Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 38: April, 1924
Thus one question leads to another. Individualism is born of socialism - the query whether the things of life are rational, not only for the mass, but for the individuals of whom the mass consists. Thus, the problem of life is spiritualized, and takes possession Of society and law and art and science and family and education. Ultimately it turns to man himself and puts the question to him: Is thine own being rational? Art thou thyself what thou oughtest to be? This problematic aspect of modern life, no one has so sharply seen as Ibsen. What Lessing said of truth, Ibsen said of freedom. Not its possession, but the eternal struggle for it, is the worthful thing. Ibsen stands on the same platform with the great modern preachers of free personality, with Max Stirner and Nietzsche, with Tolstoi and Kierkegaard; but he surpasses them all. He struggles with every problem which he discovers or creates, until all his strug gling, creative life seems as a death from which a resurrection may be expected. In addition. The poet must fight his way through the religious problem, -religion apprehended, not as a psychic experience, not as a question of science and world - view, but as a thing Of worth or worthlessness for human personality. From this side Ibsen Often touches upon the religious problem in his social dramas. The reli gions problem is central in two of his creations: in Brand, and in 'emp-etor and Galilean. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.