, since these are reciprocal forces in life: Einsamkeit and Innerlichkeit, 1 7 4 two basic ingredients of the authentic life. Ortega ~*~^Obras, II, 450; in "Notas del vago estio," 1925* 17*5 * Ibid., VI, 343; ill "A una edicion de sus obras," 1 9 3 2 . 1 7 4 Ibid., IV, 38} in "Reflexiones de centenario, 1724-1924,""" the first of two studies (the second of which is "Filosofia pura: Anejo a mi folleto 'Kant'") prefaced to his essay entitled "Kant," 1929- See also ibid., V, 6l, in "En tomo a Galileo," 19331 where Ortega says that "life is solitude, basic solitude." Also ibid., p. 7^1 where he states that "We fear our life which is solitude, and we flee from it . . ." Also ibid., IV, 499-500, in "Reforma de la inteligencia," I92S": ". . . cuando el hombre se queda solo, descubre que su inteligencia empieza a funcionar para el, en servicio de su vida solitaria, que es una vida sin intereses externos, pero cargada< hasta la borda, con riesgo de naufragio, con intereses intimos. Entonces se advierte que la 'pura conteinplaci6n,' el uso desinteresado del intelecto, era una ilusi6n 6ptica; que la 'pura inteligencia* es tambi&n practica y tecnica— tecnica de y para la vida. autentica, que es la 'soledad sonora' de la vida, como decia San Juan de la Cruz." 298 observes that solitude is vital to the philosopher who philosophizes because of an intimate need to do so, and thus he departs, not from a ready-made philosophy, as so many modern philosophers have done, but from his own concepts created by himself in , T the terrible solitude of 175 his own philosophizing.” ' The subject of authenticity and ideas is treated by both Unamuno and Ortega, who are very explicit about the role of this secondary reality in the authentic life. Unamuno notes that ideas can only become authentically part of man to the extent that he lives them, becomes their master and not their slave (see Chapter II, pp. 10- 11). Man must warm his ideas in the "center of his heart" in order to make them truly his own. There in the "sacred fireplace" he "burns and consumes" them as some thing "combustible." Ideas are only a vehicle of the spirit; they are "atoms" that only serve by the movement and rhythm they transmit, impenetrable atoms like the hypothetical ones in materials that by their movement T _ 7 6 provide us with heat. Unamuno reserves for his authen tic reality the inalienable right to contradict himself and will have no part of the unchanging apostol of an unchanging idea, of those whom he labels "ideocrats." ^^^Obras, VI, 402; in "A 'Historia de la filosofia,' de Emile Brehier," 1942. ^ ^ Ensayos. I, 249; in "La ideocracia," 1900. 299 Such "ideocrats” are a falsification of man's authentic 1 7 7 reality. It is a question of how a man lives that gives authenticity to his life and truth to his ideas, not the latter to the former: "IDesgraciado del que necesite 1 * 7 f t ideas para fundamentar su vida!" Our doctrines are not the origin and source of our conduct; rather the origin and source of our behavior finds its true reality in the explanation we give of our conduct to ourselves and to others, because the anguish to explain reality to our- 179 selves pursues us. Unamuno leaves no room for doubt concerning his attitude: ". . . soy yo viva apariencia, superior a mis ideas, apariencias, sombras de sombra."^^ He notes that it is grievous to say it, but man rejects man, thus making spirits impenetrable, paying each other and collecting for mutual services without putting any love in them. Logical justice reigns supreme in the world of pure ideas and suffocates works of mercy which stem from love, which is the sovereign in the world of X 7 7 Ensayos, I, 2 4 9 - 2 5 0 . In an undated personal letter written between 1 9 0 0 and 1 9 0 5, Unamuno clearly .indicates his right to contradict himself: ' f Mi ciencia es anti-religiosa, mi religi6n anti-cientxfica, y no excluyo a ninguna de las dos, sino que las mantengo en ml, frente a frente, negandose una a otra y dando con su contradic- ci6n vida a mi concieacia" (ibid., II, 51)* 178Ibid., I, 250. 179Ibid. l8°Ibid., p. 251. authentic spirits. Instead of fusing our spirits into a "common spirit," which is "the life of our lives and the reality of realities," we tend to make with ideas a "con junctive social cement in which, like mollusks in an l8l agglomerate, we remain imprisoned." All ideas that are external to our essence, our being, are like the social atmosphere through which spiritual heat and light are transmitted; and in this spiritual heat and light are reflected those of the sun of the spirit, without their illuminating by themselves. We must keep this atmosphere 182 airy in order to be able to breathe in it and by it. Unamuno also speaks of truth as it relates to authentic and vital ideas, and he explains precisely what he means by truth and authentic ideas when he notes that truth is something "more intimate than the logical concordance of two concepts," something deeper than "the equation of the intellect with the thing--adaequatio intellectus et rei." It is the intimate partnership of one's spirit with the universal Spirit. All the rest is reason. To live truth is something more profound than to be right. The idea that is realized, made effective, is the authentic one; this realization, made into reality, is what makes an idea live and gives it truth (authenticity). The idea that 1 fil Ensayos, I, 251-252. l82Ibid., p. 252. 301 "fails in theoretic or practical reality is false" (that is, unauthentic): "Verdad es aquello que intimas y haces tuyo; solo la idea que vives te es verdadera."^^ Ortega also clearly distinguishes between that which is real (authentic) and that which is merely ideas (idealistic, l84 unauthentic). One of his favorite proverbs is: "Dime 185 a lo que atiendes y te dire qui£n eres." The problem of authentic life and living figures largely in the concept of authenticity of Unamuno and Ortega. Unamuno approaches this aspect of ontology from several different points of attack. In the first place, he notes that each person is "the child of his works"; hence ancestors are not so important as we might suppose. We must see to it that we are "the fathers of our future" rather than "the children of our past." In all events, we must become the "nodes" in which are gathered all the forces of that which was in order to be able to irradiate to that which will be. Unamuno notes further that we know absolutely nothing about Don Quijote's parental background nor his birth, childhood, or youth. Therefore, what Don Quijote is he is as a direct result of his own actions and 1 ^ Ensayos . I, 232-253. 184 Recall what he said about vital ideas in Chapter II, p. 9* See also p. l8, n. 32. l850bras, IV, 421; in "Goethe el libertador," 1932. See also ibid., V, 579, in "Amor en Stendhal," 1926, where the same proverb is quoted. 302 l86 deeds. Thus Unamuno would prefer having to fight for the sake of the fight itself, enjoy truth in war to false hood in peace, which is unauthentic submission. He places great emphasis on the vital necessity to face life squarely and honestly, to be true to oneself and to society. It is bad to conceal impotency with the pretext of laziness, but it is no better to hide moral and mental l88 indolence under the pretext of impotency. In one of his moments of deepest pessimism, Unamuno observes that "the only serious [authentic] thing, the only thing that is not theatrical [unauthentic] that we do in life is to Ensayos, II, 154} in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905- 1 f t ' 7 Ibid., p. 3855 in "De la correspondencia de un luchador," n. d. In "Una vida tranquila," 1924, first published under the title "Comentario,” Unamuno parodies what life really is authentically. The "person" to whom he "speaks” is satisfied to get along and seeks only peace, which, for Unamuno, means that he does not exist: "Usted no existe, y la prueba es lo que le preocupa la mera existencia, una existencia tranquila. Que no es lo mismo que una vida” (De esto, IV, 263). Unamuno concludes thin "conversation” with a statement that reveals the unauthenticity of his "interlocutor's" life: "Usted necesita durar--durar, no vivir--tranquilo, y para eso rinde usted acatamiento a la frivolidad y a la cursilerla dominantes. Y le parece a usted que eso es orden. La degradacion mental, la degradaci6n sentimental, la degra- dacion estetica, la muerte del espiritu, no le importan a usted. Quedese, pues, con su vida” (ibid., p. 265)* In ”A1 rededor del estilo, V," 1924, Unamuno notes that the most authentic aspect of a person is what he wants to be, not what he is: ". . . lo mas propio, lo mas intimo, lo mas profundo de uno no es lo que es, sino lo que quiere ser” (ibid., p. 556). 1 f t ft De esto, IV, 37; in MDe la vocacion," 1900, 303 l8q be bora. 7 Man is prone to vrant to deceive himself, and, as a result of this self-delusion, most men live unauthen- tically. Likewise we all know full well that we live "more on the illusion in which we think we do not believe 1 9 0 than on the reality in which we think we do believe.'’ Unamuno would have us note the fierceness of both fanati cisms, that of the extreme left and that of the extreme right, the affirmative and the negative. And people who subscribe to either camp are no more certain of their affirmations and negations than we are of ours; they merely feel more strongly about them. He cogently ob serves that there is "a rabid way of denying God," which is one way of desiring that He exist, and another "rabid way of affirming Him, which is a manner of fearing that He may not exist." And there is also "the passion of uncer- 191 tainty." Thus life as it is usually lived is a falsi fication of itself, a self-delusion. 189 Ensayos. II, 6llj in "Confidencias," n. d., the tenth of twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). Unamuno repeats this pessimistic theme at the end of this essay (ibid., p. 6l8). In order to remain true to oneself, one must constantly review his innermost yo, examine his conscience, as Unamuno says he did frequently (see "Divagaciones de estio," n. d. [ibid., p. 580]). ^ ^ De esto, IV, 493-4945 in "La sinceridad del fingimiento," 1913• ^ I jbid., p. 494. This latter "passion of uncer tainty," so very familiar to Unamuno, is that of the wholly subjective seeker after faith. This is another good example of Unamuno's subjective vitalism. 304 In. order to live the authentic life, Unamuno says that one must flee insincerity and falsehood, just as he must express himself freely and personally in language, which may not conform to "standard Castilian." If we feel something harassing us from inside, we must open the sluice gate and let it stream forth, allowing our listen ers or readers to act as filters; and if we are accused of "posing," we must disregard such accusations and have pity 192 on our censors "because they have eyes and do not. see." This attitude is closely allied to Unannmo's concept of "imposing oneself" (imponerse) on others, which is a sure method of getting to know oneself. As early as 1906 he states this principle of self-imposition on others; and he notes that unless a person tries to exist in other people, he will cease to exist in himself. Hence man must stamp his mark (his £0) on others, and, failing to do this, one loses his authentic stamp, that which makes him unique and irreplaceable 1 "La condenacion del que trata de moldearse por otro es que dejara de ser el mismo para no llegar a ser el otro a quien toma por modelo, y asi no sera 193 nadie." Unamuno notes that each human power (poder) ^ ^ Ensayos, I, 421; in "Contra el purismo," 1903* Unamuno indulges his impurismo, and I have found many examples of his use of "muy mucho" and the lack of agree ment between subject and verb. He intentionally abuses conventional written style, using a conversational method of writing: incomplete sentences, dangling clauses, etc. ^•^Ibid.. p. 918} in "Sobre la europeizacion," 1906. has its own method, and what we call "logic” is the method of reason, which is that of science. He says that he rarely has recourse to this method when he addresses him self to the reason of his hearers and readers, and if he is credited with reason, it is his hearers and readers who so credit him; it is not Unamuno himself. It is rather a superimposed Unamuno whom his hearers and readers have 194 imagined him to be. Another method that is vital and also valid is that of passion, which is "arbitrary” and not to be confused with caprice. Unamuno's concept of arbitrariness is: ”. . . la afirmacion cortante porque si, porque lo quiero, porque lo necesito, la creacion de nuestra verdad vital— verdad es lo que nos hace vivir 195 . . .” This is the "method of passion," which affirms; and the proof of its affirmation depends on the force with which it is affirmed. No other proofs are needed. And in view of this attitude, it is no wonder that Unamuno feels that Europe should be "Hispanized" and not Spain "Europeanized." He qualifies this somewhat by noting that no intelligent and well-intentioned Spaniard would be willing to see Spain divorced from the rest of the culture of Europe, but there is more than one way to participate in this culture. Perhaps the best way would be to take 194 Ensayos, I, 919. 195Ibid. 306 from Kant, Luther, Goethe, Bacon, et al., what is adapt able to Spanish life, and then try to impose on Europe the Spanish San Juan de la Cruz, Calderon, Cervantes, and, to a certain degree, Torquemada. "Todo, menos esa actitud servil de papanatas, que no tiene en cuenta nuestro propio espiritu.”^ ^ Spirit is not preserved and increased except by giving it freely, and he who refuses to influ ence those around him in his circunstancia and to modify them to "his own image and likeness” actually refuses to preserve himself just as he is, ’ ’ unless it be in Ca state of] true spiritual petrification."1^ This "spiritual petrification” is a fine example of the falsification of life. The effort of men to impose themselves mutually on one another, peoples on peoples, represents, for Unamuno, 196 Ensayos, I, 926; in "Sobre la tumba de Costa,” 1911- In 1&99* Unamuno had stated that there are two tasks which are obligatory: intraespanolizarnos and "abrimos al nrundo exterior, al ambiente europeo" (0 . C. , III, 975 i*1 "De la ensehanza superior en Espana”). 197 r Ensayos, I, 8l4; in "Mas sobre la crisis del patriotismo," 1906. See also ibid., pp. 917-918, where Unamuno expresses the same thesis: ”La honda vida moral es una vida de agresion y de penetracion mutua." That he lived these words to the letter is most evident in what Ortega says about him in "En la muerte de Unamuno,” 1937, an article that appeared in La Nacion (Buenos Aires) on January 4, shortly after Unamuno's death: "No he conocido un yo mas compacto y solido que el de Unamuno. Cuando entraba en un sitio, instalaba desde luego en el centro su yo, como un sefLor feudal hincaba en el medio del campo su pendSn. Tomaba la palabra definitivamente. No cabia el dialogo con £l. . . . No habia, pues, otro remedio que dedicarse a la pasividad y ponerse en corro en torao a don Miguel, que habia soltado en medio de la habitacion su yo, como si fuese un oraitorrinco” (Obras, V, 265)• 307 "the most vigorous spring of progress and the strongest push of mutual enrichment," making for a more authentic 198 existence for everyone concerned. He maintains that in their day the Castilians proved his thesis of self imposition, and the Inquisition and the army were the Castilians' tangible instruments, which they used to impose themselves on the rest of the peoples of the 199 Peninsula. Unamuno further observes that the vital need for man to perform his task in life "passionately, tragically," and "religiously" should impel him to make an effort "to stamp others" with his "seal," to perpetuate himself in others and in their children by dominating our contemporaries. Man should do this for the sake of leav ing on everything the most imperishable mark of his personal signature: "The most fecund ethic is the ethic „ , , . ... ,,200 of mutual imposition." Closely allied to Unamuno's thesis of self-imposition is his theme of knowing oneself, which also constitutes an ingredient of the authentic life. The best way to get to know oneself, "which must be our supreme desire," is to ^ ^ Enaayos, I, 8l4. ^ ^ Ibid. , pp. 8l4-8l8. History would corroborate this thesis. See also ibid., II, 970, in "Del sentimiento . . .," 19131 where Unamuno reiterates this thesis, and especially pp. 982-983 and 984, where he discusses various ways of self-imposition and the necessity for this. ^^Ibid., II, 978; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 19131 in essay XI ("El problems practico"). 308 have to "rub elbows" with one's fellow man, "chocar, entrana contra entrafia, es decir, roca contra roca, con un semejante"; and the best way to accomplish this is to live 201 in a small city or town. Too little society, as in a small village, is deleterious to one's authentic yo! "Monos sociedad, o sociedad men03 compleja, amenguaria nuestra personalidad, y tambien la amenguaria mas socie- r 202 dad, o sociedad aparentemente mas compleja." In "Pan y toros," 1932, Unamuno again speaks of the matter of know ing oneself by learning to know others; and he maintains that nobody can really know himself unless he knows the other fellow, that only through others does one get to know himself. If one concentrates solely on himself, liv ing in solitude as a "recluse" or as a hermit, living in "perpetual examination of conscience," he will surely come to forget himself, "empty himself of himself, become 203 indifferent to his own being." But there is an even greater tragedy, and this is what Unamuno calls "auto phobia," the fear of oneself, the fear of "the responsi bility for oneself," the lack of what Unamuno calls "inner 201 0. C., I, 338» in "Por tierras de Portugal y de Espana," 1911, in the essay "Grandes y pequenas ciudades." 202 Ibid., p. 54l. Unamuno adds: ". . . para anegar el propio yo, mejor las calles de una gran ciudad que no los paramos del yerrao" (ibid.). See also ibid., p. 683, in "Andanzas y visiones espanolas," 1922, where Unamuno repeats his theme of the authenticity of small cities. 20?Pe esto, IV, 268. life"--especially one's not knowing how to make outward life into one's inner life, not knowing how "to appro- 2q4 priate to oneself Censimismarse] history," For Unamuno "being perfect" (authentic) means to be everything, yo and all the other yos, to be humanity, to be the universe, And the only way to become all is to give oneself to all, "and when all is in all, all will be in each one of us." The apocatastasis is, for Unamuno, more than a "mystical dream": "it is a rule of action, a beacon [that urges man to] lofty deeds"; hence the moral ethic of invasion, 205 of dominating, of aggression. This is Unamuno's idea of being authentic and vital, especially vital; everything else is "spiritual avarice" the only cure for which is what those in "ethical science" call "egotism," the only cure for "egoism" (= spiritual avarice) Unamuno is convinced that Spaniards suffer from too much spiritual avarice, and about this unauthentic situation he is adamant. He flails the lackadaisical attitude of Span iards and proposes "injecting his soul" into those whose 2nii De esto, IV, 268. ^^^Ensayos, II, 981; in "Del sentimiento . . 1913, in essay XI ("El problems practico"). ^ ^ Ibid. , pp. 98O-982. Most of man's misery and unhappiness stem from this "spiritual avarice," which means pulling into oneself and not sharing and imposing oneself on others (ibid., p. 982). Spiritual avarice is the "repulsive ethic" of "anarchic individualism" because the authentic religious ethic is basically aggressive and invading, self-imposing (ibid., p, 980). 3io souls are asleep or "perhaps dead." Spaniards are falsi- 207 . fying their existence— and their historical reality. Directly related to this aspect of1 authenticity— knowing oneself— is what Unamuno writes to a young man who is obviously seeking praise. Unamuno speaks of* "arriving" and notes that one should never arrive, that he should always be en route, because when one arrives, he is dead, in one sense or another. Unamuno says that he does not know if the Delphic proposition of "knowing thyself." is the beginning or the end of wisdom, "and the end of wisdom, like all ends, is a terrible thing." We should change the Delphic proposition to read: "Study thyself!" We should study ourselves whether we manage to know our selves or not, and perhaps we may never get to know our selves . The more we study ourselves the more we broaden and penetrate into ourselves spiritually, and the more we broaden and penetrate into ourselves the more difficult it becomes to know ourselves.^ o r ) 7 * 'See De esto, III, 569-571; "AQue mas da?," 1922. See also ibid., IV, 95, in "Cuestiones de momento: Inter- medio lirico," 1919, where Unamuno makes a plea to Span iards to know themselves, each as an individual in the eternal present, which is history. He observes that the "crown of life is really to know that one is living. And the more and better that one knows that he is living, the more and better he lives." This is Ortega's theme of authenticity, of being all that one is capable of being, no matter what that being is. 20 A Ensayos, II, 48l; in "A un literato joven," 1907• Authentic existence, for Unamuno, is a constant becoming, a continual making of oneself— a faciendum (see De esto. 311 Unamuno's authentic man, his "hombre de carne y hueso," who is "nada menos que todo un hombre," is well illustrated by what he says about Goethe's joy on contem plating the skull of* Raphael. He notes that a great spirit is the one in which "the seven capital sins and their seven corrective virtues" are equally developed, because with both and without the interplay of their "intimate contradiction" there can be no complete man. Raphael's skull, "contracted and round," so admired by Goethe, "was a temple of contradictory human perfection," 209 which is representative of the authentic man. If the face is the mirror of the soul, perhaps the skull is the mirror of the skeleton (osatura) of the soul, because the soul, like the body, has "its skeleton" underneath the muscles and the fat and skin; and "a soul can show itself, 210 like a body, nude and devoid of flesh." Unamuno notes IV, 609, and also Chapter VI of this study. In "Nuestro yo y el de los demas," 1917) Unamuno notes that our au thentic yo 1® what others think of us; it is not our true yo. We must know ourselves better than others know us, to which he adds: "Cuando te digan: 'Tu patria es- pera de ti . . . [sicj' y luego esto o aquello, responde: 'Mi patria no debe esperar de mi. sino que sea fiel a mi mismo, a mi intima idea, al mandato del zahondo de mi con- ciencia" (De esto, IV, 178-179)- Note here the concept of the "idea" and its vital function in life (see Chapter II, "Ideas"). 209 De esto, IV, 354; in "La calavera de Rafael," 1923. 210 Ibid., p. 355* Note again the physiological con cept of the soul (see Chapter II, pp. 21, n. 37, and 24, n. 47). 312 that there are souls which when bared show ugly "scars, lacerations, burns, infarcts," which when laid bare of flesh, "in sheer bones," acquire beauty and excellence.^'*' Xn order that we may become aware of what we must do to become vitally authentic in the matter of living, Unamuno would open our breasts and in the heart (cogollo) of our hearts he would scratch a wound and put vinegar and salt on it so that we could never rest and would have to 212 live in "perpetual anguish and endless longing.” Joaquin Costa represented, for Unamuno, a superlative example of the authentic Spaniard, with all the strength and weakness of the typical Spaniard "of flesh and bone." Costa is Unamuno’s idea of a "sincere spirit," and he calls forth Unamuno’s plea for honesty. We disagree with one another in our judgments and convictions, but, at least, we can demand of all people "mental honesty, loyalty, and a saintly hatred of all falsification, of all insincerity, and of all deceit, however well defined they may be." And he concludes this essay with the following exhortation: "IPor Dios santo, no traduzcamos el 211 De esto, IV, 355- 212 Ensayos, II, 343; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905i in the penultimate paragraph of his com mentary on Quij., II, 72 and 73- Unamuno adds that if he has failed to disquiet us with "his" Quijote, it is due to the "dead paper on which I write," which "neither screams nor cries out nor sighs nor wails, because language was not created for you and me to understand one another" (ibid.). 313 213 cant I" Unamuno expresses a like respect for the au thenticity of Ricardo Rojas, whom he considered to be a whole man. He applauds Rojas' nationalism, which is precisely the same as that which Unamuno himself espouses. This means that the more a writer--the man--belongs to his epoch and his country (both of which are part of his cir- cunstancia) the more he belongs to all epochs and to all countries, that is, the more universal he is. So-called "cosmopolitanism" is what is most opposed to true and real 214 universality. Thus Ricardo Rojas, radically Argen tinean, and Unamuno, radically Iberian Spanish, understand each other better than they would if they were "humani tarians" belonging to an abstract utopian type of 215 humanity. ^ In a very provocative article entitled "Sobre la argentinidad," n. d., Unamuno invents the word hombridad, as he invents espanolidad and argentinidad, which are to be distinguished rigorously from espanolismo and argentinismo. Hombridad, Unamuno tells us, is a 213 Ensayos, I, 937} in "Sobre la tumba de Costa," subtitled "A la clara memoria de un esplritu sincero," 1911. 214 Ibid., II, 1081; in "Educacion por la historia," n* d,, the seventh of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227)* Unamuno is commenting here on Rojas' La restauraci6n nacionalista: Informe sobre educaci6n, 1909. 215Ibid., p. 1082. 2^See Chapter IV, pp. 214-216, for espaftolidad and e spanolismo. 314 "real find” because it is not like humanidad, a word of learned origin which has been "abused” and "deformed" by "pedantic and sectarian applications." Hombridad is the "quality of being a man," of being an authentic man. To state that a person "has hombridad is equivalent to saying that he is a whole man," and Unamuno laments the dearth of men whom one could truly call "whole" men.^^ In like manner, americanidad and argentinidad refer to "those spiritual qualities," to "that moral physiognomy— mental, ethical, aesthetic, and religious— that makes the American 218 American and the Argentinean Argentinean." This is what Unamuno believes that Ricardo Rojas is tending toward in La restauracion nacionalista; Informe sobre educacion, 1909t Rojas is attempting "to bring argentinidad to the surface of the collective consciousness so that it may grow strong, define, and give credit to the air of civil life and of History [sicH. 2 1 7 Ensayos, IX, IO87. This is the eighth of twenty- three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912. (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227). 2l8Ibid. 2X9 Ibid., p. 1088. Unamuno says that he concerns himself with things American in the same way that he con cerns himself with things Portuguese, just as he learned Danish or Norwegian to be able to read Kierkegaard and Ibsen in their own languages. "De cada pais me interesan los que mas del pais son, los mas castizos, los mas propios, los menos traducidos y menos traductibles" (ibid., p. IO89). This is why Unamuno was so fond of William Wordsworth, the poet least quoted outside England and whom the French avoid (ibid.). He also enjoys 315 Man, to be authentic, must never surrender -without a struggle? and he must fight desperately, "tooth and nail." This is the advice that Unamuno gives to a young man who aspires to a literary career. If he is to succumb, he must not do so without leaving his adversary marked by some scratch or bite. Anything but to bow one's head "lambwise" in submission! And the same applies to one's "public." If one is to sink into oblivion, if he is ignored and his efforts go unappreciated, if the public does not even bother to ascertain how much one does to teach his public, suggest to it, amuse it, and cause it emotions, at least before succumbing one must try "to plant his fingernails or his teeth Cin this public] where . , , , . ,,220 xt hurts most." Browning "in spite of his obscurities." Wordsworth and Browning possess most of what Unamuno calls anglicanidad, which makes them more authentically English (ibid.T~» For this same reason he prefers Domingo F. Sarmiento, Carlos Vaz Ferreira, Ricardo Rojas, Jose Enrique Rodo, Juan Zorilla de San Martin, and others of their kind in Spanish America. Thus la argentinidad interests Unamuno especially since his "battle is that everyone, man or people, be himself and no one else"; and he also interests himself as a "recalcitrant Spaniard," one who is "preoc cupied with maintaining espanolidad" in Spain (ibid., p. 1091). The school must be the cradle of argentinidad just as it must be the cradle of espanolidad (ibid., P- 1093)* Unamuno finds in Ricardo Rojas a kindred spirit, a man who is universal because he is so very Argentinean. 220 Ensayos, II, 646-647; in "Reputaciones heehas," n. d., the fourteenth of twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533- 726). This is a form of Unamuno's concept of self imposition. This is Unamuno, the luchador. This is the "purgatory" of living--and dying. But the public wants Unamuno speaks of sundry aspects of authenticity: irony, pessimism, intelligence, sin and evil, civiliza- tion, and what is authentically beautiful. The first of these, irony, is made explicit in "Malhumorismo,n n. d., where Unamuno observes that irony is the product of a "sharp, subtle, and clairvoyant head watered by a bland heart." It belongs to souls in which "sensualism chokes out passion." It burgeons and flowers in peoples who are possessed of moderate feelings, in whom the ne quid nimis rules; and it reflects the triumph of good sense over 221 passion. For this reason Spaniards rarely achieve true Greek irony; Spaniards are too passionate, as was Camilo Castelo Branco, the Portuguese novelist so admired by Unamuno for his "Iberian" sense of passion and justice— Castelo Branco, the authentic man. Eqa de Queiroz, more cosmopolitan and French, was less authentically Iberian 222 and Portuguese. Unamuno does not deny that Spain has produced writers who could skillfully handle irony, and only news, information, actuality; it does not want any thing authentic, such as "pieces of one's soul" because "El alma estorba: la vision de un alma palpitante de am- bicion, de desengaho, de tristeza, de desden, es un espec- taculo tan desagradable como la vision de unas entranas de carae palpitante de vida moribunda" (ibid., p. 650). Unamuno's graphic descriptions are often too realistic! 221 Ensayos, II, 603• This is the ninth of twenty- three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones," 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). 222 Ibid., p. 604. Note again the unauthenticity of things "French" when applied to Iberia. 317 he cites Juan Valera, ascribing his ability in this area to his being Andalusian. The Andalusians have not a little Hellenic in their make-up, and their "yams" have 227 an extremely subtle irony. J The irony of Ricardo Palma is also admired by Unamuno, who attributes Palma's ability to the fact that Peru's mild climate and "the soft, gentle, and easy life" have made Palma more French and 224 Hellenic than Spanish and Iberian. Irony is an "exotic plant," and this is evidenced by Jacinto Benavente whose irony is bitter and not at all Hellenic or French; it is an irony that borders on sarcasm and often becomes "English humor." Benavente's smile becomes a wry grimace, and that is why he is so authentically and profoundly 225 Spanish, one of Spain's most castizo writers. Unamuno notes that Spaniards are basically pessimists, which is essentially the product of vanity, something fashionable, pure "snobism," none of which unauthentic qualities Don 226 Quijote possessed. Unamuno believes that he sees an intimate relationship between Spain's grave and moralizing satirists and her moralizing mystics and ascetic writers, who were more moralizing in essence than they were purely ^^^Ensayos, II, 605. 224 Ibid. Unamuno1s reasons are quite flimsy here. 225Ibid. 226Ibid., p.‘1018; in "Del sentimiento . < , 1913, in essay XII ("Conclusion"). 3X8 227 contemplative. He considers Quevedo to have been more of an ascetic writer than a true satirist because Spanish satire is more akin to English humor than it is to French 228 irony. Carlyle and Jonathan Swift are excellent examples of Unamuno's malhmnorismo, which constitutes, for 229 him, an authentic quality. He cogently observes that the sick man is more authentically aware of life than the well person, and the intelligent "man of heart,” who is not a dolt, is more likely to be concerned with life and be disquieted than is the dolt} and this is because sensibility and intelligence go hand in hand.2^0 Intel ligence, being authentic and conscious of itself, does not enter into matters of politics and its inherent "deals"5 rather, intelligence "lets itself be excommunicated, for it is the fate of intelligence to be excommunicated." And this is why not every so-called revolution is the genuine upheaval.2^ 227 Ensayos, IX, 605-606; in "Malhumcrismo," n. d. 228Ibid., p. 606. 229Ibid., p. 607. 25°Ibid., pp. 607-608. 2^ Pe esto, IV, 436; in "Eso no es revolucion," 1933* Unamuno is here commenting on Ortega's lecture "En el cen- tenario de una Universidad," 1932, delivered at the fourth centennial celebration of the University of Granada (see Obras, V, 463-474). Here Unamuno agrees fully with Ortega about the role of authentic intelligence and the univer sity. Both men are vitally concerned about the future of genuine intelligence in Spain. 319 In Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913» Unamuno speaks of sin and. evil and notes that it rests upon man's conscience to have sinned, regardless of the magnitude of the error committed. The sin, as such, is in him who judges and to the extent that he judges. He who commits a vicious act, believing the while that, in good faith, he was doing something virtuous, cannot be judged morally guilty. The man who is authentically guilty is the one who commits an act which he believes to be wrong, though the act in itself may he indifferent or even beneficial. The authentic evil here is in the intention rather than in the act committed. The "evil" in the "evil act" corrupts the intention, "blurs the conscience" of the wrongdoer, 232 because "doing evil is not the same as being evil." Evil clouds the conscience, not only the moral conscience 233 but also the general psychic conscience. ^ Everything that tends to exalt and to expand consciousness is deemed by Unamuno to be good (= authentic), and everything that 2*20 Ensayos, II, 9895 in essay XI ("El problema practico"). 2??Ibid., pp. 989-990. In essay VIII ("De Dios a Dios"), Unamuno notes that the truly and authentically evil person is the one who says in his heart (not in his head) that there is no God. To doubt that there is a God, or to believe that God is non-existent, is one thing; to resign oneself to His non-existence is still another thing, "though inhuman and horrible"; but to want God not to exist, to will that there be no God, "exceeds every other moral monstrousness" (ibid., p. 895)- This latter type of willed disbelief is, for Unamuno, a "living suicide," an unauthentic life. 320 tends to depress or to diminish consciousness is basically evil (= unauthentic) Unamuno, the lover of nature, feels civilization to be a falsification of one’s authentic yo, and the decorum of society "is the seriousness of those who are empty 235 inside." Unamuno felt very deeply, entranadamente, the "purification" of his "soul" when he could escape into nature, where "one puts his soul in shirt sleeves," which 236 constitutes authentic living. ^ Woe unto the man who becomes bored when he has to spend some time alone in the open country! Woe unto him who cannot forego the noise and uproar of his fellow men, because such a benighted person has failed to find himself 5 and much less has he attempted to search for himself. He sees himself only as a reflected image of the rest of his fellow creatures, 2*57 which is a falsification of human life, Unamuno's love of nature is extended to his love of beauty, which is something authentic. And of this he speaks when he’ comments on Don Quijote*s antics in the Sierra Morena (Quij., I, 26), noting that what is authen tically beautiful is that which is superfluous, that which ^ ^ Easayos, II, 990- 235 r 0. C., I, 6ll5 in "Andanzas y visiones espanolas," 1922. 256Ibid., p. 610. 257Ibid., p. 629. 321 has no other purpose than itself, which is "the flower of life." He tells the story of two reapers who go out to harvest for a day: the one does not sharpen his scythe and fails to cut the grass, while the other spends the entire day sharpening his scythe but cuts no grass either. Unamuno adapts the moral of this parable to life, noting that there are people who only pay attention to working without sharpening or polishing their will and their boldness (arrojo), and there are those who spend their lives sharpening and polishing in preparation for living; but death overtakes them. Hence we must reap and polish our scythe, work and prepare ourselves for work: without 238 an inner life there is no such thing as an outward one. Don Quijote's jumping and dancing, his carving prayers on the bark of trees and tracing invocations in the sands, his entreaties and sighs, "are spiritual exercise" to prepare him to attack windmills, flocks of sheep, conquer Basques, free galley slaves— and be stoned by them for his trouble. In the retirement of his Sierra Morena penance, he cleansed himself of the mockery of the world by making fun of himself; and he also gave vent to his thwarted love 239 for Dulcinea del Toboso. Closely associated with Unamuno's concept of beauty 238 Ensayos, XI, 169? in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," I9O5. 239Ibid. 322 are truth (sincerity) and faith. What is truth? In ans wer to this question, Unamuno states that there are two kinds of truth: logical or objective truth the opposite of which is error, and moral or subjective truth the 240 opposite of which is falsehood. Moral truth, the road that leads to intellectual truth, which is also moral, "teaches us to cultivate science, which is, above all, a 241 school of sincerity and humility." Unamuno notes that science teaches man to submit his reason to truth, to know and to judge things as they are, not as he would like them to be. Such "religiously scientific" research is "the gateway to religion," but inside the area of religion itself, just inside "the portico," the function of re- 242 search per se ends. Just as we have "logical truth" as opposed to error, and "moral truth" as opposed to falsehood, so also there are "aesthetic truth" or "veri similitude" as opposed to extravagance, and. "religious truth" or "hope" as opposed to the disquietude of absolute despair. Neither is "aesthetic verisimilitude," what may be,expressed sensibly, "logical truth," demonstrable with reasons, nor does "religious truth," the truth of faith, the substance of what is hoped for, equal "moral truth"; 24o Ensayos, II, 906-907» in "Del sentimiento . . ., 1913j in essay IX ("Fe , esperanza y caridad"). 241, t t 'Ibid. , p . 90 2^2Ibid. 7 * 323 rather it is superimposed upon it. Thus Unamuno states that the person who affirms his faith, a faith constructed on a basis of uncertainty, does not nor can he lie; he is 243 still an authentic believer. In this way Unamuno ties truth to authentic faith, two concepts that are insepa rable in his formulation of these aspects of authenticity. Unamuno considers sincerity to be the supreme virtue in man, and the ugliest vice is falsehood, with its deriv atives: hypocrisy and exaggeration. He prefers the cynic to the hypocrite, provided the former have nothing of the latter about him. Merely not prevaricating is not enough for Unamuno; man must speak out the truth at all costs, because "the cult of truth for truth's sake" is one of the 244 exercises that most elevates and fortifies the spirit. To seek life in truth is to seek in the cult of truth to ennoble and elevate our "spiritual life" and not to con vert truth, which is something alive, into a dogma, which 245 is usually something dead. ^ People who do not dare seek the life of things they say they profess as truths never live truthfully (authentically) The believer who ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 907* O I t ft Ibid., p. 379? in "Verdad y vida," 1908. 245Ibid., p. 382. 246 Ibid. , pp. 383-384. Ortega also considers as man's principal mission in life not being astute but simply resolving his life loyally, sincerely, and authen tically (see Obras, V, 90; in "En torno a Galileo," 1933)* 324 refuses to examine the bases of his belief is the one who lives insincerely and falsely, and he who will not think about certain "eternal problems" is a farce, an unauthen- 247 tic individual. Truth is authentic, and only truth can create a whole man. One must work in conformity with truth, since all else is suicide. Unamuno is convinced that if absolute truth were to become mistress of men and govern all their relations and actions, falsehood would vanish, errors would disappear-, and truth would slowly be revealed to man. The so-called Kingdom of God is nothing 248 more than the kingdom of truth. Here Unamuno again ties his concept of truth to belief when he states that the man who, by using his intelligence, cannot justify a belief in God, who considers his idea of God to be a hypothesis which explains nothing, and who claims all proof of God's existence to be sheer sophistries, who longs in his heart that God exist, adjusting his conduct toward Him, "giving personality to the Supreme Ideal," such a man authentically believes in God; he does so much more than the person who is convinced logically that God 247 Ensayos, II, 384. Unamuno says that the irrelig ious nation is that country in which almost nobody is vitally interested in religious problems, whatever the solutions of these problems may be. Such a nation is a land of tricksters and exhibitionists, a land where being as such is of no concern, where only appearing to be (which is unauthentic) matters (ibid.). ^ ^ Ibid. , I, 800; in "iQue es verdad? , " 1906. 325 exists but who does nothing more about it than render cult 249 to the lie in order to justify himself and his belief. The former is an authentic believer; the latter is a falsification of true faith. Unamuno observes that there are people who live in a "perpetual and intimate lie,” trying to silence the truth that springs from the depths 250 of their hearts. He considers among the citizens who are most useful to their nation those who are called haughty, who do not conceal their belief in their own superiority and who often complain when their fellow countrymen do not esteem them as they believe they merit. He observes that it is one thing if any man whosoever merits that distinctive esteem of which the persons to whom he alludes believe themselves deserving and if there are never any such superior men, and it is another quite different thing if there are those who find themselves in this situation and do not hide it hypocritically. They 251 may well be mistaken, but they do not lie. Unamuno considers death to be the lie and truth to be 2^ Ensayos, X, 804-805 . 25°Ibid., p. 806. 2 51 J Ibid., p. 808. Unamuno comments on the Retablo de Maese Pedro episode (Quij., II, 26), noting that ”es mas respetable el error creido que no la verdad en que no se cree" (ibid., II, 247; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905). Thus, the truth in which we do not believe is an unauthentic truth— a lie— while the error in which we do believe is really authentic belief. life in all its relationships. If truth leads man to death, it is better to die for truth than to live on the 252 lie, which is to live by dying. Thus Unamuno is con vinced that Spain is not authentically a Catholic nation, that most so-called Catholics in Spain are merely going through the motions that their Church demands of them; and they do this solely because their Church requires it of 255 them. ^ In order to obtain truth— the authentic life-- the first thing needed is a full belief in truth itself, a belief that concerns both heart and. soul. To believe in truth in this way means that we always and under all con ditions say what we believe to be true, and we do this particularly when our so doing may seem most inopportune 254 and even rude. We do this because "la palabra es obra, 252 Ensayos, I, 8l0. Ortega's "living suicide." ^^^Ibid., pp. 8lO-8ll. Unamuno adds: "Me hablas de la Iglesia como de la depositaria de las verdades de tu fe. Las verdades que no esten despositadas en tu alma no son verdades de tu fe, ni para nada te sirven. Tu fe es lo que tu crees, teniendo conciencia de ello, y no lo que cree tu Iglesia. Y tu Iglesia misma no puede creer nada, porque no tiene conciencia personal. Es una institucion social, no una fusion de almas" (ibid. , p. 812). 254 Ibid., p. 812. In a personal letter written by Unamuno between 1900 and 1905, he speaks of the publica tion of Tres ensayos ("IAdentro!," "La ideocracia," and "La fe" tall included in Ensayos, I]), and he states that "La fe" will cause a "scandal among the Catholics." He bluntly states what authentic faith is: "La fe no es ad hesion de la mente a un principio abstracto [.as a dogma is], sino entrega de la confiaipza y del corazon a una per sona, para el cristiano a la persona de Cristo. Tal es mi tesis, en el fondo una tesis luterana" (ibid., II, 60-6l). Thus Unamuno speaks his mind, come what may. 327 la obra mas xntima, la mas creadora, la mas divina de las 255 obras" when tb.e word is a "word of truth.” The foregoing leads us directly into the matter of authentic faith and what Unamuno considers to be true belief (see also p. 326, n. 2$*t) • To Unamuno, it is in conceivable that a true believer should see in the mystery of the Eucharist anything purely aesthetic, since "every truly religious spirit, every spirit that confronts the problems that concern happiness and human destiny,” as 255 Ensayos, I, 812. Ortega notes that Unamuno did not always live up to this dictum about truth, and he laments Unamuno's having published a private letter of his in which Unamuno flails the "dolts" (papanatas) who want to "Europeanize" Spain. Unamuno cites Ramon Menendez Pidal as the outstanding example of Spanish superiority over other Europeans in matters philological. Ortega cites a letter from Americo Castro, who ably points out that all the major studies in Spanish philology had been carried out by men outside of Spain and before Menendez Pidal's time, thus disproving Unamuno's Hispanic thesis. Ortega regrets Unamuno's personal attack and- notes that slowly the number of thinkers, those who would concentrate on authentic truth, on "the shipwreck of [SpanishJ nation al life," is increasing: This is the new cry: "I Salve- monos en las cosas! La moral, la ciencia, el arte, la religion, la politica, han dejado de ser para nosotros cuestiones personales; nuestro campo de honor es ahora el conocido campo de Montiel de la logica, de la responsibi- lidad intelectual. Pensando en esto, he preferido las observaciones tecnicas de mi grande amigo Americo Castro a toda mi prosa indignada. Merced, a ellas puedo afirmar que en esta ocasion don Miguel de Unamuno, energumeno espaxiol, ha faltado a la verdad. Y no es la primera vez que hemos pensado si el matiz rojo y encendido de las torres salman- tinas les vendra de que las piedras venerables aquellas se ruborizan oyendo lo que Unamuno dice cuando a la tarde pasea entre ellas" (Obras, I, 128-132; "Unamuno y Europa, fabula," 19G9)« Ortega expresses his sadness and profound melancholy at the errors committed by such a "strong spiritual machine" as Unamuno: "IDios, que buen vasallo si oviese buen Senor!" (ibid., p. 132). 328 such problems must be confronted, could scarcely see in this ritual anything other than its mystery. To see aesthetics in this rite creates a falsification of the authentic religious spirit: "El esteticismo ha corrompido la fuente religiose en los parses que se llaman latinos,” 256 and of this Unamuno is more than certain. He is very much disturbed by the false faith he sees in evidence in Spanish life, that faith which he conceives as a youthful creating and re-creating of that which we cannot see but 257 in which we believe and hope for. In order to live an authentic life we must live a life of authentic faith in the ideal, ourselves "swollen with sincerity, tolerance, and mercy,” the three authentic ingredients of true youth ful living— the authentic life that dares to hope and look toward the future with authentic faith (pistis), such as the early Christians had before dogma (gnosis) killed ^ ^ Ensayos, I, 878; iu "Algunas consideraciones sobre la literatura hispano-americana LsicJ,” 1905• 257See ibid., pp. 259-272, "La fe,” 1900j also De esto, III, 507-513t "IPistis y no gnosis!," 1897? some paragraphs of which were incorporated three years later into "La fe." This 1897 article is a plea from the heart for a true faith (pistis), the faith of youth in a future, not the unauthentic, stereotyped, dogmatic stalemate (gnosis) that passes for faith. True youth is the age of authentic faith (De esto, XII, 507-508). Unamuno feels that in Spain there is no real faith (pistis), but only credos (gnosis). In Spain youth does not seem to be young because it hopes for nothing, living in the bondage of the past and not in "the liberty of the future" (ibid., p. 510). "No hay juventud constituyente, toda ella es constitulda, lo que quiere decir que no hay juventud propiamente tal" (ibid.). faith. Unamuno elaborates on these three basic ingredi ents of the authentic life: sincerity means being ever honest, come what may and despite the set rules (laws and dogma) of society; tolerance means the keen comprehension of the relativity of all knowledge and the awareness of the fact that only by developing himself within his own world of ideas and feelings can man hope to become har monized under unity of faith in rich variety of belief-- "ITolerancia! IHija de la profunda conviccion de que no hay ideas malas ni bueuas, de que son las intenciones y nsO no las doctrinas las que justifican los actos!"; mercy means a ,ffecund [authentic!] compassion for the sinner, the delinquent, and the criminal,” and each authentic youth must cast out the demoniacal joy that people are wont to experience on seeing a guilty person punished, because what they really express is not their sense of justice being carried out but only their unbosoming of their own criminal instincts. Hence Unamuno would have us do away with the justice of the law which ”kills mercy, the only 259 thing that saves.” Above all, faith instead of be liefs , pistis rather than gnosis: porque de la pistis, en que se identifican la fe, la esperanza y la caridad; de la pistis, que da libertad, igualdad y fraternidad a los hombres; de 2^^Pe esto, III, 5i2; in ”IPistis y no gnosis!,” 1897. 259Ibid., p. 513. 330 la pistis brotan la siaceridad, para descubrir el ideal siempre y oponerlo a la realidad; la toleran- cia hacia las diversas creencias que dentro de la comun esperanza caben; la misericordia hacia las victimas del pasado y del presente incoercibles y fatales.260 Authentic faith, which is truth, is "what suffices for the security of consciousness"; it is not logical relationship of the world of appearances to reason, which is also appearance; but it is the "intimate penetration of the real (substantial) world in consciousness," which is also substantial (real)Genuine faith, something unrea soned and illogical, must be "felt" with the entranas of the soul, which is here the same as "consciousness." Thus the canon in Quijote, X, 50, is, for Unamuno, a perfect example of unauthenticity, of the man who thinks only with 262 his head and does not feel with his heart. Unamuno considers authentic Christianity to be Saint Paul’s rapture at the third heaven, at Paradise, where he heard ^ ^ De esto. Ill, 513* I*1 "L® fe," 1900, Unamuno uses this same passage, changing only the last line by omitting the last two words "y fatales" and adding the sentence "Esta es fe" (Ensayos, I, 272). 261 Ensayos, II, 205; in MVida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905, in the commentary on Quij., I, 49. 262 , Ibid., p. 207. Unamuno says: "A este [canonigoj con que topo Don Quijote, y que era la aesudez en pasta, ino podria habersele desentranado un anico siquiera de locura? Es muy de dudarlo; el seso le habia carcomido las entranas. Estos hombres tan razonables no suelen tener razon; piensan con la cabeza tan ^.6lo, cuando debe pensarse con todo el cuexpo y con el alma toda" (ibid. See Chapter VII for Unamuno's subjective vitalism.). 331 those "indescribable 'words’ * which cannot be expressed in human language. This concept, which certainly partakes of mysticism, is essential to the Christian; and "he who does not feel himself capable of understanding and feeling this [state of rapture], of knowing it in the Biblical sense [as did St. Paul], of creating it,” must renounce not only understanding Christianity but also the under standing of "anti-Christianity, History, and life," as 26*5 well as "reality and the personality." Unamuno also has much to say about unauthentic Christianity in "El Rousseau de Lemaitre," n. d., where he speaks of Jacobinism, for which he has very little sympathy. But if rationalistic dogmatism, "the ridiculous faith that Science and Reason are sufficient," and the lack of spirituality in Jacobinism are unauthentic faith to Unamuno, no less so is the false "archdiscrete conserv atism and the elegant skepticism of French literary neo- Catholicism." Such unauthentic Christianity, for Unamuno, 263 t Ensayos, I, 955; in "La agonia del cristianismo," 1931* To this Unamuno adds: "No solo con el Cristo, sino con toda potencia human a y divina, con todo hoiubre vivo y eterno a quien se conoce con conocimiento mistico, en una compenetracion de entranas, ocurre lo mismo; y es que el conociente, el amante, se bace el conocido, el amado" (ibid.). Such is the concept of the subjective vitalist, the "man of passion" who so admires the authenticity of the Spanish mystics, whom he considered to be the only genuine mystics in the entire Western world. This is quite different from the objective Ortega, who never delves into such depths of mysticism in any of his writ ings (see Chapter VII). 332 is "Voltairian rationalistic" Catholicism whose adherents defend their "faith" merely because it is associated with great French literary figures, and particularly because to such people Protestantism seems to be Germanic, which, to Unamuno, appears to be the greatest "meanness" of view- 264 point possible. Unamuno notes that there have always been two tendencies which were observable in Catholicism: one that is genuinely religious, Christian, mystic, and not perverted by worldly ethics; and the other tendency is political, specifically Catholic, and skeptical. The admirers of Rousseau have always been partisans of the former tendency, while the lovers of Voltaire have 265 subscribed to the latter one. For obvious reasons, Unamuno considers only the first tendency to be truly representative of authentic Catholicism. Lemaitre, so far as Unamuno is concerned, appears to belong to the group that espouses the second (unauthentic) tendency, the Voltairian Catholics, the political Catholicism that was revived for purely political reasons, particularly 264 Ensayos, II, 1115; in the eleventh of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello," 1912 (Ensa yos , II, 1025-1227)» Unamuno thought highly of Jean Jacques Rousseau and his works, and he is convinced that Jules Lemaitre, whose ten lectures on Rousseau are the object of discussion in this article, was possessed of "a horror of passion and a cult of reason," which is an unauthentic approach to the study of any whole man (ibid., p. 1118). 265Ibid., p. 1119. 333 ’ ’ because of francesiamo [chauvinism] , nationalistic Catholicism that is the ruin of all true piety. Thus Unamuno cannot help but feel sad about such poseurs, as he calls them, since they represent ”a Catholic nihilism” that is ’ ’cold, dry, [and] rationalistic. He recalls Don Quijote, the Knight of Faith, ’ ’the most honorable target of all the jests, the mockery of all peoples, whom a child could deceive, that prodigy of valor who could face ridicule calmly.” This recollection is highly sig nificant because when the fear of doing something ridicu lous takes hold of an individual or a whole people, they 268 are lost for any and all heroic action. Lemaltre's lectures are filled with a facile irony, but they lack the ’ ’accent of profound indignation or piety, true hatred, or true love." Lemaitre is capable of everything but "feeling" Rousseau, "the foreigner" who "was the principal promoter of the Revolution." But it always happens thus: "La vida se nos viene de fuera," and this is also true of the French. 266 Ibid., p. 1120. 268Ibid. 269 Ibid. Unamuno says that his "mission" in Del sentimiento . . ."is "to combat all who resign themselves to Catholicism, Rationalism, or Agnosticism; it is to make all men live disturbed and passionately desiring [long- ing]" (ibid., p. 1015; in essay XII ["Conclusi6n"]). Here is the self-appointed twentieth-century gadfly! Ensayos, II, 1119 267. 33^ Unamuno remarks on the unauthenticity of the "God- Idea" of former times and says that a God thus arrived at, which is a God that is only "reason hypostatized and pro jected into infinity," cannot be felt as something "alive and real"; nor is there even any way to conceive of such a God "except as a mere idea that will perish with us," 270 which is no God at all. Unamuno's authentic God, the God he longs for, the God that will save his soul from 271 annihilation, must perforce be "an arbitrary God." Thus the "God of reason," the "God-Xdea" or "Idea-God," will not satisfy vital, volitional man; and the God of "theological rationalism," a contemplative God and not the authentic God of action, is a false God, a "quiet1st" God, 272 just as reason is essentially quietistic. Such an "Idea-God" is nothing more than a hypothesis, as, also, is 273 ether. Unamuno's concept of the true God is the idea he espouses of the Deity that is universally longed for by all human souls that have arrived at the consciousness of their humanity, which wants to be the "end and sense of 274 the Universe," This longing, which is "the very 270 Ensayos, II, 8755 in "Del sentimiento . 1913i in essay VIII ("De Dios a Dios"). 271Ibid■■ p . 877. 272It>id. ft 273Ibid., p. 880. 27^Ibid., p. 879- 335 essence of the soul that consists of its effort to persist eternally without breaking the continuity of conscious ness," brings us to "the human, anthropomorphic God, the projection of our consciousness to the Consciousness of the Universe," which means to the "God who confers human 275 finality and meaning on the Universe." Such a God is no mere ens summum or prinaxm movens, no mere Idea-God; rather He is a live, subjective God who is "subjectivity objectivized or personality universalized." He is "will 276 rather than [merej reason." In La agonia del cristianismo, 1931? Unamuno notes that Blaise Pascal, the man of contradictions and struggle (agonia), foresaw that Jesuitism, with its doctrine of passive mental obedience and its implicit faith, "was killing the struggle, the agonia, and, with it, the very life of Christianity." Using Pascal’s cela vous ab^tira, he notes that a Christian can grow stupid, can commit suicide rationally; but he cannot make another person stupid, kill another's intelligence, which is precisely what the Jesuits do, with the result that by trying to dull (abgtir) others they have made themselves foolish. By treating people as if they were children, the Jesuits 2^ Ensayos, II, 879- 276 Ibid. Here is another very good example of what I call Unamuno’s subjective vitalism (see Chapter VII), which causes him to make God into a wholly subjective concept, something entirely personal. 336 "have made themselves childish" in the most dismal sense. Today, says Unamuno, there is nothing more foolish than a 277 Jesuit, "at least, a Spanish Jesuit." This type of falsification is, for Unamuno, unpardonable, since no one has the right to dull man's intelligence. In the Jesuits, "Christianity does not struggle" (agoniza); it does not live but is "dead and buried." The cult of the "Sacred Heart of Jesus, the hierocardiocracia, is the sepulcher of 278 the Christian religion." Unamuno further observes that "heretical (haereticus) is the [[person] who selects for himself a doctrine, he who opines freely— freely7 — and can judge the right doctrine freely, [who] can create it, can 279 create anew the dogma that others say they profess." And this leads Unamuno to aver that Pascal, "the heretic," on thinking about the Catholic ideas that others said they professed, made of these ideas "thoughts" (pensees); and of their dogma he created "truths of life," thus creating anew an authentic orthodoxy, which was an act that, on the other hand, was quite different from the "implicit faith" of the Jesuits, a "coalminer's faith."28<“ * The man who of his own free will dulls himself (s'abfitir) in the solitude 277 * Ensayos, I, 1 0 1 0{ in essay IX ("La fe pasca- liana"). 278Ibid., p. 1011. 279Ibid. 280Ibid., p . 1012 . 337 of his own ;jro is far more authentic than the one who lets himself be dulled by others. This latter type of person is one who evinces pride, which is a type of obedience that has engendered the "swollen collective pride--a 28l Luciferian pride— of the Company of Jesus." And pride is a manifestation of crass unauthenticity. Ortega stresses the need for a "program" for the authentic life, which is essentially our £0, which is our "imaginary program." Everything we do is effected in the service of this "program." Ortega cogently observes that the students now listening to him are doing so because they believe, in one way or another, that doing this serves them in their effort to become, intimately and socially, the £0 that each one feels he should be, the yo 282 that each wants to be. In view of the vital necessity for this life program, authenticity, as a basic ingredient of human life, is something that we must recognize and face squarely if we do not want to become shams and falsi fications of ourselves. Ortega, while spea&ing of the 281 Ensayos, I, 1012. For Unamuno, Blaise Pascal was an authentic person, a truly solitary individual: "El solitario, el verdadero solitario que fue Pascal, el hombre que quiso creer que Jesus derramo una gota de su sangre por el, por Bias Pascal, no podia concertarse con esos soldados [the Jesuits]" (ibid., p. 1013)- p So Obras, V, 338? in "Meditacion de la teenies," which was originally a lecture course given in 1933 at the Summer School of the University of Santander and later added by Ortega to his "Ensimismamiento y alteraci6n," 1939. need for devoting himself to the study of philosophy--his vital program, states that the need to philosophize that is felt by every creative individual is the authentic and original need; and philosophy gets its start in such an individual rather than in de-individualized society. In such a person, in the individual yo and not in society, is the origin of philosophy and its authentic or basic real- 283 ity; and this is authentic philosophy. Ortega further notes that in nature there are no such things as "degrees of reality." Things either are or are not. But such is not true of that which is human, which characteristically possesses the most diverse degrees of reality. Everything that man does can be more or less authentic and, conse quently, more or less real. But the "unauthentic reality" of something like philosophy or the "kindness" of a per son is not merely "unreal"; it has its reality, precisely that "peculiar reality of that which is unauthentic." Ortega expresses this thesis formally by stating that every human reality possesses a "scale of deficient modes" in opposition to a "full [complete] mode" that constitutes its authenticity. And all this forms "the total reality of that human doing [action]." Hence that which is social is essentially, and not by chance, that which is unauthen- tically human and is the "deficient mode," though it is ^^Obras, VI, 400; in "A 'Historia de la filosofia,1 de Emile Brehier," 19^2. 339 unavoidable, of being the man that exists in each indivi- 284 dual. Ortega notes that Plato alludes to authenticity and unauthenticity in human modes when referring to the State and philosophy, which were both public offices so far as Plato was concerned. In The Republic (VIII, 535) Plato states that "the present-day failure of philosophy and the disdain into which it has fallen" stem from "not taking care" in our handling of it} "only true sons should take [philosophy] by the hand." Ortega observes that authenticity and unauthenticity regarding one’s task are here called "legitimacy" and "bastardy," and he adds that Plato states, a few lines farther on, when referring to man's virtues, especially those of the man who governs, that in this matter one must distinguish carefully between the bastard and the legitimate son. That Plato had in mind these two "modes" of human reality is attested by his use, between the two passages cited, of the "involun tary lie" into which men fall, opposing this to the "voluntary" or deliberate falsehood. Ortega believes that the matter could not be better clarified: unauthenticity is the "involuntary lie," pseudos akusion. He observes that man is always in involuntary danger of being only a "pseudo-himself" (pseudo-si mismo). Ortega further notes 284 Obras, VI, 400, n. 1. 340 that Plato says: "Without our realizing it, we allow to occupy at random those who lack the virtues that are the ones assumed Cto be3 needed for said occupations." He observes that Plato does not use the word "virtue" in this passage, and that he, Ortega, has introduced it into this context because it is "pulsating" in the entire passage cited, since the Greek idea of "virtue"— arete— "means precisely 'authenticity,' that is, 'effective capacity' or simply 'effectiveness' for something," which means "being in full reality what one is." Everything that is living "has its arete, its virtue," that is, it has its "plenary mode of being. The close association that exists between authen ticity and human life is made quite apparent in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932, where Ortega notes that man, who is his soul, his gifts, his nature (character), and his body, is the aggregate of the "apparatus" with which he lives and to which he "is equivalent." Hence he 285 Obras, VI, 400, n. 1. Ortega never ceases to admonish us to heed this vital reality of authenticity, as Polonius sagely advises his son Laertes (Hamlet, Act I, sc. 3)1 "This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man." Ortega again speaks of phi losophy and authenticity when he cites the dire need in Europe, and I would add, in the entire modern world, for more authentic men and women (ibid., IV, 221; in "La re- beli6n de las masas," 1930)* See also ibid., III, 335; VI, 48, 348-349, 469, 484-485, for additional statements about "authenticity," a subject that reappears time and again and will be mentioned often in the remaining chapters of this investigation. 3^1 is an actor charged with "playing the character” that is his authentic jro. And here appears what is most surpris ing about "the vital drama”: "man possesses an ample 286 margin of liberty with respect to his £0, or destiny.” He can refuse to realize it, be unfaithful to himself, causing his life to lack authenticity. If by vocation we did not understand, as is customarily done, a "generic form of the professional occupation and the civil curric ulum ,” but rather "an integral and individual program of existence" (life), it would be more accurate to say that our yo is our vocation. If we understood this, we could be more or less faithful to our vocation and, conse- 287 quently, our life would be more or less authentic. ' The vital question that we should ask ourselves is not "What am I?" but "Who am I?" And the answer to this latter query is thte key to our authentic £0. Goethe had used the word entelequia (vital program), which Ortega considers to be adequate; but Goethe devitalized the true meaning of this word by insisting on asking "What am I?" Speak ing of Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit, Ortega indicates how this concept of the authentic jro was distorted by Goethe, who remained a prisoner of the traditional Obras, IV, 401. 287ibii. 288Ibld.. p. 405. 34 2 Idealistic concept of reality* Goethe called his yo, his vital project, "the one [= personJ we have to become," Bestinmamg; but this word is as equivocal as "destiny" (Schicksal). And Ortega pointedly asks: "What is our destiny, the intimate or external one, what we would have to be, or what our nature and the world oblige us to 289 be?" Thus Goethe distinguished between the "real destiny," the effective one, and the "ideal or superior" destiny, which is, apparently, the authentic one. The other one is the result of the "deformation" to which the world molds us "with its ever perturbing influence," which 290 deflects us from our true destiny. There is a basic difference between what we "have to be" and what we "ought to be." The ^o that we "have to be" is the only authentic yo: the other one is an abstraction, which is the product of our thought process and, as a result, is unauthentic 291 and a pseudo-yo. Hence the "ethical" ego is an abstraction, an unreality. Goethe had said to Eckermann in 1829 that "only man's sufferings and his joys instruct 292 him about himself." But precisely who is this 2890bras, IV, 405-406. 29^Ibid. , p. 406 . 291Ibid. 292 Ibid., p. 407- Unamuno aays that only he who knows suffering is capable of knowing true joy, because the capacity for joy and sorrow is the same. Just as he who does not feel the heat also does not feel the cold, 343 " h i m s e l f " w h o o n l y b e c o m e s o b v i o u s a f t e r h i s c l a s h w i t h t h a t w h i c h i s h a p p e n i n g t o h im ? O r t e g a s a y s : E v i d e n t l y i t i s o u r l i f e - p r o j e c t , w h i c h , i n t h e c a s e o f s u f f e r i n g , d o e s n o t c o i n c i d e w i t h o u r e f f e c t i v e [ a u t h e n t i c ] l i f e : man. d i l a c e r a t e s h i m s e l f , ' d i v i d e s h i m s e l f i n t w o — t h e m a n h e h a d t o b e a n d t h e o n e h e t u r n s o u t t o b e . T h e d i s l o c a t i o n i s m a n i f e s t e d i n t h e f o r m o f p a i n , a n g u i s h , a n g e r , i l l h u m o r , a n d e m p t i n e s s ; t h e c o i n c i d e n c e [ w i t h o u r e f f e c t i v e l i f e ] , o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , p i - o d u c e s t h e p r o d i g i o u s p h e n o m e n o n o f h a p p i n e s s.293 R e v e r t i n g o n c e a g a i n t o O r t e g a ' s h i g h l y i n s t r u c t i v e a n d p r o v o c a t i v e "En t o m o a G a l i l e o , ’1 1 9 3 3 , w e n o t e t h a t h e r e h e s a y s t h a t i f h e h a s s e v e r a l p o s s i b l e i d e a s a b o u t a q u e s t i o n , h e m u s t p e r f o r c e a g r e e w i t h h i m s e l f a b o u t w h i c h a n s w e r i s a u t h e n t i c a l l y h i s o w n , w h i c h o n e " i s my 294 e f f e c t i v e o p i n i o n . " A J u d g m e n t s o f o r m e d b y o n e s e l f a n d o n e t h a t i s f o u n d e d o n o n e ’ s o w n e v i d e n c e i s t r u l y h i s o w n a u t h e n t i c o p i n i o n . I t c o n t a i n s e v e r y t h i n g t h a t o n e e f f e c t i v e l y a n d a u t h e n t i c a l l y t h i n k s a b o u t t h e s u b j e c t u n d e r c o n s i d e r a t i o n , a n d , t h e r e f o r e , w h e n o n e t h i n k s i n t h i s m a n n e r , h e " c o i n c i d e s " w i t h h i m s e l f ; h e ifj h i m s e l f . T h e s e r i e s o f a c t s , c o n d u c t , a n d l i f e t h a t t h i s a u t h e n t i c o p i n i o n e n g e n d e r s a n d m o t i v a t e s i s w h a t so he who knows not how to suffer knows not how to enjoy (Ensayos, II, 86l; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913 > essay VII ["Amor, dolor, compasi6n y personalidad"]). 2 9 3 . Okras, IV, 407* This is the authentic ye seen from a different aspect or perspective. 294Ibid., V, 73. 344 constitutes one's authentic individual life, his genuine being. By thinking this thought and by living this life one is "in himself," which is what Ortega, calls being 295 ensimismado. This "entering into oneself" (ensimis- marse) is the most effective way of being authentic and is quite contrary to living in the tumult of our daily environmental distractions, which determine what we do and 296 force us into this or that extraneous activity. Ortega notes at this point what this "other" unauthentic life denotes: it is being "outside oneself,” in that which is other than our authentic being; the opposite of being our selves, of ensimismamos, is "to alter ourselves" 2950bras, V, 73. 296 Unamuno also stresses the vital need for penetrat ing the depths of our je, that subterranean ye (Ortega's yo profundo [see Chapter VI]) in order, by better knowing ourselves, better to learn to know our fellow mem (De esto1 IV, 137-141; "IEnsimxsmate!, Una vez mas," 1915). This article appeared soon after Unamuno's dismissal from the rectorship of the University of Salamanca (1914) and, consequently, it reflects his wholehearted disdain for those unauthentic individuals (especially the professional politicians) who "sell out" for a price to the highest bidder. The authentic person will defend himself, in spite of the cost to his personal economic status, as Unamuno knew only too well: ". . . predicarse a si mismo, predicar el desnudamiento y la expansi6n del propio yo [our egotismo, not our egoismoj es predicar y abogar por todos"(ibid., p. l4l). Thus Unamuno advises: "Ensimxs- mate, pues, para enajenarte" (ibid.). Referring to Don Quijote's ensimismamiento after his sojourn with the Duke and Duchess(Quij. , II, 58), Unamuno notes man's vital need to turn inwardly upon himself (ibid., II, 19; in "Quijotismo," 1895)* The true reality of the authentic Don Quijote, "the man of flesh and bone," is this ensimis- mamiento, this "bathing of oneself in the solemn quietude of the depths of the Ocean of life" (ibid., p. 20). 3 45 (alterarnos) , to act hastily (atropellamoa) . All that surrounds us is that which is "other" than we: the phys ical world and also the world of men, the social world. If we permit things around us or the opinions of others to drag us along, we cease to be ourselves and suffer altera tion; and we thus lose our authenticity and live a "false" 2 9 7 and unauthentic existence. ' The close relationship existing between human life and authenticity is again em phasized by Ortega when he writes that "life has reality, not goodness or meritoriousness, but pure and simple re ality in proportion to its authenticity, in which each man feels, thinks, and does what he and only he most individ- 2 9 8 ually has to feel, think, and do." The true reality of man, the thin® that most distinguishes him from the an imal, is his capacity to turn inward upon himself in deep thought (ensimismamiento), which is something the animal is not capable of doing because it is an outward-oriented 2 9 9 creature. Using the monkeys in El Retiro Park (Madrid) as his example, Ortega observes that, unlike these beasts, "man is the retiring animal, the ensimismado. When ^ ^ Obras, V, 73* See ibid., pp. 291-315 ("Ensimis mamiento y alteracion," 1939) where Ortega further develops this aspect of authenticity. 298Ibid., pp. 7^-75. 299Ibid., pp. 75-76. 5°°Ibid., p. 76. man forgets this art of ensimismarse, as he has on occa sion forgotten to do, he becomes again a barbarian, an animal; and Ortega cites the Thirty Years' War (l6l8-l648) and Cesare Borgia (1476-1507) as startling examples of the 501 "re-barbarization." of man. Pursuing the subject of ensimismamiento and authen ticity, Ortega observes that the genuineness of a skeptic is his skepticism; anything else is a falsification, an alteracion. The essential thing about a skeptic is that he be fully convinced of his skepticism, that this skep ticism be his authentic thought. In short, when he thinks, he must "coincide" with himself and have no doubt about how he is to stand in the face of things. What is really bad--and unauthentic--is for the skeptic to doubt his doubt, because this means that he does not know, not only what things are, but which is his authentic thought. And this situation is the only one to which man does not adapt himself, that which the "basic reality, which is 502 life, does not tolerate." Man, at all costs, must not create illusions about himself, because to do so is a - l. * , . 305 mortal sin. i»01 Obras, V, 76. It would be very easy to cite many more recent instances of man's "re-barbarization" in this twentieth-century world of unrest and insecurity. 3Q2Ibid_. , p. 86. 303 Ibid., p. 119• Compare this with what Ortega had to say about Christianity (Chapter IY, p. 211, n. 108). In a dictated radio message beamed to Buenos Aires, Ortega made a plea tbat man be authentic and squarely face 304 bis job of living; and in MLa elecci6n en amor," 1927» be bad made some cogent remarks about the vital function of the sentiment called "love." Here he notes that there is only one thing more personally intimate and basic than love, and this is "what might be called 'metaphysical sentiment,' or, rather, the radical, ultimate, basic impression that we have of the Universe. This basic impression, Ortega says, serves as the foundation and support of the rest of our activities, be these what they may. No one can live without this impression though not all have it clearly underscored to the same degree. This basic impression "contains our primary and decisive attitude in the face of the total reality, the savor that the world and life have for us." The rest of our feel ings, thoughts, and wishes moves and rides on this primary attitude and is colored by it. Ortega notes that the aspect of our loves is precisely one of "the nearest symptoms of that primigenial sensation." It is by means of it that we are permitted to suspect to what or in what our fellow man has his life set. And this is what is of most interest to us: to ascertain the "card on which he ■^^.See Obras, V, 237-241, in "Lo que mas falta hace hoy," 1935- 5°5Ibid., p. 603 plays his life" and not merely the anecdotes of his exist- * 2 A ence . We are all somewhat aware that in zones of our life that are more profound than those in which will (volition) operates our type of life, the one to which we are ascribed, is already determined. All the coming and going of experiences and reasoning are to no avail because our heart, with the obstinacy of a star, feels ascribed to a predetermined orbit and will rotate, by its own gravita tion, toward art, political ambition, sexual pleasure, or 307 the amassing of money, as the case may be. * If we try to thwart this predetermined "course" by reasoning, we may well go against our intimate destiny, occasioning great and surprising "disguises" that will constitute our unau thenticity, for example: the businessman who hides a sensual jro, or the writer who in reality is a politically ambitious person who seeks political power. Thus love may reveal our most hidden and authentic ego, our fondo. Love is, by its very essence, a matter of election or selection; and "since it stems from the personal center, from the soul depth [= the profundidad animica or yo pro- fundo (see Chapter VI)], the selective principles which decide it are at once the most intimate and most secret 3°60bras, V, 603. ^ ^ Ibid. , pp. 603~604. •^^Ibid. , p. 604 . 3^9 preferences that form our individual character. Ortega further notes that it is important to stress the role played hy details of physiognomy and gesture in the matter of love, because these are the most "expressive element" wherein is revealed the "authentic being” of the "510 person who, through them, we tend to prefer. And to this he adds that "stage" beauty, that beauty which "is perceived at a distance, without ceasing to have expres sive meaning and exteriorizing a way of life, has an independent aesthetic value, an objective, plastic charm, 311 to which the name beauty alludes,"^ Because this type of aesthetic "stage" beauty does not represent authentic love, it is basically a falsification and does not reveal a person's true yo. Unamuno, also, has a great deal to say about authen tic love and the vital role it plays in the matter of living. In a personal letter written between 1900 and 1905, he speaks of authentic love, which does not live on sexual stimulation alone but endures in the companionship of mutual living shared over the years, as the spiritual love of Don Quijote for Dulcinea del Toboso. Love that is not fused with life is not authentic love, nor is that ^^Obras, V, 605 • 510Ibid., p. 606. 311Ibid. 350 love that prevents us from doing what we .are supposed to do every day of our lives. Un matrimonio . . . debe convivir en amor, y acaso es este menoa hondo en las horas de caricias y arrumacos y delirios. Para el verdadero amador hasta la imagen de lo amado desaparace de la mente; conviven y se sienten convivir. Todo lo demas no es arnar a otra persona, sino a la imagen que de ella nos forjamos. . . . El amor verdadero es habito. Es el que quise pintar entre mis dos pobres Pedro Antonio y su mujer [in Paz en la guerra, 18973. Cuando se tiene algo presente, no se lo recuerda; asi el amor verdadero no recuerda a lo amado. . . . T este amor solo en la convivencia ordenada y tranquila se perfecciona, solo culmina en hijos sanos.3^-2 Unamuno closely associates suffering with authentic love. So far as he is concerned, carnal love kills the lovers, while mutual suffering begets spiritual love: ". . . amar es compadecer, y si a los cuerpos les une el goce, uneles 313 a las almas la pena. Spiritual love is suffering, and 3l4 he who loves most is sure to suffer most. Unamuno is convinced that love in woman is basically a compassionate, maternal affection, and, therefore, is more enduring than 315 any other kind of love. And this compassionate love is the essence, for Unamuno the vitalist, of human spir itual love; and compassion results from the clash between ^ 2Ensayos, II, 66. -^^Ibid., p. 85I; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 19131 in essay VII ("Amor, dolor, compasion y personalidad"). ^ Ibid. , p. 832. 3l5Ibid. 351 man's knowledge and his capacity (power). Unamuno notes that "to live is to give oneself, perpetuate one- 517 self, and to give oneself is to die." Love person alizes everything and becomes compassion, which is the equivalent of awareness or consciousness, and this, in 518 turn, becomes God. God., according to Unamuno, is "the personalization of the All; He is the eternal and infinite 319 Consciousness of the Universe." Man personalizes the All in order to save himself from nothingness, "and the only truly mysterious mystery is the mystery of suffer- 320 ing."^ Love and suffering are "the substance of life and the root of the personality," and he who does not suffer is only an idea, an abstraction, which is ^ Snsayos, II, 853 and 856. 317Ibid., p. 849- 71 Q Unamuno's explanation of the word conciencia is: "Conciencia, conscientia, es conocimiento participado, es con-sentimiento, y con-sentir es com-padecer" (ibid., p. 854). This is our "consciousness." 519Ibid., p. 855. 320 Ibid. Unamuno notes: "El amor personaliza cuanto ama. Solo cabe enamorarse de una idea personalizandola. Y cuando el amor es tan grande y tan vivo, y tan fuerte y desbordante que lo ama todo, entonces lo personaliza todo y descubre que el total Todo, que el Universo, es Persona tambien que tiene una Conciencia. Conciencia que a su vez sufre, compadece y ama; es decir, es conciencia [con sciousness] , Y a esta Conciencia del Universo, que el amor descubre personalizando cuanto ama, es a lo que llamamos Dios. Y asi el alma, compadece a Dios y se siente por El amada, abrigando su miseria en el seno de la miseria eteraa e infinite, que es el etemizarse e infinitarse la felicidad supreme misma" (ibid.). something unauthentic, since suffering makes man into a true person. ’ ’The world suffers, and suffering is the sense of the flesh of reality; it is the spirit's sensing of its mass and substance; it is the self's touching itself; it is the immediate reality. As man pene trates his dentro, he finds that suffering has degrees of intensity: from that which ’ ’floats on the sea of appear ances to the eternal anguish, the source of the tragic sense of life, which goes to the depths of that which is 322 eternal and there awakens consolation.” This eternal anguish, for Unamuno, is something even more real and vitally authentic and more spiritual than suffering itself. Happy men who resign themselves to their apparent and transitory happiness seem to be men who lack substance and are mere shadows who have not discovered their sub stance , who "have not touched it.” Such men are usually incapable of love or of being loved, living, as they do, 323 in their inward selves without pain or bliss. Hence, true, authentic love exists only in suffering, "and in this world one must choose either love, which is suffer ing, or happiness." But true love leads to no other happiness than love itself and its accompanying tragic ^23~ Ensayos, II, 913i in "Del sentimiento . . 1913, in essay IX ("Fe, esperanza y caridad"). ?22Ibid., p. 91k. 323Ibid. 353 consolation of uncertain hope. The moment that love becomes happy and satisfied, it is no longer true love, according to Unamuno. Those who are satisfied and happy do not really love 5 father they T , fall asleep in habit," which borders on annihilation, since habit is "already the 324 beginning of ceasing to exist. Man is an authentic person— that is, he is "all the more divine"— the more capacity he has for suffering or for anguish.We must "ask God" to make us feel ourselves in our suffering. Love and suffering, which are inseparable, mutually engender one another; and love is charity and compassion. Love that is not these things is a false affection, since 326 true love is, according to Unamuno, "resigned despair." In the Prologue ("El sepulcro de Don Quijote"), that Unamuno added to the second and third printings of his Vida de Don Qui.jote y Sancho, he tells a "friend" to live the life of passion, which is the only authentic life for our Spanish vitalist: "Procura vivir en continuo vertigo pasional, dominado por una pasion cualquiera. Solo los apasionados llevan a cabo obras verdaderamente durables 324 Ensayos, II, 91^* Note here the contradiction between this assertion (1913) about love and habit and what Unamuno had said in a personal letter written between 1900 and 1905, where he stated: "El amor verda dero es habito" (see passage cited on p. 350). 325ib±d. 5 Ibid., p. 915. 354 327 y fecundas." In tlie body of Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, Unamuno speaks at length, in sundry contexts, of tbe ideal love of Don Quijote for Dulcinea del Toboso, a love that is authentic and symbolic of the love of Alonso Quijano el Bueno for Aldonza Lorenzo. On concluding this chapter, I want to cite Ortega on the subject of beauty, in a statement that stresses his concept of the vital reality called "authenticity”: Yo necesito beber el agua en un vaso limpio; pero no me dels un vaso bello. Juzgo, en primer lugar, muy dificil que un vaso de beber pueda, en todo rigor, ser bello; pero si lo fuera yo no podrla llevarlo a mis labios. Me pareceria que al beber su agua bebia la sangre de un semejante— no de un semejante, sino de un identico. 0 atiendo a calmar la sed o atiendo a la Belleza; un. termino medio seria la falsificacion de una y otra cosa. Cuando tenga sed, por favor, dadme un vaso lleno, limpio y sin belleza.328 Ortega has, as I have already noted (p. 3OI) , a favorite aphorism that he often cites in his writings and which well illustrates his concept of authenticity: "Dime a que atiendes y te dire quien eres." This succinctly expresses his concept of the reality of authenticity, as well as that of the man— Ortega y Gasset. Authenticity is a reality that plays an extremely 327 n Ensayos, II, 80. This entire Prologo is a clarion call to mankind to be authentic and seek "the sepulcher of Don Quijote," which may very well be the symbol of Unamuno's anguished search for his own personal immor tality (see Chapter VI, "Immortality"). 328 , Obras, VI, 250; in "Ensayo de estetica a manera de prologo," 1914• vital role in the ontology of Unamuno and Ortega. Though Unamuno does not actually use the words "authentic'1 or "authenticity," this reality is vibrating beneath the surface in all the references that I have cited in this chapter. Authenticity is the bone and marrow of Ortega's concept of human life as the basic reality, and it is extremely vital to Unamuno's idea of vital living and the man of "flesh and bone," the man who is "a whole man and nothing less than a whole man," the man of passion, the confirmed vitalist. CHAPTER VI THE BASIC REALITY OF HUMAN LIFE My treatment of this all important— and basic--aspect of ontology -will be considered under three headings: the yo, human life (this life), and immortality. All three of these topics are integral parts of the basic reality of human life. Ortega has almost nothing to say about the subject of immortality, and Unamuno, while he is concerned vrith the matter of living here and now, is also vitally and passionately— wholly subjectively— concerned with his own personal immortality, which appears, at times, to be of greater importance to him than this life here and now. This does not mean to imply that Unamuno gives no impor tance to earthly existence, but he so cherishes it that he is passionately reluctant to admit that it is finite, that it can come to an end. Thus I have deemed it appropriate to consider both aspects of the basic reality of human life, that which is lived here and now and that which is to come after this life. Because the individual is the center of this concept, the ego (the £o) assumes a major role in this vital drama; and this explains the order in which I have chosen to treat these three vital topics. 356 357 The Yo Unamuno is particularly aware of his yo, which he considers to be the center of his universe.'*' He is very anxious that we understand that "person” and "individ uality" are not the same thing: "Individuality” is an animal thing; the idiot is an individual, but not a person and has, therefore, no personality, since "There can be neither personal question nor power where there is no 2 personality." The subject of personality is very essen tial to Unamuno's concept of the yo, and in his commentary on Quijote, II, 47, 49, 51, 53, and 55, he discusses the development of Sancho's personality, its process of matur ing. He notes that after Sancho's effective "governor ship" of the Insula de Barataria, he clearly shows that he 3 knows himself when he states: "Yo se quien soy." And Unamuno also notes that while Sancho is in the pit into which he and his donkey had fallen after his meeting with Ricote (Quij., II, 55), he saw only "toads and snakes" and none of the visions that Don Quijote had seen in the Cueva de Montesinos. This leads Unamuno to remark that *~Ensayoa, II, 770', in "Del sentimiento . . 1913, in essay III ("El hambre de inmortalidad"). See Chapter V, p. 306, n. 197, for Ortega's reaction to Unamuno's yo. 2 De esto, IV, 551j In "Hombre, persona e individuo," 1924 . ^Ensayoa, II, 281-283; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905. visions like those seen by Don Quijote are not for every body's eyes, %or is the world of pits only a projection of the pit-world of our spirit." He observes that Sancho would have seen toads and snakes in the magic Cueva de Montesinos, and Don Quijote would have seen "beautiful and gentle" visions in the pit into which Sancho had fallen. Thus Sancho's visions are only those of his master: He sees "the world of visions, and Sancho sees this world in his master." Don Quijote sees these visions because of his faith in God and in himself; Sancho sees them because 4 of his faith in God and in his master. This reveals Sancho's authentic yx», a yn that is vitally and radically conditioned by his circunstancia, which, in turn, deter mines his perspective. Unamuno further notes that Sancho1s faith is no less great than Don Quijote's, nor are the visions he sees through the medium of his master any less Sancho's own: "Dios se las suscita [in Don Quijote] y te las suscita, a el en el mismo, y a ti en el. No es menos heroe el que cree en el heroe que el heroe C mismo crexdo por el." In like manner, a person's signa ture— his full name— is something individual and very personal which reveals one's yo and must not be prosti tuted in any way shape or form, because this would be a 4 Ensayos, II, 284-285* ~*Ibid. , p. 285* Note here how beliefs (faith) condi tion the %o (see Chapter II, "Beliefs," pp. 28-58). 359 falsification of his yo. The yo unamuniano is something unique and irreplace able (see Chapter V, p. 222, and n. 3) 1 and a good example of this aspect of the 212. may *>e found in his commentary on Quijote, XI, 64, where he says that he forges his "truth" with his faith and against all comers; and after having thus forged his Mtruth," it will prevail, maintain itself alone, and will survive him. This yo unamuniano will live 7 on his "truth," thus becoming immortal. He notes that it is not his mortal 212 'tba.t will conquer in the end, his "perishable and finite 22>M n.ot the 22. that "eats on the earth and which one day the earth will consume." Rather it is his "truth," his "eternal 22>” **is "pattern and model from before before and after afterwards," the "idea God, the Consciousness of the Universe, has of me." This is Unamuno's "divine idea," his "Dulcinea," which grows ^De esto, II, 211-214; "La firma," 1918. Unamuno, who constantly signed his name to newspaper articles and other works, observes that at the end of the year one of the hardest things for him to do is to sign his full name: ". . . mis propios nombre y apellido, lo que empleo en mi firma, en el cuerpo de uno cualquiera de mis escritos. Como firma al pie de ellos, bien, pero de otro modo Has on personal letters, etc.3. . ► . [sic] Se me figurarxa encontrarme con otro yo, con un desdoble de mi personali- dad" (ibid., pp. 212-213)* For additional information on "personality," see ibid., I, 291-292j in "La humanidad y los vivos," 1914, where Unamuno describes human person ality, its property and spirit. For him, humanity is personality (ibid., p. 295)* 7 Ensayos, II, 318; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905. 360 and becomes over beautiful” (se sobrehermosea) with his g vanquishing and death. Unamuno laments having to sacri fice his 22, the collective concept of the state. He deeply resents the incursions of "society” into his personal life. He recalls a customs inspection at the Portuguese border, his enforced exile during the tenure of Primo de Rivera (1924-1930), the flight of the conquista- dores to the New World in order to find a haven free from the encroachments of "society.” Man— the yo--is more than "people,” more than mere nation, which reveals Unamuno's subjective concept of the reality of the yo, indi- 9 vidual ego. This 22 Is a dual concept: the temporal yo and the eternal yo. The second of these, the yo that is concerned with eternal problems, is an "inner” yo that at times may subjugate the temporal (exterior) yo, causing man either to withdraw to a cloister or live in badly concealed and resigned despair, "in an endless struggle o Ensayos, II, 320. In "Quijotismo,” 1895, Unamuno wrote: "Como la eternidad del tiempo, el silencio del sonido y el olvido de la memoria es la paz, la sustancia de la guerra. Predicar cordura suele ser predicar muerte, combatir la locura del sueno de la vida Csee section on "Immortality" below] es zapar el heroismo. Penetrate de que el mundo eres tu, y esfuerzate en salvarlo, para salvarte. £1 mundo es tu mundo, tu mundo eres tu, pero no el yo egoista, sino el hombre. Dentro del mundo, de mi mundo, que soy yo, yo soy quo de tantos projimos" (De esto, II, 20). This is the yo unamuniano, the ego of the man who is "a whole man and nothing less than a whole man, the man of flesh and bone." 90. C., I, 1117-1120; "Junto al Cabo de la Roca," 1935- 361 with the mystery.” If the temporal yo predominates, man becomes a "man of the world,” a cosmopolitan, a person of no interest to Unamuno, who obviously belongs to the group of "interior” men who did not enter a cloister but chose to struggle with the mystery of immortality in a personal "eternal purgatory. The purpose of man is humanity, humanity personalized, made an individual person (a yo); and when humanity assumes "nature” as its purpose, it is by previously humanizing it. Thus God is the ideal of humanity, "man projected into infinity and eternalized in 12 it." The yo unamuniano implies that for each individual the center of the "infinite sphere” is the person himself. But man cannot work effectively unless he polarizes him self, making his yo predominate. It is this necessity that is incumbent on man in order that he may live fully ^^Ensayos, II, 590; in "Desahogo lirico," n. d., the seventh of twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones,” 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). 11 See Ferrater Mora, Unamuno, pp. 69-71- Thus when Unamuno found himself in a large, modern, well-kept city, such as Madrid or Paris, he felt lost and forsaken and, like Diogenes, passionately sought "a man, a true man, a struggler with Destiny and the mystery, a man of religious soul, in short, who confesses God or denies Him with passion, with his heart and not by virtue of a philosoph ical formula” (Ensayos, II, 590-591)- Unamuno found this "true man” when he went into the fields and conversed with an unlettered shepherd tending his sheep in the neighbor hood of Salamanca (ibid., pp. 591-592). 12 — Ensayos, II, 178; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho,” 1905* in the commentary on Quij-< I, 30. Note how Unamuno turns his concept of the yo into the concept of the infinite and eternal, into the concept of God. 362 that causes him to project his yo into the anthropomorphic 13 concept of God. The uniqueness and irreplaceability of our yo is made manifest by Unamuno when he states that if our fellow man understood by what he says precisely the same thing that Unamuno understands, neither would his fellow man's words enrich Unamuno's spirit nor would his words enrich that of his fellow man. If his fellow man is merely another Unamuno, what would he love him for? Unamuno says bluntly that he is quite enough for himself, ^^Ensayos, II, 178. In "Sobre el fulanismo," 1903, Unamuno comments on one of St. Augustine's remarks con cerning God (Confessions, bk. XI, ch. ix, 11), which he translatest "iQuien comprendera, quien expresara a Dios? &Que es lo que brilla asi por momentos a los ojos de mi alma y hace latir mi corazon de terror y de amor? Es algo muy diferente de mi, y por eso estoy helado de miedo; es algo identico a mi mismo, y por eso estoy inflamado de amor" (ibid., I, 459-460). Unamuno notes that these words express perfectly the origin of man's fear of God and his love for Him. Moreover, whether we believe in God or not, these words of St. Augustine possess a profound psycholog ical worth, bearing in mind the genesis and development of the idea of God in the human consciousness, that "God becomes our yo projected into infinity" (ibid., p. 460). This projection makes God comprehensible to man, and such anthropomorphizing is natural to man.— even necessary. Even the Hegelian "Idea, which seems to be the triumph of intellectualism, of the doctrines that sustain the omnip otence of ideas," is an anthropomorphic "power," a "per sonifying" (ibid.). Ideas are begotten by men) they do not exist in a vacuum: it is not enough to say that men must have ideas; ideas must haye men (ibid., p. 468). Thus each man-idea is a yo: ". . . es que importa mas la persona que haya de aplicar estos o los otros principios teoricos de politics, que no los principios mismos, y que los efectos de semejante aplicaciSn dependen de la persona que los aplique, mucho mas que de los principios mismos apllcados" (ibid., p. 473)* This is what supports and substantiates Unamuno's thesis of fulanismo: fulano is more real, more vital, more a true yo than any idea he may espouse (see Chapter II, pp. 10-11). 363 14 and sometimes he is even too much for himself. This is Unamuno's concept of the uniqueness of each individual yo, a concept which Don Quijote expresses very well when he is conversing with Altisidora after his and Sancho's forced return to the Duke's palace (Quij., IX, 69): nINo hay otro yo en el mundoI" We must never forget these words, since "each one of us is unique and irreplaceable." Each person is absolute, and "if there is a God who has made and preserved the world, He has made and preserved it for me." There may be greater and lesser, better or worse yos; but there is no other yo-Unamuno--or yo-Fulano. "Yo soy algo enteramente nuevo; en mi se resume una eternidad de pasado y de mi arranca una eternidad de porvenir. Consonant with the foregoing, Unamuno observes that the Positivists, starting from the evident fact that contradictory states file through our consciousness, were blinded and failed to see clearly this consciousness, this yo. What determines a man, what makes him one man and not another is a "principle of unity, first in space, due to his body, and then in action and in purpose." He notes that when we walk, our legs go in the same direction; and ^ Ensayos, II, 182. ~^Ibid., pp. 3^0-341. According to Unamuno, this is the only solid basis for love among men, because there is not another thou than thou, nor another he than he (ibid., p. 3^1)* Thus the yo is, for Unamuno, a truly basic reality; his entire concept of ontology centers on this yo— and on what is to become of it. 364 when we look at something, both our eyes are normally directed at the same object. Thus in every moment of our lives "we have a purpose, and to it the synergy of our 16 actions conspires." Therefore, in a certain sense, man is more man the more Unitarian his action is. But man is also a "continuity in time," and Unamuno believes that what he is today proceeds, by means of a continuous series of states of consciousness, from what he was in his body twenty years ago; and memory plays a vital part in this 17 aspect of human life. Neither a man nor a people— which also constitute "man" in a certain sense — can be required to undergo a change that would break the unity and con tinuity of his person. He may change a great deal, almost completely, in fact; but only within his own continuity. A complete change in one's personality— his ££— denotes a pathological state wherein the person loses his spiritual i o identity with himself, and this is death* Thus a fish cannot become a bird, nor a horse a cow. For Unamuno, to become someone else, to break the unity and continuity of ^ Ensayos, IX, 735; in. "Del sentimiento . . .," I913, in essay I ("El hombre de carne y hueso”). 17 Ibid., pp. 735-736. See Chapter II, "Imagination and Memory," pp. 59-69* In connection with this concept of our yesterdays, Unamuno cites Hebbel and notes what a "terrible dialogue" is that in which we "converse" with our yo that used to be, the yn of our yesterdays (De esto, I, 5?5; in "La triste paz de la mujer esteril," 1915)• l8Ibid., p. 737* 365 his life signifies cessing to be the person that he was and is; it is simply ceasing to be, and anything but that! Each individual person is a unique entity, and maw, is an end, not a means to an end. Civilization is directed 19 toward man, toward each man, toward each yo. All the definers of objectivism fail to note that when a man affirms his yo, his personal consciousness, he affirms real and concrete mam; and this man is not the man of his material things, but of man himself. On affirming man, he affirms consciousness, because the only consciousness of which we are aware is the consciousness of mam: El mundo es para la conciencia. 0, mejor dicho, este para, esta nocion de finalidad, y mejor que nocion sentimiento, este sentimiento teologico no nace sino donde hay conciencia. Conciencia y finalidad son la misma cosa en el f o n d o . 20 Man's tragic struggle to save himself, his immortal long ing for eternity is nothing other than the struggle for consciousness; and if consciousness is nothing more than "a flash between two eternities of darkness," human life, 21 for Unamuno, is something wholly execrable. Unamuno, the energumeno, as Ortega labels him, in a manner of confession ("A mis lectores," n. d.), explains himself to his readers, telling us his procedure of 1^Ensayos, II, 73&* 20Ibid., p. 7^0. 21t, . , Ibid. 366 inciting his reading public, even to the point of* making himself antipathetic and disagreeable. He cannot do otherwise and be Unamuno, his irreplaceable ;£o. He con siders his mission to be , f the great battle to conquer respect for man, respect for the individual”; and to do this he presses on "the thousand-headed and anonymous multitude.” He demands that people respect him, Unamuno, so that they may thus learn to respect every individual, 22 and themselves as persons. The important and vital 23 thing is the battle, not the victory. Unamuno says that he is aggressive and that his aggressiveness makes him disagreeable, but this aggressiveness is also directed toward himself, causing him to live in "an intimate 24 struggle” with himself. Culture, for Unamuno, is "the most intense inner life, that of the most battle, the most 2*5 disquietude, the most longing.” Culture, according to this concept, would necessarily be merely a prolongation 22 Ensayos, XI, 566. This is the fourth of twenty- three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones,” 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). 25Ibid., p. 567. 24 Ibid. Somewhat farther on Unamuno says: "Soy la espada y la muela y aguzo la espada en mi mismo. Asi es que estoy tan gastado de esgrimirme de espada como de aguzar la espada que esgrimo” (ibid., p. 570)* The "sword” here is symbolic of the pen, which he brandishes at will and with passion. Unamuno needs this battle in order to keep on living with himself (ibid., p. 568). 25Ibid., p. 568. 367 of one's yo and his struggle (lucha) Unamuno justifies his yo antipatico by stating that Sod did not send him into the world as an apostle of peace nor "to harvest sympathies," but He sent him as "a sower of disquietudes and irritations,” so that his contemporaries would have to endure his antipathy; and this antipathy is "the price of 27 [hisj redemption." Unamuno is no retiring soul; he makes himself disagreeable because of a love that is greater and purer than the deceiving sympathy that others 28 would have him cultivate. And this, he confesses, is 2g the essence of his "tragic sense of life." It becomes quite evident from the foregoing that Unamuno1s concept of the yo is highly personal and very subjective. His deep concern about the problem of life ^Unamuno's objective is "the spiritual war," and in this conflict he battles hard and long, tirelessly and passionately. He is no philanthropist: "Siento demasiado el hambre y la sed de Dios para amar a los hombres al modo filantropico. Hay que serabrar en los hombres g&rmenes de duda, de desconfianza, de inquietud y hasta de desespera- cion— Apor que no?, si, ihasta de desesperacion!— , y si de este modo pierden eso que llaman felicidad, y que real- mente no lo es, nada se ha perdido" (Ensayos, IX, 368). Unamuno's yo— a Basque yo--prevents him from becoming a slave to his readers, from submitting his £0 to them in order to be pleasing to them (ibid., p. 569T. Thus, desperation, though it be resigned desperation, is perhaps the highest state of man (ibid., p. 570). 27Ibid. Ibid., p . 569 * Ibid., p. 570. This "tragic sense of life" becomes the title of one of Unamuno's most subjective and most important works . 368 and death— and what, if anything, follows death— colors his entire concept of the basic reality of human life, particularly the reality of his jro. He is the self- appointed gadfly of twentieth-century Spain— and the rest of the world as well. His antagonistic attitude made him many enemies and estranged many of his university friends and colleagues, among them Ortega y Gasset. But this unhappy situation had to be, given the aggressive and 30 domineering personality of Miguel de Unamuno. It is Ortega who really penetrates objectively the subject of the ye in one of his finest essays entitled "Vitalidad, alma, esplritu," 1924. In this extraordinary work Ortega investigates the three zones of man's psyche, which zones, arbitrarily but rationally delineated, he calls vitalidad (or alma corporal, "body soul"), alma (an area between the "body soul" and the "spirit"), and, finally, the espiritu (the "spirit I"). Ortega maintains that we must differentiate the spirit from the soul (alma) as such. He penetrates these three "zones" or "realms" of the personality and reveals its tripartite complex. Starting with the alma corporal (vitality), he notes that we must call this "carnal soul, this cement and root of ^Eduardo Ortega y Gasset, Josh's brother and a close friend and companion of Unamuno in his exile (1924-1930), minimizes the enmity that existed between Ortega and Unamuno (see Monodialogos de don Miguel de Unamuno [New York: Ediciones r t Iberica," 195&3 j PP• 30-32); but the facts indicate otherwise. our person, 'vitality' [yitalidadj because here are radi cally fused that which is somatic and psychic, that which •51 is corporeal, and that which is spiritual." He. notes that not only are these three areas fused, but they ema nate from and are nurtured on this vitality, because each person is primarily a "vital force," which may be "greater or lesser, overflowing or deficient, healthy or sickly." The remainder of our nature will depend on what our •xo vitality is. Ortega distinguishes between the "intra body" and the "extra body" and notes that the former is not something that has well defined color or form, as is the case with the "extra body," This "intra body" is the alma corporal (vitalidad, "body soul"), which is invis ible. It is composed of sensations of movement, tactile sensations of the viscera and muscles, of our impression of the expansions and contractions of our vessels, of the minute perception we have of the blood in our veins and arteries, of the sensations of pain and pleasure, etc. Our psychic life and exterior world are both "mounted on" this "internal image of our body" that we always carry with us and which becomes "the frame" within the confines 33 of which everything appears to us. Ortega says that 310bras, II, 455* 32Ibid., pp. 455-456. 33Ibid., pp. 456-457. 570 when we see another person walking, we get the impression of this activity, which we perceive with our eyes in ^exterior space,1 1 while our perception of our own activity as we walk is something we "see” in quite a different way. He notes that in the concept ”1 walk” (yo ando) there may be suggested the visual image of our own feet moving them selves. But on top of this image, as if more directly alluded to in the expression yo ando, we find an "invis ible phenomenon” that is foreign to exterior space: the effort to move ourselves, the muscular sensations of ten sion and resistance. Hence there could be no greater difference, because in the concept ”1 walk” we refer to walking as seen from "inside outward, in its exterior 34 result." Ortega also shows how another person's vitality or lack of same affects us, exhilirating or depressing us according to the amount or deficiency of his vitality. He says that there are two types of human beings: "some endowed with overflowing vitality, who always maintain themselves in 1supravit'; others, with * *55 insufficient vitality, [who are] always in 'deficit'.”^ Thus, human "life is precisely the only reality, among all those of the cosmos, that is contagious." This is the Obras, XX, 456. Ortega uses this same illustra tion in another context (see p. 597)* 35^ 36, 35Ibid., p. 459* Ibid. 371 area of the alma corporal (the "body soul”). The second realm of our psyche that Ortega discusses, the alma, is located between the "body soul” (vitalidad or alma corporal) and the "spirit" (alma espiritual or the yo espiritual ["spirit I”]); this is the yo anlmico or the "soul I." The "body soul" is, to a certain extent, "sub conscious, dark, and latent, extending to the depth of our person like a landscape in the background of a pic ture"; and the "spirit I" (yo espiritual), on the other hand, "lives its instantaneous acts of thinking and will ing." Between these two psychic zones lies an interme diate area, clearer than vitality ("body soul"), less illuminated than the "spirit I"; this zone has a "strange atmospheric character." It is the region of the feelings and emotions, of desires, impulses, and appetites. This, strictly speaking, is the "soul. The "spirit" and the "soul" are definitely not the same thing, and Ortega ably demonstrates how, in the zone of the "soul X," our will functions only in deciding or resolving between one or another inclination of the "soul I," or how sadness is experienced in varying degrees according to our submission to our yo espiritual or our yo animico. The best example of Ortega's concept of the "soul" is to be found in his description of "antipathy," which he calls "that movement 570bras, II, 462. 372 against somebody tbat suddenly burgeons in us." This sentiment does not emanate from the yo espiritual that is the zone of thought, decision, and volition, the ju that is "the author of my thought and will." Antipathy is something we find in ourselves without our having created it willingly; it surges up perhaps even against all our reflections on the matter, against our will. The person against whom we feel antipathy may even be benevolent toward us and give us no reason whatever to feel any animosity toward him. Nevertheless, the impulse of antipathy arises in us spontaneously and without our con sent or collaboration. Thus, the place "of the intimate volume whence antipathy issues and burgeons"— as does sadness — is different from the "psychic point that we call J*0 yo." Ortega notes that at times his £0 manages to accept this antipathy, "take it upon itself, become 39 responsible for it. This means that this point of the soul where antipathy was born has attracted the "axis" of his person and has installed itself in this core of his being. Such impulses of the soul arise in us at every moment of our living process, and they are the impulses of the soul that are situated around "our personal nucleus 580bras, II, 462-463. 39Ibid., p. 463. and at different distances." 373 The zone of the alma espiritual (or yo espiritual ["spirit I"]) is the most remote of the three realms of our psyche; it is the most personal "of the person, but 4l perhaps not the most individual," Ortega assures us 40 Obraa, II, 463* Ortega also speaks about the sen timent of love (in "La eleccion en amor," 1927), noting that "como brota del centro personal, de la profundidad animica, los principios selectivos que deciden [la elec- ci6n en amor] son a la yez las preferencias mas intimas y arcanas que forman nuestro caracter individual" (ibid., V, 605)* Though he does not distinguish between "soul" and "spirit," Unamuno clearly refers to the "soul I" of Ortega when he observes that Pascal's statement that the heart has its own logic is really not true, because the heart's logic is really not logic at all; "the heart does not speak," and logic is "something social, as is the word logos," whence "logic" derives* "When [the heart] really suffers, it suffers in silence" (De esto, IV, 102; in "Del dolor, de la soledad y de la logica, con otras cosas: Monologo divagatorio," 1913)- Likewise, in "El secreto de la vida," 1906 (Ensayos, I, 840), Unamuno speaks of the "soul" and its "secret"; and what he says about this "secret" is precisely what Ortega says about the "soul I" and its recondite formlessness: "Todos llevamos nuestro secreto [de vida], sepamoslo o no, y hay un mundo oculto e interior en que todos ellos se conciertan, desconociendose como se desconocen en este mundo exterior y manifiesto, T si no es asx, icomo te explicas tantas misteriosas voces de silencio que nos vienen de debajo del alma, de mas alia de sus raxces?" There is, evidently, more than one secret per individual. This impenetrable realm of the yo anxmico is truly recondite and inaccessible: "El secreto, el ver- dadero secreto, es inefable, y en cuanto lo revestimos de lenguaje, no es que deje de ser secreto, sino que lo es mas aun que antes" (ibid., p. 841). This is clearly the yo anlmico ("soul I"! of which Ortega speaks. Obras, II, 46l. See also ibid., I, 481-482, in "Adan en el paraiso," 1910, where Ortega observes that science divides life into two categories: material and spiritual. He shows how inadequate a division this is, since it fails to take note of the fact that human life is an individual, concrete matter, and not a generalization or an abstraction. that he is speaking here of no hypothetical, metaphysical zone; but he is referring exclusively to "phenomena that each one of us can find in himself with the same conspicu- ousness that he sees things around him." He calls by the name "spirit" that aggregate of intimate actions of which each one of us feels himself to be "the true author and protagonist," and the clearest example of such actions is our will (volition), that "internal fact that we express with the sentence 'I will,' that resolving and deciding," appears to us to be emanating from a central point inside ourselves, that which Ortega would have us call yo. He notes that when we operate in view of a painful duty, we do so against a portion of opposed inclinations that exist in us, in the face of which "stands that extremely per sonal nucleus of the yo that wills, a rigorous monarch of a restless State." These inclinations that we control are certainly "ours," but they are not our yo. Therefore, we observe ourselves as if. situated outside our inclinations, opposed to them, that is to day, "I" against "me" ("'yo' •42 en contra de 'mi'"). The same may be said of thought, which can only function genuinely when it is executed by "the center of my being, which is the mind or spirit." Strictly speaking, we do not think with out* "soul" nor with our body, both of which would naturally preclude such 42 Qbras, II, 46l. 375 43 an activity. ^ In the activity of all authentic under standing or reasoning, and like undertakings, there is produced an immediate contact between the "spiritual yo” ("spirit I") and what is understood or reasoned. It is something like "seeing ideas and their relationships," wherein the "seeing" assumes a sense of full activity. This explains why it is impossible to "think" when one is sleepy5 we can only think when we are wide awake and at a maximum tension, when "that autocratic, generating nature of one's own actions," which are characteristic of the . 4 4 "spirit I," is "most excited." There is yet another note that differentiates that which is "spiritual" (i. e., the yo espiritual) from the zone reserved for what Ortega calls strictly the "soul" (the yo animico). He notes that spiritual or mental phenomena do not last, whereas the phenomena of the soul take a long time to ripen or fade away. The matter of understanding that 2 + 2 = 4 is re alized in an instant.. It may even take us a long time to understand something, but if we understand it--that is, if we think it— we do so in an instant. Hence we cannot say, speaking in the strictest terms, that we are thinking something for a more or less long period of time. By the act of "thinking" we mean "the successive series of many ^ Qbras, II, 46l. 44 Ibid. 376 acts of thinking, each one of which is a. mental holt of lightning." Likewise, we wish or do not wish in a flash of willing or not willing. Volition, which perhaps took a long time to be formed, "is a bolt of intimate activity that flashes its decision." Such is not the case with the soul, where things last and are prolonged in time. Think ing and willing are acts that are prompt, while desires and feelings are something "fluid," coursing "lines" that are prolonged in time. Thus a person "is sad” or "is happy" for a short while, for a day, or for a lifetime. Love, also, is not a series of broken "points" produced in us; love is a "continuous current" in which sentiment acts without interruption. This difference would suffice to separate radically man's intellectual and volitional life from the realm of the soul, "where everything is fluid, a 45 prolonged issuing forth, an atmospheric current." Thus our impulses, inclinations, loves, hatreds, desires, antipathies, etc., are ours; but they are not our true yo, because this "true yjo," the yo espiritual, may operate as a brake on our impulses, inclinations, loves, etc., or it 46 may witness them as an "onlooker." In this connection, Ortega demonstrates how we may feel deep sorrow over the death of a person near and dear to us and yet, at the same 450bras, II, 461-462. 46 Ibid., p . 463• 377 time, go about the business of* our daily lives more or lens as if nothing were amiss. Thus we can, under the command of our will, "contract the soul, closing its pores and making it hei. :etic ," or, on the other hand, we can "swell it up, dilate its pores, preparing it to absorb great quantities, of love or hatred, appetites or enthu- , , 4 7 siasms." 4 In this manner Ortega conceives his tripartite psyche composed of three quite distinct and different realities: the yx> of the psycho-corporeal zone (the £0 Cor almaj corporal, "body I") , the ;££ of the soul (the alma Cor yo 1 anxmlco, "soul I"), and the spiritual or mental ^o (the espiritu or yo espiritual, "spirit I"). These three "personal centers." are indissolubly articulated though quite different from one another. Ortega’s tripartition of the psyche into vitality, soul, and spirit is imposed he says, by factsj and he has arrived at this tripartition by no other process than strictly to register internal phenomena, as does the zoologist when he classifies fauna. 47 Obras, II, 463-464. For Ortega, Don Juan and his awareness of the "hermetic" aloofness of certain women at certain times, plus his ability to let these periods of "hermetic’ * aloofness pass, is ample evidence that love- making is the most subtle and energetic of psychic events and serves as "a delicate apparatus for measuring the porosity and the hermetic state of souls." To this Ortega adds: "Asi Don Juan me ha descrito mas de una vez la epoca de la vida en que la mu jer suele poseer mayor capacidad de enamorarse, su sazan de maxima porosidad" (ibid., pp. 464-465). These three names merely denote patent differences that are found in our intimate happenings; they are descriptive concepts and not metaphysical hypotheses. Ortega notes that it is an obvious fact that our body pains us when we are grief-stricken, that sadness is in us; but it does not originate in our yo. In a word, thinking and willing are our own acts, "ours,n in the sense that they are born in our yo. He notes that the word "my1 * evidently means a different thing in the three instances, because "my" body, a spacial and material thing, cannot be "mine" in the same way that sadness is; and sadness, in turn, is not "mine" in the same way that a decision emanating from the yo in a creative act of the will is "mine." Yet, this belonging to a person, this forming a part of the indi vidual that the possessive pronoun "mine" expresses, is part of the concept expressed in all three situations: yo always indicates a central point of reference, because the tooth that aches does not pain the tooth itself, nor does the head that aches hurt the head itself; both affect a third party, which is the yo corporal. Thus the three yos become three "personal centers," which do not cease being different simply because they are indissoluble one from the other. They are so different, in fact, that we have to designate them by different names. The yo espiri tual , like its acts, has a "punctual" character. Hence we cannot think something with one part of our mind and 379 something contrary or merely different with another part of it, nor can we have two diverging wills (voliciones) at the same time. On the other hand, several and even several opposing impulses, desires, or feelings can arise in our "soul I." Thus, this yo anlmico is a "dilated area"; it has "psychic extension"; and at every one of its points a different emotive or impulsive act can arise, an act that, like feelings, desires, etc., is more or less profound or more or less superficial. This causes us to think of the "soul" as something like a "Euclidean volume 48 with its three dimensions." The recognition of the three distinct yos, the tri partite psyche, brings up the question of which is the authentic yo. Because understanding and volition are rational operations that function by adjusting to objec tive norms and necessities, "pure thought" is essentially 49 identical in all individuals. And the same is true of will (volition), because if will functioned with all exactness by accommodating itself to that which "ought to be," we would all will the same thing. Therefore, our "spirit" does not really differentiate us from one an other, and some philosophers have even gone so far as to suspect that there might be a single universal spirit 48 Obras, II, 465-466. ^ Ibid., p. 466. (e. g., Hegel), of which our individual one is only a "moment or pulsation.Because the participation of the "spirit" in what is universal has been so obvious and so normal, Ortega is led to classify this area of the %o (the yo espiritual) as that part of our psyche that is most universal, that has its roots in the world at large, and is, therefore, transsubjective. A spirit that functioned for itself alone, in its own manner and according to its own pleasure and genius, would not be a "spirit"; it would 51 be a "soul." Ortega notes that Kant defines "spiritual will" by the "categorical imperative according to which 52 one can will only what all can will." If we accept this interpretation, the "spirit" (intellectual or volitional) "excludes the exclusions, eliminates the singularity," making us all identical to one another. But the "soul lives of itself and on its own account, apart from the world and every person, carrying itself in the air and without depending on any objective orb." To think is to 5°Obras, II, 466. 51Ibid., p. 467. 52 ^ Kant states this categorical imperative as his "Fundamental Law of Pure Practical Reason": "So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle establishing universal law" (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. and introd. by Lewis White Beck CNew York: The Liberal Arts Press, Inc., 19563 » p. 30). This is Kant's universally autonomous will of the "spirit I," which is common to all men, hence not at all the same thing as Ortega's "soul I" (the yo ani- mico) . ?8l go outside oneself and to dilute oneself in the region of the universal spirit. To love, however, is to situate oneself outside of everything that is not one's ; j r o and to exercise on one's own account and at one's own risk that "peculiar sentimental act" called "love." The "soul," therefore, forms a private zone opposed to the rest of the universe, which, in a certain sense, is the "region of that which is public." The soul is "an abode" (morada), an apartment, a "refuge outside the pale" for the individ ual as such, who thus lives "from" himself and "on" him self, not "from" logic or "from" duty, leaning "on" eternal "Truth and the eternal Norm."^ This "soul I" is, then, the yo profundo. This yo profundo of the "soul I" (the yo animico) is, consequently, a life that is wholly eccentric and private. Ortega indicates how a child, any child, who is basically completely "body soul" (alma corporal), is the same as an animal in his wants and desires. He also shows how the scholar, who is pure "spirit"— something common to all men --lives almost exclusively in the zone of the "spirit I." The child, alma corporal, and the scholar, alma espiri tual , are both essentially innocents: "The child's game 54 and the table of logarithms are equal 'innocences'." 550bras, II, 467- 54Ibid., pp. 468-469. 582 Ortega next proceeds to investigate the privateness (lo privado) of the "soul I," which is the zone of love, de sire, longing, hatred, antipathy, etc. This "ultimate" personal ego (the yo profundo) is hidden from view and is an area of absolute solitude, hermetically sealed against 55 all intrusion from without. Ortega speaks with feeling 55 Obras, VI, 152; in "Corazon y cabeza," 1927- See also ibid., II, 84, in "Ideas sobre Pio Baroja," n. d., where Ortega speaks of "certain unbribable depth" that exists in us: "fieneralmente este nucleo ultimo e indivi- dualisimo de la personalidad esta soterrado bajo el cumulo de juicios y maneras sentimentales que de fuera cayeron sobre nosotros. Solo algunos hombres dotados de una pecu liar energia [such as Baroja] consiguen vislumbrar en ciertos instantes las actitudes de eso que Bergson llamaria el yo profundo. De cuando en cuando llega a la superficie de la conciencia su voz rec6ndita." Ortega greatly admired Baroja as a man of "action," which is one of the basic ingredients of an authentic life (see below). Unamuno also speaks of the yo profundo when he notes that summertime finds him struggling to gather his "soul," "scattered" and "disunited," into a sheaf; and in this state of mind there appears to him "another £0, the most primitive, the one that exists beneath the soul." He notes parenthetically: "Esto del yo que esta por debajo del alma es una ingeniosidad que a unos ingenuos les puede parecer paradoja, y a otros una expresion casi genial. Y la verdad es que de ordinario no tenemos noci6n de la pro- fundidad toda de cuanto se nos ocurre" (Ensayos, II, 580; in "Divagaciones de estio," n. d., the sixth of twenty- three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversuciones," 1911 [Ensayos, II, 533-726]). Note that Unamuno makes no distinction between the "soul I" and the "spirit I." He is convinced, however, that there is a yo profundo, as is to be noted from what he says about Cervantes and his authorship of Don Quijote: ". . . Ano hemos de tener nosotros por el milagro mayor de Don Quijote el que hubiese hecho escribir la historia de su vida a un hombre que, como Cervantes, mostro en sus demas trabajos la endeblez de su ingenio y cuan por debajo estaba, en el orden natural de las cosas, de los que para contar las hazanas del Ingenioso Hidalgo, y tal cual el las conto, se requeria?" Unamuno continues: "No cabe duda sino que en El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, 383 about this yo excentrico and priyado, which is not "ab- stract and generic" like the yo corporal and the yo que compuso Miguel de Cervantes, se mostro este muy por encima de lo que podrxamos esperar de el juzgandole por sus otras obras; se sobrepujo con mucho a si mismo. Por lo cual es de creer que el historiador arabigo Cide Hamete Benengeli no es un puro recurso,literario, sino que encu- bre una profunda verdad, cual es la de que esa historia se la dicto a Cervantes otro que llevaba dentro de si y al que ni antes ni despues de haberla escrito trato una vea mas; tux espiritu que en las profundidades de su alma habi- taba. Y esta inmensa lejania que hay de la historia de nuestro Caballero a todas las demas obras que Cervantes escribio, este patentisimo y esplendido milagro es la ra- zon principal . . . para creer nosotros y confesar que la historia fue real y verdadera, y que el mismo Don Quijote, envolviendose en Cide Hamete Benengeli, se la dict6 a Cervantes" (Enaayos, 11, 360-361j in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1 9 0 5 ) • Unamuno even suspects that while he has been engaged in writing this commentary on the life of Don Quijote and Sancho, these immortal figures have secretly visited him, and, without his knowing it, have disclosed the most secret part of their hearts to him (ibid., p. 361). In another essay ("Sobre la lectura e interpreta- cion del 'Quijote1," 1905), Unamuno discusses the inferior quality of Cervantes' other works (the Novelaa ejemplares, Viaje del Parnaso, the Comedias, and Persiles y Sigismunda) to Don Quijote. Though both parts of this great work are separated by a span of ten years, Unamuno even goes so far as to say that were it not for Don Quijote— both parts— Cervantes' other works would hardly even figure in histories of Spanish literature (ibid., X, 664-663)* Unamuno is very severe in his appraisal of Cervantes' literary endeavors. He notes that although Don Quijote was b o m of the genius of Cervantes, the person created (Don Quijote) is far superior to the creator (Cervantes): "Y es que, en rigor, no puede decirse que Don Quijote fuese hijo de Cervantes; pues si este fue su padre, fue su madre el pueblo en que vivi6 y de que vivio Cervantes Chis circunstanciaj, y Don Quijote tiene nracho mas de su madre que no de su padre" (ibid., p. 665)* Unamuno also notes that the genius is the one who "in pure personality becomes impersonal," that is, universal} and he is likewise "the one who gets to be the voice of a people, the one who happens to say what all are thinking without those who think it happening to say they think it" (ibid., p. 666). The "genio es un pueblo individualizado"- (ibid.), a vital part of the basic reality of human life. 384 espiritual. Only in people in whom their soul has been fully formed do we find this ’ ’center, apart and its own,” from which it lives ’ ’ without coinciding with the cosmos.” This forms a ’ ’terrible duality” that is, at the same time, a ”delicious antagonism.” There deep inside is the world that exists and functions from its ’ ’ metaphysical center”; and here, the yn, enclosed in the ’ ’redoubt” of the soul, ’ ’outside the Universe,” pours forth feelings and longings from a center that ”1 am and that does not belong to the Universe.” We feel ourselves to be individuals because of this ’ ’ mysterious eccentricity of our soul,” because this eccentric ’ ’soul” is a life apart, standing in opposition to the "body I” and to the ’ ’spirit I."^ That this "soul I” (the yo profundo) can make a prisoner of man is made very clear by Ortega when he poses this question: ”Is not the soul— in the sense that I here give to the word--the authentic original sin of which 5 7 Christianity speaks?”^' He notes that in the beginning there was only Paradise--body and spirit— coincident with animals and stars, in a word, pure innocence. But after the Fall, Adam and Eve make a gesture that to any psychol ogist is unmistakable: they cover their bodies. Since every gesture has a symbolic origin and represents in ^ Obras, IX, 469. 57Ibid., p. 470. 385 figures of space that ■which is psychic, covering the body is equivalent to separating it from its surroundings, closing it in, lending it intimacy. And this gesture of modesty corresponds precisely to the intimacy and eccen tricity of the soul. The man who feels "the delight of being himself feels at the same time that with this joy he is committing a sin, and he receives a punishment." We might even say that he has fraudulently subtracted this portion of the reality called his "soul," which he has marked off for himself alone, from "the immense publicity of nature [the "body I"j and spirit [the "spirit I"}.""*8 According to Ortega, we live "principally either from our ’body soxil1 or principally from our emotion [the yo anlmico] or principally from our spirit C"I"] (intellect 59 and will)." Vitality, soul, and spirit: these deter mine what we are according to whether we live from one or from either of the other two. Thus the child is almost wholly "body soul" (vitality), and the scholar is almost totally pure "spirit X" (intellect and will)5 and, as X indicated above (p. 38i), both are innocents in the strictest sense of the word. Moreover, says Ortega, woman, generally speaking, tends to live in the zone of the "soul I"; and this tendency accounts in large measure 580bras, II, 470. 59Ibid., p. 473- 386 for her "capriciousnessn and ’ ’lack of logic," living in a "perpetual and delightful yes-no, in a balance and swing ing that gives that wondrous irrational flavor, that suggestive problematical quality to feminine conduct,"^ Ortega applies his tripartite concept of the psyche to the art of philosophy, noting that Rationalism assumed that mem is essentially the "yc that resolves” (Cogito ergo stun = the yo espiritual of the intellect and will) . But this yo espiritual is common to all men; it is univer sally identical. It is the "soul I," the yo profundo (or animico) that is the vital and authentically individual reality. Ortega notes that opposed to the ’ ’spirit I" there exists in man the yo that only "draws a-geometrical circles" and "seethes with desires, which, if not immoral, are wholly alien to morality." The recognition of this fact leads to a capital psychological distinction between spirit--a non-individual faculty--and soul, which is our person to the extent that our person is different from other persons. The spirit lacks feelings: it thinks and 60 Obras, XI, 473-474. Although Ortega is speaking generally here, many would disagree with this. The Greek, unauthentic according to Ortega, lived from his "body I"5 and from this alma corporal he rose to the zone of the "spirit X," eliding the realm of the "soul" (the yo ani mico ). Hence the Greek was a complete innocent, a child become scholar (ibid., p. 474). Gothic art, on the other hand, is, for Ortega, an expression of the "soul I," since Gothic art is, "originally and inevitably, lyricism, fluency, and [the} emanation of an invisible inside [the dentroj to a visible outside Laima corporal]" (ibid., p. 476). 3 87 wills— intellect and volition. The soul is what desires, loves, hates, is glad, feels remorse, dreams, and imag ines . Both forces are perpetually contiguous within our psyche, and the "spirit IM acts as a brake on the "soul I," as X have already indicated (p. 376), which becomes quite apparent when we try to draw a straight line and use a ruler, or something of the sort, in order to avoid the vacilations and caprice of our muscles, vacilations and caprices that are basically the effect of what Ortega calls "the expressive faculty. Referring once more to Ortega's "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932, we note that here he provides further evidence of the reality of the yo. He shows how philoso phers heretofore have distorted the concept of yo by extravagant and irrelevant assumptions. The yo is not an abstraction, as the Rationalists would have us believe; nor is it pure "spirit," as the Idealists assumed it to be. Yo does not consist of one's body or of one's soul, consciousness, or character. Man finds himself in life 61 Obras, XI, 588; in "Sobre Xa expresi6n fenomeno cosmico," 1925. This essay was written one year after "Vitalidad, alma, espxritu," 1924. This is the yo animico that Ortega considers to be a part of our authentic yo, a yo that is wholly personal and eccentric at one and the same time. He would have us combine the vitality of the "body soul" (alma corporal), the personal individuality of the "soul I" (yo animico)T and the rationality of the "spirit I" (yo espiritual, intellect and will) to make the wfoole authentic yo the center of all philosophical ontological concentration (see Chapter VII, "Ortega's Objective Ratio-vitalism"). with a definite body, soul, and character, just as he finds himself with the fortune his parents left him or the land where he was born and the society in which he lives, all of which constitute his circunstancia. Since man is not his ’ ’liver, healthy or infirm,” he is also not his ’ ’ memory, happy or deficient,” nor is he his ’ ’ will, strong or weak,” nor his "intelligence, keen or dull.” Man's yo finds itself in possession of these corporeal or psychic things when it finds itself living (in life), and it has perforce to live with them, by means of them. It may even occur that man complains of the soul he has inherited or his lack of will, as he would complain of his bad stomach or how poor the weather is in his country. Ortega notes that "the soul remains so outside the yo” that mein is like the landscape around his body. This soul is the thing, one of those things man encounters on living, that is nearest to him but is not he himself. Thus he is forced to realize that, contrary to "the traditional suggestion," reality does not consist necessarily of some thing, be it corporeal or mental. Man is not a thing; he is simply the person who has to live, not just any life, but a specific life, since there is no such thing as abstract living. Life means "the inexorable compulsion to effect the life project that each individual is." This project of which the yo consists is not an idea or a plan conceived as an idea by man and freely selected by him. This project is 389 prior, in the sense of Independent, to all the ideas that man's intelligence may formulate, to all the decisions based on his will; and Ortega observes that, furthermore, "we ordinarily have of [this project!] only a vague knowl edge." Yet it is our authentic being, our destiny. Our will is free to realize this vital project or not to realize it, but it cannot correct it, change it, dispense with it, or replace it. Thus we are "indelibly that unique programmatic personage that has to realize him self," and the world about us or our own nature facilitate or complicate this realization for us.^ Closely associated with the reality of the ££ is Ortega's concept of the dentro or intimidad, which is also a vital and basic reality. Man perforce has to realize the vital importance of his basic reality— his life, a re ality that is not just any one, but is his alone; and, on being his, it becomes the reality in which are given all the remaining realities. Thus everything that pretends to be a reality in one sense or another will have to appear ^ Obras, IV, 399-^00. Note that jro and authenticity are inseparable realities. Unamuno also stresses the reality of the je when he notes that every truly original novel is basically autobiographical, and the "author-poet" puts himself into each one of his creatures, "because the poet is a world" in himself: "Shakespeare es Macbeth, y Hamlet, y Otelo, y Yago, y Romeo y Julieta, y Desdemona y . . . [sic] lun mundo! Cervantes es Don Quijote, y es Sancho, y es el bachiller Sans6n Carrasco, y es Persiles, y es Segismunda [sic] . . . [sic] IOtro mundo!" (De esto, III, 172; in "De actualidad," 1921). 390 in. one 'way or another within human life.^ It is on this ’ ’ within” (dentro, intimidad) that Grtega centers his con cept of* ontology. Precisely what is_ this "within” that is so basic to human life? Ortega answers this query by stating that the reality of life consists, not of what it is for the person who sees it from outside, but what it is for him who is it from within life itself, for him who is living it, "while and so long as he lives it.” Thus if we want to understand another life that is not our own, we are obliged to try to see it, not from ourselves, but from the other life itself, from the subject who is living it 64 in his own way. At the very outset it is important to realize that everything that happens to an individual occurs, or takes place, "inside" his life, thus becoming a "fact of human life" itself. Such a human "fact" is never a mere happening or event; it is the function of an entire human life, collective ox- individual; it belongs to an "organism of facts wherein each one has its dynamic and active role." The only thing, strictly speaking, that "happens" to man is to live, to be in life; all the rest is "interior to his life" and "provokes in it reactions, has in it a value and a meaning." Hence the reality of the fact is not in the fact itself but in the indivisible ^ Obras, V, 30j in "En torno a Galileo," 1933* 64 Ibid., pp. 30-31. This is also the essence of Ortega’s "historical sense" (see Chapter IV, pp. 166-177)* 391 65 unity of each life. So strong in man is this dentro that when the attempt to socialise him fails, as it did in the Roman Empire, man feels himself to be lost on a "sea of doubts” (the mar de dudas that I mention in Chapter II, p. 5^) and knows not where to turn. When everything about us falls apart, we realise that none of this was really authentic reality; what is vitally im portant and decisive is the reality that remains beneath all the other apparent realities: our own individual life. Then man again sees this life for what it really is: his most individual problem, something not to be 66 divorced from his own destiny. Ortega is vitally interested in the problem of the yo, and one of his favorite questions is: , T Who am I?” It is this query that leads him to explore the dentro, which is the same as intimidad, of his fellow Spaniards in ”Pidiendo una biblioteca, , r 1908, where we find one of his earliest statements on this subject. He writes of the importance of spontaneity, and in so doing he reveals the dentro of the Spaniard. He conceives spontaneity as the ’ ’ ultimate intimacy of the character, the immediate reac tion of the yo to the influence of the medium in order to establish a vital equilibrium.” But the medium has ^ Obras, V, l8. 66Ibid., p. 103. changed, and not because of anything that Spaniards did to change it: "All the sorrows and difficulties of the twentieth century are wounding us." And Spaniards want their yo, "a stony yo of the sixteenth century," abandoned to its spontaneity, to fight against that changed medium, 6 7 mold it and dominate it I Ortega is convinced that Spanish spontaneity perforce is bad, and that what Spaniards need is to create a new spontaneity, a contem porary yo, a present-day consciousness; all of which means that they will have to re-educate themselves. This new education is not a matter of tutelage, because Spaniards must create for themselves an "ideal, symbolic, and exemplary yo *>y reflecting on the European soul and character." They can have none of the "organic realities, a term so favored by •solidary' taste," because to employ "biological similies" when referring to ethical entities has been wholly discredited; and this is especially true when we refer to Spain, a "race that is spiritually dead," 68 according to Ortega. He believes that it would be far better to use "theological comparisons" since, in the 69 case of Spain, "it is a matter of a resurrection." ^ Obras, X, 84. Ibid. 69 Ibid. Ortega is entirely realistic in his assess ment of the reality of the Spanish psyche in this twentieth century. He has "put his finger on the sore spot" of a nation that is suffering from the illness known 393 A comparison between the intimidades of the German and the Spaniard is to be found in "Kant," 1929 j where Ortega notes a disparity that may well be somewhat over drawn but which is, in part, true of the general situation regarding both peoples. He notes that the Spaniard is "a bundle of reflexes” (reflejos), and the German is "a unity of reflections" (reflexiones). Hence the Spaniard lives on "a regimen of spiritual decentralization," and his £o is actually "a series of yos," each one of which functions as abulia. He strives bravely to combat this national disease of the will, but his success has been unfortu nately no greater than that of so many other dedicated Spaniards, Unamuno among them, who have labored in vain to overcome this national morbidity of the Spanish ;jro. In "La pedagogia social como programs politico," 1910, Ortega speaks of "regeneration" as Spain's most urgent need (Obras, I, 521). In "Vieja y nueva politica," 1914, he writes of the moribund condition of his Spain, a politi cally devitalized nation whose problem is "not to live orderly; it is first to live" (ibid., p. 279)* And again, in "La politica por excelencia," 1927? he speaks of the need for vitality in Spain: "En la historia triunfa la vitalidad de las naciones, no la perfeccion formal de los Estados. T lo que debe ambicionarse para Espafla en una hora como esta es el hallazgo de instituciones que con- sigan forzar al maximum de rendimiento vital (vital, no solo civil) a cada ciudadano espanol" (ibid., Ill, 457)* Unamuno also speaks of the Spaniards' lack of intimi dad (see Ensayos, I, 6ll; in "A lo que saiga," 1904l~! And in "De la ensenanza superior en Espana," l899j he states that the task of "Hispanizing" Spaniards, his intraespafio- lizamos, and that of "Europeanizing" them is a convergent one. He highlights the £o on developing this thesis by maintaining that the more Spaniards know themselves, study and enter into themselves, their collective yo, the closer they will be to the "universal type" of human being: "En mis intimas entranas, en el sancta santorum [sic] de mi espiritu, es donde esta el Hombre, el universal, el que es ra:£z comun de todos los hombres. In interiore hominis habitat veritas ..." (0. C. , III*] 114) . Here the sanctum sanctorum is the dentro (Unamuno's entranas). 394 at its precise moment without relationship or adjustment to his remaining yos. The German, on the other hand, lives "centralized"; and each one of" his acts becomes "the foreshortening of his entire person," which in this 70 foreshortening is "present and active." Ortega further observes that the virtues and defects of both Germans and Spaniards have their origin in the opposed constitution of their respective psyches. One must not look for intimate cohesion and solidarity in the Spaniard, who slips through life in an existence composed of "discontinuous moments" (Ortega's existencia puntiforme). To be sure, such iso lated moments make for the grace and impulsiveness of the Spaniard, but we must not seek a concordance between two successive moments in his living process. The national insolidarity of Spaniards is only the projection onto the historical plane of the individual's own insolidarity with himself. Thus, for Ortega, the Spanish is plural; and it has a collective character, designating "the intimate 71 horde." The Mediterranean man must try to solve the problem of introspection, of penetrating his private intimidad. Only by doing this will he ever be able to understand the fact of his own ^o* In this regard, Ortega observes that the German "lives shut up within himself; 7°0bras, IV, 4l. 71Ibid. 395 and. this 'himself* is the only true reality."72 Such introversion is what Ortega calls "subjectivism,n and he notes that Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft is "the glorious story of this struggle": here a solitary yo struggles to gain the company of a world of other yos, but it finds no way to achieve this other than by creating its 73 own yo within itself. The southern European approaches the matter of introversion from the opposite direction, starting with exterior life, condemned "to live in the tumult of the great cosmic marketplace," having perforce to live collectively and not alone. This is why the southern European must learn the art of introversion and not continue to try to probe his dentro, his private and secret yo, after he has penetrated other external things 74 and people. It is precisely the difference between "myself" and 720bras, IV, 34. 73 ^Ibid., p. 35* The impact on Ortega of his studies in Germany during his early intellectual training is quite evident in his evaluation of the German and Spanish psyches. 74 Ibid. Ortega notes that St. Augustine is the only mind of the Ancient world who knows about the intimidad so characteristic of modern (Germanic) experience. During the entire Middle Ages the men in the cloisters of the North combated with clerics of the South in order to free the soul of all corporeality and make it intimate. Ortega cites, as examples, Hugo de Saint Victor, Duns Scotus, Occam, Nicolas d'Autrecourt, and notes that they will seek the most inner self; while Thomas Aquinas, a true Italian, will try to renew the Aristotelian idea of the corporeal soul (ibid., n. 1). 396 the other person that the Mediterranean man considers to 75 be his yo. The German, contrariwise, finds it necessary to know himself before attempting to think; and this is why he calls this process "consciousness," which Ortega considers to be a central theme in all modern philosophy 76 worthy of the name. The German yo, according to Ortega, "is not soul; it is not a reality in the body or alongside it, but rather [it is] consciousness of itself— Selbst- 77 bewusstsein." He further notes the strange nature of this yo, stating that while other things are restricted to being what they are— Mlight to lighting, sound to sound ing, whiteness to whitening"— the nature of our ye is only yO what it is to the extent that it realizes what it is. Thus Socrates' apothegm "Know thyselfi" reveals the secret (the intimidad) of the southern European yo, but it is 750bras, IV, 37- 76 Ibid., p. 36. In a footnote to this, Ortega notes that the Spanish conciencia still preserves its pure Germanic meaning of "reflectivity," especially when it is written with the "s" (consciencia): "Consciencia es darse cuenta de si mismo, de nuestras ideas, pasiones, etc.; en suma, de nuestro ye" (ibid., n. l). Unamuno intentionally does not make this distinction between conciencia and consciencia; he considers the "s" to be a learned pretense that should be avoided at all times (see 0. C., VI, 383- 384; in "Una rectificacion," 1893)* 770bras, IV, 36. 7^Ibid., pp. 36-37- This yo "is always with itself, face to face with itself; its being is a Being-for-itself [Ser-para-si] w h i c h is Hegel's Fiirsichsein (ibid., p. 37K 397 79 useless for explaining the German ego. Our yo is the only reality that ve do not want, nor are we able, to convert into a "thing." To illustrate this, Ortega again uses the verbal locution yo axido as contrasted to el anda (see p. 370), noting that the meaning ”1 walk” and "he walks” apparently has a primary aspect of identity. If this were not the case, we would not use the same linguistic root ”walk-” (and-). "Mean ing,” in this instance, alludes only to the "reference to an object." Thus "identical meaning” will be "reference to the same object or reality, to the same aspect of an object or reality.” Here Ortega uses the same example of the activity of walking as seen from "outside” and from "inside" this phenomenon, noting that there is, obviously, an "I walk” that is completely different from the "walk- Q0 ing" of everyone else. Thus, in Ortega's concept of the yo, we find that it means "not this man as distinguished from [that] other one, nor, by any means, man as opposed to things; but, rather, everything--men, things, situa- 0 1. tions— while taking place, existing, being effected." According to this concept, then, each one of us is a yo, not because we belong to a privileged "biological" species 790bras, IV, 37. do Ibid., VI, 251; in "Ensayo de estetica a manera de prologo," 191A* 8lIbid., p. 252 398 that has "an apparatus of projections called consciousness 82 [conciencia], but because Lour yo] is something." Ortega notes that the red leather box that he has before him is not 212. because it is only an "image” of his, and being only an image is tantamount to not being what is imagined. He further notes that "image, concept, etc., are always image, concept of . . . [sic] and that of [de] of which they are the image constitutes their true" and o- essential being. ^ There is the same difference between a pain of which we are told and one that we ourselves feel that there is between the red we "see" and the "being red" of the leather on the box. For the box, "being red" is the same as our feeling pain. Hence there are such things 84 as a yo-Fulano, a yo-red, a yo-water, and a yo-star. Everything, looking from within one's own individual dentro, is 212* and this is why we cannot assume a utili tarian attitude toward this 212* cannot do this "because the state of perfect absorption [compenetracion] with something [else] is indissoluble, because it is O j - everything to the extent that [it is] intimate." Ortega uses the sensation of physical pain to develop this 82 Obras, VI, 252. 85Ibid. 84 Ibid. I would add a "yo-Cueva de Montesinos," a "yo-windmill-giants," ad infinitum. 85Ibid• 399 thesis, noting that when he feels a pain, love or hate, he does not see his pain nor does he see himself loving or hating. In order for him to see his pain he must inter rupt his situation of being in pain (in love or hating) and convert himself into a "seeing yo.” This "seeing yoM that contemplates the ’ ’ paining yo” is now ”the true, executive, present yo.” The ’ ’ paining yo,” speaking in all exactness, was, and now is, only an image, a thing or 86 object that he has before him. In this manner, Ortega arrives at the last stage of his analysis: yo is not man as opposed to things 5 yo is not this person as opposed to tu or ejL} yo, in short, is not that ”1 myself” (me ipsum) that X think I know when I quote the Delphic apothegm ’ ’ Know thyself.” ’ ’That which X see rising over the horizon and flickering over the lengthened clouds of the dawn like a golden amphora is not the sun, but an image of the sun.” In the same way the.yo that I seem to have so close to me is only the image of my true yo. Ortega cites the very popular maxim ’ ’ Del dicho al hecho hay gran trecho" and notes Nietzsche's statement to the effect that ”It is very easy to think things, but it is very difficult to be them,” both of which sayings well illustrate the thesis that he is developing here: the distance between what is 86 Obras, VI, 252-253- 87Ibid., p. 253- 4oo said and what ijs done, between thinking something and being something is precisely the same that is to be found 88 between "thing" and ^o- He gives further examples of his concept of intimidad when he states that "the true intimidad that something is when it is being effected is equidistant from the image of that which is external and 89 from that which is internal. Our intimidad is something that cannot be made objective to us, nor to science, nor to practical (Kantian) reason, nor to mechanical represen- 90 tation. Yet this dentro is the true essence of each and every object 5 it is the only thing that is sufficient unto itself and the contemplation of which would fully 91 satisfy us. In HLa eleccion en amor," 1927) Ortega notes two interrelated ideas concerning man1s dentro. The first of 880bras, VI, 253- 89 Ibid., p. 254. See Chapter II, pp. 26-27) for the relationship between intimidad and "ideas," and pp. 90-92, in the section entitled "Metaphors." 90 Compare this with what Ortega says in "Elogio del 'Murcielago'," 1921 (Obras, II, 323-324), where he notes that the reality of the authentic jo of such a figure as Hamlet or Don Quijote has never been adequately portrayed plastically on canvas or in marble; and this is due to the fact that their yo profundo (= intimidades) cannot be copied. This also explains the failure of the motion pictures realistically to portray Cervantes' master crea tions: Don Quijote's and Sancho's dentros defy the brush, the chisel, the camera, and all the skills available to man so far as physical capacity is concerned. 91Ibid., VI, 254. these ideas is that the decisive depth (fondo) of our individuality is not composed of our opinions and life experiences} it does not consist of our temperament; it is something more subtle, more ethereal, and previous to all these things. Man is, first and .foremost, "a bora system of preferences and disdains." More or 10- 3% coincident with this bora system of our fellow mein, each one of us carries within himself his own bora system, "armed and ready to hurl us for or against [something or somebody], like a battery of sympathies and repulsions." Man's heart --"the machine of preferring and disdaining"— is the 92 support of his personality. Before we know what sur rounds us (our circunstancia), we are propelled by our heart in one or another direction, toward some or other values. Due to this we are very discerning about things in which the values that we prefer are fulfilled and blind to those wherein other values are found that are equal or 9*5 superior but foreign to our sensibility. To this first idea, which Ortega says is supported today with vigorous reasons by a whole group of philosophers, he adds a second idea about the dentro, an idea that he considers to be his very own. He notes that it is understandable that in our living together with our fellow man we are vitally 920bras, V, 599. 93Ibid. 402 interested in ascertaining his table of values, his "sys tem of preferences," a system which becomes the ultimate root of his person and the foundation of his character. Likewise, the historian who wants to understand an epoch needs, first of all, to establish the table of values that prevailed among the people of that era. If such a table of values is not established, the deeds and sayings of that bygone age in history will be a "dead letter, an enigma, and a charade," as are the actions and words of our fellow man if we fail to penetrate beyond them and divine to which values in his secret depth they refer. This fondo, this "nucleus of the heart," is, in fact, secret; and it is so, in large measure, for us also. It is something that we carry inside us, or by which we our- selves are carried. It acts in "the subterranean penumbra [or cellar] of the personality," and it is as difficult for us to perceive it as it is difficult for us to see the area of earth covered by our feet. Neither is "the pupil 94 of the eye" capable of contemplating itself. Moreover, a large part of our life consists of "the best intentioned play that we act out for ourselves," feigning modes of being that are really not ours, feigning them seriously, not in order to deceive others, but to "make ourselves up" before our own eyes. Actors of ourselves, we talk and ^Obras, V, 600. 403 function, impelled by superficial influences tliat the social milieu or our will (volition) exercise on our 95 organism and momentarily replace our authentic life. Ortega cogently observes that if his reader would devote a moment to self-analysis, he would discover, to his amaze ment, that a large portion of "his" opinions and feelings are not his at all, have not sprung spontaneously from his own personal fondo; rather, they are ownerless, having fallen from the social milieu into his intimate "bed" (cuenca), just "as the road dust falls on the transient 96 passer-by." Just as it would be false to say that the theater is the play being presented on its lighted stage, it is equally inaccurate, according to Ortega, to say that 97 man lives solely from his consciousness or his spirit. As a matter of fact, except for this superficial interven tion of our will, we live an irrational life that "empties into our consciousness," which emanates from the "latent bed Ccuenca], from the invisible depth Cfondo] that, as 98 a simple truth, we are." Language, also, is unable to reveal our intimidad; it can only allude to it and cannot, in a direct fashion, 95 Obras, V, 600. Note the allusion to human life as a "drama," and see below ("Human Life"). 96Ibid. 97Ibid., p. 602. 98Ibid. 404 offer us our authentic dentro. Ortega notes that when he says "it pains me,n it is necessary to distinguish three things: l) the pain itself that he feels; 2) his image of this pain, an image which does not pain him; and 3) the words "it pains me." Precisely what does this sound "it pains me" convey to our fellow man's soul; what does it mean? "Not the pain paining but the innocuous image of 99 the pain." Ortega further notes that the telling of something causes that something to become a phantom, a shadow of itself--an image— causing, the "something told" to be transposed beyond the horizon of the present moment. That which has been narrated is a past, and, like an image, it is as "the skin that the snake sheds. One of Ortega's recurring statements concerning the 99 » Obras, VI, 2555 in- "Ensayo de estetica a manera de pr6logo," 1914. Unamuno has much the same things to say about "pain" in "IPlenitud de plenitudes y todo pleni- tudJ," 1904, where he notes that we do not love our fellow man more because we do not believe more basically in his substantial existence. If we knew how to probe into our own spiritual depths (entranas espirituales, our fondo), we would learn to understand that we hardly believe in the real existence of our fellow man, that he also has a spiritual dentro. He gives as an example of what he is trying to express our indifference to another's pain: when a child is heard crying, its weeping bothers us but is really no different from the same noise produced by a crying doll (Ensayos, I, 573-574). ^ ^ Qbras, VI, 256. The homely similie that Ortega employs here is characteristic of his wholly unpretentious style. He maintains that only pictorial art can present the true intimidad, and this is what makes art the unique discipline that it is. The aesthetic object Is an intimi dad— it is everything to the extent that it is yn (ibid.)~. But, withal, it cannot and does not reveal to us the deep 405 dentro is that "man is the eagerness [afan3 to be,” and such an assertion may be found in "Para una psicologia del hombre interesante,1 1 1925, where he notes that Georg Simmel--following Nietzsche— stated that the essence of life consists precisely of the longing for more life.^"^ Living is more living, "the eagerness to augment one's own Clifej throbs.” When such is not the case, "life is sick and, proportionately, is not life." The aptitude for interesting oneself in something because of what it is in itself and not with a mind to the profit to be derived from it is "the magnificent gift of generosity that flowers only on the summits of the greatest vital alti tude.” That one's body may be medically weak due to anatomical defects does not denote a defect in vitality, as, contrariwise, a herculean body does not guarantee great organic energies, which is so often the case with secret of human life itself. However, Ortega does main tain that "la obra de arte nos agrada con ese peculiar goce que llamamos estStico por parecernos que nos hace patente la intimidad de las cosas, su realidad ejecutiva-- frente a quien las otras noticias de la ciencia parecen raeros esquemas, remotas alusiones, sombras y simbolos" (ibid. Compare this with what X noted on p. 400, n. 90)* See also ibid., p. 465, in "A 'Veinte anos de caza mayor,1 del Conde de Yebes,” 1942, where Ortega states: "La vida es la realidad arcana por excelencia, no solo en el aen- tido de que ignoramos su secreto, sino porque la vida es la unica realidad que tiene un verdadero 'dentro,1 una intus o intimidad." . ^^Ortega is not speaking here of immortality, which is a subject that Unamuno treats extensively in most of his works (see below in the section entitled "Immor tality" ) . 4o6 102 athletes* Thijs ’ ’eagerness to be" becomes the vital urge to realize our most individual and most intimate (i. e., secret) and this carries with it the simple concomitant that to do so constitutes the major problem of human existence and also the radical insecurity of life 103 itself. Thus we always do something with a view to assuring ourselves of our life, and before anything else we make an interpretation of the circunstancia in which we are to live and of our own individual selves, which we strive to be in this circunstancia--we define the 104 "horizon" from which we have to live. This is the intimidad, the dentro, which Ortega also labels the fondo or the yo profundo (see pp. 371-373 for a discussion of Ortega's yo animico, which is the yo profundo). Ortega's concept of intimidad is essential to an intelligent understanding of his ontology, the central part of which is the basic reality of human life; and this dentro constitutes the "vital" aspect of his concept of "ratio-vitalism" (see Chapter VII). It is now pertinent to consider the basic reality of human life per se . 1 OP Obras, IV, 477- 103 See below ("Human Life"), where I discuss the "risk" (insecurity) that is a basic ingredient of human life. ^ ^ Obras, V, 32; in "En torao a Salileo," 1933* 407 Human Life Human life, as the basic reality, represents the triumph of life over reason, but this does not imply that reason has no part in the matter of living (see Chapter VII, "Ratio-vitalism"). Reason, however important it may be and is, occupies a much more secondary niche in human life than has been heretofore supposed, with all due honor to Rationalism as such. Unamuno and Ortega are both sure of the vital reality of human life, and the former even tries to prolong this earthly existence into eternity, which is an aspect of the basic reality of human life that is to be treated after I have discussed this life, which, for Ortega, is far more significant. Though Unamuno con tinually stresses immortality, he is also a vitalist (see Chapter VII, "Unamuno's Subjective Vitalism"). It is his concept of this life, here and now, that I shall discuss in this section of Chapter VI. Unamuno's pronouncements about the reality of human life are legion, and perhaps one of the earliest of them is to be found in "Acerca de la reforma de la ortografia," 1896, where he states categorically that "there are no academies, nor grammars, nor erudition, nor schools that 105 avail against the law of life." Unamuno’s "law of 105 Enaayoa, I, 225• Elsewhere Unamuno states that "We prefer art to life when the most obscure and humble life is infinitely more worthwhile than the greatest work of art" (ibid., p. 40 5 in "En torno al casticismo," 1895)* 408 life” is a recurring theme since human life prevails over reason and logic on every count: ”the purpose of life is living and not understanding» In 1898, Unamuno ob serves that the ”great task" is "to seek that which is living in what is universal and eternal by seeking in what is particular and present”— this life.10^ In "Viejos y jovenes," 1902, he concentrates on the basic reality of human life, noting that "Each man is unique and irreplace- 1 aQ able. . . . Because one man . . . is not another man." Thus, for Unamuno, a human life is something basic, a true reality. He notes that Don Quijote bequeathed to pos terity his own self, his vital ;jro. Hence a human life and an "eternal man” are worth all the theories and all the philosophies that man has ever contrived to invent. Other peoples have left institutions and books, but Spain has left "souls" such as that of Don Quijote and Santa Teresa, the latter being worth more than any institution or Kritik 109 der reinen Veraunft. This clearly indicates that, for 10^Ensayos, II, 834; in "Del sentimiento . . 1913? in essay VI ("En el fondo del abismo”). •^°^De esto, I, 465; in "'Alades,' por E. Guanyatens." 1 nO Ensayos, I, 432. To this concept of man's irre place abilityTsee Chapter V, p. 222 and n. 3) Unamuno attributes progress: the constant replacement of the old by the young, who do not actually replace their elders but merely occupy the space they leave vacant. See ibid., II, 970, for a repetition of this theme in "Del sentimiento . . ." ^ ^ Ibid., II, 1016; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913* 409 Unamuno, man is far more important than his ideas (see Chapter IX, pp. 10-11). He notes that just as hatred of sin is in inverse ratio to the hatred of the sinner, the more the crime is detested the more "pity and amorous compassion is experienced by the delinquent ; the less respect man has for ideas and the less he overestimates them, the more respect we shall render to man by esteeming him more.” We must not allow our fellow man to become a mere "chest of opinions," a social number capable of being pigeonholed with the label of an ista cualquiera, like an insect that we pin on an entomological card. Our fellow mein must be "a brother, a man of flesh and bone like you and me," and this is an idea, to be sure, even an "appari tion"; but he must be an "ineffable and divine apparition incarnate in a body that suffers and enjoys, that loves and hates, that lives and finally dies."'*'^'^ Before con cluding "Sobre la consecuencia, la sinceridad," 1906, in essay XII ("Conclusion"). In "Ganivet, filosofo,M 1903, Unamuno observes that Spain has had no true philoso- . phers, and he states that Angel Ganivet was a man, not a philosopher; he belonged to this life, which he dreamed (see De esto, I, 200-204). ^^^Bnsayos, I, 256; in "La ideocracia," 1900. Spain, according to Unamuno (and Ortega), does not measure up to this standard. Spain has made ideocracia into what Unamuno calls "ideophobia": everything is black or white, windmills or giants; and there is no "termino medio ni supremo; no comprendemos o, mejor aun, no sentimos que sean gigantes los molinos de viento y molinos los gi- gantes. Y el que no es Quijote ni Sancho quedase en socarr6n bachiller Carrasco, lo que es peor aun (ibid., p. 257). 4lO Unamuno remarks that his readers may well think that his reflections here and elsewhere are merely an apology for his procedure, something that he does not deny because he is profoundly convinced that only what is taken from con crete life has efficacy and value. Everything that he has done has been effected in order to give life to his work. Hence the doctrine that he has developed in this essay has been taken from the same source that has inspired all his doctrines: from his own life experience.1' 1 ' ' * ' On the sur face it would appear that Unamuno has been guided in his reflections by his ideas, but such is not the case, since he looks from within, from where he feels "the living liquid of my spirit and my ideas." Those who know how to penetrate themselves (ensimismarse) will see that the flood of different ideas that come down, "now from this sierra of thought, now from that one, in a gentle rivulet or in a raging torrent," some underground and others on the surface, and collectively the "dissolved substance of , ideas" that "have rained" upon his spirit from "the spiritual heaven," all this has come to swell his spirit, which he wants to be "a river of clear running water," not a puddle of stagnant water, along whose bed the same waters do not twice flow. Unamuno believes that any river has its own "physiognomy," its own character and 111Ensayos, I, 86l. 4ll action, and. Is thus much less consistent than a swamp, 112 especially if the latter freezes. Human life, for Unamuno, is a "melody," because "when there is a true personality, life is a poem of continuous rhythm"; and old age becomes "the coronation of youth." Life is a continuous revelation. of ourselves to ourselves, and each day we discover ourselves, a process that is 113 completed only with the advent of death. Thus Unamuno believes less and less in the so-called "questions" of the day, the social, political, aesthetic, moral, and reli gious questions that people invent in order to avoid hav ing to face resolutely "the only true question that 114 exists": the human question, which is everybody’s. This human question concerns man, the man who lives and breathes, the whole man of "flesh and bone," who is human 112 Ensayos, X, 861-862. Noteworthy in this descrip tion is Unamuno's use of images drawn from nature to por tray his concept. Also, see what he has to say about the exterior and interior ideas I discuss in Chapter IX, pp. 12-14. In a fictitious dialogue carried on with a friend, Unamuno likens human life to a cordless string of beads, this being due to life's dissociated nature: ". . . es tambien nuestra vida, una sarta sin cuerda. &Es que la vida de muchos de nosotros tienemas imidad interna, mas coherencia que esta conversacion, o lo que fuere? La unidad la da el tono, no el argumento. No son los escri- tores fragmentarios los que menos unidad intima nos muestran" (ibid., II, 5^3; in- "Conversacion primera," n. d., the first of twenty-three essays comprising "Solilo- quios y conversaciones," 1911 CEnsayos, II, 533-726]). 113 Ibid., II, 30> in an undated personal letter written between 1900 and 1905- 1 -1 A Ibid., I, 693-694; in "Soledad," 1905- 412 and alive because of what he has in common with his fellow men. The sad man without his joys would not be a man, as the happy man without his sadness would also not be a man. It is the weakness of the strong, the decisions of the undecided, the traits of valor in the cowardly and the moments of cowardice in the valorous, the stupidity in act or word of the genius and the genius that occasionally shines through the dullness of the stupid person, it is all this, the contradictions that are intimate in men, that makes them seem to be brothers and gains for them our sympathy. "Never does our heart beat with more love for Christ than when we read the account of his failing cour age [desaliento] in the olive grove"} but for that he 115 would not be a man. For Unamuno, there is profound significance in Don Quijote's affirmation (Qui j . , I, 5): "lYo se quien soy I" This statement reveals that Don Quijote knew what he wanted to be, and such knowledge is "the hinge of all human life. At the very beginning of Del sentimiento tragico de * 1 * i e Ensayos, II, II58; in "Taine, caricaturists," n. d. , the fourteenth of twenty-three articles comprising "Contra esto y aquello,” 1912 (Ensayos, II, 1025-1227)* 116 Ibid., p. IO95 in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905* Unamuno notes that what one is matters little j the thing of cardinal importance is to know what one wants to be. This depends on knowing oneself, which, in turn, depends, in large measure, on learning to love one's fellow man, as Don Quijote learned to love Sancho (ibid., p. 112, in the commentary on Qui j. , I, 7)* See Chapter V, pp. 307-310) for the concept of "knowing oneself." 413 la vida, 1913 j in essay I ( ”E1 hombre de came y hueso”) , Unamuno again stresses the basic reality of human life— man, here--when he notes that the man of flesh and bone, the one living in this life, "ia at one and the same time 117 the subject and the supreme object of all philosophy.” Kant, rejecting the Aristotelian rational concept of the existence of God, reconstructed his sentimental and voli tional God of consciousness, a concept which Unamuno calls ”the projection to the inward infinite of man as he is by life, of the concrete man, [the man] of felsh and bone,” which is the concept Kant reconstructed ”with his heart,” n 8 a concept his head had destroyed. Unamuno speaks of ”the right to life” and notes that people tell him that he has come into the world in order to realize some social goal or other; but he feels that he, the same as each of his ’ ’brothers, ” has come into this life in order to 119 realize himself, his yo, in order to live. He observes 117Ensayos, II, 729-730. r -l 18 Ibid., p. 731- Unamuno's statement in Spanish is: ”. . . la proyeccion al infinito de dentro del hombre por vida, del hombre concreto, de came y hue so. ” This "flesh and bone” mem is "el que nace, aufre y muere— sobre todo muere— , el que come, y bebe, y juega, y duerme, y piensa, y quiere; el hombre que se va y a quien se oye, el her- mano, el verdadero hermano” (ibid., p. 729). This reality is no abstraction, no mere idea. 119 Ibid., p. 739- Unamuno cogently asks: "iSe hizo el hombre para la ciencia, o so hizo la ciencia para el hombre?” And his answer is that the world is made for consciousness, for the consciousness of each living thing, be this yo man or ant (ibid. ) • 4l4 that contradictions exist in his appraisal of human life, since sometimes he longs for unending (inatacable) life and other times he says that this life does not possess the value that is attributed to it; and he admits these contradictions between his he^ad (reason) , which says "yes,” and his heart, which says "no"! IContradiccion!, Inaturalmente! Como que solo vi- vimos de contradicciones, y por ellas; como que la vida es tragedia, y la tragedia es perpeiua lucha sin victoria ni esperanza de ella; es contradic cion. 120 Knowledge is primarily at the service of the instinct for self-preservation, which is its very essence (Spinoza). Thus we may say that the instinct for self-preservation is what makes for us the reality and the truth of the objec tive (perceptible) world, since from the limitless area of that which is possible this instinct is what selects that which is existing for us. Hence everything that we need in order to exist, in one way or another, exists for us: ”la existencia objetiva es, en nuestro conocer, una depen- 121 dencia de nuestra propia existencia personal.” No one can deny that there can and may exist unknown aspects of reality, unknown at least to us today (1913), even some 120 Ensayos, XX, 7^0- Unamuno notes that here we are dealing with an affective value, and against affective values reason is worthless: ”Porque las razones no son nada mas que razones, es decir, ni siquiera son verdades” (ibid., p. 741). 121 Ibid., p. 751; in essay IX (”E1 punto de par- tida”). 415 that are inconceivable to us, because they are in no way necessary for the preservation of our present existence Unamuno stresses the vital reality of h u m a n life in connection with the historical reality of the Catholic Church when he speaks of the infallibility of a man— the Pope— and asks what difference it makes whether it be a book— the Bible--or a society of men— the Church— or a single man, since this makes no essential change in the rational difficulty. There had to be a solution to this dilemma, and such a solution was asserted: What is vital was affirmed, and in order to be so affirmed it created, with the help of its enemy— that which is rational— a whole dogmatic structure, which the Catholic Church defends against Rationalism, Protestantism, and Modem- 123 ism. The Church protects life in this manner, life 124 which gave the Church being in the first place. This also accounts for the Church1s fight against Galileo, Darwin, and everyone else who threatens man's anthropo morphic belief that he is an exceptional animal "created dogma and teachings in light of modern scientific knowl edge . This was condemned in the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Pius X, in 1907, as a negation of faith. or way of life. 122 i 20 Ensayos, II, 751. 123 ^"Modernism" is the re-definition of Christian II, 795; in essay IV ("La esencia del 4l6 125 expressly "to be eternalized,” Unamuno says that human life rightly will not tolerate such attacks on its need for a sense of security, not only security in a belief in 126 life itself but also in immortality. Unamuno again comments on the basic reality of human life when, speaking of the "earthquake” of the 1917 Russian Revolution that "is shaking the roots of a society that was seeking amusement and ease” (bienestar), he notes that the Spanish bienestar is a more forceful word than our English "ease": "Bienestar es estar bien y no se trata ya de estar, sino de vivir. Y vivir es anhelar y creer y crear y para anhelar y creer y crear hay que su- frir." Not only must one suffer, but he sometimes must 1 2 7 cause suffering in others. As late as 1932, Unamuno, speaking of Menendez y Pelayo's failure to penetrate the true meaning of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or the Reformation, alludes to the burning question of the reality of human life— and an after life of eternity, a thesis he develops at length in Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, 1913-128 129Ensayos, II, 793- 126Ibid., p. 794. 12^Pe esto. III, 188} in "Bienestar y vida," 1921. Unamuno adds that a mathematical theorem is (eeta), but a religious principle lives (ibid.). Ibid., I, 395-396} in "Don Marcelino y la Esfinge," 1932. Unamuno dearly loved this life here on earth, and this explains why he spends so much time in all his writ ings defending it against any attack that might tend to destroy it and his belief (?) in its immortality. He is a confirmed vitalist, and, consequently, his entire hand ling of this problem is colored by his subjective person alism. His impassioned egoism— his yo--thwarts his objective treatment of this reality; he is far more con cerned about what is to become of him--his personal yo— when this life is over. Thus the third section of this chapter is devoted exclusively to Unamuno. But in this section it is Ortega who most interests us, because he is the one who is most concerned with this life, here and now, which, for him, is the reality of realities, the one and only reality that is truly basic to all the others. It is Ortega who objectively and thoroughly probes the vitals of this highly important phase of ontology. He treats this problem from different aspects, but they' all center on this life as the basic reality. History is of vital importance to an understanding of the basic reality of human life, and as such it cannot be disregarded. In a footnote appended to his claim that he did not copy Wilhelm Dilthey’s ideas, Ortega notes the role that history plays in human life. He observes that a great invention not only has an effect on the future, but it also vitally affects the past and influences it. This possibility of retroaction (retroefecto), which does not operate in the physical world, is characteristic and essential in "historical causality." Life, which is a "permanent creation of the future," is, at the same time, a "permanent reforming of the past," which means that the 129 past as such lives in a different way in each epoch. Man, consequently, may not disregard his history or make of it an abstraction, because human reality is not merely something contemporary5 it is also part of the past. The Deity, the world, our nation, society, our art are prob lems that inexorably affect us, on their own account and not merely as facts out of the past. Hence the science of that which is human is not, strictly speaking, only his tory, but it also includes theology, philosophy or "the interpretation of the world," jurisprudence, sociology, aesthetics, etc. The way has been cut off for man, naively and confidently as of yore, to attempt directly the study of an "absolute truth" (in the physico- mathematico-rationalistic manner) regarding the problems of all these sciences, in which, our convictions and actions have to be oriented. We have no other way to establish them and observe them than the historical study of what, up to this present moment, have been the vital human ideas and convictions with respect to all these ^^^Obras, VI, 169) n. 1 (continued from p. 168); in "Guillermo Dilthey y la idea de la vida," 1933-1934■ 419 subjects.^50 The all pervading influence of history is again made patent in Ortega's instructive essay entitled "El sentido historic© de la teoria de Einstein," n. d. This 'work very clearly presents Ortega's approach to the basic reality of human life in this twentieth century. At the very outset, he notes that, so far as the novelty of the theory of relativity is concerned, the more subtle and technical ideas are, the more remote they may seem to be from human affections Hafectos], the more authentic symptoms they are of the profound variations that are produced in the historical soul.-*-31 Ortega discusses Einstein's theory and its effect on the twentieth century under four headings, which I shall summarize. Absolutism. Here Ortega notes that, for Einstein, it is not time and space that are absolute, but rather our *1*0 Obras, VI, 185* Noteworthy here is that Ortega considers history, in the narrowest sense, to be not the only science of that which is human, as was the case with the "Historical School" which limited its efforts to ob servation and which was the school that Dilthey knew as a young man. In a footnote Ortega says: "Por tanto, el hombre de la generacion de Dilthey, a fuer de empiriata, intentara averiguar que es el mundo, el Estado, el dere- cho, etc., mediante una induccion historica. . . . no lo logra, porque la 'logica inductive' de que tanto ©e habla- ba entonces, bajo la presion de [John!] Stuart Mill, es imposible" (ibid., n. 1). See also Chapter IV, p. 192, for another statement by Ortega of the vital importance of history, "the superior science, the science of the basic reality." 151Ibid., Ill, 231. 420 knowledge; objective reality is relative. This is the first novel step toward a modern concept of objective 132 reality. Einstein's new absolutism is radically dif ferent from that of the Rationalists of bygone days (such as Galileo, Descartes, Newton), who made man the center of the universe, "when he is only a corner" of it, by credit ing him with "pure reason" and by giving him rationalistic l?s abstractions with which to conduct his life. Perspectivism. In this section, Ortega points out that Euclidean geometry was essentially provincial in its outlook and, therefore, projected^this narrow perspective onto the universe it knew. This was the fault of an outlook that was typical of the provincial who tends to believe that his small world is the center of the universe when it, in reality, is only a very small corner. Einstein, far from confirming Kantian doctrine, has shown that time and space concepts depend upon the point of view of the person observing; as this person's perspective changes, so does his interpretation of reality--time and space, in this instance. Therefore, there is no absolute 134 space because there is no absolute perspective. In 1520bras, III, 233- 155Ibid., pp. 233-234. 154Ibid., p. 237. See ibid., I, 475, in "Adan en el paralso," 1910, where, speaking of art, Ortega states: ". . . hay tantas realidades como puntos de vista." See also Chapter II, "Perspective," pp. 69-83* 421 order to be absolute, space would perforce have to cease being real— "space filled with things"— and would have to be converted into an abstraction, which is exactly what 135 space was for Newton. Einstein's theory, which marvel ously justified the harmonious multiplicity of perspec tives, could be extended to include that which is moral and aesthetic; and then we would have a new method for conceiving history and human life. To accomplish this, Ortega suggests that in order that the individual may conquer the possible maximum of truth, he will not have to supplant, as was preached to him for centuries, his spontaneous point of view with another exemplary and normative one, which they called "the vision of things sub specie aetemitatis.1 1 The point of view of eternity is blind; it sees nothing; it does not exist. Instead of this, the individual will try to be faithful to the "uni- personal imperative" that represents his individuality. ^ With this idea of "perspective" in mind, it is of interest to note that the point of view of the Chinaman, or of anyone else who differs from us, is just as valid and as Vital as ours. The Chinaman's attitude toward the uni verse represents nothing more complicated than a different point of view that is conditioned by his circunstancia, 135Obras, III, 237* 136Ibid. 422 which, in turn, determines his perspective.'*'^ Anti-Utopianism or Anti-Rationalism. In this third section, Ortega indicates how the Utopian propensity to view abstractions from an abstract perspective has also been superseded by Einstein's theory of relativity: "In the cosmic pageant there is no spectator without a deter mined tdefinite, specific] seat. Utopianism, Idealism, and Rationalism have failed to consider the basic problem of human reality as it exists and have pre ferred to posit abstractions and proceed from nothing to nothing. The most serious charge that can be made against Utopianism is not that "it gives false solutions to the problems— scientific or political"; it is something far worse: Utopianism does not accept the problem— that which is real— as said problem is presented; rather, a priorii it "imposes on" this problem "a capricious form." But reality is hardy and can resist the attacks of ideas— Rationalism, Idealism, Utopianism, Pragmatism, etc. Then Rationalism seeks an "out": it recognizes that, for the moment, the idea cannot be realized; but that it will succeed someday in being realized in "an infinite 137 'How an awareness of this simple fact might help to solve some of the vexing problems facing our contemporary (twentieth-century) worldJ 1380bras, III, 237* 139Ibid.. p. 238. procedure” (Leibnitz, Kant). Ortega notes that Utopianism takes the form of ucronismo, since for the past two cen turies and a half everything was arranged by resorting to periods of time that had no determined length. Here Ortega observes parenthetically that Darwinism maintains that one species originates from another by merely inter calating between them a few milennia. And he concludes: "As if time, a spectral flow, by simply flowing, could be the cause of anything and make probable that which is i4o inconceivable in present time." Einstein has turned the tables on pure reason by demonstrating that Rational ism is not the answer to reality, that observable facts in the physical world disprove the blind assumptions of all Rationalism. This represents a new approach to the matter of living: culture has ceased to be the imperative norm to which human life must perforce be molded. Now we can perceive a more delicate and equitable relationship between both culture and human life. Hence, from among the "things" of life we select some as possible forms of culture; but from among these possible forms of culture, life itself, in its turn, selects the only forms that are to be realized.^^ Finiteness. Under this fourth and last heading, l4°Obrast II, 238. l4lIbid., p. 241. 424 Ortega observes that there is evidence currently in the sciences of physics and mathematics toward the notion of finiteness and away from the concept of the infinite, which is the abstraction. This new tendency toward what is finite is a direct result of Einstein's theory of rela tivity. Man's world has suddenly become limited— finite— 142 "a garden with confining walls," an interior. Here Ortega poses this pertinent question: Does this new stage in man's perspective suggest an entirely new way of life l4’ 5 that is opposed to our customary one? Xf so, the results of this new perspective are highly significant: our grandchildren, as a result of this new attitude, may very well enter life with this new idea of the finiteness of the universe; and if they do, their "gestures" toward space will have a meaning that is contrary to ours. There is, apparently, in this propensity toward finiteness a "clear will for limitation, for serene beauty, for anti pathy toward vague superlatives, for anti-romanticism" as 144 such. Ortega further notes that our twentieth-century world of finite dimensions is not a return to the era of the Greeks and their finite concept of life. The Greeks knew no other kind of world but their limited one, but we i 42 Obras, III, 242. 1^3Ibid. 1^Ibid. 425 have lived with infinity (Rationalism, Idealism, etc.) and know its "limitations" so far as human reality is con cerned.1^ This concludes Ortega's discussion of Einstein's theory and its significance to the history of human life in this twentieth century. Our circunstancia has been radically altered, and man, in order to be able to cope with this basic change in his vital perspective, will have to adjust himself to a new way of looking at his life. Such is the vital role of history in the matter of living, and in this way it radically affects the basic reality of human life. The vital relationship that exists between history and human life is made very clear by Ortega when he speaks of his old friend Lindoro and of how this fifty-year-old man, and old homme a femmes, found it impossible to fall in love with a certain Hermione because in his earlier days he had loved so many, too many, other women. Ortega takes this situation and, employing his concepts of razon historica and razon vital (see Chapter VII for this latter concept), makes the following observation about the basic ^ ^ Obras, III, 242. In "Hegel y America," 1928, Ortega states that "the theme of our time--the union of the temporal and the eternal— is not resolved in Hegel" (ibid., II, 566). This again points up the vital signi ficance of the momentous innovation that Einstein effected in the physical world and the one that Ortega has effected in the area of philosophy and the concept of ontology. Modem man's perspective has definitely changed. 426 reality of human life: Here is a new dimension of that strange reality which is life. Before us stand the different pos sibilities of being, but at our backs stands that which we have been. And what we have been nega tively affects what we can be.1^6 In Lindoro1s case, it is a matter of "life experience” that makes it impossible for him to loye Henaione; and of this matter of "life experience” Ortega observes that it is the knowledge of what we have been that memory pre serves for us and which we always find accumulated in our today, in our present-day reality. But this very knowl edge negatively determines our lives in that which they possess of reality, in their existing. Whence it results that life is essentially "life experience,” and fifty years signify an absolute reality, not because one's body becomes weakened or one's psyche becomes dulled, something that, at times, does not occur, but because at fifty one has accumulated more "living past," has been "more things, and has had more experience" of living. From which we may deduce that man's being is "irreversible,” is forced to advance always upon itself, not because such an instant of time cannot return, but the opposite: "time does not return because man cannot again be what he has [[already] 147 been." This is not only true of man but is also 146 Obras, VI, 37; in "Historia como sistema," 194l. 427 equally true of societies whose past is "past not because it happened to others [who preceded us!] , but because it forms a vital part of our present, a part of what we Are in the form of [ourj having been,” in a word, because it 148 constitutes our past. Thus life is an absolute pres ence, a now. We cannot say that something exists if it is not present, existing now. If there is a past, it will be as present and operating now upon us; and Ortega cogently observes that if we analyze what we are now, if we look "against the light” at the consistency of our present in order to break it up into'its elements, as the chemist or the physicist do with chemical or physical bodies, we find to our surprise that our life, which is always this one, the one we are living at this very moment, present and existing now, is composed of what we personally and l4g collectively have been. Ortega speaks of man's "nature" and notes that in the traditional meaning of the word "being" man possesses "nature" only to the extent that he has a past, a history, which is a "being" that is fixed, static, and which he has already lived. Ortega describes the significance of past as being the moment of identity in man, that which he possesses of "thing," that which is inexorable and fatal. 148 Obras, VI, 39. 149 Ibid. Note that the circunstancia is an insepa rable and vital part of that which comprises our present. ■ 4 428 But, by the same token, if man has no more Eleatic being than what he has been, it means that his authentic being, the person that he really is— not just "the being that he has been”— is different from the past, consisting pre cisely and formally of "being what he has not been,” a non-Eleatic being. Since the word "being" is necessarily associated with its traditional "static" connotation, man would do well to rid himself of this latter concept. Man is notj rather, he is being (va siendo) this or that. But the concept "to be being" (ir siendo) is what we call "living," with no absurdity intended. We must not say 150 that man is; we must say that he lives. This is Ortega's concept of the basic reality of human life, and this last statement about man's not "being" but "living" leads him directly into a discussion of historical reason (razon hist6rica), which I have already discussed in Chapter XV, pp. I65-I66, 191-195) and 198-200. Pursuing the subject of "nature" and man, Ortega makes much of the fact that man does not possess "nature" but does have a "history." Human life is not a "thing" and has no "nature," as a "thing" does. Hence we must decide to think about life with categories and concepts that are radically different from those which the 150 Obras, VI, 59, Ortega conceives human life as something that is constantly moving forward, something in via (see below, where I discuss the basic ingredients of human life: "movement and action"). 429 phenomena of matter explain to us. This is not an easy undertaking, because for three centuries physical sciences have accustomed us to set aside as something unimportant and devoid of reality precisely that strange reality which is the basic one: human life. Thus while the naturalists devote themselves, "beatifically absorbed,” to their pro fessional tasks, this strange reality of human life has ♦ ’changed the quadrant,” with the result that the enthu siasm for science has been supplanted by lukewarmness, aversion, and, who knows, perhaps tomorrow our attitude 151 may develop into frank and open hostility. Ortega makes a strong case for the necessity for man to divest himself once and for all of the need to consider ’ ’ nature” as something basic to his ontology, because "nature” is not an authentic reality. It is, rather, something that relates to man's intellect, as an idea or a concept, both of which are abstractions. Such abstractions have no reality apart from human life, and to consider them real ities is, according to Ortega, the gross error of all Idealism and Hegelian Spiritualism. These abstractions must function in human life and be motivated by urgencies that are a constituent part of this life, and "nature” is a transitory interpretation that man has bestowed on what he finds confronting him in his life. We must concentrate 1510bras, VI, 25. on. life itself as the basic reality, which includes and determines beforehand all the other realities. Ortega believes that now we can confront this basic reality, liberated as we are from "naturalism,” because we have learned "to immunize ourselves against intellectualism and its Never-Never Land., T There before us stands the fact that is prior to all others, in which all the other facts float and from which they all emanate: '♦human life as it is lived by each individual. Hie Bhodus, hie aalta."^^2 We must now think about this reality, and it is urgent that we do so by using concepts that apply to the descrip tion of it and which include no imperative whatever of 153 traditional ontology. Thus man must conceive anew the idea of his basic reality, that "strange reality," which is the basic one (la realidad radical), and to which we must refer all the remaining realities, since all of them --"effective or presumed"— must, in one way or another, 154 appear in the basic reality of human life. This be comes particularly evident when Ortega further states that "today we know that all the portents [scientific discov eries and knowledge], at first inexhaustible . „ . will always stop short before the strange reality that is 1520bras, VI, 31-32. 155Ibid., p. 32. 154Ibid., p. 13. 431 155 human life.” In a similar way, physico-mathematical reason, "in its crass form of naturalism or its beatific form of spiritualism," was ill prepared to face human problems squarely because, due to its very constitution, , f±t could not do anything else but look for the nature of man,” which it failed to find.^*^ What nature is to things, such as stones, hills, rivers, etc., history--as res gestae— is to man. Thus history is the "systematic science of the basic reality" of human life. It is, therefore, "the science of the most rigorous and actual present." If history were not the science of the present, where would we go to find the past that they attribute to it as its theme? The opposite, which is the usual thing, is the same as making of the past something abstract and unreal that remained "inert back there in its epoch." But this is not the authentic past, which is "the living and functioning force that sustains our today," Ortega notes that there is no such thing as actio in distans; hence the past is not somewhere over yonder, in its era; rather it is here, in all of us. 157 We ere the past, and it is we, our life. Therefore, 1550bras, VI, 24. 156Ibid., p. 32. 157 Ibid., p. 45* Xt is obvious why Ortega's concept of ontology has given so many of his commentators so much trouble. They have been at a loss to distinguish between his concepts of historical and vital (see Chapter VII) 432 man dls his historyj he is not his nature. Moreover, man is also his life, which is the history of the present that he writes while in the process of living. Xf man did not live, he would have no history; and he would not be a human being— a faciendum, as Ortega calls him (see below). Thus it is that the two concepts of historical and vital (see Chapter VII) reason become one and the same thing, both forming an integral, if not identical, part of the concept of ratio-vitalism (see Chapter VII). The reality of human life is many things to Ortega, and he so qualifies it in sundry statements which reflect his basic attitude about this subject. Life is a ship wreck, a problem and a risk (insecurity), a chore (que- hacer), a drama, something sportive and filled with effort, and also something basically constituted of move ment and action. I shall cite some of the more explicit examples of these basic ingredients of the authentic life, two of which occur in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. Here Ortega is speaking of that which is essential to life, and he adds that life is, in itself, always a ’ ’shipwreck,” but the ’ ’shipwreck” is not necessarily a drowning. Man, feeling himself sinking into the abyss, flails his arms about in order to maintain himself afloat{ reason, which are part and parcel of the same concept of human life as the basic reality. Ferrater Mora, Ortega, pp. 45-46, discusses the possible interpretations of historical and vital reason. 433 and this flailing action with his arms, with which he reacts when confronted with his own perdition, is "cul- 158 ture," which is "a natatory movement(" Ortega’s use of this sea-image to convey his concept of the constantly changing aspect of human life is both apt and artistically contrived. He is, at times, a true poet in prose. This image recalls what he said about the popular expression-— the mar de dudas— which the common folk use to contrast the state of doubt with the "firm ground" of belief (see Chapter II, p. 54). Somewhat farther on in. this same essay on Goethe, Ortega notes that the consciousness of shipwreck, "on being the truth of life, is already its salvation." Hence he believes only in the thoughts of those who are "shipwrecked." He believes that it is necessary to cite the Classic writers before a tribunal of shipwrecked persons so that they may there answer certain pressing questions that refer to "authentic 159 life." The shipwreck-image also occurs in "En el cen- tenario de Hegel," 1931> where, after having alluded to life as a problem, Ortega proceeds to evoke the sea-image as it applies to human life. He notes that life is not something isolated and alone, but it is its confrontation 1580bras, IV, 397* 1?9Ibid., pp. 397-398. See also ibid., V, 466, in "En el centenario de una Universidad," 1932, where Ortega says that "ha vida es permanente conciencia de naufragio y menester de natacion.* 434 with the terrible and absolute ’ ’other' 1 that is the world wherein we find ourselves "shipwrecked” in the very act of living. Ortega feels that there is no more adequate image of life than that of the "shipwreck," because it is not a matter of our life being only shipwrecked} life itself is always "finding oneself immersed in a negative element that, by itself, does not sustain us, but, on the con trary, annihilates us." Hence living obliges us constantly and essentially to execute actions that will sustain us in this negative element, or, at least, convert it into a positive medium, which is the same thing in the end. The basic and primary medium is to form an idea of ourselves, make sure what the medium is in which, at times, we float and at times sink, and determine just what our poor ship wrecked person is in this medium. All the rest of our actions rise now within and are inspired by the interpre tation we make of life.^^^ In his very instructive essay entitled "Vives," 1940, Ortega observes that Christianity arose in an era in which man felt his own total fa.ilure, an age when man thought that being human was something negative and base. This was the period in history known as the Middle Ages. With such a negative concept of human life, the only thing that could save medieval man from his hopelessness was help of a transcendental nature, and such l6°0bras, V, 420-421. 435 moral assistance was provided, for him by his belief in God, which supernatural approach gave medieval man the courage he needed to continue living. And here Ortega again refers to his shipwreck image when he notes the ■ wonderful, moving, and exemplary thing it was to see how man, shipwrecked in his inward self and in the "ocean of nullity," then fiercely seized the floating plank that . ~ . l6l represents God. A second basic ingredient of human life is its quality of being a problem and a risk (insecurity). Life is a problem, a major one, and with it man must contend, willy-nilly, if he is to become his authentic self and realize his full potential. "What is problematical is the 162 fondo, our fondo." Anything less than an honest attempt to find a solution to this basic and vital problem results in a falsification of one's authentic £0 and, consequently, his slow but certain suicide. It is nothing more than empty rhetoric, which is but the shell of the Obras, V, 497* This is the image of the shipwreck which represents the total instability of all human exist ence, its ever flowing and fluid nature. Human life is not something fixed and stable, as is the tierra firma of belief. I do not believe it would have been possible to find a more felicitous image to designate man's basic reality. Other references to the "shipwreck" of human life, too numerous to cite here, may be found almost any place in the Obras, whenever Ortega speaks of the transi toriness of life Tsee, for example, Chapter V, p. 288, n. 146) . Ibid., IV, 423} i*1 "Fidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. 436 genuine person. Ortega speaks of the "rhetoric" of unau thenticity when he states: When a human reality has completed its history, has shipwrecked [note] and died, the waves spew it up on the shores of rhetoric, where, a corpse, it lives for a long time.*-°3 Thus "rhetoric is the cemetery of human realities, at most, their sanitarium." Thus also the name of a reality survives the reality itself, and this name, being only a word, when all is said and done, as a mere word, preserves something of the magic power of the long since dead 164 reality to which it alludes. The problem inherent in human life and the urgent need for confronting it and resolving it is in evidence in "En torao a Galileo," 1933. Ortega here defines what this vital problem is, noting that something is a problem for him, not because he ignores its existence, not because he has not fulfilled his supposed obligations as an intellectual confronted with it, but when he seeks in himself and does not know which is his authentic attitude with regard to the prob lem, when, among his thoughts about it, he does not know which thought is strictly his own, the one he truly be lieves, the one that "coincides" with him. And, vice versa, the solution of a problem does not mean perforce 1930. _ „ hip- wreck is ubiquitous in Ortega’s works. 164. Ibid 437 the discovery of a "scientific law"j it means only being clear with himself when confronted with that which was a problem for him, to find suddenly among the countless ideas regarding it one that is his effective, authentic attitude concerning it. Thus the "substantial, originat ing problem," in this sense the only one, is for Ortega to "fit into" (enca.jar) himself, "to coincide" with himself, 165 "to find" himself. Knowledge of this basic problem is man's first step in the direction of getting to know his l66 authentic self, and this knowledge is vital to life. 165Obras, V, 86. l66 Unamuno also speaks of the "problem" of human life in "De la enseiianza superior en Espana," 1899 > where he states that man must confront this basic problem (which is quite different from Ortega's concept), which is the same for the individual as for society. This problem is: What is the purpose of life? Those who answer that the purpose of life is life itself give to existence a double meaning, and, instead of solving the problem, they defer it through fearj "Es la esfinge: Iadiviname o te devoro!" Only a transcendental purpose is ideal, and without the ideal there is no truly human life, neither for the individual nor for society in general (0. C., III, 107. This is also the subject of authenticity.*H Unamuno speaks of the "consciousness operating on the collective spirit" giving Spaniards a reason for living: "Solo del propio conoci- miento y del conocimiento del mundo que nos rodea podemos sacar ideal de vida y fe en nosotros mismos" (ibid«, p. 111). Here Unamuno is seeking the true solution to the problem of life, and he ties this problem and its solution to his search for immortality. His subjective approach to the basic problem of the reality of human life is epito mized by what he wrote in 1908: "Enamorabame de lo ultimo que leia, estimando hoy verdadero lo que ayer absurdoj consumxame un ansia devoradora de esclarecer los eternos problemas; sentiame peloteando de unas ideas en otras, y este continuo vaiven, en vez de engendrar en mi un escep- ticismo desolador, me daba cada vez mas fe en la inteli- gencia humana y mas esperanza de alcanzar alguna vez un In connection with the problematical aspect of human life, Ortega also stresses the risk (insecurity) that is inherent in existence. In the "Meditacion de la tecnica," 1939 (included in "Ensiraismamiento y alteracion"), he writes about the "risk" inherent in life, stating that "human life and everything in it is a constant and abso- 1 6 7 » lute risk.” ‘ And later in this same essay, in the section entitled "La vida como fabricacifin de si misma5 tecnica y deseos," Ortega states that "under this perspec tive, human life, man's existence, appears formally, 168 essentially consisting of a problem." Life is indeed a risk and a problem, which constitute a radical insecurity as the basis for living, and of this basic insecurity Ortega notes that life is man's reaction to "the radical insecurity that constitutes its substance." Thus it is a most serious matter for man "to find himself excessively surrounded by apparent securities." It is, says Ortega, the "coincidence of security that kills life,"and herein lies the ever repeated degeneration of the titled rayo de la Verdad. En vez de llegar, como muchos llegan, a decirme: 'nada puede saberse de cierto,' llegue a que todos tienen raz6n y es lastima grande que no logremos entendemos" (0. C. , I, 3°9j iu "Hecuerdos de ninez y de mocedad"). It is obvious that Unamuno's concept of the "problem" of life is not the same as Ortega's, because in Unamuno's concept the "problem" is one concerned with immortality, which is immaterial to Ortega. l670bras, V, 331- 1 go Ibid.. p. 341. 439 169 aristocracies. Insecurity constitutes a challenge, and this challenge must be met; anything less is a certain suicide. It is not a question of what "ought to be," which is essentially an avoidance of one's vital problem; this is utopianism, which is unauthentic. Life is inexo rably a problem and a risk, an essential insecurity; but man must accept this situation and stop trying to build castles in the air of what "ought to be," the region of the debe ser. Ortega considers Goethe to be a very good 170 example of this utopian attitude toward life. He makes it crystal clear that human life is something quite different in "Ensimismamiento y alteracion," 1939- In. the second part of this work, the "Meditacion de la tecnica," to which I have already referred (p. 438), Ortega explains how our modern techniques have placed man in the unenvi able position of being capable of doing almost everything. This boundless capacity of "doing" is attributed to man's intelligence plus his wonderful power of imagination, this latter being what most distinguishes him from the beast. But man's ability to do everything has also placed him in the position of being nothing himself. He is basically 169 Obras, IV, 412; in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. Unamuno, with other purposes in mind, also speaks of the lack of security "in this essentially in secure and restless life" (Ensayos, II, 964; in "Del sen- timiento . . 1913j in essay XI C"E1 problems practice"] ). 17°0bras, IV, 406-407. 44o terrified (azorado) by the consciousness of his limitless capacities, and this may well contribute to the fact that he does not now know who he really iss on finding himself capable, at least in principle, of being almost everything imaginable, man no longer knows what he basically is. His modern technique, appearing on the one hand as a capacity limitless in principle, causes man, who is disposed to live solely on his faith in his technique, to have his life emptied of its meaning. To be a technician and only a technician is to be able to be everything and, conse quently, to be nothing definite. Modern technique, from simply being full of possibilities, is a mere hollow form, as is the most formalistic logic; it is incapable of determining ’ ’the content of life." Therefore, these years in which we are living are the most intensely technical years in human history, and they are the most empty ones likewise. Man has been dazzled by his capacity for transforming nature into something he can control more easily and use to his own advantage, but in the process of transforming 1^ Obras, V, 366. See ibid., IV, 338, in "Misi6n de la Universidad," 1930, where Ortega speaks of the vital need in our times for knowing one's limitations, which is a knowledge that constitutes "the truth and authenticity of life." The passage in which this appears has already been referred to in Chapter V, p. 249* See also what Ortega says about "limitation." and the need for it in La rebeli6n de las masas, 1930, in conjunction with the sub ject of the "mass-man" of this twentieth century (see Chapter II, p. 108). 441 nature, in the transition from the instrument (hammer, saw, knife) to the machine, the apparatus that functions by itself (automation), man, the erstwhile artisan, has been replaced and relegated to a secondary position in the scheme of things. The machine has supplanted man, and the technician and the worker, united in the artisan, have now separated. The technician, thus isolated, has become the pure and living expression of the technique--the modern 172 engineer. This is the situation that the machine age has bequeathed to mankind, and the mechanization of human 172 Obras, V, 368. Unamuno also speaks of specializa tion and its deleterious effect on man in "La pureza del idealismo" (De esto, III, 4l8-428) , an article inspired by his reading of Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Richard Avenarius1 Kritik der reinen Erfahrung, and Herminium (Hermann) Cohen's Logik der reinen Erkenntnis. Unamuno is not at all happy about the application of the concept "pure" to human life 5 for him, such a concept fosters specialization, departmentalization, etc. The Middle Ages represents the age of specialization, with its guilds, etc., and is a good example of what Unamuno calls "bar barism." Thus, for him, the Renaissance is the age of the whole man, the encyclopedic individual, the non-specialist who best represents Unamuno's "spiritualized" (i. e., civilized) man. In this connection what Unamuno has to say about spirit being the need of Spaniards (and man in general) is apposite: ". . . el espiritu, la realidad, hace ideas o apariencias, y estas no hacen espiritu" (En- sayos, I, 252; in "La ideocracia," 1900). Reverting to the article I am discussing here, Unamuno adds that the machine age, epitomized by the Industrial Revolution, has re-barbarized man, just as he was "barbarized" in the Middle Ages by being departmentalized. The specialist, interested only in his necessarily narrow specialty, is not vitally concerned with life outside his specialty; and he is, consequently, a barbarian, according to Unamuno (and Ortega would agree with this). Thus, the concept "pure" is devitalizing and wholly inadequate for the "whole man, the man of flesh and bone," who has to live his life— this life— as a whole, authentic man. 442 175 life threatens to obfuscate man's conscience. Ortega had stated earlier in this same essay what human life really is, noting that if our existence were not already, from the very beginning, the need to construct with the materials of nature the "extra natural pretension that man is," none of these techniques would exist. "The absolute fact, the pure phenomenon of the universe that technique is" can only exist in that "strange, pathetic, dramatic, metaphysical combination" wherein two heterogeneous beings — man and the world— see themselves forced to unite in such a way that one of them— man— succeeds in "inserting his extramundane being into the other, which is precisely the world." And it is this problem, almost an engineer's 174 problem, that constitutes human existence. But modern technique is not an end in itself; it is only the means to an end, which is human life. And here Ortega notes that the reforming of nature— the technique— like all change is a movement with its two ends, a quo and ad quern. The a quo end is nature as it stands. In order to modify this nature one must establish the other end toward which we are going to make nature conform, and this ad quern goal is man's "vital program." Ortega asks what we would call the full attainment of this vital program. And his answer is: 1730bras, V, 368. 17^Ibid., p. 343* 443 "Evidently the well being [bienestar] of man, happiness." 175 Such is the anatomy of happiness. Ortega uses the example of the Hindu Bodhisatva and his concept of reality, which consists of not being an individual as such, but of fusing oneself with the All, which is a form of ecstatic mysticism. Ortega clearly demonstrates that the modern. Western technique, the same as Hindu Bodhisatva mysticism, is not in itself a true and basic reality in the same sense as human life, which made both situations possible. Man is basically "extranatural," outside of nature. Hence he may control nature, which is part of his circunstancia. This dominion over nature is man's task (tarea) and his struggle (lucha) in the problematical business of living and becoming something he has not yet " L 7 6 become, of metamorphosing himself. Man is now beginning to lose his absolute faith in his "ideas” concerning the basic reality of human life. This life is something more than the machine and the bare 1750bras, V, 345- 176 See ibid., pp. 546-354, and especially ibid., IV, 403, in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932, where Ortega states that Goethe is "el hombre en quien por vez primera alborea la conciencla de que la vida humana es la lucha del hombre con su intimo e individual destino, es decir, que la vida humana esta constitulda por el problems de si misma, que su sustancia consiste no en algo que ya es— como la sustancia del fil6sofo griego, y mas sutil- mente, pero al cabo igualmente, la del filosofo idealists moderao— , sino en algo que tiene que hacerse a si mismo tsee below, for life as a faciendum], que no es, pues, cosa, sino absoluta y problematics tarea." technique that man has developed so well; it is something more than science and reason, as the scientists and the Rationalists would have us believe. In the second part of La rebeli6n de las masas, 1930> in the section entitled "iQuien manda en el mundo?,, , Ortega cogently observes that the "clear-headed” man is the one who lives vitally and authentically. This is the man who rids himself of those "phantasmagoric ideas" and squarely faces life, realizing the while that everything about it is problematical. He therefore feels lost, which is really living; and he who accepts this has begun to find himself, has begun to dis cover his authentic reality; he is now standing on solid ground. Instinctively, as the shipwrecked person, he will seek something to grasp; and this "tragic glance,” which is urgent and wholly veracious because it is a question of saving himself, will cause him to create order out of the chaos of his life. These, according to Ortega, are the only true ideas: "the ideas of those who are shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posture, intimate farce," because he who does not really feel himself lost, inexo rably loses himself, which means that he never finds him- 177 self, never discovers his own reality. The basic reality of human life, the most vital problem of all, is the one that has been left in a state of confusion; and 177 Obras, IV, 254. Note here the recurrence of the "shipwreck" image and see my remarks on p. 435» ** • l6l. 445 this is because the abstractions of science, always clear to the scientist, leave the matter of human life floating on a "sea of doubt." This basic reality, which is essen tially confused and intricate, is man's unique reality— his life. He who is capable of orienting himself with precision in it, he who "glimpses beneath the chaos" the simple fact that "every vital situation presents the secret anatomy of the moment, in short, he who does not 17 A get lost in life is truly a clear-headed man." But mankind in general is incapable of confronting this vital problem and prefers to wander about repeating formulas that do not satisfy and which are merely the "rhetoric of dead ideas" about his ontology. When Ortega speaks about culture and science in his Misi6n de la Universidad, 1930, he stresses once again the task and problem inherent in human life, noting that the reality we customarily refer to as "human life," our life, has nothing to do with the biology or science of organic bodies, since the primary and true meaning of the word "life" is not biological 5 it is "biographical," as is 179 always implied in the popular speech. It is the aggre gate of what we do and are, "that terrible task" that each 1780bras, IV, 254. 179 Compare Ortega's "biographical" concept of human life with what Unamuno says about the authentic novel being essentially "autobiographical" (see p. 389, n* 62). one of us must perform by himself, conducting himself amid the things and beings of this world, "To live is to deal with the world, to address oneself to it, to function in 1 So it, concern oneself with it.” Life, therefore, is not something that is handed to us, but, on the contrary, we must fabricate it as we progress through it, moment after moment; and in each instant we must decide what we are going to do in the next, and so on throughout our earthly existence. This is our basic and perennial problem, and because of this situation, we must have a plan for living 181 our life. The need for this life plan is not dependent upon the fact that we are morally obligated to form it for ourselves; it depends upon the fact that there is no life possible, ’ ’sublime or abject, discrete or stupid,” that does not essentially consist of conducting ourselves according to a plan, even if, in a moment of desperation, we let our life slip by at its own pace, we still have a ’ ’ plan.” Ortega notes that ’ ’every life perforce 'plans itself” or, what amounts to the same thing, ’ ’ when we decide on each act of ours, we decide because it seems to 1 f i o Obras, IV, 341. In a footnote appended to this, Ortega cites the source of the last sentence quoted above, which, he says, came from his essay entitled ”E1 estado, la juventud y el Carnaval," first published in La Nacion, Buenos Aires, 1924, and later reprinted in El Espectador, vol. VII, 1930, with the present title of ”E1 origen de- portivo del Estado,” 1924 (see ibid., II, 607-623). l8lIbid., IV, 341-342. us to be the one that, given the circufflstances, makes the X 32 most sense." Thus our vital plan, our life, is inexo rably subject to continual change; and this constitutes part of the vital problem of existence. There is no such thing as a static plan for life any more than there can be a static existence. Such a "static plan" would be a falsification of our basic reality. The problem of human life is again in evidence in "En el centenario de Hegel," 1931> where Ortega speaks of the knowledge of oneself as being the main attribute of the Hegelian concept of "spirit." Knowing oneself is a reality that consists of comprehension, but what is com prehended is the reality itself. And this implies that it is, at the same time, "incomprehension, because, other wise , it would not consist of a movement and effort and chore in order to become transparent to itself." Thus the reality of knowing oneself has two sides: one is the constant problem itself and the other is the interpreta tion of this problem. Ortega cogently asks: "Is not this what is characteristic of human life? Is not our living 183 feeling ourselves submerged in an absolute problem?" ^ 182 Obras, IV, 342. In a footnote concerning his use of the words "sublime and abject," etc., Ortega says: "Lo sublime o infimo, discreto o estupido de Tina vida es pre- cisamente su plan. Bien entendido que nuestro plan no es unico para t,oda la vida; puede yariar constantemente. Lo importante es que nunca falta uno u otro" (ibid., n. l). l85Ibid., V, 420. 448 In another' essay ("A 1Veinte ahos de caza mayor,1 del Conde de lebea," 1942), Ortega notes that to say ' ’life1 1 is the same as to say "now, " because life is what we have to do here and now. What we have to do will vary exceedingly in the different epochs of history, but what does not vary is that which is not already made but which we must make; and "this is what it has of life.” Therefore, "lii'e is essentially an open task and problem: a jungle of prob lems that must be solved, in the stormy plot of which, 184 willy-nilly, we flail our arms as shipwrecked men.1 1 Thus also lives that are not of the present time, lives of the past, are not life in the proper sense of the word: they are nothing more than "stories" we are told about lives that used to be, "that used to be for those who had to live them, as we do ours, before anybody could narrate them." Hence, on one of its sides (haces), every life, while being lived, is more or less always filled with anguish, because it is made up of untamed problems that 185 urgently demand a solution. It is quite obvious that life, to Ortega, is a basic 184 Obras, VI, 476-477- Note again the "shipwreck" image and see my remarks on p. 435» n ■ l6l. l85Ibid., p. 477. See also ibid., I, 478 and 480, in "Adan en el paraiso," 1910, where, thirty-two years earlier, Ortega spoke of human life as a problem. Also ibid. , pp. 505--5071 in "La pedagogia social como programs politico," 1910, where he mentioned the "problem" of Spain in this twentieth century. kk9 and radical problem and simultaneously a risk and the state of insecurity that accompanies such aspects of human existence. It is only the individual who is in the process of living his own life that can reasonably and vitally (authentically) solve the problems that inevitably arise. Man is, willy-nilly, both the actor and the play in the problematical business of living. A third basic ingredient of human life is its being a "chore" (quehacer), which is a concept that occurs again and again (like the r,shipwreckIT) in different contexts, all of which amount to the same general thesis: life is an inexorable chore which we may not push aside or ignore in any way whatever. In "Goethe el libertador,M 1932, Ortega states that life is a "chore," and it is not a question of life's finding itself with chores, but it consists of nothing else but chores. Anyone who tries to avoid this basic element in life receives a most horrible punishment: not wanting to do anything, this person be comes bored, which is tantamount to being condemned to the "crueleat of forced labor"--doing time. The faineant is the fellow who "does nothing"--a horrible Dantesque type of torture. Life's "chore" is inescapable. Ortega notes that the idle person (ocioso) does not falsify his life when all is said and done: he will not do what he has to do, nor will he replace this with any other positive chore. "He fabricates with the anguished sweat of his 450 boredom the emptiness of all chore. This is not falsify ing his life; it is simply nullifying it, practicing 186 cowardly suicide." Thus the life of the ocioso is a void, a suicide while in the process of living! The basic reality makes heavy demands on man, and he must heed these demands or suffer the dire consequences that Ortega makes only too graphic. The "kingdom of the almost" is some thing that man must studiously avoid at all costs, and the "kingdom of nothing" is a living suicide. In 1932 the Centro de Estudios Historicos recorded on several phonograph discs the voices of outstanding contemporary Spaniards, and on one of these discs Ortega recorded his ideas on the subject of the "Quehacer del hombre." Here again be states that life is a chore; and the "truth of life, that is, the authentic life of every single person" consists of "doing what must be done and of avoiding doing just anything," For Ortega, man has worth to the extent that "the series of his acts is necessary and not capricious," but herein lies the difficulty of "hitting the mark." We are usually told that what is necessary is that which others have done, and this "incites us to be unfaithful to our authentic chore, which is always irreducible to that of the rest" of mankind. Obras, IV, 421-422. ^^See Chapter V, pp. 289-290, for what Ortega has to say about Goethe's "quasi" life of unauthentic living. 451 Authentic life, for Ortega, is an inexorable invention: man has to invent for himself his own existence, and, at the same time, this inventing cannot be capricious. Here the word "invent" has its original etymological meaning of 188 "to find" (hallar). Thus the quehacer is a basic in gredient of the authentic life, and it constitutes one of Ortega's principal themes. In "En torao a Galileo," 1935, he states that man must discover the world about him (his circun.steun.cia) , and this act constitutes an intellectual quehacer, which is something that is far from superfluous 189 and is a radical constituent of human life. And in a stenographic copy of a radio broadcast beamed to Argentina from Madrid in May, 1935s Ortega emphasizes the basic reality of human life and, in so doing, brings up the matter of the vital "chore," noting that man has no other reality than his life; he consists of it. But this life was not created by man; it was given to him, and we do not know why. Also this gift was not presented to man ready made; he has to make it for himself; each individual must do this. Here it is really a question of an "elemental and unexplainable perogrullada": in order to live, man must always be doing something, under penalty of succumb ing otherwise. Hence life is a chore, and "la vida da 1 Aft Obras, IV, 366. l89Ibid., V, 23. 452 mucho quehacer [sic], y el mayor de todos averiguar que es 190 lo que hay que hacer." This is so because each one finds himself confronted with a multitude of things that 1 9 1 he could do, and he has to decide on one of these. It is the solution of this problem of the quehacer that makes man authentic and his life a genuine reality; all else is sham and suicide. Man is born into his circunatancia, and this is beyond his control. It is what he himself does in this circunstancia that makes all the difference, as Ortega has explicitly indicated in "A una edicion de sus obras," 1932. Having stated that he had to be what he became in his Spain, the circunstancia into which he was born, willy-nilly, he asks: "What is one?" And his ans wer is that one is what he makes himself. We spend our lives doing this or that, but life does not consist of anything else than the "repertory of our doings" (haceres) — an activity that distinguishes man from the rest of the living creatures, because the stone that falls to earth does not do anything, and the animal that grazes on the ^ Obras, V, 238; in "Lo que mas falta hace hoy." I have cited this passage in Spanish in order to show the play on the words quehacer ("chore") and mucho que hacer ("much to do"). Although -quehacer appears in the text quoted, the meaning is clear, as is evident from the next occurrence of the two words in "lo que hay que hacer." 1^^'Ibid. See ibid., p. 212, in "Mision del bibliote- cario," 1933? and VI, 13, in "Historia como sistema," 1941, where the same thesis is repeated. Man must make his own life, and no one else can do it for him. This is basic with Ortega. meadow does not do anything either, because both the stone and the grazing animal are given their beings ready made. This is not true of man, who is only what he makes him self into. Thus each moment we must decide, willy-nilly, what we are going to do in the next; and in this doing is contained our very life. This is why man is always faced with the most varied possibilities of doing, occupying himself; and this is why he finds himself lost in these possibilities and forced to make a choice among them. What we choose is not "the carnation or the rose" but what are we going to be ourselves in the next moment. And we choose ourselves among many possible "ourselves." If the situation in which life places us, forcing us to select our own. being, were not permanent, it would seem to us to be horrible, because we always run the risk of pre ferring a yo (an "ourselves") that is not the authentic or the most authentic one, in which case our erroneous deci sion would result in a suicide, a fraud. Thus, from among the many possible haceres we must select the right one and decide, sure of ourselves, between what we can do and what must be done, which is so well expressed in the Spanish word quehacer. We are, in the last analysis, our quehacer (our "chore"), which, unfortunately, is not true of most people, who busy themselves in running away from their "chore," thus falsifying their lives because of not manag ing to have their "doing coincide with their [vital and 454 192 inexorable] chore.” This is the inescapable quehacer that Ortega stresses so much in all his works that pertain to the basic reality of human life, which, of course, includes the reality of authenticity. The references to the quehacer are legion, but the examples I have cited will suffice to indicate the vital role played by this basic ingredient in Ortega's concept of ontology. A fourth basic ingredient of human life is the "drama" that is inherent in it. Life is a great play in which man's role is vital and inescapable. Ortega refers to life as a "drama" in "En torno a Galileo," 1933, when he speaks of the failure of physical science and reason to answer man's basic question about himself. In this situa tion, ipso facto, "our life, our drama would profoundly 193 change its aspect." Here also Ortega speaks of life as a problem that demands solving, and he notes that lii'e is not something whose being is "fixed forever"; rather it is 194 "a task, something one must do, in short, a drama." Ortega likens human life to a stage, noting that it falls to man's lot in life always to live in an instant or a moment that has been determined by a process that preceded 1920bras, VT, 348-349- 195Ibid., V, 34. ~ * ~ 9^Tbid. , p. 123- 455 him, or, expressed in another way, man finds himself obliged "to come onto the stage at a precise moment in the 195 extremely ample human drama that we call 'history'." Life is intrinsically a drama since it is "the frenetic struggle with things and- even with our nature to manage 196 to be in fact what we are in project" or plan. Ortega speaks of "thought" as something man has been developing for millennia and that on occasions he has lost in the devestation of civilizations of the past. Man is always in danger of repeating himself in this regard, and he may be so doing in this twentieth century. If such is the case, man, unlike the rest of the living creatures on this earth, is "never safely a man," because being a man signifies being constantly on the verge of not being a man, of "being a living problem," an "absolute and haz ardous adventure or, as I am wont to say: being, in essence, a drama." And Ortega notes that there is only drama when we do not know what is going to take place, 197 when each moment is "pure danger and tremulous risk." ^ ^ Obras, V, 124. In "Poesia y politica," 1934 (Pe esto, IV, 444), Unamuno uses this "drama" concept to refer to history, which is life: "Que la politica es poesia y la historia es drama. Y todo lo demas . . . [sic] Ilite- ratura academical" ^ ^ Ibid., IV, 400; in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. Another reference from this same essay to life as a "drama" and man the "actor" in this play may be found cited in Chapter V, pp. 340-341. 197 Ibid., V, 305? in. "Ensimismamiento y alteracion." 456 Because "life is a drama" that takes place, and the "subject" to whom things happen is not a "thing" apart and prior to his "drama," but a vital function of it, the 198 "substance" of this human play is its plot. From the foregoing it is obvious that Ortega con siders life to be something that is always in the process of being created, a faciendum, which is tantamount to say ing that it is a drama in which man is the principal actor and whose role is the business of living his part in this vital play. Ortega says that the drama of his own life has been to devote himself to the task of thinking, in his eagerness to cast some ray of light on the "things" of this world. He speaks of his high hopes for success in this vital drama, noting that perhaps his "congenital fervor" has made him see very soon that one of the charac teristic traits of his Spanish • circunstancia was "the deficiency of that very thing that X had to be through intimate necessity." Thus there were established in him the personal inclination toward "pensive exercise and the conviction that [such activity], in addition, was a service to my country." Thus all his work has been per formed in the service of Spain, and this is "an inexorable truth, although, objectively, it might turn out that I had been of no [effective] use" to a Spain that was in a sad ^ ^ Obras, VI, 35; in "Historia como sistema," 1941. 457 199 state of vital lassitude. A fifth basic ingredient of human life is the effort and sportive element that is an inherent quality of an authentic existence. This element of "effort1 1 is quite evident in Unamuno1s concept of life. He calls it the "struggle" or "war" that are characteristic attributes of our existence on this earth. The peace man strives to achieve in life is, for Unamuno, a dead thing "with ideas for corpses"; and this is not where man finds life, "which is a campaign [effort, war] on earth.In La agonia del cristianismo, 1931, Unamuno speaks at length of his concept of the struggle (agonia or lucha) inherent in life on this earth; and he observes that "the purpose of life 201 is to make for oneself a soul, an immortal soul." It is obvious that, for Unamuno, life and the struggle for life are one and the same thing: "Life ,is struggle, and 199 Obras, VI, 3515 in "A una edicion de sus obras," 1932. Judging from the appearance of things in the Spain of this twentieth century, it would seem that Ortega^ concession to possible failure may have been closer to the truth than he cared to admit when he penned these thoughts in 1932. But, in spite of subsequent developments in Spain, Ortega was no less vital and authentic for having honestly believed thdt he was furthering the much needed resurrection of his country. He performed his vital quehacer to the best of his ability and in good faith; more than this can be asked of no man. 2°% e esto, IV, 229; in. "Guerra, vida y pensamiento; paz, muerte e idea," 1920. 201 Ensayos, I, 947* Note that Unamuno's agonia is inseparably associated in his mind with the concept of immortality (see below, "Immortality"). 458 the solidarity for life is struggle, [which] is created in 202 struggle.'1 In the second chapter of this work, in the essay entitled "La agonia," Unamuno discusses war and peace and notes that "peace is found in war and war in peace11; and this is the struggle (agonia) that is inherent in life. He notes that some will say that peace is life— or death— and that war is death— or peace. It is immate rial whether we assimilate them or not, and he adds: . . . peace in war [Note these words, which Unamuno used as the title of his first novel, 1897*]— or war in peace--is life in death, the life of death and the death of life, which is the struggle.203 A vital part of the struggle of life, for Unamuno, is the- deceit inherent in existence. He writes of the tragic Xbsen figure— Brand— who sacrificed himself only to dis cover that this "intimate himself" to whom he had made the great sacrifice was the All that is God; and this was his life delusion. But it had to be so, because if Brand had 202„ _ o Ensayos, I, 948. 203 Ibid., pp. 949-950. Unamuno further notes that "the logic of passion [which is his own] is a conceptista logic, polemical and struggling [agonica] 1 1 (ibid., p. 950)• The life of the soul or spirit (Unamuno makes no distinction here.) is "a struggle against eternal obliv ion" (ibid., p. 948). This constitutes the core of his concept of the basic reality of human life. Given this condition of constant struggle, life is also a struggle against "history," which Unamuno associates with immor tality: 11. . . la Hlstoria, que es el pensamiento de Dios en la tierra de los hombres, carece de ultima finalidad humana, camina al olvido, a la inconciencia. Y todo el esfuerzo del hombre es dar finalidad humana a la Hiatoria, finalidad sobrehumana, que diria Nietzsche . . ." (ibid.). 459 not lived in a state of deception, he would not have lived at all, since life !fis a deception that tries to undeceive itself,” an undeceiving which is death. Brand felt that all life is a failure, and Unamuno notes that the life that is the greatest failure is the one in which the individual is preoccupied only with not failing and does 204 nothing to achieve it. For Unamuno, struggle (effort) is the very essence of human life. Ortega’s "effort” does not concern the life that is to come later; he is concerned only with this life; and to this subject he addresses all his remarks on "effort." I have already referred to his evaluation of the Escorial as a "metaphor of sheer effort” (see Chapter II, p. 92); it is the "effort" aspect of this "metaphor" that concerns us here. Ortega sees in "this monument of our elders" the "petrified soul" of Spain, "all will, all effort, but free of ideal and sensibility.” For him, this structure is "all will, ardent longing, impulse." And here, bet ter than anywhere else, we can learn about "Spanish substance,” about the spring from which "bubbled forth p nA De esto, III, 467-468; in "Otra vez Brand," 1917- In this same article Unamuno states that "La verdad es luchar. Es luchar por cobrar la verdad" (ibid., p. 466). And in another article ("El contra-mismo," 1918), he says: "Un hombre que lo sea de verdad, con ansias de eternidad y de infinitud, vive en perpetua y encaraizada lucha contra si mismo" (ibid., p. 470). See also "De la corresponden- cia de un luchador," n. d., where Unamuno speaks of war (= truth) and peace (= falsehood) and the need for man to struggle endlessly (Ensayos, II, 585-390). t h e h i s t o r y o f t h e m o s t a b n o r m a l p e o p l e i n E u r o p e . ” O r t e g a b e l i e v e s t h a t i n t h i s "m onum en t i n s t o n e ” t h e S p a n i a r d s t r i e d t o i m p o s e , n o t a n i d e a l o f v i r t u e o r o f t r u t h , b u t t h e i r own w i l l . ' N e v e r h a s t h e a m b i t i o n f o r g r e a t n e s s t a k e n a n y s p e c i a l f o r m f o r S p a n i a r d s . J u s t a s D o n J u a n , "who l o v e d l o v e a n d n e v e r m a n a g e d t o l o v e a n y w o m a n , ” S p a n i a r d s h a v e w a n t e d w i l l w i t h o u t w a n t i n g a n y t h i n g . F o r O r t e g a , S p a n i a r d s , i n h i s t o r y , a r e a n " o u t b u r s t o f b l i n d , d i f f u s e , b r u t a l w i l l . ” T h u s t h e E s c o r i a l 2 0 5 c o u l d w e l l b e d e f i n e d a s a " t r e a t i s e o f s h e e r e f f o r t . ” " E f f o r t " i s a t o p i c o f m a j o r i m p o r t a n c e t o O r t e g a ' s c o n c e p t o f t h e b a s i c r e a l i t y . I n ”E1 o r i g e n d e p o r t i v o d e l E s t a d o , ” 1 9 2 4 , h e n o t e s t h a t t h e " f u l l l i f e " w i l l a l w a y s a p p e a r a s a n " e f f o r t , " b u t t h i s e f f o r t i s o f t w o t y p e s : " t h e e f f o r t w e m ake f o r t h e s i m p l e p l e a s u r e o f m a k i n g i t ," a n d t h e " o b l i g a t o r y e f f o r t t o w a r d w h i c h a n i m p o s e d n e c e s s i t y , o n e n o t i n v e n t e d o r s o l i c i t e d , p u s h e s a n d d r a g s u s . " As t h i s l a t t e r t y p e o f e f f o r t , w h i c h we p e r f o r m s t r i c t l y i n o r d e r t o s a t i s f y a n e e d , h a s i t s m axim um e x a m p l e i n w h a t m en c a l l " w o r k , ” t h e f o r m e r s u p e r f l u o u s e f f o r t f i n d s i t s m axim um e x a m p l e i n s p o r t , w h i c h i s n o t n e c e s s a r i l y o f a n a t h l e t i c n a t u r e . T h e r e f o r e , t h e s p o n t a n e o u s O b r a s , I I , 557; " M e d i t a c i o n d e l E s c o r i a l , " 1915* This is an accurate diagnosis of a Spain that used to be, but which now suffers from abulia. 206Ibid., pp. 609-610. 461 sportive life is the one that is most creative, most truly serious, and the most authentic form of human life. Work, as such, is merely derivative, a type of life that is "a 207 decantation. and a precipitate.” Ortega hastens to warn us that this does not mean to imply that utilitarian ac tion does not, in its own way, react, inspire, and supply a pretext for new creations of the ''sportive power.”208 He is here stating that every vital process, that which is primary, the point of departure, is ”an energy of the superfluous and the freest sense, the same in bodily life as in historical life.” He notes that when we create this history of every existence, we shall always find that ”life was first a prodigious invention of possibilities and later a selection from among them, which become fixed 209 and solidified into utilitarian habits.” And so it is with each individual life: a process of selection from among an infinite number of possibilities, the abundance of which is the most characteristic symptom of vigorous life (the vida pujante, which is sportive), "as utilitar ianism, relying on what is strictly necessary, in the man ner of the sick man who spares movements, is the symptom of weakness and diminishing life.” Thus success in one's 2°70bras, II, 610. 2°8Ibid. 209Ibid. 46 2 e x i s t e n c e d e p e n d s o n t h e w e a l t h o f p o s s i b i l i t i e s w i t h w h i c h h e a d v a n c e s t h r o u g h l i f e . " E a c h b l o w w e r e c e i v e i n Ol A [life] must be only a stimulus toward new trials." I n t h i s c o n t e x t o f t h e s p o r t i v e l i f e f i l l e d w i t h e f f o r t ( o r s t r u g g l e ) , O r t e g a m a k e s m u ch o f t h e v i t a l i m p o r t a n c e o f s p o n t a n e i t y a n d i t s r o l e i n m a k i n g o f hu m an e x i s t e n c e s o m e t h i n g t h a t i s t r u l y w o r t h w h i l e a n d a u t h e n t i c a s w e l l . I n t h i s sa m e e s s a y ( " E l o r i g e n d e p o r t i v o d e l E s t a d o " ) , h e d e m o n s t r a t e s h o w t h e s c i e n t i s t h a s n o t b e e n a b l e t o s o l v e t h e p r o b l e m o f h u m an l i f e a n d h o w , i n s o m e i n s t a n c e s , t h i s f a i l u r e t o f i n d a n a n s w e r i n s c i e n c e w a s r e s o l v e d i n t o a g n o s t i c i s m . O r t e g a t h e n a s k s t h i s b a s i c q u e s t i o n : W hat i s t h e m e a n i n g o f l i f e ? On a n s w e r i n g t h i s , h e n o t e s t h a t s u c h a q u e r y i s p e r h a p s t h e o n e t h a t m o s t i n f l u e n c e s o u r d a i l y e x i s t e n c e . O ur i d e a c o n c e r n i n g l i f e i s a l w a y s w i t h u s a n d i s c o n t i n u a l l y p r e s s i n g i n u p o n o u r c o n s c i o u s n e s s . He s u g g e s t s t h a t r e c e n t b i o l o g i c a l a n d 210 Obras, II, 6lO-6ll. Unamuno uses the symbol of the spider that weaves its web out into space, starting its handiwork by jumping into space without knowing what it is going to contact. Unamuno cites Sjrfren Kierkegaard and Walt Whitman, both of whom used this same symbol to illustrate the vital need for man to cast himself "spider- wise" into the void of life. Unamuno also says that man must do as the spider: "Carno la arana, tiene nuestra alma que sacar la soga, el hilo de Ariadna, de si misma, de sus propias entranas. Hay que sacar, cada uno, de si mismo el hilo conductor y Salvador de sus propias entranas. Tiene cada cual, si quiere salvarse, que hilar y retorcer las propias entranas, palpitantes de vida, de ansiedad, de desesperanza y de fe" (De esto, III, 478-479? in ,rIHila tus entranas!," 1919). Note here the "visceral imafee" and see my reference on p. 21, n. 37. 463 h i s t o r i c a l r e s e a r c h h a v e s h o w n t h a t a l l u t i l i t a r i a n and a d a p t i v e a c t s , e v e r y t h i n g t h a t i s a r e a c t i o n t o p r i m a r y n e c e s s i t i e s , a r e " s e c o n d a r y " l i f e ; a n d t h i s i s d u e t o t h e f a c t t h a t t h e " o r i g i n a l a n d p r i m a r y a c t i v i t y o f l i f e i s a l w a y s s p o n t a n e o u s , l u x u r i o u s , s u p e r f l u o u s i n i n t e n t , ” a n d " f r e e e x p a n s i o n o f a p r e - e x i s t i n g e n e r g y . " I t i s n o m e r e c o n f r o n t i n g t h e n e c e s s i t y h e a d o n ; i t i s n o f o r c e d m o v e m e n t o r t r o p i s m ; r a t h e r , i t i s " t h e f r e e h a p p e n i n g , 211 t h e u n f o r e s e e n a p p e t i t e . " I n t h i s c o n n e c t i o n , O r t e g a o b s e r v e s t h a t o r g a n i c p h e n o m e n a — a n i m a l a n d h u m a n — m ay b e d i v i d e d i n t o t w o g e n e r a l c l a s s e s o f a c t i v i t y : a n o r i g i n a l , c r e a t i v e , v i t a l a c t i v i t y p a r e x c e l l e n c e - - w h i c h i s s p o n t a n e o u s a n d d i s i n t e r e s t e d ; [ a n d ] a n o t h e r a c t i v i t y i n w h i c h o n e p r o f i t s b y a n d m e c h a n i z e s t h e f o r m e r a n d w h i c h i s o f a u t i l i t a r i a n n a t u r e . 2 1 2 T h e r e a r e , t h u s , t w o t y p e s o f l i f e : o n e t h a t i s s p o n t a n e o u s a n d v i t a l a n d a n o t h e r t h a t i s u t i l i t a r i a n a n d m e c h a n i z e d . O r t e g a d e f i n i t e l y p r e f e r s t h e f o r m e r , w h i c h h a s t h e q u a l i t i e s o f s p o r t i v e n e s s , c r e a t i v e n e s s , a n d a u t h e n t i c i t y . A nd t h i s l e a d s t o O r t e g a ' s d i s c u s s i o n o f w h a t h e c a l l s t h e v i d a a s c e n d e n t e a n d t h e v i d a d e c a d e n t e , w h i c h h e d e f i n e s a s f o l l o w s : t h e v i d a a s c e n d e n t e i s t h e l i f e t h a t i s f i l l e d w i t h v i t a l i t y , s p o n t a n e i t y , a n d e f f o r t — l i v i n g v i t a l i t y ; t h e v i d a d e c a d e n t e i s t h e l i f e t h a t i s c o m p o s e d PIT Obras, II, 609- 464 of a vital "pulse” that is 'waning, that gives the impres sion of a "constituent weakness, of insufficiency, of dis- 21*5 trust of itself." When life is ascendant and full of vitality and the resultant effort this fosters, "history ascends; energy, love, nobility, and liberality, the clear idea and good humor arise everywhere on the face of the 214 planet like splendid springs of vital dynamism." Con trariwise, when life is descendant, "history declines, humanity contracts, shaken by convulsions of rancor, the intellect comes to a halt, art is congealed in the acade- 2 1 5 mies, and hearts drag along crippled and decrepit." Ortega compares human life to the whistles (pitos) pro duced on a clown’s horn, which happy sounds he likens to the pipes of Pan. In this context he notes that what is most necessary is that which is superfluous. Life has triumphed on this earth because, instead of heeding vital needs alone, it has flooded and submerged these needs in "exhuberant possibilities," permitting the failure of one possibility to serve as a bridge for the victory of an other Ortega also refers to the leap of a horse, ^ ^ Obras, II, 292; in "El ’Quijote1 en la escuela," 1920. 214 Ibid., p. 293- 215 ^Ibid. This is an accurate description of the situation in present-day (l96l) Spain and the world. ^"^Ibid., p. 6ll; in "El origen deportivo del Estado," 1924. 465 which he considers to be one of the most perfect images of the life of vitality and effort (the vida pu.jante) , and he cogently observes: "the spur is not the cause but rather 217 the incitement" of all action. He laments the poor life that is devoid of irthe elastic springs" that ready it for the trial and the leap (as of the horse). Sad indeed is the life that inertly lets the moments pass without demanding "that the hours approach vibrant as swords"! Ortega says that it is grievous to have chanced to live in an era of Spanish inertia and, at the same time, recall "the leaps of the charger or the tiger which, in its best hours, was the history of Spain." He wonders where all that erstwhile vitality has gone: "Is it waiting under the old earth for a resurrection?" He would like to think so, especially in view of the fact that he has nothing 218 else but images on which to nourish himself. Without 217 Obras, II, 612. Life, for Unamuno, can also be sportive, as he indicates when he speaks of the dialogue between the dog, Berganza, and the cat, Zapiron, who talk about life in the streets and life in the house (where the cat lives most of the time). When Berganza asks Zapiron if he caught any birds the other night when he was lying in wait on the roof of his house, Zapiron answers that "for us hunting is a game and not a job." Cats cannot be made to serve as hunting dogs, and he adds: "La libertad solo es verdadera libertad en el juego; llevada a oficio, conviertese en servidumbre. No hay mas que una manera de ser de veras libre, y es jugar5 el buscarse el pan y la presa es siempre, sea como fuere, servidumbre" (Ensayos, II, 500> in "Berganza y Zapiron," n. d.). 218 Obras, II, 612. This plaintive supplication on Ortega's part is truly touching. We only wish his dream might have been realized in fact. 466 the requisite vitality, the effort needed to produce the vida ascendente (= la vida pu.jante) is wholly lacking; and the result is a lifeless existence devoid of vitality, effort, and the attendant risk (insecurity) that effort implies. This is a life that is not a true life; it is a void, a living suicide. To c o m b a t t h i s p e r n i c i o u s d e c a d e n c y , O r t e g a p r o p o s e s ( i n " E l ' Q u i j o t e ' e n l a e s c u e l a , n 1 9 2 0 ) t h a t we a s s u r e "vital health," which is the basis of all other types of health; and he gives the meaning of what he is proposing here by stating that this entire essay is only the attempt to persuade pedagogy to submit all elementary education to 219 "the imperative of vitality." The "effort" in the area of elementary education must be directed toward a primary instruction "governed by the ultimate purpose of producing the greatest number of vitally perfect men." If this is done, all the rest (moral goodness, technical skill, the wise and good citizen) will be attended to afterward. " B e f o r e s e t t i n g u p t h e t u r b i n e , we n e e d t o i l l u m i n a t e t h e 220 w a t e r f a l l . " I n s t e a d o f a d a p t i n g man t o h i s 2190bras, II, 293- 220 Ibid. Ortega notes that this would be the place to demonstrate that none of the qualities listed (moral goodness, etc.) is normally possible "except as the emana tion of a healthy vitality," but he cannot probe this matter in this short essay (ibid., n. 1). Compare what Ortega says here with his discussion of university educa tion (see Chapter V, pp. 242-246 and 249-250). 467 environment, elementary education "must adapt the environ ment to the man"5 and instead of rushing to convert ourselves into "effective instruments for this or that transitory form of civilization," education must "dis interestedly and impartially foment the vital and prim- 221 itive tone of our personality." Ortega speaks of the environment in connection with the Andalusian and his way of life, noting that the famous indolence (holgazaneria) of the Andalusian is the "formula of his culture," which consists of finding an equation with which we solve the problem of life. But this problem can be set up in two different ways: that of maximum intensity, which demands the maximum of effort j and that of minimum life (vita minima), which demands a minimum of effort. The latter solution results in an equation as valid as the former, and this latter solution is that of the Andalusian. Instead of increasing the haber, the Andalusian decreases the debe; instead of striving to live, he lives in order not to exert himself and makes of the avoidance of work a principle of his existence, an ingenious way of solving 222 his life problem to his satisfaction. 221 Obras, II, 294. Ortega states: "A mi juicio . . . no es lo mas urgente educar para la vida ya hecha, sino para la vida creadora. Cuidemos primero de forta- lecer la vida viviente, la natura naturana, y luego * . . atenderemos a la cultura y la civilizacion, a la vida mecanica, a la natura naturata" (ibid^, p. 281). 222Ibid., VI, 116; in "Teoria de Andalucia," 1942. 468 The life of effort, of sportiveness, and spontaneity is what Ortega considers to be a vital existence, what he calls the vida pujante, the life that is going somewhere and is alive and creative. He has provided ample evidence of the importance he attributes to this aspect of human life. This is the vida ascendente that Ortega so dearly wanted for his Spain, but his nation has not heeded his pleas, any more than it heeded those of Unamuno, Joaquin Costa, and so many others who valiantly tried to remake Spain into something modern and alive. The Civil War of 1936-1939 is a tragic example of "sheer effort, which, ^as Don Quijote's, was futile and led to nothing. A sixth basic ingredient of human life is that of action and movement. Ortega goes to great lengths to assure us that action and movement are vital ingredients of the authentic life. In "Ideas sobre Pio Baroja," n. d,, he observes that man is "pure activity" confronted with things. Call it soul, consciousness, spirit, or what you will, what we are consists of the fund of activities that we possess, some of which are carried out and some are waiting to be effected. Thus "we consist of a poten tial of acts, Cand] to live is to give expression to that 22^ potential, to be [ever]] converting it into action." 2230bras, II, 80. See also ibid., IV, 396, in "Pi- diendo un doethe desde dentro," 1932, where Ortega speaks of action as "s6lo el comienzo del ’hacer.’. . . Pero la vida no es solo comienzo." Unamuno also stresses the need 469 This theme of action and movement is basic to Crtega's ontology. In "Ensimiemamiento y alteraci6n," 1939* one of his most informative essays, he notes that there are three different moments that are cyclically repeated throughout human history in ever more complex and dense forms: l) man feels himself lost, "shipwrecked in things," which is alteracion; 2) man, with an energetic effort, retires into his inner self in order there to form ideas about things and their possible control; and this is ensimisma- miento (the vita contemplativa of the Romans, the theore- tikos bios of the Greeks, the theoria); 3) man again buries himself in the world about him in order to act in it according to a preconceived plan, which is action (the vita activa or, as Ortega calls it: the praxis). These for action: "Vivir es estar despierto, no sonar [Note this concept of sueho and see below, "Immortality."3; y cuando uno siente que el sueho, que es la muerte, lo gana, ha de pellizcarse y hostigarse, y torturarse si es precise para que el sueho no le coja. No hay mejor antihipnotico que el sufrimiento".(De esto, IV, 158; in "Arte y natura- leza, dialogo divagatorio," 1916). In an undated personal letter, written between 1900 and 1905, Unamuno states that life is action and movement when he writes: "Mi vida toda se mueve por un principio de intima contradiccion. Me atrae la lucha y siento ansias de quietud y paz; estudio de ciencias y caigo en poeta; soy cristiano anti-pagano de corazon y explico clasicos griegos. De aqui que pueda decir que soy un espiritu en movimiento" (Ensayos, II, 52). Unamuno also speaks of physical movement and the consciousness thereof, which movement he calls fuerza; and he notes that where consciousness of movement is lacking there is no true effort, only movement; and he adds: "Y la intima realidad de toda cosa— causa— , su entrana, es una conciencia [consciousness]" (De esto, II, 366-367; in "Etimologias ; filosofla es filologia," 1924) . Note bow Unamuno associates "consciousness" and "movement." 470 are Ortega's three vital moments in life, and he wants to make sure that we understand the word "action" in its most rigorous sense: we can speak of action only to the extent that it is governed by a previous contemplation., and, vice versa, ensimismaiaiento is nothing other than the project 224 for future action. Action is more basic to man than is thought; man's destiny is primarily action, not thought. Man does not live in order to think; quite the contrary: "we think in order to keep on living." This is a cardinal point and demands that we radically oppose all traditional Rationalistic philosophy and resolve to deny that thought, in any sense of this word, was given to man once and for all so that he finds it at his disposal ready to be used and placed in action, "as flight was given to the bird 224 Obras, V, 3°4. See ibid., p. 76, in "En torno a Galileo," 1933» where Ortega writes of ensimismamionto: "A1 hombre . . . le es dado no estar siempre fuera de si, en el mundo [as is the case with animals!] ; le es dado 'retirarse del mundo' y ensimismarse. El hombre hace el Retiro, el no-fuera, el no-mundo: pone en el a los monos y para los monos se concierte inexorablemente en selva, en paisaje y motivo de alteracion. El hombre es el animal retirado, ensimismado." See Chapter V, p. 343» for this same reference to El Retiro Park, Madrid, and the monkeys therein. Unamuno also stresses ensimismamiento. He notes that in order to love everything, to feel compassion for everything living and non-living, man must feel everything within himself; he must see the universe within himself, "feel" things in his consciousness, "where all things have left their dolorous trail." If man does this, he will arrive at the uttermost depth of tedium, not only tedium of life, but of something more: "the tedium of existence, the well of the vanity of vanities." Thus man learns to feel compassion for everything and arrives at universal love, personalizes everything (Ensayos, II, 854; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 1913)* 471 225 and swimming to the fish.” Action comes naturally to man, but thinking is something he has to acquire. Not withstanding its "naturalness,” action must not be a helter-skelter matter. Action for the sake of action alone is alteracion, whether we are dealing with things or men. Genuine action is to act on our environment, com posed of things or men, according to a preconceived plan based on contemplation or thought. There can be no truly authentic action without thought, and there can be no au thentic thought unless it be duly referred to action and 226 vitalized by its relation to this action. Therefore, it is evident that action for the sake of action, with no preconceived plan, is sheer nonsense; and, still worse, it 2250bras, V, 304. 226 Ibid., p. 308. From this it would appear that our twentieth-century world is in grave danger of becoming submerged in Ortega's alteracion, which is unauthentic living (see Chapter V, pp. 344-346)5 and this situation is due to misdirected, helter-skelter action. This sort of senseless activity is what led Rome to her ruin, the Rome that gave herself over to pleasure, luxury, and excess of all types. Due to such senseless activity (alteracion), many a civilization has gone down to defeat and decay, has become "re-barbarized" (see Chapter V, pp. 3^5-3^6). Ortega speaks of Rome's degeneration and the dire lesson to be learned from it: "Se perdio--como amenaza perderse en Europa, si no se pone rentedio--la capacidad de ensimis- marse, de recogernos con serenidad en nuestro fondo inso- bomable. Se habla solo de acci6n. Los demagogos, empresarios de la alt,eraci6n que ya han hecho morir a varias civilizaciones, hostigan a los hombres para que no reflexionen, procuran mantenerlos hacinados en muche- dumbres para que no puedan reconstruir su persona donde unicamente se reconstruye, que es en la soledad" (Obras, V, 311)* Note the reference to the vital need for soli tude (see Chapter V, pp. 292-298). 472 is perilous. Life is a risk, but it is not that kind of 227 foolhardy risk. In "No ser hombre ejemplar," 1924, Ortega wisely notes that the norm of perfection is valid only as the goal for the race, that what is vitally impor tant is "to run toward [this goal], and he who does not reach it is not, because of that, either dead or dis honored." Our existence must not be a paradigm; rather it must be "an oblique course among the models that at one and the same time brings us near to them and gracefully avoids them." It should be something like Nietzsche's concept of good prose, which is always created in view of poetry, "confusing itself with it, but, in the end, avoid- 228 ing it with graceful flight at the decisive moment. This concept of movement is also stressed in "Goethe el libertador," 1932, where Ortega states that life is precisely "an inexorable outside, an endless going out of 229 oneself to the Universe." And in "Hegel y America," 1928, he cites Cervantes, who said that the road is 227 Ortega's warning, written in 1939i is pointedly applicable to our mid-twentieth-century world, which seems to be rushing headlong into outer space and possible anni hilation. Why do we comport outselves in this senseless manner? Is it really in order to be able to keep abreast of someone else who might otherwise outstrip us in this mad race to oblivion? We are excellent examples, as international participants in world affairs, of Ortega's alteracion; witness the recent U-2 incident over Russian territory on May 1, i960. 2280bras, II, 359- 229Ibid., IV, 426. 473 always to be preferred to the inn. Human life is considered by Ortega to be "the most objective reality of all" and "the farthest thing imagin able from a subjective fact"; it is a reality that is always in via. This means that it is to find one's yo completely submerged in that which is alien to it, "in the pure other, which is its circunstancia." Hence to live means to be "outside" oneself. The vital program that each individual is, irremediably," "oppresses" the circuns tancia in order to take up residence in it; and this "unity of dramatic dynamism" between both elements— yo and the world— is life, forming "an ambit within which the person finds himself, the world and . . . Csic] the 231 biographer." ^ Thus life is motion outward from the self, the yo. The concept of movement is inherent in the basic reality of human life, as may be noted in "iQuien manda en. el mundo?" (Part II of La rebelion de las masas, 1930)) where Ortega observes that living is to be headed toward something, toward a goal, which is not one's trav eling, not one's life; rather it is something toward which human life is aimed, something outside of life, mas alia. If one decides to walk alone in his life, egotis tically, he does not advance; he goes round and round in 23°Obras, II, 567. 251Ibid., IV, 400; in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. the same place, which constitutes a labyrinth that leads nowhere and becomes lost in itself as a result of being 070 nothing more than the mere traveling within oneself. This is precisely the situation in which the "mass-man" of today finds himself. For Ortega, the reality of human life is something quite different, as he has many times indicated. He firmly believes that the European must again become accustomed to leading; if he should not, unfortunately, do so, it would take but a single genera tion and a half for the Old World, and after it the entire world, to fall into a state of moral inertia, intellectual sterility, and an all-embracing barbarism, because only the illusion of command and the discipline of responsi bility that command inspires can maintain Western souls tense. Science, art, technique, and all the rest live in the tonic atmosphere that the consciousness of command creates. If this is lacking, the man of Europe will become debased, routinized, habituated, traditionalized, 233 and dead so far as authentic living is concerned. Human life is an urgency that brooks no delay. It will not wait in its forward course for civilization to catch up with it. Ortega makes this urgency very clear 2520bras, VI, 243. 2^Ibid. , p. 245* See also Chapter V, p. 288, n„ 146, for what Ortega says about the matter of envileci- miento, which is a falsification of authentic life. 475 in Miaion de la Universidad, 1930» where he observes that life cannot wait for science to explain the universe scientifically. Life cannot wait for the Never-Never Land, since the most essential attribute of existence is its urgency. We live here and now and can endure neither delay nor transfer: "La vida nos es disparada a quema- 234 rropa." He also notes that culture, which is the interpretation, the plan of life, is no more capable of waiting than is human life itself. The "interior regimen" of scientific activities is not vital while that of our culture is, and this is why science is in no hurry to solve our urgencies; it takes its time with its own needs. Thus it diversifies indefinitely and never completes any thing. But culture is governed by life itself and must, consequently, be at all times a complete system that is integrally and clearly structured. This is so because culture is the plan of life, "the road map through the 255 jungle of existence." This explains why human life, though lived in the present, is a constant preoccupation with something that is in the future. It is perforce a restless looking forward, a future, living in this future and from this future. Man is a "two-sided" being: on one side he is what he is, but on the other he has ideas about 23\)bras, IV, 343- 235Ibid. 476 himself that "coincide more or less with his authentic reality.” Evidently, then, our ideas, preferences, and desires cannot nullify our true being; but they can com plicate it and modify it. The Ancient and the European are equally concerned about the future, but the former submits the future to the regimen of the past while the latter gives more autonomy to the future, to what is new. This apparent contradiction or antagonism is what permits Ortega to classify the European of the present era as q ’ 56 "futuristic” and the Ancient as "archaistic.” Thus all Europe must look to the future of a united Europe, because anything less than this, particularly provincial nationalism, is to look backward and could well lead to a 237 total destruction, of Europe. Here Ortega once more emphasizes the vital need for "doing” and the matter of knowing one's limitations . 2 36 Obras, IV, 266, n. 1; in "iQuien manda en el mundo?” (Part XX of La rebelion de las masas, 1930)* Somewhat farther on in this same essay Ortega states: "Solo hay verdad en la existencia cuando sentimos sus actos como irrevocablentente necesarios. . . . No hay mas vida con raices propias, no hay mas vida aut6ctona que la que se compone de escenas ineludibles. Lo demas, lo que esta en nuestra mano tomar o dejar o sustituir, es preci- samente falsificacion de la vida” (ibid., p. 272). Here again is the theme of authenticity and falsification; it is a question of either one thing or the other; there is no middle course permissible. 237Ibid., p. 273. 2^See Chapter V, pp. 248-249, for what Ortega has to say about the vital need for "limiting" ourselves in this business of life. 477 That human life is constant movement, something always in via, is again stressed by Ortega in "Vives,M 1940, where he speaks of the fact (already noted) that man has no "nature" as such. Because of this, man essentially is something unstable, something consisting of motion and agility. Man is and does now such and such a thing because before this he was and did such and such another thing and in order to be and do tomorrow a third different thing. Hence, everything in man is coming from something and going toward something else; he is always in via, as 239 the medieval theologians used to say. Man's apparent stability is merely an illusion, and this is why the historian must keep on the march in order to follow the evolution of man's progress through the ages; he must determine how far backward and how far forward it will be necessary to go in order to clarify a situation or a man as he is or was.^^ Likewise, in "Apuntes sobre el pensa- miento, su teurgia y su demiurgia," 1941, Ortega notes the concept of motion in human life when he states that who ever wants to understand man, who is a reality in via, a basically pilgrim-type of individual, must cast aside all the "peaceable concepts,” such as religion, poetry, law, language, etc., and learn to think with ideas that are on 2390bras, V, 495-496. 2^°Ibid., p. 496. 478 the march, endlessly In via.^'*' The foregoing will suffice to indicate that action and movement are, together with the preceding five I have discussed, inherent ingredients of man's basic reality. Man cannot stand still; he must move forward or backward, willy-nilly. This is a vital part of the basic problem of living. Inextricably associated with the matter of human life, these six basic ingredients are extremely important to an intelligent understanding of Ortega's ontology. I have already mentioned that Ortega considers life to be something that is subject to constant change, a 242 continual mutation. This condition is basic to human life, constituting a radical ingredient of it. If life did not change constantly, it would certainly stagnate and expire. Everything that is alive, artistic forms as well as living ones, are perishable; and life itself "is a frenetic sculptor, who, incessantly pressed to produce new forms, requires death, as does a famulus, in order to remove from the workshop the finished models" to make adequate room for those constantly new and changing forms 241 Obras, V, 540. In a footnote, Ortega refers his readers to three other works: Toward a Philosophy of History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1941), which contains a number of Ortega's works in translation (see Ferrater Mora, Ortega, pp. 67-68, for contents); "Ideas y creencias," 193^ (in Obras, V, 579-^09)5 and "Historia como sistema," 19^1 (in Obras, VI, 11-50). 242See Chapter III, p. 15^. 479 243 that keep filling his shop. Ortega further notes that ’ 'our life is our reaction to the basic insecurity [and constant change is an insecurity] that constitutes its 244 substance.” This mutability is particularly noticeable in our perceptive capacity: the sounds that we do not hear, the colore that we do not see, our indifference to certain aspects of our surroundings. Our objective reality, or circunstancia, and its effect upon us de pends to a large extent on our perceptive ability, which Ortega likens to a "sieve” that permits certain objects 24 5 to pass through and eliminates others. And speaking of sounds, Ortega cogently observes that our sensory organs pick up only a fraction of the possible vibrations that exist around us. We are conscious of other sounds that our ears fail to record. He makes the astute obser vation that we become so accustomed to sounds that we do not even notice them, and he remarks that silence would become audible to people living near a waterfall if the water in the cataract should suddenly stop 2^ 0bras, II, 232; in "Leyendo 'Le petit Pierre,1 de Anatole France,” 1919. Unamuno notes that '*I>a vida es un cambio, es una perpetua adaptacion de relaciones interio- res a otras exteriores, es un juego no interrumpido de osmosis y exSsmosis” (0. C., III, 114; in ”De la ensenanza superior en Espafia," 1&99) • 2 4 4 Ibid., IV, 412; in "Pidiendo un Goethe desde dentro," 1932. 2^ Ibid. , II, 302; in ”E1 ’Quijote’ en la escuela,” 1920. flowing. Thus the landscape is one thing to the hunter, whose life is a sportive one, and is something quite different to the farmer, whose life is one of till ing the soil in order to make it produce foodstuffs to support his family and make a living. The reality of human life and its circunstancia is, indeed, a constant mutation, an endless variation; and this is a matter of 247 perspective. Ortega notes that human life is a "per manent metamorphosis" wherein "each form appears in a determined place in the series in which forms temporally succeed one another.” He further notes that there can be no "historical consciousness1 1 so long as we fail to see each form in its temporal perspective, in its place in historical time, "emerging from a prior” form, ’ ’giving birth to another posterior one." And this means that human reality is evolutionary, and the understanding of it 248 has to be "genetic.” He applies this thesis to art, noting how pictorial art has proceeded (metamorphosed) from fourteenth-century painting of objects (Giotto) 2^60bras, IX, 303- 2 4 7 ^ See Chapter II, "Perspective,” pp. 69-83• 248 Obras, VI, 179-180; in "Guillermo Dilthey y la idea de la vida," 1933-1934. Here Ortega notes that "En Turgot, Condorcet y Lessing se completa este magnifico amanecer de la historia con la interpretacion de su proceso como evolucion (ibid., p. 180). This is Ortega's razon historica as it applies to the subject of the mutability of human life. through the intermediate stage of Tintoretto and El Greco (distances); then came the concept of space sensations (Velazquez), followed by the chiaroscuro painters of light and shadows (Ribera, Caravaggio, and the young Velazquez [in the Adoracion de los Reyes]). From this point, pic torial art proceeded to Impressionism (a more subjective art) and finally to Cubism, which is the depicting of pure ideas (Cezanne, Picasso). This process of introversion is achieved by merely changing the point of view (the per spective) of the observer and is an excellent example of 249 the mutability of objective reality. Ortega then pro ceeds to indicate the parallel process that has taken place in philosophy: from the concept of the reality of individual substances (such as "this horse," "this man"), each with its own individual reality ("Dante's substan- tialist realism is a twin brother of the painting of bulks 250 that Giotto initiates." ), to the Rationalist era of Descartes, for whom reality is space; then "a moment of the plurality of substances in Leibnitz" (monads); from this point during the next two centuries "subjectivism becomes more radical"; and toward 1880, while Impression ists were fixing pure sensations on canvases, philosophers 2^9 Obras, IV, 448-4:56; in "Sobre el punto de vista en las artes," 1924. Here is.another example of Ortega's "perspectivism" (see Chapter II, pp. 69-83» and Ferrater Mora, Ortega, pp. 25-37)- 250Ibid., p. 456. 482 of the extreme Positivism (Comte) were reducing universal 251 reality to pure sensations. This progressive process of making the world unreal, which had its beginning in Renaissance thought, reaches its ultimate consequences in the "radical sensualism of Avenarius and Mach." Where does philosophy go from here? What new philosophy is possible? We cannot think of returning to primitive realism, which four centuries of criticism, doubt, and distrust have rendered invalid. We cannot stop at sub jectivism either. Where can we find something with which 2 52 to rebuild the world? Ortega answers these questions by noting that the only course open to philosophy was to withdraw further into the subjective, into what he calls the "intra-subjectiveH where it can easily happen that nothing real may correspond to that which our ideas ideate or our thoughts think; but this does not make for mere subjectivism. He notes that Ma world of hallucination would not be real, but neither would it cease being a world, an objective universe filled with sense and per fection."^^ To this Ortega adds: Aunque el centauro imaginario no galope en realidad, cola y ceraejas al viento sobre efectivas praderas [Recall the "windmill-giants" of Criptana, Chapter 2510bras, IV, 457- 252Ibid. 2^Ibid. The "Cueva de Montesinos" in Qui jote, II, 22-23, is a good example of the "world of hallucination." 483 XX, pp. 78-79.n, posee un peculiar independencia frente aX sujeto que Xo imagina. Es un objeto vir tual, o, como dice Xa mas reciente filosofia, un objeto Ideal [Hegel]] . He aqul el tipo de fenfime- nos que el pensador de nuestros dias considers mas adecuado para servir de asiento a su sistema uni versal . iComo no sorprenderse de la coincidencia entre tal filosofia y su pintura sincronica llamada expresionismo o c u b i s m o ? 2 5 4 The topic of mutability is again apparent when Ortega speaks of the need for "denaturalizing' 1 all the concepts that refer to "the integral phenomenon of human life." All such concepts must be radically "historized." Nothing that man has been or will be is something fixed once and for all time, because one fine day man has come to be what he is; and on another fine day he will cease being what he is. Thus any permanence in the forms of human life are "an optical illusion" that had its beginning in the "crudeness" of the concepts employed to think these forms, by virtue of which, ideas that would be valid only as applied to those forms abstractly, are employed as if they were "concrete [ideas]], and, consequently, as if they 255 authentically represented reality." Because change is inherent in human life, our concept of this change must be adapted to this basic condition of existence. Man, as has been noted, is a being in via; and our manner of thinking about his existence must also develop new concepts, which, 2^ Obras, IV, 457* 255 Ibid., V, i*1 "Apuntes sobre el pensamiento, su teiirgia y su demiurgia," 1941. according to Ortega, is not such a difficult process as would appear at first glance. Although, he does not de velop this process in detail, he does give some clues concerning it when, in "Historia como sistema,M 1941, he speaks of the word "thought,” which has much more ability "to avoid itself" than has been supposed possible. Ortega notes that "thought" is essentially the "great altruist," since it is capable of thinking that which is most opposed to thinking. As an example of this faculty of thought, Ortega notes that there are concepts sometimes called "occasional" (such as the concepts "here," "I," or "this one"), which have a "formal identity" that "specifically serves them to assure the constituent non-identity of the material meant or thought" by these concepts. All con cepts that apply to the authentic reality of human life must be "occasional" in this sense. This is not so strange, since life is "pure occasion," as Cardinal Cusano so well implies when he calls man a Deus occasionatus, because, according to this prelate, man, on being free, is a creator like God: he is a being who is the creator of his own entity. Unlike God, man's creation is not some thing absolute; it is limited by the occasion. Therefore, what Ortega dares to affirm, literally, is that man him self makes himself in view of his circunstancia, that man is a "God of the occasion"; and this is something that implies man's basic condition of change, constant and 485 256 inexorable mutation. ^ Ortega pursues the idea of this new concept of life toy noting that "every concept is an allgemeine Bedeutung (Husserl),” but, while with other concepts the generality consists of the fact that when we apply them to a singular situation, we must always think the same thing that we do when we apply them to another singular situation, whereas with the "occasional concept" generality functions precisely by inviting us never to think the same thing when we apply it. The best example of this is the concept "life" in the sense of "human life": Its meaning, as a meaning, is, naturally, iden tical; but what it means is "not only something singular but something unique . " Each life is something individual 257 and unique. Thus our perspective on life must change if we are adequately to be able to express what we mean by this basic reality. The old lexical applications are no longer sufficient for our present requirements. Here we note that tradition is again weighing heavily upon us in our attempt to express what we really mean when we speak of our basic reality. For example, when we speak of 2^ Obras, VI, 35-56. See also ibid., V, 223, in "Mision del bibliotecario," 1935» where Ortega expresses a similar thesis concerning man's "freedom" and his being a Dios de ocasion. For my discussion of the subject of man's "making himself," see below, pp. 487-490. 257 Ibid. , VI, 36. Note that Unamuno also considers each separate human life to be something wholly unique and irreplaceable (see Chapter V, p. 222, and n. 3j especially). "man," exactly what do we mean? Ortega indicates what must be considered in order to talk intelligently about something as simple— and as complex— as the monosyllable "man,” for which concept we must develop a non-Eleatic concept of being, as has been done in non-Euclidean geom etry (Einstein). He notes that man is "an infinitely plastic entity of whom one can make what he will,” precisely because this entity, in itself nothing certain, is mere Mpotentiality, f to be whatever we will it to be. Ortega asks us to review all the things that man has been all the things he has made of himself "from the paleo lithic 'savage' to the surrealistic youth of Paris." He warns that he does not mean that one can make anything of himself at any moment whatever, that at each moment there open before us limited possibilities; but if, instead of just one instant, we take all the moments, we cannot be at all sure of the boundaries that human plasticity will set for itself. And he cogently observes that from the paleolithic female have issued Mme de la Pompadour and Lucile de Chateaubriand; from the Brazilian native, who cannot count beyond five, issued Newton and Henri Poincare. And by narrowing the temporal distances, we find that in 1873 the liberal John Stuart Mill was living and in 1903 the. extremely liberal Herbert Spencer was alive; and in the year 1921 we find in our midst such individuals as Stalin and Mussolini commanding the world 487 258 under their dominion. Thus it becomes amply evident that we must readjust our thinking about the concept of the creature called , f man," from the primitive man to the ultramodern homo sapiens. His basic reality has indeed changed in the course of the centuries, and to continue to think about him, using worn-out concepts, is utter stupidity. As I indicated at the beginning of this section of Chapter VI (p. 407)5 physico-mathematical reason (science) has completely failed to explain the basic reality of human life, since man has no "nature" as such (see my discussion on pp. 427-452). In this context, Ortega maintains that man is a creature who has the capacity "to make himself” while in the process of living and metamor phosing himself. He can do this because he is not a thing (res), nor is he his soul, psyche, conscience, or spirit, which are also things. Man is his "drama”--his life, a "pure and universal occurrence” that "happens” to each individual and in which each individual is, in his turn, only a "happening.” All things, be these what they may, are "mere interpretations” that man forces himself to give to the things that surround him. Thus man does not find things, but he "places them or supposes them.” What he encounters in the matter of living are "pure difficulties 2j80braa, VI, 34-55- 488 and pure facilities’ 1 for this process of living, and existing itself is not ’ ’given” to man ready made and handed to him, as is the case with the stone. Quite the contrary, since man, finding himself existing, finding existence happening to him, finds that the only thing that he encounters or that happens to him is that he cannot help but do something in order not to stop existing. This indicates that the mode of being of life, not even as a simple existence, is being already, since the only thing that is given to man and which exists when there is human life is the fact that he has to make it for himself, each in his own way. Hence life is a ’ ’gerund and not a parti ciple: a faciendum and not a factum.” It is a quehacer; in fact it gives us much to do (”nos da mucho que hacer”), 259 as Ortega so often notes. Ortega also stresses the 259 ^ Obras, VI, 32-33* Note here the recurrence of the "drama" and quehacer concepts, both basic ingredients of human life. In a footnote, Ortega distinguishes carefully between what he means by hacerse la vida and what Henri Bergson meant by his expression l'8tre en se faisant: ’ ’Bergson, el menos eleatico de los pensadores y a quien en tantos puntos tenemos hoy que dar la raz6n, emplea cons- tantemente la expreslon l'8tre en se faisant. Mas si se compara su sentido con el que mi texto da a esas mismas palabras, se advierte la diferencia radical. En Bergson, el termino se faisant no es sino un sinonimo de deyenir. En mi texto, el hacerse no es solo deyenir, sino ademas el modo como deviene la realidad humana, que es efectivo y literal 'hacerse,' digamos ’fabricarse’ (ibid., p. 32, n. l). Unamuno also notes that life is a faciendum when he discusses Sancho1s living faith, observing that faith, like life, needs to be renewing itself constantly, a con tinuous creation: "Una vida sin muerte alguna en ella, sin deshacimiento en su hacimiento incesante, no seria mas que perpetua muerte, reposo de piedra. Los que no mueren mutation that is involved in the matter of man's "making himself." He notes that man, the being who makes himself, a being that traditional ontology only touched upon at the moment when this ontology was coming to a halt and was refusing to consider or to understand man— the causa sui— is the most important part of ontology. This causa sui only had to strive to be the cause of himself; he did not have to determine which himself he was going to be.2^ Ortega notes that, of course, man had a himself previously fixed and invariable, consisting, for example, of what is called infinitude. But man not only has the task of mak ing himself 5 he must also determine what he is going to be, which is a more serious matter. Thus man is a causa sui "to the second power." Due to a coincidence that is not a casual one, the doctrine of the living being finds in tradition as concepts that are approximately utiliz- able only those which the doctrine of the "divine being" attempted to think about. Ortega notes that if his reader has decided to continue to read him in the next moment, he will be so doing in the last one, because to do this is that which best agrees with the general vital program that no viven; no viven los que no mueren a cada instante para resucitar al punto, y los que no dudan no creen" (Enaayos, II, 224; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905)* Of particular interest here is Unamuno's linking of faith and life, both as something forever renewing and recreating themselves (see Chapter II, "Beliefs," pp. 28-58). ^ ^ Obras, VI, 33? in "Historia como sistema," 1941. 490 his reader has chosen for himself 5 and, consequently, this will be what best agrees with the definite man he has decided to become. This vital program is the £0 each one of us, the yo that has selected from among diverse possibilities of being the one that is open to him at each moment.Thus man must choose his course of action, ^ ^ Obras, VI, 33-3^• For Unamuno, making oneself becomes something subjective: ". . . lo primero que hay que hacer es hacerse a si mismo, hacerse el que es” (De esto, IV, 609J in "A1 rededor del estilo, XXIV," 1924TT See also ibid., p. 617, in article XXVI of this same series, where Unamuno quotes the last verse of a sonnet he had written in 1910 ("El fin de la vida"): M. . . es el fin de la vida hacerse un alma," which he applies here to the subject of style and the work of art. Elsewhere he notes that "el yo para mostrarse, para derrocharse, para imponerse [see Chapters II, 95-97, and V, 304-307], es decir, para darse— y solo dandose se acrecienta y forti- fica--tiene que trabajarse a si mismo. Y de todos los trabajos el mas penoso, os lo aseguro, es el de fraguarse un alma propia" (ibid., Ill, 439; in "El egoismo de Tolstoi," 1915)» In a fictional dialogue between Antonio and Benito, Unamuno points out that a man's life is his literary work, and he cites as examples Flaubert and Cervantes, noting also that, at times, a man may write nothing (as Christ or Socrates) and yet have a life that constitutes a work of art (obra). Thus each individual, as he lives to the fullest and best in himself, is his obra, which is something that he continually makes for himself— a faciendum. He does this whether this living be socially positive or negative: Don Quijote was Cervantes' answer to his own sad existence in the Spain of Philip II and Philip III (ibid., IV, 202-205; "La vida y la obra," 1919). In "La dignidad humana," n. d., Unamuno speaks of so-called "values," noting the great amount of talk about "the right to work" and "the right to the means of pro duction." He laments the little that is said about "the right to consume," a right that he considers to be basic to all other "rights," and he adds a note about the faci endum that is life: "Lo unico que tiene el fin en sX mismo, lo verdaderamente autoteleologico, es la vida, cuyo fin es la mejor y mas intensa y completa vida po- sible. Y la vida es consumo, tanto como produccion" (Ensayos, I, 280-281). which will become his vital program— his life--from a multitude of possibilities. In this choice he is greatly influenced by his circunatancia, but, in addition to this basic and inevitable condition, man is free to make his own choice. The only thing given to him is the circuns- tancia in which he finds himself; the remainder he must select for himself from the possibilities of being that appear to him. Ortega speaks of Mthe various possibili ties of being” (in addition to those I cited in Chapter III, pp. 156-157)) noting that we tend to forget that man is impossible without imagination, without the capacity to invent for himself "a figure of life,” to ideate the per son he is going to be. This ideating makes man ”the novelist of himself,” either original (= authentic) or plagiaristic (= unauthentic). And man is free to choose from among the possibilities that present themselves to 262 his imagination. This freedom is man's by force since he has no choice in the matter. Hence, liberty is not an activity that a being exercises, a being who, apart and before exercising his freedom, already has a fixed being (ser). Being free means to lack any constituent identity, not to be ascribed to any definite being (essence), to be something different from what one was, and not to be able to install oneself once and for all in any definite being* 262 Note the vital role of imagination in human life (see Chapter II, "Imagination and Memory," pp. 59-69). 492 Thus the only thing that there is that ijs fixed and stable 26*5 in being free is "constituent instability.” Mutability is, therefore, an inescapable and inherent condition of human life; and the only stability that man has is his freedom to choose his own life, authentic or unauthentic, with its attendant program of action or inaction. Ortega further notes that man is fundamentally insubstantial. What can he do about it? Herein lies "his wretchedness and his splendor.” By not being ascribed to a fixed con sistency that is incapable of change— as a “nature" would be— man is free to be, at least to try to be, whatever he will. Hence, man is free, and this is no mere chance freedom. He is free because, by not having a given and permanent being, he cannot help but seek it for himself; and this being that he is going to be in the immediate or more remote future, this being what he wants to become, he must select and decide on for himself. This is man's enforced liberty: he is not free not to be free, because if he were, every time he took a step he would remain paralyzed since no one would give him the solution con cerning which direction be would take the next one and the one after that. Ortega wryly remarks that "man far too 264 frequently is an ass, but he is never Buridan's." 2630bras, VI, 34. 264Ibid., V, 495? in "Vives," 1940. 493 Immortality The problem of immortality, which is so intricately allied with Unamuno's concept of the basic reality of human life, is scarcely mentioned by Ortega, who gives a very objective statement about this subject: Le duele al hombre ser de un tiempo y de un lugar, y la quejumbre de esa ads crip cion a la gleba espacio- temporal retumba en su pensamiento bajo la especie de eternidad. El hombre quisiera ser eterno preci- samente porque es lo contrario.265 This life, for Ortega, is the all inclusive and radically basic reality; but for Unamuno, the subjective struggler (agonizante), this life is not enough. Life here and now is, indeed, basic, a true reality; but there is more, there has to be more. And it is on this insistence that Unamuno concentrates and which forms the body of this section of Chapter VI. In order adequately to discuss the problem of immor tality, I must first consider Unamuno's concept of life as a dream or a sleep. The Spanish sueho has several conno tations, and with Unamuno this word assumes specific mean ings. The most succinct discussion of Unamuno's use of the word sueno is to be found in Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, El Unamuno contemplativo (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1959)i PP • 134-1339 where Mr. Blanco Aguinaga notes four different types of sueno: l) the dream that life is in 2 615 Obras, VI, 348; in "A una edicion de sus obras," 1932. 494 the traditional Calderonian sense (ascetic-mystical, stoical, and Platonic); 2) the Shakespearean tragic con cept ("We are such stuff / as dreams are made on, and our little life / is rounded with a sleep" CThe Tempest, Act XV, sc. 1]), which goes farther than the Calderonian con cept, and which Unamuno interprets in Niebla, El hermano Juan, lPlenitud de plenitudes y todo plenitud!, and especially in Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, in all of which works he carries this concept to its extreme: man is only the dream of God, who, in His turn, may he only man’s dream; and when God awakes, man will die. Of this. Blanco Aguinaga states: La angustia producida por esta idea (que ateroriza al Unamuno agonista) puede llegar a la sima del existencialismo mas nihilista si ademas se anade, como lo hace Shakespeare, que todo este sueno esta, a su vez, rodeado de sueno (sleep, en este caso; "dreams rounded with a sleep"; distincion que no ; ’ ’ anol y que facilita a Unamuno Neither of the foregoing two types of sueno is good or bad. But there are two other types of sueno, already in man, given his existence, real or dreamed: 3) the so- called suenos malos (often called ensuenos by Unamuno), which are those of the ambitious heart, which, like Satan, demands for itself the alternative of "all or nothing at all" (see Del sentimiento tragico de la vida), or of the head (reason), which attempts to demonstrate that God does 266 Blanco Aguinaga, El Unamuno contemplative, p. 134. 495 or does not exist; and, finally, 4) Unamuno’s so-called sueno bueno, which is the sueno in which the man-child falls asleep in the unconsciousness of faith, with no dog matic obligation, in the abandonment and peace of a con tinuous and unconscious eternity. This is Unamuno's sueno de dormir, the sueno sin ensuenos, and the symbolic center 267 of this concept is the "mother's lap." For Unamuno, these last two types of sueno malo and sueno bueno may be "good" or "bad," depending from which aspect of his per sonality he speaks of them. Doubtless, for the struggling (agonico) Unamuno, the sueno de dormir (= sueno bueno) 267 Blanco Aguinaga, pp. 134-135* This is quite apparent in Unamuno's commentary on Quijote, II, 58, where he considers Dulcinea in the person of Aldonza Lorenzo (the live woman) to have been Don Quijote's (in the per son of Alonso Quijano el Bueno's) love, and this ideal love concept is extended to the "mother" concept when he states: "Don Quijote dudo por un momento de la Gloria [when he addressed the labradores carrying images of saints!!; pero esta, su amada, le amaba a su vez ya, y era, por tanto, su madre, como lo es del amado toda su amante verdadera. Hay quien no descubre en la hondura toda del car ini. o que su mujer le guarda sino al oirla, en momento de congoja, un desgarrador 'IHijo mio1,' yendo a estrecharle maternalmente ensue brazos [as Antonia does with Joaquin in Abel Sanchez (ch. IX)3. Todo amor de mujer es, si verdadero y entranable, amor de madre; la mujer prohija a quien araa. Y asi Dulcinea es ya madre espiritual, no tan s6lo senora de los pensamientos de Don Quijote, y aunque se le hubieBe a este pasado por las mientes desahijarse de ella, vereis que ella le recobra con amoroso reclamo, como al tenerillo recental que corre a triscar suelta le reque- rencia la vaca, al sentirse con lasubres perhinchidas, rompiendo con dulce arrullo el aire que los separa. Ve reis como le retiene y le retiene con verdes lazos" (En- sayos, II, 300? in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1903). For’ Unamuno this "mother" concept is a true reality, the cornerstone of one aspect of his "faith," his sueno bueno, as Blanco Aguinaga calls it. 496 must become a gueno malo; but for the Unamuno who yearns passionately for the man-child of yore, it becomes a true gueno bueno. It is a matter of the point from which he , approaches the subject— his perspective. Life is a dream, and so is reality in "La vida es 268 sueno," 1917* But more specifically in "iPlenitud de plenitudes y todo plenitud!," 1904, an essay that Unamuno himself calls "a hymn to life without concrete solutions" (Ensayos, II, 49? in an undated personal letter written between 1900 and 1905), he gives a fine example of the first two types of sueno when he says that the poet, the man who "sees,” comes and in prose or verse "exhales his spirit in words," saying, with Calderon, that life is a dream, or, as Shakespeare, that we are made of the stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with "death," words which contain substantial revelations about man and life eternal. Shakespeare's words, accord ing to Unamuno, "are the supreme form of the terrible 269 revelation of the Dissolving Spirit." And he adds that these words are even more terrible than Calderon's, since 268 De esto, I, 76. In "Don Marcelino y la Esfinge," 1932, Unamuno, commenting on Menendez y Pelayo's "blind ness" to the true meaning of the Counter-Reformation in Spain, remarks on the "blindness" of his continuers, who "siguen sin querer darse cuenta de que la Policla— tal es la moral— eg cosa del Cesar, y que de Dios es la religion, el sueno del divino sueno con que nos suena" (ibid., p. 397). 2^ Ensayog , I, 581. 497 the latter only says that our life is a dream, not we our selves, who live or dream it 5 but Shakespeare says that we ourselves are made of the substance of dreams. Unamuno then asks: May not the material of which dreams are made be a substantial or persistent material? May not we say, perhaps, that dreams are made of the same stuff that we touch and feel in our "spiritual depths" (entrants espiri- o 70 tuales)? These two searching questions constitute Unamuno's passionate struggle (agonia) in quest of an ans wer to his basic question about life and immortality.^^ That reality may well be a vision, a sueno, is made quite clear when Unamuno writes about the Monterrey Tower of Salamanca. Here he notes that, seen by the light of a winter's sun, this tower is a dream, a vision; and this is all that remains— a dream, or a vision, which is eternal. This particular tower speaks to Unamuno of the Spanish Renaissance, of the "eternal espanolidad that affirms that 2^°Ensayo3, I, 581* 271 In "Las coplas de Calainos," 1917j Unamuno states that reality is an illusion, which is tantamount to saying that it is a dream (Pe esto. I, 90).. See also ibid., Ill, 205, in "La nube de la guerra o la Helena de Euripides (Disertacifin de un helenista sobre un tema de actuali- dad)," 1914, where he states the same thesis: "Hay la terrible ilusion de la personalidad. La individual, la de cada uno de nosotros, es pasajera, tal vez aparente, nebu- losa, eterea. ANo lo sera tambien la de un pueblo? ANo lo sera Helena, y con ella la Tierra que la sustenta, una nube y no mas que una nube? AY merece una nube que se pierda por ella la vida?" To which he appends; "lAhi, y es que la vida misma es otra nube, una ilusion, un sueno. Y luchar es sonar" (ibid.). 498 if life is a dream, the dream is the only thing that re mains; and the other, that which is not a dream, is only digestion that passes away, as do pain and joy, hatred and 272 love, memory and hope." For Unamuno, the vitalist, "the sleepless [dreamless] vigil is only digestion and respiration, breath that passes away." He observes that that which concerns our body that is not a dream is what was called a "puff of air, breath, pneuma, anima, spiritus t and the puff of air passes, but the dream re- 273 mains." Thus this Torre de Monterrey tells Unamuno that life is not a breath, a puff of air that passes away and is lost forever; but, rather, it is a sueno that re- 274 mains and is won by man. Man needs to dream the life that palpitates about us because life is a dream, an au- 275 thentic dream, far from the city and close to nature. ^ In "La sombra sin cuerpo,1 1 1921, which he calls a "frag ment of a novel in preparation," Unamuno again questions the reality of human life. He speaks of a fictional man named Pedro Schlemihl, who has sold his shadow to the devil (the shadow here being symbolic of the soul [cf. 272 0. C., I, 7971 in "Andanzas y visiones espanolas," 1922. 273Ibid., pp. 797-798. 27^Ibid., p. 798. 275 See Ensayos, II, 335 in a personal, undated letter written between 1900 and 19^5 and entitled "Iconoclastia" by Bernardo G . de Candamo, ed. Faust])• Unaniuno has this fictional man think about this situation in connection with his father's suicide and wonders if perhaps Pedro Schlemihl's shadow is not still roaming the earth in search of its body and if this body is not itself still searching for its shadow. Unamuno says that he ended by wondering whether we all are perhaps not shadows searching for our bodies and whether there may not be another world in which our bodies are also searching for us. Then he wonders if "that suicidal itch that was tormenting me was not merely the desire to find 2 76 my father, who was the body of which I was the shadow." Unamuno discusses the subject of the reason that men and nations go to war, and he notes that, after all is said and done, they do this foolish thing because of an ego centric concept called "personality" or "nationality"— the yo of the individual and, by extension, the "collective yo" of the nation (society). And this concept is nothing but an illusion, a cloud (or sueno), as Euripides calls 277 the Helen of the Trojan War. Unamuno again treats the "dream-sleep" concept of life when he comments on the Cueva de Montesinos episode in the Quijote (II, 24). Hav ing stated that Don Quijote, an honest man, a man of great 276 De esto, II, 535- Here "shadow" (sombra) is just another word for sueno. 2^Ibid., in, 205- See p. 4971 271, for the name of the work cited in this reference. 500 deeds (hazanas), had to have seen the visions that he said he had seen in the Cueva de Montesinos, Unamuno notes that 278 Ignacio de Loyola had also seen visions. If, in the Cueva, Don Quijote saw whatever he chose to see, of which there is no room for doubt, what can we say about the reality of his visions? If life is a dream, why must we insist on denying that dreams are themselves life? Every thing that is life is truth. Is what we call reality any thing else but illusion that causes us to work and produce works, as did Don Quijote? According to Unamuno, the "practical effect is the only valid criterion of the truth 279 ^ of any vision," The sueno concept again appears in Unamuno 15 commentary on Quijote, II, 67, where he dis cusses Don Quijote*s resolution to become a shepherd dur ing the year of his abstinence from chivalric enterprises: El toque esta en dejar nombre por los siglos, en vivir en la memoria de las gemtes; el toque esta en no morir. IEn no morir! INo morir1 Esta es la ralz ultima, la raiz de las raices de la locura qui- jotesca. INo morir1 INo morir! Ansia de vida, ansia de vida eterna es la que te dio vida inmortal, mi senor Don Quijote5 el sueno de tu vida fue y es sueno de no morir.280 In order not to perish, Don Quijote resolved to become a 278 Ensayos, II, 242; in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905. 279 Ibid., p. 244. Again, commenting on Quijote II, 58, Unamuno notes that we carry the world within our selves; "it is our dream, as is life" (ibid., p. 294). 28°Ibid., pp. 525-526. 501 a singing shepherd, something he never managed to realize in spite of Sancho1s pleadings. The sueno of life is again highlighted by what Unamuno has to say about Don Quijote's death (Quij*, II> 74), where he laments this unhappy situation, noting that on the brink of dying and "by the light of death” Don Quijote confesses that his life was only a dream and madness: "Life is a dream! Such is, when all is said and done, the truth that Don Quijote arrives at with his death"} and in this "truth" 2 31 he encounters his "brother" Segismundo. Life is indeed a dream, and Unamuno asks Don Quijote, who awoke from "the dream" of his madness to die abominat ing it, if death is not also a dream: I Ah!, y si fuera sueno eterno y sueno sin ensuenos [see p. 495] n-i despertar, entonces, querido Caba llero, ien que mas valia la cordura de tu nruerte que la locura de tu vida?282 Unamuno "asks" the Manchegan knight if death is a dream, 28l Ensayos, II, 346. Unamuno's use of the phrase "a la luz de la muerte" also occurs at the very beginning of his commentary on the last chapter of the Quijote. For Unamuno, death is the coronation of life, since "every life is crowned and completed in death"; and "in the light of death" one must look at life. This phrase is symbolic of the gateway to eternal life, and Unamuno substantiates this interpretation when he writes: ", . .a pique de morir [Don Quijotej y por la luz de la muerte alumbrado • • •” (ibid., p. 347)- And this is so certain that "aquella antigun maxima que dice 'cual fuere la vida, tal sera la muerte'— sicut vita fin±B ita— , habra que cam- biarla diciendo 'cual es la muerte, tal fue la vida.'. . . En la muerte se revela el misterio de la vida, su secreto fondo" (ibid., pp. 345-346). 282t. . , Ibid., p. 347• why are windmills to be considered to be giants, flocks of sheep armies, Dulcinea a coarse country wench, and men mockers? If death is only a dream, Don Quijote's longing 283 for immortality was sheer madness and nothing more. And this final condition causes Unamuno true agonia, be cause if Don Quijote's madness was only a dream and sheer vanity, what but dream and vanity is all human heroism, all effort for the betterment of one's fellow man, all aid to the needy, and all war on oppressors? If Don Quijote's madness of not dying was nothing more than a dream and vanity, then the only people in this world who are right are the Sanson Carrascos, the Dukes and Duchesses, the Don Alonso Morenos, all the mockers and their ilk who make fun of courage and goodness. If Don Quijote's yearning for eternal life was merely a dream and vanity, then Homer's verses in the Odyssey ("The gods design and plan the perdition of mortals so that future peoples may have something about which to sing" [VIII, 579-580].) is the whole truth; and we can honestly say with Segismundo, Don Quijote's "brother," that "the greatest crime of man is to have been born." If such were the case, it would have been better for us "not to have seen the light of the sun, 284 not to have gathered in our breasts the air of life." ^ ^ Ensayos, II, 347-348. 284 Ibid., p. 348. This is Unamuno's immortality, an uncertain reality for which he can only hope. 503 Somewhat later in this same commentary Unamuno quotes some verses from Calderon's La vida es sueno (Acts II, sc. 19? and III, sc. 3 and 70), which reveal his concept of the ~ 285 sueno of life. If life is a dream, what about God's Universe, of which He is the eternal and infinite Con sciousness? Can this also be only a dream of His? Can He be dreaming us, and are we perchance His dream, we "the dreamers of life"? And if such is the case, what is to become of the entire universe and of us— and of Unamuno personally— when God awakens? Suenanos, Senor I iY no sera tal vez que despiertas para los buenos cuando a la muerte despiertan ellos del sueno de la vida? iPodemos acaso nosotros, pobres suenos sohadores, sonar lo que sea la vela del hombre en tu eterna vela, Dios nuestro? ANo sera la bondad resplandor de la vigilia en las os- curidades del sueno? pues no se pierde el hacer bien, ni aun en suenos 0Q6 [La vida es sueno, Act II, sc. 4].“ Unamuno believes that it is better "to follow the voice of our heart and attack" the things that appear harmful to us, be these things windmills or giants, because "every generous attack transcends the dream of life"? and "from our acts, not from our contemplations, shall we draw wis- 287 dom." Thus, "Dream us, God of our dream!" Unamuno 285Ensayos, II, 353-35^. 286Ibid., p. 358. 28^Ibid. Note the vital role of "action" (see pp. 468-478, for a discussion of this ingredient of life). further suggests that when we all awake from "the dream of life," very strange things will be seen in this action; and the learned men will be frightened on seeing what is truth and what is falsehood and how wrong we were when we thought that the "puzzler" (quisicosa) that we call logic has any value whatever outside this wretched world "in which time and space, the tyrants of the spirit, have us 288 imprisoned." According to Unamuno's concept of reality, nothing passes away, nothing is dissipated into non-existence. The slightest bit of matter is eternalized 289 as is the most minute particle of force. Thus, as if on passing by a point in time or space "in the infinite of the shadows," there were lighted and shone for a single moment everything that passed by this point, so there shines for a moment in our consciousness of the present moment everything that passes by, coming from the un fathomable past. There is no vision or thing, nor a moment of its essence, that does not "descend to the eternal depths whence it came" and where it remains. And this sudden, momentaneous illumination of "the shadowy substance" is a dream; "life is a dream." If the passing 288 , Ensayos, II, 361. 289 Ibid. This recalls what Unamuno says about the voi-ces and sounds contained eternally in the Cathedral of Le6n. If these sounds and voices were some day to revive, they would topple the cathedral with the force of the volume they would create (ibid., p. 250). 505 flash is extinguished, its reflection descends to the depths of the shadows; and "there it remains and persists until a supreme jolt [sacudidaj rekindles it one day for all time to come." Death does not triumph over life when life expires; "death" and "life" are "mean" terms of which we make use in "this prison of time and space." Both words have a common philosophic basis, which is "the eternity of the infinite, in God, the Consciousness of the Universe. The matter of time and space— a sueno, for Unamuno— is something that worries him. In a fictitious conversa tion, he asks why he is not able to live yesterday, today, and tomorrow all at the same time. Because of the torment that time and space concepts give him, Unamuno wants to 291 remake life that is already lost forever. He notes that if he had married Margarita, he would surely dream of a past with Rosa, a past that did not exist. Besides, in 290 Ejnsayog, XX, 361-362. This is Unamuno's concept of a personal type of immortality, what he has willed him self to try to believe, an extension of the basic reality of hitman (earthly) life, something wholly subjective. He maintains that only one affected by the madness of Don Quijote, the madness of the longing for eternal life, could relate, explain, or comment on his life; and he "asks" Don Quijote to intercede in his behalf so that the disenchanted Dulcinea may take him by the hand and lead him to the immortality of name and fame. And if this life is but a dream, he wants to be able to dream it endlessly (ibid., pp. 362-363), 291 Ibid., p. 347; in "Conversacion segunda," n. d., the second of twenty-three essays comprising "Soliloquios y conversaciones,n 1911 (Ensayos, II, 533-726). 506 addition to the "nest” that ve have on this earth, -which is the real one, the one that contains realities, it is proper to have another nest, an aerial one, one of en sueno that hangs in the clouds, "a nest of illusions.” This dream nest protects the one we have here below, and he who does not have a nest in the clouds does not have a 292 real one down here on earth. As the ' ’conversation." progresses, Unamuno says that time "dreams eternity, and God dreams the world”; and heaven help us the day when He 293 awakens! ^ When his interlocutor chides him for saying such things, Unamuno retorts by asking his ’ ’friend’ 1 if he has ever thought about the prophetic words of Shakespeare to the effect that our lives are ’ ’such stuff as dreams are made on.” Has his interlocutor never thought about our being only a dream, ’ ’the dream of a shadow,” according to the sage words of Pindar? Has he never thought about our being God's dream? Unamuno concludes this essay with the poet (Unamuno) speaking alone to the moon: Recuerda, pues, o suena tu, alma mia — la fantasia es tu sustancia eteraa— , lo que no fue; con tus figuraciones hazte fuerte , que esto es vivir, y lo demas ejs muerte. For Unamuno the vitalist, the sueno profundo (total ^ ^ Engayos, II, 5^8* 295Ibid., p. 549* 29^Ibid., p. 554. 507 annihilation, nirvana) is non-existence, something which QQC to him is inconceivable. We must dream life, not sleep 296 it, since life is a dream. Is it mere pride to want to be eternal? Unamuno's answer is to let him dream, because if his life is a dream, he does not want to be awakened. He would have us believe in "the immortal origin of this longing for immortality," which is the very substance of 297 his soul. Why does he want to be eternal? Unamuno does not understand this question, because such a query is like asking "the reason for reason, the end of the end, or 298 the beginning of the beginning." Unamuno describes his 295 Ensayos, II, 763; in "Del sentimiento . . .," 19131 in essay III ("El hambre de inmortalidad"). 29^Ibid., p. 9995 in essay XII ("Conclusion"). 297Ibid., p. 772} in essay III. 29^Ibid. In "Soledad," 1905? Unamuno says that the only authentic question is humanity, and he adds that "la cuestion humana es la cuestion de saber que habra de ser de mi conciencia, de la tuya, de la del otro y de la de todos, despues de que cada uno de nosotros se muera" (ibid., I, 694), Everything that does not squarely face, up to this question is noise making and nonsense (ibid.). See also ibid., p. 909, in "Sobre la europeizacion," 1906, where Unamuno laments the people who think only of living and not about death: "IDesgraciados paises los paises en que no se piensa de continuo en la muerte, y no es la nor ma directiva de la vida el pensamiento de que todos tene- mos un dia que perderla!" Commenting on Quij., II, 58t Unamuno states: "iNo es acaso la mayor locura dejar per- der la gloria inacabable por la alegria pasajera, la eter- nidad del espiritu porque dure nuestro nombre tanto como durare el mundo, un instante de eternidad? Mayormente, cuanto que buscando la gloria celestial se conquista, por anadidura, la terrena" (ibid., II, 296} in "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho," 1905)* 508 concept of religion, noting that all religions have as their purpose the problem of immortality (thus, also God), ■which is the essence of every creed. This is so basically true that essentially God and immortality become one and 299 the same thing. Unamuno's immortality is no nirvana: man's desire to join with God is not the desire "to lose and annihilate himself in Him," because to do that is to lose oneself in "the dreamless sleep Cthe sueno sin ensue- nos or the sueno profundo3 of nirvana. True religion 501 is life, not annihilation or the desire for it. The concept of the "dream" or "sleep" (sueno) is very important to Unamuno’s conception c*f immortality, a per sonal eternity, which is, for him, a reality as vital as human life itself. Both the Calderonian and the Shakespearean concepts of the "dream-sleep" and its rela tionship to human life are deeply imbedded in Unamuno1s ontology, and this reality will appear again and again in my discussion of this aspect of ontology, which is wholly Unamuno’s concept. Unamuno’s horror of non-existence becomes very appar ent in his discussion of the "beatific Catholic vision" of 299 Ensayos, II, 927; in "Del sentimiento . . 1913» in essay X ("Religion, mitologia de ultratumba y apocatastasis"). •^^Ibid., p. 925- See p. 495 for the discussion of the sueno sin ensuenos concept. 301Ibid., p. 926. 509 immort