Purity of Heart by Søren Kierkegaard

Author:Søren Kierkegaard [Kierkegaard, Søren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-203017-7
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1956-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

9. The Price of Willing One Thing:

The Exposure of Evasions

But the one who in truth wills the Good, puts cleverness to an inward use: in order to prevent all evasions and thereby to help him enter into and persist in the commitment.

CLEVERNESS IS INDEED a great power, yet it is treated by him as an insignificant servant, as a shrewd contemptible one. He hears the servant, to be sure, but in action he is not guided by him. He uses cleverness against himself as a spy and informer, which informs him instantly of each evasion, yes, even gives warning at any suspicion of an evasion. Now just as the thief knows the hidden way—and goes by it, so the authorities also know it and go by it in order to detect the thief, but the knowledge as knowledge is the same in both cases.

This is the way he makes use of cleverness. I do not know whether it is true that at each man’s birth two angels are born, his good and his bad angel. But this I do believe (and I will gladly listen to any objection, although I will not believe it) that at each man’s birth there comes into being an eternal vocation for him, expressly for him. To be true to himself in relation to this eternal vocation is the highest thing a man can practice, and, as that most profound poet has said: “Self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.” 26 Then there is but one fault, one offense: disloyalty to his own self or the denial of his own better self. One who is guilty of such a fault is not like a thief or a robber. The civil authority will not lie in wait for him. This fault may begin its course in complete silence so that none will be aware of it. Is it, therefore, perhaps of no account? Certainly many believe that a man can search out and grasp the Truth just as well, creatively express the Beautiful just as well, vitally perfect the Good just as well, even if, in order to win some advantage in the world, he was secretly a little unfaithful to himself, even if he did shift the boundary stones of his inner life a particle by just a shade less scrupulousness, so that even though he had won this material advantage by doubtful means, yet he “can truly work for the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.” So low an estimate of the Good and the Beautiful and the True is expressed by this as to think that it ought to be able to make use of anyone as a serviceable instrument from whom to elicit a harmonious strain, anyone—even the one that had polluted himself!

Yes, man can deceive himself and men. But when eternity listens attentively, listens in order to discover whether the playing of the strings is pure and in time with itself—alas, it instantly detects false tones and hesitation. It rejects such a man just as a connoisseur rejects a stringed instrument when it is damaged.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.