N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)

I have for a long while wanted to write a book in which I should describe my metaphysical position as a whole. I use the word 'metaphysics', but my readers must not give it here its traditional and academic meaning. I am concerned rather with the kind of metaphysics which is disclosed in the spirit of, for instance, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Pascal, Boehme, St Augustine and similar writers, that is to say, as they put it nowadays, with existential metaphysics. But I prefer another word, and that is eschatological metaphysics. I want to survey all problems in the light of eschatology, in the light which streams from the End. And I speak of my metaphysical position as a whole in spite of the fact that my way of thinking is fragmentary and aphoristic and moves by fits and starts. But inwardly there is an integral character which belongs to my thought, and that integral character is present in every part of it. My thought moves largely round one centre, I have always been badly understood, and many misunderstandings have constantly arisen, not only among people who were hostile to me, but even among those who were sympathetically disposed. It is of course I myself who am to blame for this. I have done but little to make my general outlook understood. I have announced it, but I have not developed it systematically.

My philosophical thinking does not take a scientific form: it is not ratiocinative, it belongs intuitively to life. Spiritual experience lies at the very foundation of it, and its driving power is a passion for freedom. I do not think discursively. It is not so much that I arrive at truth as that I take my start from it. Among the philosophers whose thought does take a scientific form, I owe most to Kant, and it is with Kant that I begin in this book. But it is not

altogether in the usual way that I expound Kant's metaphysics. As I deal with the problems of metaphysics I find myself in many respects indebted to Boehme amd Dostoyevsky. Of all the writers of the ancient world it is Heraclitus with whom I have the greatest affinity. I should describe my book as an essay in the epistemo-logical and metaphysical interpretation of the end of the world, of the end of history, that is to say it is a book on eschatological epistemology and metaphysics. So far as I am aware no interpretation of that kind has been made hitherto. Eschatology has been left as a part of dogmatic theology, and not the most important part at that. It is not, however, by any means to be inferred from this that I am committed to a proclamation of the end of the world in the near future.

I might call my book 'an untimely meditation'. It is very closely associated with the spiritual experience which has been evoked by the catastrophic events of our time. But the ideas expressed in it are opposed to the prevailing ideas of our day, and turn rather towards other centuries. I have very little sympathy with an age which is characterized by the prevailing influence of masses, quantities, and technological science, and by the dominance of politics over the life of the spirit. I have written the book at a terrible time. It is shorter than I could have wished. There is a great deal in it which is not adequately developed and clearly set forth. I was afraid that catastrophic events might prevent my finishing it. I have not addressed myself to the average normal, socially organized and organizing mind. From my point of view that would have been objectification. I recognize the fact that as a thinker I belong to the aristocratically radical type. The description which has been given of Nietzsche, as an 'aristocratic radical" might be applied to me. It has been my wish to think, to apprehend and to form my judgments of value simply and naturally, taking things in their essential nature, and without having to square accounts with anything, and without accommodating my opinions to anything. But to the pride and isolation of the cultural elite I

have always felt a negative reaction. It has not come within my purview to indicate ways of organizing the human masses. There are many who are eager to do tliis without my adding to the number. There are fewer by far who are eager to grasp the meaning of what is happening to the world and to man. I should like to belong to their number. My thought is not by any means abstract, it is concerned above all with a revolution in the mind, in other words, with the liberation of the mind from the power of objectification. Nothing but a radical change in the set up of the mind can lead to vital changes; a wrong attitude of the conscious mind is the source of the slavery of man.

At the root of the metaphysical considerations of this book there lies an acute sense of the evil which reigns in this world, and of the bitter lot of man as he lives in it. My thought reflects a revolt of human personality against an illusory and crushing objective 'world harmony', and the objective social order, against any form of investing the objective world order with a sacrosanct character. It is the fight of the spirit against necessity. But it would be a mistake to number me among the pessimists and those who do nothing but deny. I belong to the believing philosophers but my faith is of my own sort. For the rest, I hold that the most complex and the most problematic must at the deepest level coincide with what is simplest and clearest. Paris - Clamart,

December, 1941.

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