12-11-11
From: “Notes from a Dead House” --from Dost’s prison days
“But here I have been trying to classify all the prisoners, and that is hardly possible. Real life is infinite in its variety in comparison with even the cleverest abstract generalization, and it does not admit of sharp and sweeping distinctions. The tendency of real life is always towards greater and greater differentiation. We, too, had a life of our own of a sort, and it was not a mere official existence but a real inner life of our own.”
“…there is something true and humane at the back of this idea—all are men; all are human beings. But the idea is too abstract. It overlooks too many practical aspects of the question, which cannot be grasped except by experience.”
There is no standard by which to measure the soul and its development. Even education itself is no test. I am ready to be the first to testify that, in the midst of these utterly uneducated and downtrodden sufferers, I came across instances of the greatest spiritual refinement. The contrary happens too; education is sometimes found side by side with such barbarity, such cynicism, that it revolts you, and in spite of the utmost good nature and all previous theories on the subject, you can find no justification or apology.”
Greater and greater individuation, eh? And why this tendency? The cause has to be greater than the effect…
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