The following poem by Multatuli (alias Eduard Douwes Dekker
1820-1887) was published in januari en februari 1862. The pseudonym Multatuli
intended to mean 'I have suffered a lot'
Ideas Band I
translation: Inge van de Stadt
Jesus
1. Maybe nothing is quite true, and even that isn't.
2. Two left hand gloves don't make a pair of gloves. Two halve truths
don't make a truth.
3. He who says: 'I would...' says a stupidity eleven times.
4. An accumulation of wood, bricks, plaster etc. is not always a building.
A gathering of people aren’t always a company.
5. Many extremely good - or many extremely bad - people all joined
together, form so many factors supplying an enormous product of good or
bad. But the sum of many mediocrities always remains the same to one mediocrity.
Note (1872): The editing and content of this Idea need improvement
and completion. Especially the first statement seems wrong to mee, as is
already shown in 9.
6. The upshot of the pronouncements of opinions of many incompetent
people does not guarantee a better chance for rightness, than the opinion
of one incompetent man.
Note (1872): A guaranteed chance isn't a chance anymore. The rightness,
not the chance needs guaranty. Besides, instead of 'does not garantee a
better' I should have said 'garantees a worse'.
7. Ruling by majority of votes is the law of the jungle (lit. of the
strongest), settled amicably. It means: if we faught, we would win... let's
skip the fighting. Hence this system does not lead so much to truth, as
to rest. Yet just for a moment, and palliatively. Since the members of
the minorty usually think they are right, and they are stronger, not so
much because of their conscienceness of being right, as because of their
greater reticence and their stronger stimulus to pay efforts. When the
miniority increases to majority, they lose the specific value in gaining
the enlargement of number. They adopt all the errors from the defeated
opponents who, in their turn again, take virtue from their defeat. The
upshot is sad.
16. If I mention the word 'soul', I do that in a manner of speach.
If I oppose something to matter, I do that in a manner of speach. If I
say: God, I do that in a manner of speach. As I don't know who God is.
I don't know what soul is. And what there is besides matter, I don't know.
30. When regarding a work of art, when appraising an eminent deed,
when judging an expressed thought I always put myself the question: what
went on inside the soul of the artist, of the hero, of the philosopher
to create that ideal, to deside to that deed, to bring forth that thought,
and to shape it as an idea? That is: I ask, how was the soul impregnated?
What conditions did it pass through during pregnancy and deliverance? Well
then, the history of a great conception calls out to me: with sorrow thou
shalt bring forth children! If a grain of corn could speak, it would complain
that there is sorrow in germinating. Heroes, artists and philosophers will
understand me, and hear the complaint of that grain of corn. Note (1872):
Compare Idea 57 175. There is but one mystery; existence. Everything else
follows of itself from the properties of existence. Yet this mystery is
not as deep as the opposite would be. Just think about the absurdity of
non-existence.
© 1998-1999 I.R. van de Stadt (translation)
