"Selections From the Writings of Kierkegaard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kierkegaard Soren)

both on account of a slight deformity of his body and on account
of the old-fashioned clothes his father made him wear, he had no
boy friends; and when cuffed by his more robust contemporaries,
he could defend himself only with his biting sarcasm.
Notwithstanding his early maturity he does not seem to have
impressed either his schoolmates or his teachers by any gifts much
above the ordinary. The school he attended was one of those
semi-public schools which by strict discipline and consistent
methods laid a solid foundation of humanities ind mathematics for
those who were to enter upon a professional career. The natural
sciences played no rУle whatever.

Obedient to the wishes of his father, SФren chose the study of
theology, as had his eldest brother; but, once relieved from the
grind of school at the age of seventeen, he rejoiced in the full
liberty of university life, indulging himself to his heart's content in
all the refined intellectual and Сsthetic enjoyments the gay capital
of Copenhagen offered. He declares himself in later years to be
"one who is penitent" for having in his youth plunged into all kinds
of excesses; but we feel reasonably sure that he committed no
excesses worse than "high living." He was frequently seen at the
opera and the theatre, spent money freely in restaurants and
confectionary shops, bought many, and expensive books, dressed
well, and indulged in such extravagances as driving in a carriage
and pair, alone, for days through the fields and forests of the lovely
island of Zealand. In fact, he contracted considerable debts, so that
his disappointed father decided to put him on an allowance of 500
rixdollars yearly rather a handsome sum, a hundred years ago.
Naturally, little direct progress was made in his studies. But while
to all appearances aimlessly dissipating his energies, he showed a
pronounced love for philosophy and kindred disciplines. He lost no
opportunity then offered at the University of Copenhagen to train
his mind along these lines. He heard the sturdily independent
Sibbern's lectures on Сstheties and enjoyed a "privatissimum" on
the main issues of Schleiermacher's Dogmatics with his later
enemy, the theologian Martensen, author of the celebrated
"Christian Dogmatics."

But there was no steadiness in him. Periods of indifference to
these studies alternated with feverish activity, and doubts of the
truth of Christianity, with bursts of devotion. However, the
Hebraically stern cast of mind of the externally gay student soon
wearied of this rudderless existence. He sighs for an
"Archimedean" point of support for his conduct of life. We find
the following entry in his diary, which prophetically foreshadows
some of the fundamental ideas of his later career: " . . . what I
really need is to arrive at a clear comprehension of what I am to
do, not of what I am to grasp with my understanding, except
insofar as this understanding is necessary for every action. The
point is, to comprehend what I am called to do, to see what the