The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

William Jamesof the bush some drops of honey. These he reaches with his tongueand licks them off with rapture.“Thus I hang upon the boughs of life, knowing that the inevitabledragon of death is waiting ready to tear me, and I cannotcomprehend why I am thus made a martyr. I try to suck the honeywhich formerly consoled me; but the honey pleases me no longer,and day and night the white mouse and the black mouse gnaw thebranch to which I cling. I can see but one thing: the inevitable dragonand the mice—I cannot turn my gaze away from them.“This is no fable, but the literal incontestable truth which everyone may understand. What will be the outcome of what I do today?Of what I shall do to-morrow? What will be the outcome of allmy life? Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there inlife any purpose which the inevitable death which awaits me doesnot undo and destroy?“These questions are the simplest in the world. From the stupidchild to the wisest old man, they are in the soul of every humanbeing. Without an answer to them, it is impossible, as I experienced,for life to go on.“‘But perhaps,’ I often said to myself, ‘there may be something Ihave failed to notice or to comprehend. It is not possible that thiscondition of despair should be natural to mankind.’ And I soughtfor an explanation in all the branches of knowledge acquired bymen. I questioned painfully and protractedly and with no idle curiosity.I sought, not with indolence, but laboriously and obstinatelyfor days and nights together. I sought like a man who is lost andseeks to save himself—and I found nothing. I became convinced,moreover, that all those who before me had sought for an answer inthe sciences have also found nothing. And not only this, but thatthey have recognized that the very thing which was leading me todespair—the meaningless absurdity of life—is the only incontestableknowledge accessible to man.”To prove this point, Tolstoy quotes the Buddha, Solomon, andSchopenhauer. And he finds only four ways in which men of hisown class and society are accustomed to meet the situation. Eithermere animal blindness, sucking the honey without seeing the dragonor the mice—”and from such a way,” he says, “I can learn nothing,143