Solomon Maimon

“ I made a prosperous journey back to Hamburg, but here I fell into circumstances of the deepest distress. I lodged in a miserable house, had nothing to eat, and did not know what to do. I had received too much education to return to Poland, to spend my life in misery without rational occupation or society, and to sink back into the darkness of superstition and ignorance, from which I had hardly delivered myself with so much labour. ”

“ My life in Poland from my marriage to my emigration, which period embraces the springtime of my existence, was a series of manifold miseries with a want of all means for the promotion of culture, and, necessarily connected with that, an aimless application of my powers, in the description of which the pen drops from my hands, and the painful memories of which I strive to stifle. ”

“ For at that time, as an incipient freethinker, I explained all revealed religion as in itself false, and its use, so far as the writings of Mendelssohn had enabled me to understand it, as merely temporary. Moreover, being a man without experience, I thought it an easy matter to convince others in opposition to their firmly rooted habits and long-cherished prejudices, while I assumed the usefulness of such a reformation to be undoubted. ”

“ For belles lettres I discovered not the slightest inclination; I could not even conceive how any man was to form a science of what pleases or displeases—a matter which, according to my opinion at the time, could have merely a subjective ground. One day when I was taking a walk with Mendelssohn, our conversation fell upon the subject of the poets, whom he recommended me to read. "No," I replied, "I am going to read none of the poets. What is a poet but a liar?" Mendelssohn smiled at this and said, "You agree in this with Plato, who banished all poets from his Republic. ”

“ What however strengthened this inclination in me still more was a Hebrew book of fables, in which the personages who play their part in the fables—the animals—were represented in such woodcuts. I copied all the figures with the greatest exactness. My father admired indeed my skill in this, but rebuked me at the same time in these words, "You want to become a painter? You are to study the Talmud, and become a rabbi. He who understands the Talmud, understands everything." ”

“ Among the party was his daughter who afterwards married Prince Rawuzki. The young princess, in order to enjoy rest at noon, betook herself with the ladies of her court, the servants in waiting and the lackeys, to the very room, where as a boy I was sitting behind the stove. I was struck with astonishment at the magnificence and splendour of the court, gazed with rapture at the beauty of the persons and at the dresses with their trimmings of gold and silver lace; I could not satisfy my eyes with the sight. ”

“ Accordingly I replied, "Our destination is merely the attainment of perfection through the knowledge of God and the imitation of His actions. Prayer is simply the expression of our knowledge of the divine perfections, and, as a result of this knowledge, is intended merely for the common man who cannot of himself attain to this knowledge; and therefore it is adapted to his mode of conception. But as we see into the end of prayer, and can attain to this end directly, we can dispense altogether with prayer as something superfluous." ”

“ Till quite recently it had been almost forgotten that one of the commonest manifestations of fanaticism against the Jews, especially in Eastern Europe, was to charge them with the murder of Christian children for the use of some horrid religious rite, and that scarcely ever was the dead body of a child found in the neighbourhood of a Jewish community without some outburst of this cruel suspicion, ending in an indiscriminate massacre of the Jews by the infuriated mob. ”

“ Once when we were taking a walk on the wall round the town, and conversing about the tendency of men, which is evinced in such expressions, to deceive themselves and others, I said to Lapidoth, "Friend, let us be fair, and pass our censure on ourselves, as well as on others. Is not the contemplative life which we lead, and which is by no means adapted to our circumstances, to be regarded as a result of our indolence and inclination to idleness, which we seek to defend by reflections on the vanity of all things? ”

“ If you are inclined merely to solitary study, you may remain here as long as you like. If, however, you do not wish to withdraw into such complete retirement, but are inclined to be of service to the world with your talents, there is a wealthy man here—one of the most prominent people of the town—who has an only son, and wishes nothing so much as to have you for his tutor. This man is my brother-in-law. If you will not do it for his sake, please do it for mine, and to gratify the chief rabbi, as he has deeply at heart the education of my nephew, who is connected by marriage with his family. ”

“ The family was that of a miserable farmer in a still more miserable village; and my salary was five thalers in Polish money. The poverty, ignorance, and rudeness in the manner of life, which prevailed in this house, were indescribable. The farmer himself was a man of about fifty years, the whole of whose face was overgrown with hair, ending in a dirty, thick beard as black as pitch. His language was a sort of muttering, intelligible only to the boors, with whom he held intercourse daily. Not only was he ignorant of Hebrew, but he could not speak a word of Jewish ”

“ I must now say something of the condition of the Jewish schools in general. The school is commonly a small smoky hut, and the children are scattered, some on benches, some on the bare earth. The master, in a dirty blouse sitting on the table, holds between his knees a bowl, in which he grinds tobacco into snuff with a huge pestle like the club of Hercules, while at the same time he wields his authority. The ushers give lessons, each in his own corner, and rule those under their charge quite as despotically as the master himself. ”

“ For there is no mystery implied in one man being unable to communicate his knowledge to another of defective capacity with the same degree of completeness which he himself has attained; otherwise mysteries might be attributed to all the sciences, and there would then be mysteries of mathematics as well as mysteries of religion. Only political religion can have mysteries, in order to lead men in an indirect way to the attainment of the political end, inasmuch as they are made to believe that thereby they can best attain their private ends, though this is not always in reality the case. ”

“ The study of the Talmud is the chief object of a learned education among our people. Riches, bodily advantages, and talents of every kind have indeed in their eyes a certain worth, and are esteemed in proportion; but nothing stands among them above the dignity of a good Talmudist. He has the first claim upon all offices and positions of honour in the community. If he enters an assembly,—he may be of any age or rank,—every one rises before him most respectfully, and the most honourable place is assigned to him. ”

“ The first cause, which implies a complete infinite series of causes, and therefore in fact a contradiction, since the infinite can never be complete, is not an object of the understanding, but an idea of reason, or, according to my theory, a fiction of the imagination, which, not content with the mere knowledge of the law, seeks to gather the multiplicity, which is subject to the law, into an image, though in opposition to the law itself. ”

“ Mendelssohn, on the other hand, insisted on the affirmation, with regard to God, of all realities,—a position which goes very well with the Leibnitio-Wolfian philosophy, because it requires, in order to prove the reality of an idea, nothing more than that it is thinkable, that is, fulfils the law of Non-Contradiction.
My moral theory was then genuine Stoicism. It aimed at the attainment of free will and the ascendency of reason over the feelings and passions. It made the highest destination of man to be the maintenance of his differentia specifica, the knowledge of the truth ”

“ If the development of the inner life of man can ever be characterised as a romance, the biography of Maimon may, in the truest sense, be said to be one of the most romantic stories ever written. Perhaps no literature has preserved a more interesting record of a spirit imprisoned within almost insuperable barriers to culture, yet acquiring strength to burst all these, and even to become an appreciable power in directing the course of speculation. ”

“ For excommunication is merely tantamount to saying:—"So long as you put yourself in opposition to the laws of our communion, you are excluded from it; and you must therefore make up your mind whether this open disobedience or the privileges of our communion can most advance your blessedness." This surely cannot have escaped a mind like Mendelssohn's, and I leave it to others to decide how far a man may be inconsistent for the sake of human welfare. ”

“ Politics, merely as politics, requires to concern itself about true religion as little as about true morality. The injury, that might arise from this, can be prevented by other means which influence men at the same time, and thus all can be kept in equilibrium. Every political religion is therefore at the same time positive, but every positive religion is not also political.
Natural religion has no mysteries any more than merely positive religion. ”

“ For my part I believe that, to enlighten the Jewish nation, we must begin neither with history nor with natural theology and morals. One of my reasons for thinking so is, that these subjects, being easily intelligible, would not be able to instil any regard for science in general among the more learned Jews, who are accustomed to respect only those studies which involve a strain upon the highest intellectual powers. But a second reason is, that, as those subjects would frequently come into collision with religious prejudices, they would never be admitted. ”

“ It is thus that a religion, in its origin natural and conformable to reason, has been abused. A Jew dare not eat or drink, lie with his wife or attend to the wants of nature, without observing an enormous number of laws. With the books on the slaughter of animals alone (the condition of the knife and the examination of the entrails) a whole library could be filled, which certainly would come near to the Alexandrian in extent. And what shall I say of the enormous number of books treating of those laws which are no longer in use, such as the laws of sacrifice, of purification, etc.? ”

“ Every particular effect in nature is referred by him, not to its proximate cause (which is merely a mode) , but immediately to this first cause, which is the common substance of all beings.
In this system unity is real, but multiplicity is merely ideal. In the atheistic system it is the opposite. Multiplicity is real, being founded on the nature of things themselves. On the other hand, the unity, which is observed in the order and regularity of nature, is merely an accident, by which we are accustomed to determine our arbitrary system for the sake of knowledge. ”

“ By doing away with a gloomy piety, their doctrines met with acceptance among the lively youth. The principle of self-annihilation, taught by them, is, when well understood, nothing else than the foundation of self-activity. By its means all the modes of thought and action, which have become rooted by education, habit and communication with others, and by which human activity is wont to receive a wrong direction, are to be destroyed, and one's own free mode of action introduced. ”

“ So one day when I was passing the stag-horn with some other Jews, I said to them, "You Posen fools, do you think that any one who touches this horn must die on the spot? See, I dare to touch it!" [Pg 209] Horror-struck, they expected my death on the spot; but as nothing happened, their anxiety for me was converted into hatred. They looked on me as one who had profaned the sanctuary.
This fanaticism stirred up in me the desire to go to Berlin, and destroy by enlightenment the remnant of superstition which still clung to me. I therefore begged leave of my employer. ”

“ Certainly it is beauty alone that pleases me in a woman; but as this can be heightened by other qualities, these must also be pleasing as means towards the chief end. On the other hand, I can merely esteem such a woman on account of her talents; love her I cannot, as I have already explained in conversation. For the learning of Madame Dacier I have all respect: she could at all events fall in love with the Greek heroes who were at the siege of Troy, and expect in return the love of their manes that were constantly hovering around her ”

“ Mendelssohn could never take up his mind with trifles; matters of the greatest moment kept him in restless activity, such as the principles of Morals and of Natural Theology, the immortality of the soul, etc. In all these branches of inquiry, in which humanity is so deeply interested, he has also, as I hold, done as much as can be done on the principles of the Leibnitio-Wolfian philosophy. Perfection was the compass which he had constantly before his eyes, and which directed his course, in all these investigations. ”

“ My father could easily reconcile himself to this loss, because he thought to himself that he had made fifty thalers by his son in an honourable way, and that now he could get fifty thalers for him again. I also, who had never seen my bride, could not particularly mourn her loss; I thought to myself, "The cap and the silver-clasped Bible are already mine, and a bride will also not be awanting long, while my disputation can serve me again." My mother alone was inconsolable about this loss. Cakes and preserves are of a perishable nature and will not keep long. ”

“ The rabbis look upon the Holy Scriptures, not only as the source of the fundamental laws of Moses, and of those which are deducible from these by a rational method, but also as a vehicle of the laws to be drawn up by themselves according to the wants of the time. The artificial method here, like every other of the same kind, is merely a means of bringing the new laws at least into an external connection with the old, in order that they may thereby find a better introduction among the people, be reduced to principles, divided into classes, and therefore more easily impressed on the memory. ”

“ In fact, the Cabbalah is nothing but an expanded Spinozism, in which not only is the origin of the world explained by the limitation of the divine being, but also the origin of every kind of being, and its relation to the rest, are derived from a separate attribute of God. God, as the ultimate subject and the ultimate cause of all beings, is called Ensoph (the Infinite, of which, considered in itself, nothing can be predicated) . But in relation to the infinite number of beings, positive attributes are ascribed to Him ”

“ I must therefore remain what I am,—a stiffnecked Jew. My religion enjoins me to believe nothing, but to think the truth and to practise goodness. If I find any hindrance in this from external circumstances, it is not my fault. I do all that lies in my power."
With this I bade the pastor goodbye.
The hardships of my journey, coupled with poor food, brought on an ague. I lay on a straw-bed in a garret, and suffered the want of all conveniences and refreshments. My landlord, who took pity on me, called a Jewish physician, who prescribed an emetic which soon cured me of my fever. ”

“ In our times, when so much is said both pro and contra about secret societies, I believe that the history of a particular secret society, in which I was entangled, though but a short time, should not be passed over in this sketch of my life. ”

“ A man may have as many powers and in as high a degree as he will, still his influence is always limited. By prudence, however, and a sort of psychological mechanics, that is, an insight into the best possible use of these powers and their direction, they may be infinitely strengthened. These prudent leaders, therefore, have devoted themselves to the art of ruling free men, that is, of using the will and powers of other men, so that while these believe themselves to be advancing merely their own ends, they are in reality advancing the ends of their leaders. ”

“ To the thoughtful reader I do not need to say, that the representation of a covenant between God and man is to be taken merely analogically, and not in its strict sense. The absolutely Perfect Being can reveal Himself merely as idea to the reason. What revealed itself to the patriarchs and prophets, suitably to their power of comprehension, in figure, in an anthropomorphic manner, was not the absolutely Perfect Being Himself, but a representative of Him, His sensible image. The covenant, which this Being concludes with man, has not for its end the mutual satisfaction of wants ”