Youth and Egolatry

The Bad Man of Itzea

When I first came to live in this house at Vera del Bidasoa, I found that the children of the district had taken possession of the entryway and the garden, where they misbehaved generally. It was necessary to drive them away little by little, until they flew off like a flock of sparrows.

My family and I must have seemed somewhat peculiar to these children, for one day, when one little fellow caught sight of me, he took refuge in the portal of his house and cried out:

"Here comes the bad man of Itzea!"

And the bad man of Itzea was I.

Perhaps this child had heard from his sister, and his sister had heard from her mother, and her mother had heard from the sexton's wife, and the sexton's wife from the parish priest, that men who have little religion are very bad; perhaps this opinion did not derive from the priest, but from the president of the Daughters of Mary, or from the secretary of the Enthronization of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; perhaps some of them had read a little book by Father Ladrón de Guevara entitled, Novelists, Good and Bad, which was distributed in the village the day that I arrived, and which states that I am irreligious, a clerophobe, and quite shameless. Whether from one source or another, the important consideration to me was that there was a bad man in Itzea, and that that bad man was I.

To study and make clear the instincts, pride, and vanities of the bad man of Itzea is the purpose of this book.

I looked at the book. True enough; there was one signature, So-and-So, and beneath, "Chief of Administration of the Third Class and Knight of Charles III"; another, Somebody Else, and beneath was written "Commander of the Battalion of Isabella the Catholic, with the Cross of Maria Cristina."

Then, perhaps slightly irritated at having neither titles nor honours (burning with an anarchistic and Christian rancour, as Nietzsche would have it), I jotted down a few casual words beneath my signature:

"Pío Baroja, a humble man and a wanderer."

Regoyos read them and burst out laughing.

"What an idea!" exclaimed the director of the Museum, as he closed the volume.

And there I remained a humble man and a wanderer, overshadowed by Chiefs of Administration of all Classes, Commanders of all Branches of the Service, Knights of all kinds of Crosses, rich men returned from America, bankers, etc., etc.

Am I a humble man and a wanderer? Not a bit of it! There is more literary phantasy in the phrase than there is truth. Of humility I do not now, nor have I ever possessed more than a few rather Buddhistic fragments; nor am I a wanderer either, for making a few insignificant journeys does not authorize one to call oneself a wanderer. Just as I put myself down at that time as a humble man and a wanderer, so I might call myself today a proud and sedentary person. Perhaps both characterizations contain some degree of truth; and perhaps there is nothing in either.

When a man scrutinizes himself very closely, he arrives at a point where he does not know what is face and what is mask.

Dogmatophagy

If I am questioned concerning my ideas on religion, I reply that I am an agnostic--I always like to be a little pedantic with philistines--now I shall add that, more than this, I am a dogmatophagist.

My first impulse in the presence of a dogma, whether it be political, moral, or religious, is to cast about for the best way to masticate, digest, and dispose of it.

The peril in an inordinate appetite for dogma lies in the probability of making too severe a drain upon the gastric juices, and so becoming dyspeptic for the rest of one's life.

In this respect, my inclination exceeds my prudence. I have an incurable dogmatophagy.

Ignoramus, Ignorabimus

Such are the words of the psychologist, DuBois-Reymond, in one of his well-known lectures. The agnostic attitude is the most seemly that it is possible to take. Nowadays, not only have all religious ideas been upset, but so too has everything which until now appeared most solid, most indivisible. Who has faith any longer in the atom? Who believes in the soul as a monad? Who believes in the objective validity of the senses?

The atom, unity of the spirit and of consciousness, the validity of perception, all these are under suspicion today. Ignoramus, ignorabimus.

NEVERTHELESS, WE CALL OURSELVES MATERIALISTS

Nevertheless, we call ourselves materialists. Yes; not because we believe that matter exists as we see it, but because in this way we may contradict the vain imaginings and all those sacred mysteries which begin so modestly, and always end by extracting the money from our pockets.

Materialism, as Lange has said, has proved itself the most fecund doctrine of science. Wilhelm Ostwald, in his Victory of Scientific Materialism, has defended the same thesis with respect to modern physics and chemistry.

At the present time we are regaled with the sight of learned friars laying aside for a moment their ancient tomes, and turning to dip into some manual of popular science, after which they go about and astonish simpletons by giving lectures.

The war horse of these gentlemen is the conception entertained by physicists at the present-day concerning matter, according to which it has substance in the precise degree that it is a manifestation of energy.

"If matter is scarcely real, then what is the validity of materialism?" shout the friars enthusiastically.

The argument smacks of the seminary and is absolutely worthless.

Materialism is more than a philosophical system: it is a scientific method, which will have nothing to do either with fantasies or with caprices.