Chapter I: Front Matter

TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE

MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO

translator, J.E. CRAWFORD FLITCH

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC

New York

This Dover edition, first published in 1954, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the English translation originally published by Macmillan and Company, Ltd., in 1921. This edition is published by special arrangement with Macmillan and Company, Ltd.

The publisher is grateful to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania for supplying a copy of this work for the purpose of reproduction.

_Standard Book Number: 486-20257-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-4730_

Manufactured in the United States of America Dover Publications, Inc. 180 Varick Street New York, N.Y. 10014

CONTENTS

PAGES
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY xi-xxxii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxxiii-xxxv

I

THE MAN OF FLESH AND BONE

Philosophy and the concrete man--The man Kant, the man Butler, and
the man Spinoza--Unity and continuity of the person--Man an end not
a means--Intellectual necessities and necessities of the heart and
the will--Tragic sense of life in men and in peoples 1-18

II

THE STARTING-POINT

Tragedy of Paradise--Disease an element of progress--Necessity of
knowing in order to live--Instinct of preservation and instinct of
perpetuation--The sensible world and the ideal world--Practical
starting-point of all philosophy--Knowledge an end in itself?--The
man Descartes--The longing not to die 19-37

III

THE HUNGER OF IMMORTALITY

Thirst of being--Cult of immortality--Plato's "glorious
risk"--Materialism--Paul's discourse to the Athenians--Intolerance
of the intellectuals--Craving for fame--Struggle for survival 38-57

IV

THE ESSENCE OF CATHOLICISM

Immortality and resurrection--Development of idea of immortality in
Judaic and Hellenic religions--Paul and the dogma of the
resurrection--Athanasius--Sacrament of the
Eucharist--Lutheranism--Modernism--The Catholic
ethic--Scholasticism--The Catholic solution 58-78

V

THE RATIONALIST DISSOLUTION

Materialism--Concept of substance--Substantiality of the
soul--Berkeley--Myers--Spencer--Combat of life with
reason--Theological advocacy--_Odium anti-theologicum_--The
rationalist attitude--Spinoza--Nietzsche--Truth and consolation
79-105

VI

IN THE DEPTHS OF THE ABYSS

Passionate doubt and Cartesian doubt--Irrationality of the problem
of immortality--Will and intelligence--Vitalism and
rationalism--Uncertainty as basis of faith--The ethic of
despair--Pragmatical justification of despair--Summary of preceding
criticism 106-131

VII

LOVE, SUFFERING, PITY, AND PERSONALITY

Sexual love--Spiritual love--Tragic love--Love and
pity--Personalizing faculty of love--God the Personalization of the
All--Anthropomorphic tendency--Consciousness of the Universe--What
is Truth?--Finality of the Universe 132-155

VIII

FROM GOD TO GOD

Concept and feeling of Divinity--Pantheism--Monotheism--The
rational God--Proofs of God's existence--Law of necessity--Argument
from _Consensus gentium_--The living God--Individuality and
personality--God a multiplicity--The God of Reason--The God of
Love--Existence of God 156-185

IX

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY

Personal element in faith--Creative power of faith--Wishing that
God may exist--Hope the form of faith--Love and suffering--The
suffering God--Consciousness revealed through
suffering--Spiritualization of matter 186-215

X

RELIGION, THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BEYOND, AND THE APOCATASTASIS

What is religion?--The longing for immortality--Concrete
representation of a future life--Beatific vision--St.
Teresa--Delight requisite for happiness--Degradation of
energy--Apocatastasis--Climax of the tragedy--Mystery of the Beyond
216-259

XI

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM

Conflict as basis of conduct--Injustice of annihilation--Making
ourselves irreplaceable--Religious value of the civil
occupation--Business of religion and religion of business--Ethic of
domination--Ethic of the cloister--Passion and culture--The Spanish
soul 260-296