Youth and Egolatry | Page 6

at that time as a humble man and a wanderer, so I might
call myself today a proud and sedentary person. Perhaps both
characterizations contain some degree of truth; and perhaps there is
nothing in either.
When a man scrutinizes himself very closely, he arrives at a point
where he does not know what is face and what is mask.

DOGMATOPHAGY
If I am questioned concerning my ideas on religion, I reply that I am an
agnostic--I always like to be a little pedantic with philistines--now I
shall add that, more than this, I am a dogmatophagist.

My first impulse in the presence of a dogma, whether it be political,
moral, or religious, is to cast about for the best way to masticate, digest,
and dispose of it.
The peril in an inordinate appetite for dogma lies in the probability of
making too severe a drain upon the gastric juices, and so becoming
dyspeptic for the rest of one's life.
In this respect, my inclination exceeds my prudence. I have an
incurable dogmatophagy.
Ignoramus, Ignorabimus
Such are the words of the psychologist, DuBois-Reymond, in one of his
well-known lectures. The agnostic attitude is the most seemly that it is
possible to take. Nowadays, not only have all religious ideas been upset,
but so too has everything which until now appeared most solid, most
indivisible. Who has faith any longer in the atom? Who believes in the
soul as a monad? Who believes in the objective validity of the senses?
The atom, unity of the spirit and of consciousness, the validity of
perception, all these are under suspicion today. _Ignoramus,
ignorabimus_.

NEVERTHELESS, WE CALL OURSELVES MATERIALISTS
Nevertheless, we call ourselves materialists. Yes; not because we
believe that matter exists as we see it, but because in this way we may
contradict the vain imaginings and all those sacred mysteries which
begin so modestly, and always end by extracting the money from our
pockets.
Materialism, as Lange has said, has proved itself the most fecund
doctrine of science. Wilhelm Ostwald, in his Victory of Scientific
Materialism, has defended the same thesis with respect to modern
physics and chemistry.

At the present time we are regaled with the sight of learned friars laying
aside for a moment their ancient tomes, and turning to dip into some
manual of popular science, after which they go about and astonish
simpletons by giving lectures.
The war horse of these gentlemen is the conception entertained by
physicists at the present-day concerning matter, according to which it
has substance in the precise degree that it is a manifestation of energy.
"If matter is scarcely real, then what is the validity of materialism?"
shout the friars enthusiastically.
The argument smacks of the seminary and is absolutely worthless.
Materialism is more than a philosophical system: it is a scientific
method, which will have nothing to do either with fantasies or with
caprices.
The jubilation of these friars at the thought that matter may not exist, in
truth and in fact is in direct opposition to their own theories. Because if
matter does not exist, then what could God have created?

IN DEFENSE OF RELIGION
The great defender of religion is the lie. Lies are the most vital
possession of man. Religion lives upon lies, and society maintains itself
upon them, with its train of priests and soldiers--the one, moreover, as
useless as the other. This great Maia of falsehood sustains all the sky
borders in the theatre of life, and, when some fall, it lifts up others.
If there were a solvent for lies, what surprises would be in store for us!
Nearly everybody who now appears to us to be upright, inflexible, and
to hold his chest high, would be disclosed as a flaccid, weak person,
presenting in reality a sorry spectacle.
Lies are much more stimulating than truth; they are also almost always
more tonic and more healthy. I have come to this conclusion rather late

in life. For utilitarian and practical ends, it is clearly our duty to
cultivate falsehood, arbitrariness, and partial truths. Nevertheless, we
do not do so. Can it be that, unconsciously, we have something of the
heroic in us?

ARCH-EUROPEAN
I am a Basque, if not on all four sides, at least on three and a half. The
remaining half, which is not Basque, is Lombard.
Four of my eight family names are Guipuzcoan, two of them are
Navarrese, one Alavese, and the other Italian. I take it that family
names are indicative of the countries where one's ancestors lived, and I
take it also that there is great potency behind them, that the influence of
each works upon the individual with a duly proportioned intensity.
Assuming this to be the case, the resultant of the ancestral influences
operative upon me would