Chronology of Masaryk's
Life and Work
Tom&$Masaryk born at Hodonin in south-east Moravia
on 7 March, the son of a coachman and a cook.
Apprenticed to a blacksmith.
Studics at gymnasia in Brno and Vienna.
Studies at Vienna University, graduates with the thesis
'The Nature of the Soul .4ccording to Plato'.
A private tutor in Leipzig where he meets the American
Charlotte Garrigue.
First journey to America, marries Charlotte Garrigue
in New York on 15 March.
His second thesis (habilitation thesis), 'Suicide as a
Social Mass Phenomenon', is accepted; it allows him to
teach as an unsalaried Privatdozenl at Vienna
University.
Publishes in book form the revised German version of
his thesis on suicide.
Appointed Professor Exrraordinarius of philosophy at
the new Czech University in Prague; is not nominated
full professor until January 1897.
Establishes the monthly Athenaeum, a magazine
devoted to critical examination of Czech culture and
science.
Publishes the Czech version of his philosophical work
The Foundations of Concrete Logic; an enlarged
German version is published in 1887.
Famous manuscripts considered by many patriots as
valuable testimonies of medieval Czech culture are
exposed as forgeries by scholars grouped around the
Athenaeum; Masaryk plays an important part in this
campaign.
Journey to Russia, discussions with Tolstoy; further
meetings with Tolstoy in 1889 and 1910; rejects Tolstay's
doctrine of non-resistance to evil.
Elcctcd to the Vienna parliament as a deputy of the
Young Czech Party which he had joined as a member
xviii
Chronology of Masaryk's Life and Work xix
of the 'Realist' group.
1893 Resigns his seat in the parliament, dissatisfied with the
empty radicalism of the Young Czechs and frustrated
by inner-party squabbles.
1895-98 Years of intensive writing devoted mainly to Czech
problems; Masaryk defines his \,iews on the meaning of
Czech history and elaborates a Czech political programme;
presents himself as a political thinker whose
opinions have a firm moral and religious foundation:
publishes The Czech Question (1895), Our Present
Crisis (1895), Jan Hus (1896). Karel HavliEk (1896),
The Social Question (1898).
1899-1900 The trial of Leopold Hilsner, a Jew accused of the
murder of two Christian girls, triggers widespread maniI
festations of anti-Semitism; Masaryk campaigns against
racial prejudice, especially against the superstition of
Jewish ritual murders.
1900 Together with some ofhis 'Realist' supporters, Masaryk
I establishes a new political party, The Czech People's
(Realist) Party, latcr renamed the Progressive Party; it
remains a marginal group in Czech political life.
1 1902 Secondjourney to America; lectures at Chicago University
about Czech literature and history and general
Slavic questions.
I 1907 Re-enters the Vienna parliament as a deputy of the
Realist Party, elected with the support of the Social
Democrats; remains in the parliament for two consecutive
election periods until the outbreak of the First
World War.
Third journey to America: speaks about religion in
Austria at the Congress of Religious Libcrals in Boston;
visits Czech immigrants in many American cities.
1907-08 Demands freedom of science in a parliamentary action;
defends the Austrian professor Ludwig Wahrmund,
persecuted for a lecture about contradictions between
I
the church doctrine and science.
1909-11 in connection with the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina
Masaryk sharply criticises Austria's foreign policy,
especially the alliance with Germany; defends the South
Slavs accused of high treason in a trial at Agram; tesi
tifies against the historian Heinrich Friedjung who used
Chronology of Masaryk's Life and Work
forged documents in his accusations against the
Austrian Slavs.
Publishes in German the first two volumes of his major
work Russland und Europa (translated as The Spirit of
Russia);third volume is published in English translation
in 1967.
First World War.
Masaryk decides to join Allied Powers in their fight
against Austria-Hungary and Germany; visits Italy,
Switzerland, France and England; establishes the
Czechoslovak National Council in Paris with Edvard
BeneS and Milan R. Stef~nik;Czechoslovak military
units are formed in Russia and France.
Masaryk travels to Russia; consolidates the Czechoslovak
Army after the Bolshevik Revolution, declares it a
part of the Czechoslovak Army in France and reaches
agreement about its departure from Russian territory.
Masaryk arrives in the United States; the Czechoslovak
National Council is recognised by France and England
as the de facto government of Czechoslovakia; Masaryk
gains the same recognition for his movement by the
American government; Czechoslovak soldiers fight in
France and Italy against the Central Powers; in Russia
the Czechoslovak Legion, involved in conflict with the
Bolsheviks, is instructed by the Allies to stay in Siberia
and temporarily controls the entire Siberian Railway
(the last Czechoslovak soldiers return home in 1920);
in Prague the revolutionary National Assembly elects
Masaryk the first President of Czechoslovakia.
Publishes The New Europe, an outline of the post-war
European reconstruction.
Elected President according to the new Czechoslovak
constitution; re-elected in 1927 and 1934.
Publishes his memoirs and political-historical observations
Svt?tova revoluce (The World Revolution). translated
into English as The Making of a State.
Publication of the first. volume of Hovory s T. G.
Masarykem (President Masaryk Tells His Story), an
autobiography and philosophical profile in form of
Masaryk's discussions with the writer Karel Capek.
Resigns the post of President for reasons of health.
Dies at LAny in central Bohemia on 14 September.
1 Introduction
Thomas G. Masaryk who lived during the years 185&1937 and
headed Czechoslovakia as its first president for the period of
1918-35, was a man of many vocations and achievements. He was a
philosopher, sociologist, teacher, journalist, politician, educator of
a nation, leader of a revolutionary movement, commander of armies,
and statesman. He was also, as these selections will show, a remarkable
writer.
His long and rich life was inevitably full of unexpected twists,
contradictions, and controversies. As a public figure Masaryk was
accepted and rejected, respected and ridiculed, adored by his followers
and hated by his enemies. When he died millions of citizens
were gripped by the feeling of a tragic loss, and the best poets of
the country composed unforgettable elegies. Yet when he was born,
a son of poor peasants, no one could have predicted his magnificent
career.
All could have been otherwise. At the age of fourteen he was
apprenticed to a blacksmith. (Much later, in Russia, Tolstoy looked
at his hands and asked him whether he had been a workman.) As a
student he had to seek subsistence from prominent families by tutoring
their children. As a young doctor of philosophy and unsalaried
Privatdozent at the University of Vienna he earned his living by
private tutoring and was partly supported by his American father-inlaw.
His situation improved after he had been appointed professorextraordinary
in philosophy at the re-opened Czech part of Charles
1
University in Prague. He soon developed a wide range of activities
as a Czech scholar, publicist and, finally, politician, serving nine
years as a deputy of the Reichsrat in Vienna. Breaking with AustriaHungary
in the First World War, he embarked on a risky career as
a revolutionary leader and succeeded beyond imagination. He was
I the main creator of the Republic of Czechoslovakia and became its
i first president. At the end of his life he was the first man of his
nation and today, more than fifty years after his death, he remains
the obtstanding figure of modern Czech history.
Masaryk's complex work has been subject to simplifications, even
legends. In the period of the first Czechoslovak Republic, 1918-1938,
Masaryk was exalted as a hero, a nation-builder, a kind father of his
i People. In the 1950s the simplified picture was turned upside down
32 The Spirit of Thomas G . Masaryk
and the outer world, on the whole, will appear contingent on the will.
Where freedomexists, a true, complementary,responsibilityalso exists;
but it exists only with determinism. We have power over our inner
dispositionswhich the will determines;we are masters of our future; we
may counsel ourselves to reflect upon the freedomof choice we possess.
We have freedom; through the good becoming defined as good, the
good can be cherished by us and we can attain the exalted state of
freedom of moral perfection.
Source
F~~~suicideand (heMeaning of Civilisation,Chicago, 1970, PP. 64-8,
152-5, 1626, 221-31.
: 4 Pascal and his Dilemma
These are the closing parts of the essay 'Blaise Pascal, jeho iivot a
filosofie' ('Blaise Pascal, His Life and Philosophy'), published in
1883. The essay was originally presented as a lecture in the Jungmann
Society in Prague in October 1882. It marks the beginnings of
Masaryk's activities as a professor at the new Czech Universiiy. The
subject of his first university lecture in Prague (in September 1882)
was Hume's scepticism. The search for o synthesis of Hume's and
Pascal's ideas, with their polarity of scepticism and faith, has long
fascinated Masaryk. He also tried, by focusing on on English and a
French philosopher, to challenge the monopoly of German philosophy
in Czech thinking.
The most remarkable thing about Pascal is his scepticism. It derives.
I believe, from his mistrust of religious truths, which eventually
seems to have led to a mistrust of reason as well. And yet somewhere
deep within him lay the conviction that only reason can judge all
knowledge and cognition. He mistrusts the Christian religion as much
as he does philosophy. 'If we were to stand by only what is certain,
we should have no need to stand by religion, which is uncertain. Yet
what do we not undertake in uncertainty? Sea voyages! Wars! . . .
It may be uncertain whether religion is true, but who dares state
with any degree of certainty that it is not?' Pascal is a strange
apologist: he tries to prove revealed truth to himself! He also exhibits
a phenomenon quite common nowadays: a desire for the firm faith
of one's fathers. But desire is not enough.
As for his religious and moral teachings. it must be said that he
failed not only to satisfy the requirements of our modern era but
even to accomplish the goal he set for himself. And the reason he
did not prove the validity of his basic religious doctrine, theism, as
he had wished, with logic, was less perhaps that he was ailing than
that he was unable to systematise his thoughts on the subject. A
rigorous mathematician and logician who called for clarity and verifiability
in everything, he soon realised that in this instance he could
34 The Spirit of Thomas G. Masaryk
not satisfy his logical prerequisites, indeed that attempting to prove
revealed theism with mathematical precision was a conrradicrio in
adjecto. And so we find Pascal's exalted spirit constantly bouncing
back and forth between the demands of logic and respect for tradition,
between scientific critique and faith in authority. We keep
waiting for him to decide in favor of reason, but in vain. The soul
yearning for truth cannot extricate itself from its temporal chains;
the spirit, though powerful, writhes under the burden of its task;
and Pascal, despondent, writes in his own blood that he would be
better off as an animal, insensate, unconscious, indifferent . . .
Some are despondent enough to end their lives in suicide; Pascal
flung himself into revealed religion. What poison is to them prayer
was to him. That is why he convinces us by feeling rather than by
the mind. 'The heart has its reasons of which the mind knows
nothing', he says and still wishes to give the mind its due: the
'thinking reed' wants to know. And so we understand him when he
makes his famous wager concerning the existence of God: Anyone
who believes in God can, if he is right, gain eternal joy; if he is not
he loses nothing. The atheist gains nothing if he is right; if he is not
he is condemned to eternal grief.
Pascal's duality has had a most curious effect: no work has the
power of his Pensees (Thoughts) to speak so directly to the soul, to
shake a person out of his lethargy and teach him if not to know,
then at least to sense the mystery of life. And few writers have found
so apt an expression for their ideas: Pascal's words go straight to the
heart. He succeeded in his desire to do away with indifferentism,
but he also succeeded in proving theism to those aware that it could
not be demonstrated with mathematical precision but only with a
greater or lesser degree of probability, that it was not a science but
a hypothesis like any other; he succeeded in proving theism if the
arguments exemplified in the lives of men like Plato and Christ are
sufficient to do so.
The assessment of human life we find in Pascal tallies quite well
with his scepticism. Pascal is not actually a pessimist, though he
portrays the vacuity of human existence more harshly perhaps than
even Schopenhauer. But proclaiming human existence vacuous is
not what makes one a pessimist; it is the conclusions one draws.
Pascal is a theist, and even if, like the Gospel, theism sets no great
store by human life, theism is never pessimism. We must recognise,
moreover, that Pascal painted the world darker than it really is and
that he was a bit hasty in his abuse. The reasons for this flaw are
Pascal and his Dilemma 35
clearly of a personal, psychological nature and go a long way to
explain his scepticism. Constant physical ailments and the solitary
monastic life largely determined his spiritual state. He was also
geatly influenced, I believe, by the Jansenists and especially Jansen's
doctrine of mercy, that oddest of Christian fatalisms. What upset
him was not so much determinism - though there are historical and
psychological reasons why people convinced of absolute determinism
tend to be more sombre and austere than indeterminists - as a belief
in predetermination, a doctrine linked historically but not logically
to determinism. Just as Calvin and adherents of the Reformation in
general derived their strict morality from the doctrine, often even
attempting to suppress human spontaneity, so Pascal grew disgusted
with the world, especially since his sensitive spirit educed the lessons
of predetermination in a more consequent, merciless fashion than
the more - how shall I put it? - lackadaisically inclined. One thing
is certain: the doctrine of predetermination, if taken to its logical
wnclusion, is a gruesome whirlpool that catches up human feelings
relentlessly and casts them off into unconsolable gloom.
If Pascal's analyses of life are not entirely correct, his Pensees are
genuine pearls of concrete psychology, invaluable contributions to
the understanding of human nature.
Pascal's main fault, as I see it_ lies in his ahistoricity. His mathematical
spirit seems to have concentrated on the static and showed
little or no sense for the kinetic. As a result, he kept seeking an
absolute and failed to understand how mankind develops, whereas
we realise - after two hundred years of effort, to be sure - that our
faculties are better served by relative concepts and that we must
examine many of the riddles of existence from various frames of
reference. Logic is not enough; we need psychology and history
as well. Pascal did not recognise the relative legitimacy of human
institutions (particularly the medieval social system) and hence did
not know how to respond to the Church and to authority as a whole.
In this respect he was a man of his times; in other words, his fault
is the fault of mankind. And although his strong spirit eventually
came to recognise the gradual development of mankind and he was
one of the first to proclaim the new idea of progress, it was an idea
that remained outside the system of his teachings and therefore of
little use to him.
Pascal's scepticism has exerted a great influence on posterity, but
its influence is greatest on the negative school of the eighteenthcentury
French encyclopedists. The basic tenet of his scepticism -
The Spirit of Thomas G. Masaryk
that habit, not reason, rules mankind - comes from Montaigne.
Both Pascal and Montaigne turned their scepticism against the social
order, and both based it not so much on logical conclusions as on
feelings unsettled by the upheavals of the times.
But the first philosopher to shift the principle to a purely theoretical
plane was Hume in his investigation of the concept of causality.
I find Pascal's influence on Hume self-evident. Like Pascal, Hume
recognised the philosophical significance of mathematics: mathematics
was the sole certain form of knowledge, all other forms being
supported merely by habit. The main step forward from the seventeenth-century
French Catholic sceptic to the eighteenth-century
Scottish Protestant sceptic was that the latter never attempted to
achieve a categorical belief in the revelation. Hume's importance for
modem philosophy is too well known for me to go into detail concerning
the historical background of Pascal's influence.
As I have already discussed Pascal's contribution to ethics, I shall
merely add here that the ideas scattered throughout the Pensies also
had an effect on Hume. Accordingly, Pascal's influence has touched
our times in the field of ethics as well: Comte, the most important
philosopher of our age, grounded his sociology on Hume's ethics.
Hume clearly learned from Pascal to consider reason subordinate to
will, and taking that doctrine to its logical conclusions he constructed
a truly practical philosophy based on a thorough knowledge of
human nature, much of which he acquired with Pascal's help.
Pascal's influence on modern pessimism is also considerable. I
have pointed out that Pascal himself was no pessimist, but anyone
who knows the literature of pessimism knows that the Pensies has
directly reinforced the pessimist movement: a whole class of readers
has combed it for titillating bits of pessimist thought. Pascal's influence
on Schopenhauer is both indirect (through Hume and Voltaire)
and direct.
In logic Pascal agrees basically with Descartes, who was indeed so
influential on him that we can form a valid overall assessment of
Pascal's philosophy only by keeping Descartes' before us at all times.
According to the natural law of human development, the seventeenth
century was an age in which mathematics and physics provided the
basis for a scientific view of the world. Therefore Descartes' philosophy
reigned supreme. It is clear, however, that a philosophy cannot
be satisfactory if built up entirely from a narrow field of specialisation:
a scientific world-view - unified and philosophical - can be
constructed only if all the sciences are taken into account. Mathemati;
Pascal and his Dilemma 37
jcs, mechanics, astronomy, and parts of physics grew into scientific
fields in Pascal's day, while others - fields like psychology and sociology
- remained enmeshed in medieval methods. The modern and
medieval sciences obviously clashed, and even the most modern
were, again quite obviously, fragmented and disunified. Or, to use
more common terminology, philosophy at the time had to be a
compromise between science and theology, which latter meant, to all
intents and purposes, the relevant Churches and religions. Descartes
knew this, but it did not bother him; he was perfectly content with
mathematics and physics. Pascal, however, feeling as he did that the
abstract sciences did not wholly satisfy man, was more concerned.
He sensed that the scientific method used by mathematics and the
natural sciences could serve as a foundation for a unified world-view,
and much as he tried to formulate such a world-view he failed. His
scepticism in the area of non-mathematical knowledge is related to
this failure: the Pensees is an anti-Cartesian document and an attempt
to construct a more complete philosophy.
Now that I have come to the end of my discussion of Pascal's
philosophy, I should like to say a few words about the lessons his
life and thought can have for us. The brilliance of Pascal's mind is
conceded even by his enemies, but many condemn his excessive
moral austerity, his asceticism, his fervour and lack of philosophical
reserve. Doubtless their censure is justified in part, but a life of such
austerity must engage our respect and make us wonder whether a
bit of puritanism along Czech Brotherhood lines would not stand us
in better stead than the moral laxity so popular nowadays. Pascal is
an admirable example of how strong an unbending will can make a
person. When a man who has been ailing from the age of eighteen
ignores his infirmities, patiently endures his poverty, works every
moment he can, thinking only of others, taking the medicine from
his lips to give to the poor, are we to condemn him as immoral for
ignoring his health? Can we shrug our shoulders indulgently and say
he wore sackcloth out of blindness? So strong a spirit lies beyond
the usual categories of praise and blame, and his philosophy does
not lend itself to puerile cogitations. Pascal's zeal is not unbearable,
or at least it does not seem so to me, though I will allow that one
can think and write about such matters more coolly than he did.
It was Coleridge, if I am not mistaken, who said that some people
are naturally Platonists, others Aristotelians. Of course the lines are
particularly clearly drawn in the history of philosophy: the Platonists
are more like poets, the Aristotelians more like scientists. But
38 The Spirir of Thomas G. Masaryk
opposites seem to complement each other, and just as Aristotle once
joined Plato, Mill has now joined Comte, and Hume - more or less
- Pascal. Whom shall we, can we love more: Plato or Aristotle,
Pascal or Hume?
Whenever I ask myself this question, I give a different answer.
Life is such that there are times when one's blood runs hot and one
looks for calm in the heavenly spheres and times when one is content
with one's daily routine here below. Perhaps a philosophy half Pascalian
and half Humean in spirit would establish a spiritual ambience
capable of accommodating both feeling and reason.
Source
Translated by Peter Kussi from Blaire Pascal, jeho jivol a plosofie, Prague,
1883, pp. 30-7.
5 Language and Human
This text is a translation of the sub-chapter 'Sprachforschung'
('Linguistics') from Masarvk's major philosophical work Versuch
einer concreten Logik. The work was first published in Czech in
1885 as Zakladove konkrktne logiky (The Foundations of Concrete
Logic). In 1887 the enlarged text of the book was translated into
German by Hubert Gordon Schauer under Masaryk's supervision and
published in Vienna. A reprint of the German edition appeared in
1970. Masaryk's views on linguistics, quoted here, can be considered
pioneering. Masaryk professes the astonishingly modern opinion rhar
linguistics is an independent discipline and has to be studied not only
historically, bur also statically, and criticises the linguists of his time
for their exclusive interest in rhe origins and evolution of language,
insread of general grammar.
Language, the means of expressing our strivings, feelings and
thoughts, and at the same time the most suitable means for mutual
communication, is subject of a special. independent science, namely
linguistics.
Language is thus in itself an object of scientific observation, and
yet for us speaking individuals its significance lies more as a means
of expressing the inner life and development of human beings and
nations. However, in so far as the sciences dealing with the inner Life
of the mind and historical development constitute the fundamental
intellectual disciplines, linguistics would seem to be to a considerable
extent subordinate to these older sciences. In any event, linguistics
is based on sciences which illuminate the individual factors concerned
with language formation: namely, physiology, which explains sound;
psychology, which sheds light on the human faculty of forming
speech and fixing its forms; and finally, sociology, which clarifies the
general laws whereby languages arise, develop and decay.
But language is after all not only a practical means of communi-