Soren Kierkegaard

like Martensen he proclaims that he himself has gone beyond Hegel: “I
cannot yet say just where I have got to, but I have gone beyond him.” But
since the president of Prytaneum does not want to have “strained tempers,”
he asks everyone to leave. Willibald is directed to the “World-Historical
College,” which has not yet been completed, but the courtyard alone is so
enormous that four professors can stand there and lecture without disturbing
one another—indeed, it is so large that the audience cannot even hear what
the professors expound, “despite the fact that they continually wipe the
perspiration off their foreheads, which have gone soft from their exertions.”
Without any transition, the next scene is of a general meeting in which
those assembled discuss, with some concern, the significance of a fact noted
by Willibald, namely that in the Prytaneum the sun apparently never
changes its position at all. Hurryson comes out with a series of Grundtvigian
cliche ́s about “morning light” and “golden years,” while von Jumping-
Jack argues that a permanent “evening light” would be appropriate in the
Prytaneum inasmuch as philosophy of course denotes the evening of life,
which must now “have world-historically begun” with Hegel. Phrase re-
peats his phrase and again insists that he has gone beyond Hegel. “The state
is a galvanic apparatus,” a polytechnic student exclaims for no apparent
reason, but von Jumping-Jack is quick to set him straight: “The state is an
organism.” The atmosphere becomes increasingly heady: “I am fighting for
freedom. We will no longer allow ourselves to be oppressed by these tyran-
nical philosophers,” Hurryson shouts, and in politically correct fashion he
demands a vote about whether or not a vote should be taken. At length
Willibald manages to get the floor and declares that the discussion is based
on a misunderstanding: He had absolutely not had the actual, physical sun
in mind, but in his remarks about the unchanging position of the sun he
had been metaphorically referring to “poetic, philosophical, cosmopolitan
eternity, which—in the spiritual sense—had already begun in the Pryta-
neum.” So even though misunderstanding a metaphor can indeed be a seri-
ous matter, tempers cool and the general meeting is adjourned.
In the last act Willibald is strolling in the neighborhood of the Prytaneum.
Contrary to all expectations, he has been converted, and with ever-increas-
ing emotion his youthful voice utters its praises of the Absolute Spirit
(“Thou, infinite denominator of all human numerators”), whose dimen-
sions he has now begun to sense, thanks to the efforts of von Jumping-Jack.
And when a fly buzzes by, discoursing on a number of Hegelian proposi-
tions, he realizes that world history is over. The introduction of a new
method of reckoning time would therefore be appropriate, but since time
stands still it is of course difficult to distinguish between past and present.
Similar difficulties await everyone who wishes to effect any change, so when