Πόλεμος πατὴρ πάντων. Unamuno, Life 6.1

The tragic sentiment of life, after which Unamuno titled his book in Spanish, arises from an insoluble war between the head and heart of humanity. The head is driven by human reason, which cannot prove immortality or make us content. Contentment comes from the heart, which is stubbornly determined to seek immortal life. So they make war together, head & heart, as this is the best way to make peace within themselves (with the head accepting reason's mastery and the heart ceding to our vital will to survive).

Ni, pues, el anhelo vital de inmortalidad humana halla confirmación racional, ni tampoco la razón nos da aliciente y consuelo de vida y verdadera finalidad a ésta. Mas he aquí que en el fondo del abismo se encuentran la desesperación sentimental y volitiva y el escepticismo racional frente a frente, y se abrazan como hermanos. Y va a ser de este abrazo, un abrazo trágico, es decir, entrañadamente amoroso, de donde va a brotar manantial de vida, de una vida seria y terrible. El escepticismo, la incertidumbre, última posición a que llega la razón ejerciendo su análisis sobre sí misma, sobre su propia validez, es el fundamento sobre que la desesperación del sentimiento vital ha de fundar su esperanza.

Tuvimos que abandonar, desengañados, la posición de los que quieren hacer verdad racional y lógica del consuelo, pretendiendo probar su racionalidad, o por lo menos su no irracionalidad, y tuvimos también que abandonar la posición de los que querían hacer de la verdad racional consuelo y motivo de vida. Ni una ni otra de ambas posiciones nos satisfacía. La una riñe con nuestra razón, la otra con nuestro sentimiento. La paz entre estas dos potencias se hace imposible, y hay que vivir de su guerra. Y hacer de ésta, de la guerra misma, condición de nuestra vida espiritual.

Ni cabe aquí tampoco ese expediente repugnante y grosero que han inventado los políticos, más o menos parlamentarios, y a que llaman una fórmula de concordia, de que no resulten ni vencedores ni vencidos. No hay aquí lugar para el pasteleo. Tal vez una razón degenerada y cobarde llegase a proponer tal fórmula de arreglo, porque en rigor la razón vive de fórmulas; pero la vida, que es informulable; la vida, que vive y quiere vivir siempre, no acepta fórmulas. Su única fórmula es: o todo o nada. El sentimiento no transige con términos medios.

Our vital longing for human immortality finds no rational confirmation, nor does reason offer us any incentive or comfort for life, which lacks any real finality in her wake. But lo! Here in the depths of the abyss, the despair of our feelings and will meets with rational skepticism face to face, and they clasp one another as brethren. From their embrace—tragic, or in other words closely fraught with love—there shall rise a wellspring of life, deep and dreadful. Skepticism, uncertainty, the last position that reason takes in her analysis of herself, in the expression of her own power: this is the foundation upon which despair, lacking every vital feeling, shall found our new hope.

Disenchanted of our original hopes, we have already had to abandon the position of those who want to turn religious consolation into rational and logical truth, pretending to prove that such consolation is rational, or at any rate not irrational. We also had to run from the position of those wanting rational truth herself to become a consolation, capable of endowing life with purpose. Neither of these positions was able to satisfy us. The first one fails to meet the challenge of our reason, and the second cannot bear the onset of our feelings. Peace between these two powers, reason and sentiment, is impossible: we must live in the midst of their war. This war, the very essence of war in fact, is what we must frame as the essential condition of our spiritual life.

Nor is there any room here for the disgusting compromises invented by politicians, whose parliaments issue formal concordats denying victory and defeat. No tricks here. Perhaps there may yet arise a reason degenerate and cowardly enough to propose such a formal arrangement, for reason does live by forms, but life is informulable: living and wanting always to live, she does not accept formulas. Her only form or formula: all or nothing. Sentiment does not deal in half-measures.