Soren Kierkegaard

omnibus dubitandum est” (everything is to be doubted) fares worst, and in
von Jumping-Jack’s mouth it becomes, with a Freudian slip of the tongue,
“de omnibus disputandum est” (everything is to be argued about). And ac-
cording to the increasingly confused von Jumping-Jack, this phrase, in turn,
is the thesis that Descartes proposed as a replacement for the thesis “de gusti-
bus non est disputandum” (there is no arguing about taste). This is patent
nonsense, but Phrase, who is concerned about von Jumping-Jack’s reaction,
hastens to explain that he certainly does not think that one should simply
write for “peasants,” but rather for “the cultivated middle classes, for whole-
salers and polytechnic students.” This point of view is supported by Wadt,
for whom the most important thing is the “style” and “manner of writing,”
while von Jumping-Jack, on the other hand, takes a completely pragmatic
position: “Philosophy me up one side and down the other. It’s not about
philosophy. It’s about practical questions, life-questions—in short, life.”
Since this is an all-encompassing subject, there ensues a lengthy conversa-
tion about how we really ought to define life. “Life is a proceeding out of
itself and a returning into itself,” Phrase then announces, citing some famous
lines from Professor F. C. Sibbern’s mile-long—and utterly lifeless—defi-
nition, which university students had to learn by heart if their own lives
were so unlucky as to sit for the examination in psychology.
In the middle of all these goings-on, Willibald enters. He looks around
in astonishment but quickly flings himself to the ground, which he kisses
in sheer joy at having been freed from “the dreadful relativity” that had
characterized his previous life. He reverently approaches von Jumping-Jack,
who declares without further examination that Willibald has been suffering
from “Faustianism.” Von Jumping-Jack intends to expatiate on the topic,
so the other members of the Prytaneum politely arrange themselves around
the stage in order to listen. Phrase ingratiatingly thanks von Jumping-Jack
for being permitted to listen to this philosophical lecture for the umpteenth
time, and von Jumping-Jack returns the favor by holding out for him the
prospect that he will one day be “appointed a lecturer in one of the Nordic
countries.” Von Jumping-Jack now launches into his speculative gibberish,
which the president of the Prytaneum repeatedly tries to cut off, even calling
a couple of janitors to assist him. But the self-satisfied lecturer is deaf to the
president’s appeals and continues discoursing obscurely on Spinoza, Kant,
Fichte, Schleiermacher and, of course, the colossal Hegel: “Now I have
finished, and with Hegel world history is concluded. Just take me away,
because now there is nothing left but mythology and I myself will become
a mythological figure.”
Here the otherwise so affable Phrase dares to come forward with a minor
objection. He finds von Jumping-Jack’s last remark too one-sided, and just