Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovMay 15, 1889.If you have not gone abroad yet, I will answer your letter aboutBourget …. You are speaking of the “right to live” of this or thatbranch of knowledge; I am speaking of peace, not of rights. I wantpeople not to see war where there is none. Different branches ofknowledge have always lived together in peace. Anatomy and belleslettresare of equally noble descent; they have the same purpose andthe same enemy—the devil—and there is absolutely nothing forthem to fight about. There is no struggle for existence between them.If a man knows about the circulation of the blood, he is rich; if healso learns the history of religion and the song “I remember a marvellousmoment,” he becomes richer, not poorer—that is to say, weare concerned with pluses alone. This is why geniuses have neverfought, and in Goethe the poet lived amicably side by side with thescientist.It is not branches of knowledge such as poetry and anatomy, buterrors—that is to say, men—that fight with one another. When aman fails to understand something he is conscious of a discord, andseeks for the cause of it not in himself, as he should, but outsidehimself—hence the war with what he does not understand. In themiddle ages alchemy was gradually in a natural, peaceful way changinginto chemistry, and astrology into astronomy; the monks didnot understand, saw a conflict and fought against it. Just such abelligerent Spanish monk was our Pisarev in the sixties.Bourget, too, is fighting. You say he is not, and I say he is. Imaginehis novel falling into the hands of a man whose children arestudying in the faculty of science, or of a bishop who is looking fora subject for his Sunday sermon. Will the effect be anything likepeace? It will not. Or imagine the novel catching the eye of an anatomistor a physiologist, or any such. It will not breathe peace intoanyone’s soul; it will irritate those who know and give false ideas tothose who don’t.117