{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

(Philosophy 10, February 12th, 1954.)

... some circulation at this moment, but unfortunately no circulation of thought.

The wind does circulate today, but you have the firm conviction that thought is something inside you. And I tried to explain to you last time that there is a real block to your understanding, because you think that thought is somewhere all the time, as in science, for example, where people allegedly know some- -- everything, and that you can forgo thinking, or if you want to, take it up at any one moment of your will. This is so -- such a natural with you, that I want to begin today to prove to you that every human thought -- every human thought -- everything that deserves the term "thought," is treated at any one moment by at least three different methods. One: inside the man who thinks he thinks. Two, or even three: lying outside the man who thinks.

At this moment, you think that you know who I am: a man speaking here, to you. I think that you are in error, that you haven't the faintest idea who I am. So I'm polite and say to you, "I'll be patient." And I come home to my wife and say, "They are very stupid." That is to say, any thought that is in your mind, gentlemen, ca- -- is first inside of you. And you have a judgment; this is true. It isn't just that I am here speaking, of course. But you also know this is Carpenter Hall, you see. It is not a hallucination. You are in Dartmouth College; you are in Hanover, and you think you're conscious, you -- as you call it, you see, of what's going on. That's your thought at this moment. Second, here is your -- are the teachers, who have seen all of you come and go in this illusion. And we have our opinion, and in one way we tell you what we think of you and your thoughts -- by giving you, for example, an "E" in the exam -- and also by say- -- speaking at the same time of you, in our own thought, while you are absent, while you can't listen in. You do the same. In my -- to my face you are very polite, but -- and polish the apple -- and you are perfectly free to say something different, more outspoken, while I am not listening in, isn't that so?

Now, if you want -- for one moment, allow me to state this minimum of the thought processes in human society. It is at least triangular. We'll see it as even worse. Here is your thought. Here is somebody else, who thinks something of you and makes you in some way or other feel what he thinks of what you think. True or false, for example. Take an exam, where your examiner tells you "true" or "false." That is, here is your thought self-contained in a box, inside your skull. And you feel at this moment, like any capitalist, pretty sure that's your private

property.

Private property is an illusion, gentlemen. You know if you have $100,000 in the bank, and you get an inflation, it's an illusion that you have $100,000. Next year you only have a thousand. You -- nobody has anything in this world, except by participation. Now your thought certainly comes always -- has a criterion of false or true. If all of your thoughts, for example, were considered false by the rest of the world, you would have to be put in a mental asylum. But, like these two poison gentlemen -- who obviously, you see, come under the judgment, you see, of psychotics -- they thought, you see, they were allowed to poison their parents. You -- you read the story in the papers, did you? And we find that their thoughts -- processes are all wrong. They are mentally not competent.

Now gentlemen, you see immediately, you get here the psychiatric case. He thinks, "I can do this." You get here the expert -- be it the teacher, be it the judge, be it the police, be it public opinion -- they say, "These people are crazy." That is, they do not talk to them what they think of their thought. But so -- they speak among each other, here. Here is the judge and here is the doctor. And the doctor tells the judge, as you know -- they aren't even then examined, as in this case, it was, you see. The attorney forwent his right to cross-examine the people, because they were considered mental -- insane.

That is, these people talk about these people's thought and say it's all wrong; though in their absence, every thought process, gentlemen, in human society is judged by other people in two ways: in your presence and in your absence. The people will give you to understand what they think of your thought, and they will talk among themselves and say, "What a fool," or "What a wise man." As you well know, there are two types of people in society. One, of whom society speaks better in their absence than in their presence -- there are such types and they are enviable, people who are praised higher in their absence than in their presence. They invite truthfulness in their presence, and then they aren't flattered. But in their absence, people speak very highly of them. Then there is another class of people to whom people speak very highly in their presence, but behind their back, they talk quite differently. Have you ever watched this? The one case, that you speak better of a man in his presence than in his absence, is quite regular. But I have to my amazement found that there also exist people of whom people speak better in their absence than in their presence. It's a very strange group. Exceedingly fascinating that there is such a type of man who solicit -- elicits admiration when they -- he is not there, you see, but not the same thing when he's there.

So because we are thinking beings, gentlemen, we participate in a strange -- strange triangle that people judge our thoughts as foolish or wise, or as reliable

or flippant, as indifferent or interesting, as important, you see, or frivolous. And you could not think without knowing that society's all the time passing these judgments, and -- because you do it, too. You know it from yourself that half of your life, you're criticizing other people. That's why the Bible says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged," because it is a dangerous performance, this -- this circuitous current, but it runs all the time. You have to make a special effort to stop it.

If the Bible says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged," it means, "Please, stop for a minute," you see, "and give up this constant mutual portraying or -- trying to understand where to place the other man's thought." I mean, if somebody tells you that -- that President Eisenhower, or that Mr. Einstein, or that a great doctor has said something, you think this is at least worthwhile to be considered. But if your roommate or yourself say something, you may say, "We're just talking through our hats." And you -- even to your own thought, you can assign importance or unimportance. And it's one of the techniques of modern man to begin and say, "I'm just a poor me, and I don't care what I think."

Now gentlemen, that's -- is a very widespread attitude, that regardless of what you think, you always add this humble clause, "Of course, I don't know what I'm talking about," which is probably true. But if you say it too loudly, the other will think it is true. And where are you, then? You see, you're just counted out.

So there is a fourth dimension of this thinking process, gentlemen. You think something, but you do not want anybody else to know what you are thinking, which happens in -- at cocktail parties quite often in the first half; and in the second half, because you have had too much alcohol, you say it just the same. Then you reverse your attitude.

So gentlemen, your thought is one thing. And Number 4, which I have put here questioning, in this open direction, Number 4 of any thought process is what you want other people to know of what you think. That is, you have two choices. You want them to know what you think, or you want them not to know what you think, which is I think more frequent with you. Isn't that true?

Now it seems to me that you are all in one great danger, that you actually believe that you think without these three consequences. You really believe that a man's thought is so private, and so much owned by him that it doesn't matter what other people know of what he thinks. That's his duty, you see, to confess, to vote, to avow, to stand up for -- stick his neck out. But you think that doesn't matter. Your thought can stop short within here. The second thing is that you try to be indifferent to what people think of you, and you say, "I don't care." And the third thing is that you discount what people tell you to your face, because they

say -- you say they are just polite, or they are just un- -- impolite.

For example, you learn today in most courses that you must get along with people by never telling them what you think of them. Do you think that's a good idea? I think it's terrible. Just proclaims that lying is the best attitude in society. How to make friends would then be, by Mr. Dale Carnegie, a way of never tell -- people -- telling people what you think of them, and the people never telling you what they think of you. And it has by -- already reached this stage. Even marriages. People are always so polite that they say "Honey" when they want to kill the husband. That's why marriages are much better when there is a stormy day. The days -- the marriages which nobody ever bursts forth and is impolite, gentlemen, are the most terrible, hypocritical marriages. And they always end -- either one party going to the lunatic asylum or getting -- both getting a divorce and falling in love with somebody else, because it just means that the truth is less important than politeness.

Now you just write this down, gentlemen, that in the mental processes, as soon as you say politeness is more important than truth, your thought process is absolutely repressed, and then begins to work what you call the "subconscious." But the subconscious is nothing but the thought, gentlemen, without its three necessary correlations to other people's thought. That is what today is called with the -- with the ridiculous word, the "subconscious." It isn't subconscious at all, but if you -- say, finally, to an -- all the time to yourself, that you mustn't say -- tell anybody what you think, that they must never fathom what you think, that therefore they cannot judge you, because you just say before the mirror, "I'm so wonderful, they don't understand me," as many of you think. You are just misunderstood; and "I don't care what other people say behind my back, and I discount everything they say to myself." Such a person, of course, finally shrinks and slinks away into the uncon- -- subconscious, you see, because his thought process becomes a -- specter to himself, a ghost. And he no longer can check on it, in any way, because he has made three rules. First: I won't tell anybody what I think. Second: the people won't tell me what they think, of what I think, anyway. They are too polite. And the third, you see: "I don't care what the people speak -- say behind my back, because I can't help it, anyway." And that's by and large the polite society in which you try to move. At least those who come from New York state.

It's a fantastic society, because you have no idea of the circulation of thought. And most of you live in this fools' paradise. And of course, you aren't quite inured in this fools' paradise, but by 40, you will be walled in, and then you will go to the psychiatrist. And you will have consumed your third wife and much alcohol.

I have to lay this out first to make you understand, gentlemen, that thought is a reflection on what we say to each other. We shall make this a rule. You think that I think, and then I speak. Now perhaps you begin to understand that there is a possibility to look at this -- at this triangle in quite a different manner. When we enter this room, we are induced to think of each other in some mutual way. You have the assumption now that I am the teacher. I may be a fake. I may have a wrong passport. I may not be a teacher. I may just be an {interlope}, but you assume that I am. I'm the only person who knows what is true at this moment about this fact.

When I was very young, I was made a professor at a very ear- -- immature age. And I went up to the chair for the first lecture, and they said, "No, no. That's the place for the professor." They thought I was a student.

That is to say, gentlemen, we make each other, or break each other. What we think of each other is always mutual. You cannot think anything of anything in the world without somebody calling -- talking back and thinking accordingly. What you think of the world at large will be what the world -- people also think of you.

When Schopenhauer, the great pessimist, who wrote a famous book on the world as will and representation -- Arthur Schopenhauer, you may have heard his name -- now, I think you are very smart. I really had assumed you didn't. Now perhaps you -- it's worth taking it -- this down, gentlemen. Arthur Schopenhauer, in his young age, when he had just seen the Napoleonic battlefields, with all their corpses and wounded, and the agony and the destruction, in Holland and Belgium, of the Napoleonic wars, he was deeply impressed. And his pessimism comes from this experience of the -- then world war. It's exactly the same as when a man now has seen the naphtha bombs in Korea. I think it takes a long time to get over that destruction, and to believe that anything makes sense, after he -- a whole country has been just fragmentated, annihilated. Who has been to Korea? Nobody in this town? The same with -- with Europe. After you have -- after he had seen this, he came back to Weimar where the great poet Goethe then resided and became this man -- old man's young friend. They were 40 years apart. And Goethe watched this man's ways and -- of thought. And he wrote into his album -- how do you call such an album? This --

(Album. Diary.)

Wie?

(Diary.)

What?

(Diary.)

Well, it isn't a diary today, you collect --

(No. Journal.)

Journal. Ja. He wrote Goethe at his request wrote into this wonderful line: "Willst Du Dich an Dir selber freuen so musst der Welt Du Wert verleihen." Of course, I can't translate it into verse, but I'll do my best: "If you want to have joy in yourself -- find joy in yourself, you must assign value to the world outside."

So this is a very wonderful expression of this balance between what we think of the world, you see, and what then we are allowed to think of ourselves. If you want to find joy in yourself, you must contribu- -- attribute value to the world. And this he hadn't done, Schopenhauer, you see. He said the world is black, minus, nihil. That's a pessimist, you see. But that took away also his -- own joy of living, and of his own life. And so Goethe, in a very remarkable, non-pedantic way -- I've always admired that you could put in a nutshell what was lacking in Schopenhauer's approach, you see -- just in two lines, he told him in advance the prophecy for his whole life, you see. And he didn't, so to speak, say it negatively. But he just said, "If you want to have joy in your own -- of -- in yourself -- find joy in yourself, you must attribute value to the world outside," which I think is the simplest approach to the circulation of thought.

What we think of the world recoils -- recoils on us, and that is why thought is not a private possession, because the world outside talks back. You and your philosophy, gentlemen, always think that the world doesn't talk back.

And we now make a very great discovery, gentlemen. You have isolated philosophy. What we think ourselves, that's our philosophy. What the people say to each other about you, that's politics. Whether the Negroes are segregated or not segregated, that depends obviously on what the white man says to themselves. Look at South Africa, and look at this country, where we go in opposite direction not because of what the black man thinks of himself, but what the white men say to each other about the black man. Isn't that true?

So gentlemen, this is politics, what the people say among themselves about your thought. They say in South Africa the Basuto is not mature. And we say it's high time, af- -- 70 years after the Civil War, that we treat them as mature. And that's the whole difference. And what the black man thinks of Africa and here is very much the same. This is politics, gentlemen.

Now, what the people tell you about yourself, and what you let the other people know about your thought about them, that's religion. Because that you owe another man the truth, and that marriage is a sacrament in which truth is greater than politeness, that's your faith. If you are a secular man, you say politeness is more important. Humaneness is important. Kindness is important. Most Americans think marriage is to be kind to each other, you see. Now the -- one of the men who was married best in this country, John Jay Chapman, always opened the battle at home with saying, "Marriage is hell." So they went to Heaven. Without hell, no Heaven, gentlemen. That's mutual. But you want to have it, you see, 35 degrees. And you get 35 degrees, you see, but by -- in -- in -- at the heat of 35 degrees, no love story. Just kindness.

So gentlemen, we make a discovery. In the circulation of thought, there are three processes, four processes. When a man wants other people to know what he thinks, he'll create a poem or a piece of art. When the other people begin talking about your mental process, they'll either give you the vote, or they won't give you the vote. They'll either put you in an -- mental asylum when you are a genius, you see, or they'll say, "We believe in genius." Well, today, they are all put in mental asylums, the geniuses, you see, because the non-geniuses rule.

Well, gentlemen. This is quite a discovery. I now put it here squarely. It's really more. There are four points to this. Your own thought, that's inside of you. Your expression, that's expressionism. That's art. There -- the other people's judgment of your expression, or of your inner mental processes, you see, that's your political status. And the mutuality, gentlemen, what you owe the people by your thinking -- the truth -- and what they owe you, an education, the truth, criticism, you see, judgment, reward, acknowledgement, recognition, all the things you -- craving for, this depends on the religion a country has. If it is secular, we don't each other owe the truth. And you have never heard that people owe each other the truth. You think it's all necessary only to think scientifically.

Gentlemen, the scientist cheats his objects. He makes a guinea pig behave, and he paralyzes it, and the poor guinea pig doesn't know what's happening. If you can be treated scientifically by society, then society has a right to cheat you, to hypnotize you. To sell you by advertising, or what-not, by psychological propaganda, your wares, you see, to persuade you so that you don't feel how it -- that it hurts, when you are taxed to the -- white, out of existence, you see. That's then dema- -- demagoguery. That is just lying to each other. That's always secular.

If Mr. Eisenhower had the guts to tell us that we cannot be defended against atom bombs, he would treat us religiously. If he is sold by Mr. Sherman Adams and so that the bad -- truth -- fact that he should keep the country in good spirits,

and cheerful, and hilarious, you see, then he won't tell us the truth -- that there is just no defense against the hydrogen bomb. And that's the question of his religion. And everybody has religion only by degrees, gentlemen. Religion is, so to speak, a scale of different temperatures. If you are in the white heat of passion, you will tell the truth. And you will say, " The truth comes first, and I can only be my brother's keeper if I tell him the truth." But you try to have it the other way. You have an Irish policeman in New York, you see, and you say, "He's my brother's keeper, and I won't tell him the truth."

So gentlemen, in every one thought, there is an element of philosophy, an element of religion, an element of politics, and an element of art. That's quite a big order. Otherwise it isn't participating in the -- that which we call "thought." It's just a -- an hallucination, because if you have a thought that in no way concerns the other people, people will say, "He's in a brown study," you see. And they will not allow you to participate in the thought process of society. For example, they won't make you a teacher in Dartmouth College, because they say, "It's arbitrary what he teaches," you see. "He isn't in the tradition. He hasn't accepted any of the standards."

Gentlemen, you all know this expression -- in medicine, when an operation has to be performed, they say -- how do they express it, when this is now done, and 10 years ago it wasn't done, and perhaps 10 years from now it won't be done -- well, how does a doctor justify his thought process of saying, "This man must be operated upon"? What does he say? According -- why does he operate?

[unintelligible]

According to what?

(His judgment.)

Wie?

[unintelligible]

Please, I just didn't get it.

(To his past experience.)

No, that's not good enough.

(By precedent.)

Wie?

(Precedent.)

No, in medicine, not. The judges do this. They call it "by precedent." But that's no excuse for an operation when just -- there was just published a -- an article that says, "You cannot operate." You may have operated for a hundred years. If the new sci- -- research says, "Don't operate," you can't do it. Why -- what happens then, when a new thing is found in medicine? You have to apply the new thing, have you not, if it is -- tested -- I mean, tested. What happens, then? A new -- what is reached? Well, how do you express this?

[unintelligible]

Wie? It's the same with -- with the standard skiing. I mean, nobody skis as I used to ski 30 years ago. What has happened? We have changed -- what?

(Techniques.)

The techniques, yes. The standard -- isn't that the word? Wie?

(According to the standard.)

"According to the standard of our science, of our knowledge." Isn't that it? The standard, gentlemen, is something common. And you cannot teach, you see, by private thought. You have to reach to attain the common standard of thinking, isn't that true? Therefore, gentlemen, private thinking only rec- -- gains relevancy and is only recognizable by the common -- the community, you see, once it reaches a standard of thinking -- can you see this? -- which is something quite different from your private thinking.

This is always overlooked in this country, gentlemen. You will find that people in this country constantly think that what they think: "I think," "It seems to me," "I have this philosophy, you have another," that this is all that your thought processes must attain to. That's not true. In your profession, you cannot say, "I think." But as a merchant, and you sell a ware, you have just to fulfill the standards of the profession as to the wares, the commodities; as to the term of delivery; as the way of payment. And you are liable if you do not comply with the standards of the trade. Isn't that true?

Now gentlemen, one of your -- the thing that I wanted to attack today first of all and throw it out of your mind is that you actually still believe that the standard of philosophy and your private thinking are -- are -- are to be identified.

Anybody however -- I say it's -- the very opposite is true -- who in this classroom at this moment has some thoughts and doesn't even come up to the minimum standard of a recognized philosophy -- is only trying to philosophize, but he hasn't yet a philosophy. But in this country, people say that there are 155 million Americans and 156 million philosophies. They even tell you that Christianity is just one philosophy among others. Gentlemen, philosophy was destroyed by Christianity. Christianity said just what I try to tell you, that the weeds of private thinking are untenable for a peaceful spread of one great peace among men. If the -- how could Christ say, "Peace ..." or the angels, "Peace among men of good will," if there was nothing that governed them all in common? Do you think that 155 million Americans can afford every one his own philosophy and then live peacefully together? That's nonsense. This would be -- everybody in a straitjacket; because if 155 million philosophies are -- are possible, then one-half of these philosophies would say, "It is just" -- as these psychotic cases -- that "it is very interesting to see how a man behaves in whose drink I put potassium -- cyanide." Like the {Loeb} brothers, as you know, the -- these -- these boys who -- who -- who -- you have heard of this case, have you?

These are terrible cases, but they are simply the result of -- of arbitrary thinking. Anybody -- everybody thinks as he pleases. Gentlemen, that's nonsense. Philosophies -- must be expressed. They must be criticized. They must be exposed. And they must be exchanged. That's why we talk to each other. That's why I teach you, so that I force you to begin to exchange your thoughts, not only with me, but with your comrades as well.

(Then do you say that there is no -- what is called "American individualism"?)

Oh yes. There are many illusions. The question is: is, you see -- what is the character of an illusion, you see? Sometimes the illusions are very healthy, you see. I mean, I think that in your youth, you have to have illusions because otherwise, you couldn't sta- -- stand yourself, you see.

(Are you saying then that we -- each one of these 155 million people might have his own thoughts, but his own thoughts are of no value until they are discussed and criticized and expressed to others?)

Ja. Yes. To make it very small, the whole issue, I would say you have a certain hope of -- and expectation about your own significance in life. Maybe as small as it is, you will still think you are worth your salt. At least you don't wish to starve, so the world owes you a living in some form, you see. Even by the most useless kind of work, for example, teaching at Dartmouth. You -- I still think I'm worth my salary, you see. And even much more. I get too small a salary. This is my illusion.

Gentlemen, now you think of my whole life for a moment. It takes me 70 years until I have lived out -- into the open expressed my philosophy of life that I should be a teacher, which is, after all, the center of everybody's philosophy: what -- how he should use his own life. Isn't that true? I use it for teaching. It is a very precarious position. It is perhaps perfectly useless. I very of- -- very often think honestly so. However, I have done it. After seven year- -- 70 years, gentlemen, the triangle should co- -- collapse into one point of identification. Any man has lived well whose own thought about himself coincides in the end of his life -- at the end of his life with what society tells him they think of him, and what society really thinks of him when he is gone.

The great ambition, gentlemen, of every man, and that's why you must first -- perhaps give attention to this triangle. I have never put it so much in the center of the course as this time. I have -- have changed my tack, because I feel as long as I do not put before you this great desire of every thought, to stand corrected, and to stand overhauled, so to speak, by the community, you will not understand how public this whole life of the thought of mine is even in this college. Here, this course, gentlemen, has to stand up under the criticism of my colleagues in the philosophy department. It has to stand up under the criticism of the people in the other departments. It has to stand up under your criticism, and the criticism of the alumni. And it becomes more and more real.

Now in three years, I'll stop teaching. By that time, by and large, at least this part of my existence as a teacher at Dartmouth College, must have found some harmonization between what I attribute to its importance { }, what the society does in the form of recognition, you see -- official recognition -- and what they really think of it in lasting terms of evaluation and making use of it. Isn't that very true? Do you say there have -- the same with any man who lives? Take a husband -- take -- forget about my profession. Forget about your profession. Don't think of teaching, of business, of money, or rewards. But only think in terms of a husband who has children, and a wife, and is the son of two parents. Well, he has an idea that he loves his parents; he loves his wife; he loves his children. And in all these cases, as time goes on, his thought about what love means, in terms, you see, of a relation to parents, wife, and children will find very { } expressions. That is, gentlemen, this one thought -- "I love my family" -- leads to any number of decisions, and thoughts in -- particular cases, you see. He'll have to send one child to college, because it's bright. He'll have to come to the conclusion that he would not love the other child if it -- he forced this boy to go -- to go to college, and he will love him more by not sending him to college. Don't you think there are many in this college who aren't loved enough, and therefore are sent to Dartmouth College, and shouldn't be here? Don't you?

Love is a very -- you see, lazy thought. If you don't think it out, you may say

you love your child, but you may not love it well enough. Now live -- to live means to think out what we think. Isn't that true? To implement thought, to find out what it means in any concrete case. Love is a very general, abstract term. But in every moment to love, you see, is a very imaginative task.

Therefore gentlemen, if it -- when you think of this triangle, this man, with his philosophy of family love -- that's a philosophy, you see -- will have to show proof that he thinks, really, that he -- not only loves -- thinks he loves his family, but that he loves it. And his thought must come true. But on the other hand, the family -- people outside will also give him a place in their hearts, especially his wife, and his children, and his parents. And it depends very much -- there will be conflicts. His wife will say, "Both my sons must go to college." She's an ambitious person. She has some such so- -- some s- -- social prestige, and she will quarrel with her husband. And she'll say, "You make him a watchmaker, and although the watches are more in demand than wisdom, I still think that he should get this alleged wisdom, you see, and make him a -- in a -- in -- M- -- a BA," or whatever this nonsense is.

Well, there will be then a -- a while -- during which his wife will think, "This man is a fool. I married a fool. I married a cruel man. I married a man who doesn't fulfill his duties towards his family," you see. And this man has to go through this conflict. If from mere politeness he says, "Yes, let's send this boy to school," he hasn't thought that he loves, you see, his son in truth. He has only made believe. That's not real thought. That's not truthful. And most bo- -- men are pushed around this way. They don't know what to think. Their wife tells them every morning what to do. They do it. And so the two boys go to college and become non-entities, or at least one of them, as I hope -- {rightly assumed} it would be. One of them should never have gone to college.

Now gentlemen, that takes guts, because the neighbors say, "Why doesn't this boy go to college, too? You -- he -- they are -- he has a favorite son," you see, "And he has one man -- boy whom he favors less," and such -- things. And there you -- you see how his thought is criticized, isn't it?

Now if he is blessed, gentlemen, the Church always has held the old tradition of the saints, that this man is blessed at whose death the opinion of the world, the opinion of his friends expressed to him, and his own opinion of his life coincide. When this triangle, you see, breaks even, when it is A equals A equals A, then you are -- have lived the good life. Very rarely the case. Very rare. Most people die with unfulfilled expectations. They thought of themselves dif- -- ver- -- differently from what the world thought they were worth, you see. And what the world will say after they have no longer run the risk to meet them on Main Street.

I had a friend who was a great spiritual leader in his community. When his wife died, he forswore any further participation, so to speak, in the -- in the world of real friendship and enthusiasm, and take -- took to bridge playing. Twenty years after his wife died, he died, at the mo- -- in the midst of playing bridge -- yes, he meant it. And nobody said a word about his death, except what the inheritance tax would be, and who would get the money.

So this man had died 20 years before his death. And he was very -- I have still not overcome this, because he had been a real friend. I had dedicated a book to him, which you do only to very few people, because you can't write so many books. And I -- it's in print, his name in front of my book, and I'm ashamed of myself and of my friend, because at his death, his judgment of what he stood for, as a leader of this town had not -- wasn't corrected. He had no reason, of course, for the last 20 years, so to speak, to change his judgment. It had been well established when he was 60, you see, and when he was 80, he was a forgotten man. Totally forgotten. He was just a shadow of himself. So he had lived 20 years certainly in an illusion.

Now that's the opposite from what usually happens. Usually people, when they die have still unfulfilled { }. He died after his day, you see. You will probably, I hope, have so many great hopes that you will die before any of these hopes -- or all of these hopes at least can be fulfilled. When we should higher -- if you want to have good marksmanship, I think you always must aim a little higher than -- than the target. Isn't that true? But gentlemen, you must know that we do live for this great reconciliation between the three lines of force around any thought: that what we think; that the -- what the world tells us they think of what we think, or what we want, what we aim at; and what they really say when we don't listen in.

On a deathbed, you see, death- -- deathbed, it was usually that people invited their family, and -- and speeches were made, and blessings were exchanged. We have become very dumb in this respect, and very numb. As you know, people usually die now in a coma, by the help of some morphine, and cocaine, and {Novocain} and some other anesthetics, they have a special man to put -- take us out of this world, called the anesthetician. I think it's rather anesthetic, because in the old family tradition, when Jacob blessed his grandchildren, Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph's sons, you see, there was exactly this triangular relation of what Jacob had dreamt to be when he was -- of this great surprise that he had become now, you see, much more than he had ever hoped for, the father of Joseph, the great counselor of pharaoh, and that he now could see that his grandchildren might reach out to days even beyond Egypt, where there would be this great unity of the world prophesied in the separation of Pal- -- the Palestinian country and the Egyptian country, which Israel then proceeded to fulfill.

And only when Jacob blessed his grandchildren had his name "Israel," which he received in his great struggle with God, as you may remember, received any meaning. If his fa- -- son Joseph had ended in Egypt, you see, and if this had been the whole story, then just, there would be Egypt as the aim of Jacob's life and the whole prophecy of, you see -- the revelation of one God would have been naught. It would have been ridicul- -- ridiculous. It would have been a mere illusion. Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob would have been therefore nothing, because if the end is all just a success story, you see, that you became the secretary of state in Egypt, I mean -- I -- do you think the Bible aimed at Mr. Dulles? That would be the -- Egypt, that would be Joseph: great success, first minister, you see, of pharaoh.

And -- but with the blessing given to these grandchildren, I don't know if y- -- has anybody ever read St. Ja- -- Jacob's blessing to his grandchildren? Have you? It's great, great song, really, of praise, who -- to the possibilities that come after his life, you see, isn't it? And so he connects his hopes, you see, once more with the future of the human race. And it is this one thing that lifts the story beyond the fairy tale of a success in Egypt. Man gets quick -- rich quick, you see. Joseph is very important to show that the children of Israel can also be success stories in this world. But on the other hand, it is, you see, the whole meaning is lost if the success in this world is the end of the story. And therefore, this is hardly ever mentioned: the blessing given by -- by Jacob to the grandchildren is the only thing that makes Egypt a passing phase in the life of the children of Israel, you see. And then the exodus, the leaving of Egypt can become the great proof of the victory of Jacob's principle, you see, beyond the contemporary scene.

Now, it's all -- what is it, gentlemen? It's all Jacob's self-conscious thought of who he really is, which has to come -- to be verified. Either he isn't a dreamer -- and he is a dreamer -- you know, he had -- Joseph had dreams; Jacob had dreams. And they could be just dreams. They could just be pharaonic dreams, Egyptian dreams, dreams to be taken to the psychoanalyst, of bad digestion. If they were visions, promises, they had to be verified much later, by the rest of the world, as they are today.

And the greatness of the Bible, gentlemen, is that every event there moves within this triangle, this -- of which you never have heard, strangely enough, you see, because you are arrayed and lined up in this wonderful world of departments in which one thing is art, and the other thing is philosophy, and the third thing is religion, and the fourth thing is politics. And you believe in it. But gentlemen, don't you see that at this very moment, while we are standing here, we are in the midst of religion, politics, art, and philosophy? I need some art to -- to interest you. I must express my thought. I must have some thought, you see. The community must give way and allow me to -- to ex- -- to get you to listen to

this thought. That's polit- -- politics. I'm here on the political basis that Dartmouth College says it's a good idea to keep one jester. I am your majesty's fool, because you are considered here the majesty in this college, you see. You can do as you please. The king can do no wrong. Now students here in Dartmouth are treated under the assumption that you can't do wrong, until somebody is killed.

Well, you may not have heard of the { } case, but it has happened, just because the king can do no wrong, because it was a football player. How can a football player do wrong in Dartmouth College? Who has not heard of the { } case? Well, I'm very pleased to hear that at least you know what I'm talking about.

So let us here at this moment stop and try to digest the fact, gentlemen, that any human utterance is philosophical, as far as my thought is concerned; is political, as far as society allows it or doesn't allow it to take place, you see; is religious, inasfar as I appeal to mutuality, to know what -- to let you know what I think, at the risk that you tell me what you think, because you can stay away from this course, you see, next time and say, "I don't want to hear what this man thinks"; and the fourth, the artistic, I mean, is understood. It has to have some form in which it is -- some style, some mode of expression.

Thank you. We'll make five minutes' break now, and then start again.

[tape interruption]

... second class, and what we have -- I've said before is perhaps too perturbing. We'll come back to this field of force of every thought. Call this, the first half, perhaps the "field of force" -- as in electricity -- of thought.

But let me give you now a substantial list of the forms which thought takes in everybody's own mind while he lives. We have today Lincoln's birthday, and it should be a holiday. And it's just scandalous that we have to work. But of course, a lecture like this is not work. However, I think Lincoln offers us a great opportunity to bring together what I have said before about a man living to see the identity of his purpose and of the criticism of society reached, you see.

And what I'm going to say now about any man's hope to lead his thought to this appointed end, that his thought is recognized by the rest of mankind as being worth to be thought, and true, and acceptable. Every man, gentlemen, is a thought. Just by his very name "Lincoln," he is a special creature. You will admit that rugged -- there -- there comes in your individualism, Sir, you see. The truth about the individualism is that every one of us is a special thought of our maker, however you express it, or of nature. A human being is a specimen of a unique

character. Horses are not in the same sense unique, and certainly stones are not that much. But you and I pretend, and hope, and expect to be treated, you see, as something undis- -- -mistakably one. Isn't that true? You don't like to be mistaken for somebody else. It's very embarrassing, as a matter of fact.

So Lincoln is an example of a man who, by his martyrdom, by the privilege of being murdered, was allowed to be seen one day after his death, when the lilacs blossomed, in his true light. If he had lived through the Reconstruction days, he would to this day be not recognized by one-half of the American people; probably neither by the extremists of the North, nor by the people in the South. His mar- -- that is the essence, gentlemen, which in antiquity already people knew: martyrs are privileged, because their early death, their victimized death, you see, opens the eyes of their enemies and their critics and silences the criticism, which most people do not understand. But it's a very great -- gate price paid by not being martyred, gentlemen. You will -- are much longer misunderstood. Jesus saw no other way but to leave life, and to force His life upon the Apostles, so that He may not totally be misunderstood. If He hadn't gone to the Cross, He would still be mistaken for a teacher; and you know, He is.

All the people who try to treat Jesus as a nice man, who -- with a blond beard and blue eyes -- something He never had. He had probably red hair and black eyes, or black hair and black eyes. And -- certainly looked very much like a Jew. And you wouldn't believe that such a man could be anything but a teacher. You certainly wouldn't accept Him today without the Crucifixion for anything more than a man of -- who had some opinions. You wouldn't take Him as the normal -- the perfect man, the law of life. You couldn't. His death was absolutely indispensable for opening your eyes. If you don't learn from your death, you will not learn in any other way. Certainly not from the teachings, because teachings are teachings. Somebody teaches one thing, and somebody teaches something else, as we will soon see, you see. Teachings are always dialectical. You teach one thing; there is always a man who can teach the opposite. That cannot be helped, you see. But on your deathbed, the way you die, that's a different story. That unifies people and people can be unified by martyrdom, but they cannot be unified by teaching.

So gentlemen, Lincoln, if he had only ruled as president of the United States, he would still be today under the attack from the South and from the North, from -- the Horace Greeleys in the North, if you know who that was. Have you heard of Horace Greeley? And he would be under attack from Governor {Shivers}. Well, yes, but in this way, what happened? In this way, what happened? He finally -- {Shivers} could finally vote for a Republican president, because he, Lincoln, was martyred, because the South has no axe to grind again- -- inasfar as Lincoln was shot. He was -- rose beyond his opinions, he was -- on beyond his

rule.

So gentlemen, Lincoln is a special case, because of his premature death, violent death. Don't think that violent death has not deep meaning. It's very different from natural death. To die at 95 may be a curse. And to be shot dead as Lincoln in the Year of the Lord '65 may be a great blessing for his achievement, for his right to force upon an unwilling country his philosophy. Don't you think we are all now little Lincolns? Lincoln is just absorbed, unanimously. We all stand behind him, and as long as he only talked, the House was divided. The people at Harvard thought he had no education. And to tell the truth, he had no education. This was true, but was perfectly irrelevant.

So the poor man, you see, had to stand the -- the -- the criticism of irrelevant thoughts about him. What he really thought didn't interest the people. The fact that he had a poor digestion, exhaled a terrible odor from his mouth all the time because of his obstipation, and told dirty stories, you see -- off-color stories -- that was what all the gentry in New England, you see, hated about him. But what -- it doesn't matter. That's not the real man, you see. That's just like -- like getting a -- a tie, which -- isn't pleasing to the eye, you see. That's not the man: the off-color stories, or his digestion, or his looks, or his -- his manners. The real man, Lincoln, appeared to the eyes of other people as a living thought of our creator, as the best American you can think out, you see, by his violent death.

So now gentlemen, death then makes a man's name. And everybody -- -one of you has this expectation to leave a reputation behind himself. To begin with the mental commandments, then, of your life, gentlemen, you must not begin with your birth, but with your death. Your flesh, gentlemen, is born; and finally it withers. And as an old tree, it shrivels up, and when your body falls to pieces, it's dust. And you don't have to cremate it. It will be dust, anyway.

Cremation is a superimposed effort of people who have no discernment between mind and body. You believe today cremation is the great habit. You always get it in secular times, who do not believe that the thought process, you see, must be disgorged finally into this field of force of the whole of society. If you think that the name you leave behind, that Lincoln's birthday is celebrated today as the great eviction, as the great proof of his victory, in the spiritual sense -- in the mental sense -- if you don't believe this, you will {heed} for cremation. Cremation is always the habit of unbelieving times, of times who try to hide into the individual his own significance, you see. Then it is important to get him done with. But if the main point of a man's life is that he leaves a good name behind, then at his dea- -- dying hour, we are not concerned what we do to his body, specially, but we leave the body just as nature has it, you see, and let it rot in the ground.

Cremation is too much of an effort. Concentrate on his name. But I told you already, you don't allow a man at his dy- -- his dying hour to bless his children, or his grandchildren. He's hidden away. He's put in a hospital. He's put under -- under a narcotica -- narcotics. He isn't told he's going to die, and so nothing happens.

Let's restore, gentlemen, the sequence of the commandments of education, of thinking. Then you may make the surprising discovery that our -- your first thought is, "I don't wish to leave behind a stinking name." And I think that much you will admit. You may not be ambitious. But at least you do not wish to name -- leave behind a name of which anybody is ashamed in your family. That's simply, I think, the minimum everybody will admit. That hasn't to do with Lincoln's greatness. It's a minimum requirement that your name should not be upheld as an atrocity story. Isn't that true? Even you will prefer -- you may be forgotten, gentlemen, but you -- won't like to enter history as a -- as a man, you see, against whom everybody should be warned.

Gentlemen, while you are an old man, part of what you have to do in order to secure your reputation is to do some kind of teaching. A father must teach his children. A Sunday school layman will participate there to have at least some offspring of his religious conviction. A master must have an apprentice. A judge must have an assistant. A politician must have a private secretary. That is, we all -- every one of you, gentlemen, you may have done it already -- wants to teach. You make -- you do it already very early in life, you see, in a -- in a youth camp, in vacation. But that's all in anticipation of the deep urge of any older man to teach somebody younger.

That is, gentlemen, in -- in one, we have the dying soul and posterity. In teaching, we have somebody older than somebody else. Old and young, gentlemen, are the correlations of teacher and student. I can be -- as I am, 65 -- and you can be 20, but you can still teach me something. And in this very moment, you are older, and I am younger, with regard to the subject taught. You can see this. Teaching makes the teaching person old, and the learning person young. It has nothing to do with dates of the calendar, of the -- or your birth certificate, you see. What is old and what is young is something in the spirit. The old man is he who knows more than the young, and the young man is the person who knows less than the old. Or you can put it this way: old means to have experienced life. Young means not to have experience at all. Therefore, in teaching, since experience must be transmitted, he is old who teaches.

Now gentlemen, an old man has not grown old if he doesn't want to teach. It's a curse of this country that Mr. Rockefeller even can't teach. President Dickey, you see, having been long enough president of Dartmouth College now has

taken up teaching, as a { }. Formerly, as you know, every man -- old man in the community would be -- go into Sunday School. Now we leave it to the ladies, as you know. Sunday school teaching is no longer -- as in Carnegie's days, or -- or the -- I mean, the real Carnegie -- and Rockefellers' days, the avocation of a -- successful businessman.

Whose father teaches in Sunday School, here in this room? Nobody's? Whose father is in teaching, in some capacity? Well, it would be perfectly normal that every father does some teaching. If you want to vivify the schools of your community, insist on the school board that all the -- efficient and leading businessmen are invited into the school to give one class at least a month. And not be on the school board. That's not important. Or give money for the luncheon. No. But tell -- teach their experiences to the kids, instead of these little ladies there. We need teachers in this country, gentlemen. I'm too few. I'm -- I'm just -- decorate -- vicarious sufferer for your -- all your parents, who have no opportunity to teach, because you are sent off -- packed away into Groton, and into -- into Dartmouth College, and such places. So how can I teach you all, if your parents don't teach you? And they don't dare teach you, because that's not progressive.

To teach is something normal before one's dea- -- dies. It's part of reaching the recognition of society, gentlemen, why? I'll tell you the secret of teaching. In teaching, we can make clear what we consider the exception in our own life and what's the rule. If I do not teach, you may mistake my way of life for the -- the absolute norm of my own life. But nobody can live as he wants to live. To teach means to explain to the rest of the world what is wrong and what is right in my own life. Can you see this? That is, I finally tell the truth about my appearances, you see, and of what I would like to have differently in my appearance, and what I think is very good in my appearance.

Now everybody has in his life something. He says, "Well," you see, "I hold no brief that I should only be 5 feet 5 large. I would love to be taller, so I will tell my son, "Don't take { }. That's not good." So my size is nothing that I want to praise as absolutely the norm. That's a very external thing, you see. But I -- there are other things. That I have not learned Russian I would also say is accidental. And why not learn Russian today, you see, instead of -- of Greek? I learned Greek.

In this sense, teaching always means, gentlemen, when your father opens his mouth and gives you some wisdom, you learn what is accidental in your father's existence and what he thinks is true. Now no -- nobody in this country any longer knows the greatness of teaching, that it is the only way of overcoming the wrong impression of example. But that's what it is. We only have to teach, because we cannot only teach by example. It would be wonderful if we could -- I

could teach you just by example, you see. But my example is faulty. Nobody is perfect. Therefore we cannot just live without telling people what we think of our own life, you see, with regard to example and with regard to exception, or to negation, to something you should not repeat.

Your father has to tell you many things. Your mother has to tell you many things. He puts the elbows on the table, and he must tell you never to put the elbows on the table while you eat. Then of course, you can tell your father, "Well, why don't you do it yourself?"

Then he has to say, "Because I'm weak. Because I'm not perfect. Because there's a more perfect rule than my behavior." Isn't that true?

Otherwise he wouldn't have to teach you, because if his whole behavior was perfect, you see, if he never hid -- did put his elbows on the table, you see, while he's eating, then he wouldn't have to say anything, because you just -- would just follow his example.

Now gentlemen, will you kindly -- this is the greatness of teaching. You always look at teaching from the standpoint of learning. Gentlemen, I want you to understand that the world is waiting for your teaching. I'm not interested in what you learn, because teaching means your self-criticism. To teach means to tell other people what you think of yourself, your own fulfillment, and what you think of where you have been, you see -- how would you say? -- where you have remained behind your own standards. For this, you have to say what your standards are.

Everybody is falling behind his own standards. And therefore he has to say it. To teach means to say in how far my own actions are not fit to be examples. And if you read the Sermon on the Mount in this light, you will understand that this is the whole content of the Sermon on the Mount: to make clear that teaching is always much more radical than anybody's behavior, because He says, "You have committed adultery, because you have looked another man's -- wife." Well, he means to say, "Everybody does." And therefore you have to say what adultery is. It is not enough not to commit adultery in the flesh. It's much -- goes much deeper, you see.

But this -- everybody in this country quotes the Sermon on the Mount. I have never -- found anybody who has understood it. It is just a pious sentimentality to bow and say, "It's wonderful." It isn't wonderful, gentlemen. It makes life very impossible. Nobody can live by the Sermon on the Mount. That's the truth. But you have abolished the Crucifixion. You have abolished the relation of model living and teaching. To you, teaching is something from the book. Teaching is

only relevant, gentlemen, if it means that you have found what should be in comparison to what you do. And that's worth teaching. For example, take any coach. The football coach. He must teach better than he plays himself. Isn't that true? If he cannot do this, he's not the football coach. That's a very good example.

Gentlemen, the rest -- what you call "teaching" today is drill, is training, is instruction. Has nothing to do with teaching. Teaching is our being dissatisfied with our own fulfillment of the covenant, with our own perfection, with our own attainments. And that's why we have to say it. It is, so to speak, teaching, gentlemen, if you -- if this is the brim of life, then our own life only comes up to 75, and teaching fills the other 25 percent, which we have not been able to make. And that's why teaching has this high rank, gentlemen. A teacher in the community should be the highest rank, and not -- girls of 20 should teach. It's ridiculous. And not boys who graduate from college to then two years later be your teachers. I did this, and I went out for 15 more years into the world back again, because I found out that you have no right to teach at 23. It's ridiculous.

This country has no teachers, because you just are a student, and next day you are a teacher. And then all the rest of your life you are a teacher, and you have no standards of behavior, because you never behave, anyway. You just teach. What have you done in life -- in the meantime, you see. Nothing. So the teachers form a sect by themselves, and they have no way of ever telling you what is right and what is wrong. So they don't. They just quote Schopenhauer, or quote Kant, or quote Plato, or -- or quote The Economist, or I don't know what they -- they quote somebody else, which you have to do when you do not compare your teaching with your own fulfillment, you see.

There is no teaching in this country, at this moment, to speak of. There's only quotation of other people's teaching. Why? Because people have only thought of the student -- the good man you have to {love them}. Gentlemen, if there is nobody who teaches, you can't learn anything. You can be drilled into apes, and into monkeys, and into 4- -- 4-minute mile racers, yes. But you cannot learn how to live, because this can only be said by those who have some comparison between what should be lived and what is lived. Teaching means to state the exception and the rule.

And now I need not simply say the third rule, which I have put here down, gentlemen: before a man teaches, he has to rule some department of life, and otherwise he can't make a living. As a blacksmith, he has to rule the horses, and the -- the irons on the -- of the shoes. If he is a tailor, he has at least to rule his workshop there. If he is a businessman, he has to rule his factory, or his business. And if he's a statesman, he has to rule the governm- -- the state. But gentlemen,

ruling means fulfillment of the law as we understand it. So these are -- what I mean by rule, gentlemen, you will all have to do when you are 50. In your small or in your big -- in your big fields, you will have to rule, because that will be the highest place you will ever attain to in life.

So you can see immediately that the rule is related to teaching, as one-half and the other. We teach inasfar as we cannot rule. When Wilson had a stroke -- Woodrow Wilson in 1923 -- and he couldn't rule anymore, he invited the students of this country to his home -- you may not ever have heard the story -- and foretold them that there would be World War Number 2. And he said, "Because you have listened to me, you haven't obeyed my rule, I have to teach you this: that the next war will be bloodier and more destructive than the First World War for America." And he was right. And he could only reach posterity by teaching, because in his own life, he had not been able, you see, to put through his rule.

That's a great story, gentlemen. Woodrow Wilson became a teacher of his nation, because of his failure to rule. That's the relation of rule and teaching, and it's in everybody's life. Gentlemen, some people write it in their last will how they want their children to be educated, or what they want they want their children to believe. Well, they come very late with their teaching of -- obviously, you see. But it always an expression of the fact that they feel they haven't lived it, they haven't ruled these children completely, and they haven't taught them in time, so they put it in their last will and testament. But that's rather tragic. We want to leave a name behind when all is done. Lincoln didn't have to leave a testament, because we have his Second Inaugural, and his Gettysburg Address. And the two to put together, you see, form his mausoleum in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, don't they? And that's Lincoln. And it is -- both rule and teaching, because the Gettysburg Address is -- is the teaching, and the Second Inaugural is, so to speak -- is the rule as the president of the United States.

Can you see now? The main thought of any man is to fulfill these three thought processes of which you have never thought as thought processes whatsoever, because you have been deadlocked in your own mental asylum, really, of philosophy -- your own philosophy, for which nobody gives a damn, unless it becomes the rule of the land and the doctrine of the land.

Now, in ruling, teaching, and getting a reputation, I want to draw your attention to the fact that whatever you think at this moment as your philosophy, is after all nothing but the beginning of this tremendous process by which it can become a power for good or evil in the land. Philosophy is the beginning, gentlemen. Politics, and religion, and art are the results of living. Can you see this?

Thank you.