The Caius Syllogism
In Tolstoy’s story there is not a single character who
conceives of his/her own individual death. Absolutely all of Ivan Ilyich’s
family and all of his friends—except Gerasim the servant—go to great efforts to
shield themselves from that dire possibility. In fact, Gerasim, practically the
only positive character in the whole long story, most likely does not believe
in his own death either. He simply is more willing to accept the fact that
death does exist and that the dying should be comforted as little children are.
In Chapter Six Ivan Ilyich recalls a passage from a textbook
of logic by J. G. Kiesewetter (1766-1819), widely used in Russian schools and
seminaries. The passage citing the Kiesewetter syllogism and describing Ivan
Ilyich’s attitude toward it is probably one of the best in world literature in
regard to how an individual regards his/her own death.
“The syllogism he had learned from Kiesewetter’s Logic: ‘Caius
[Julius Caesar] is a man; men are mortal; therefore Caius is mortal,’ had for
all his life seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as
applied to himself. That Caius—man in the abstract—was mortal was perfectly
correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite
apart from all others. He had been little Vanya, with a mama and a papa, with
Mitya and Volodya, with toys, a coachman and a nurse, then, afterwards, with
Katenka and with all the joys, griefs and ecstasies of childhood, boyhood and
youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball that Vanya
had so loved? Had Caius kissed his mother’s hand like that, and did the silk of
pleats in her dress rustle that same way for Caius? Had he rioted like that at the
School of Law when burnt pastry was served? Had Caius been in love the way he
had? Could Caius preside at a judicial session the way he could? Caius really
was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan
Ilyich, with all my thoughts and emotions, it’s altogether a different matter. And
it just cannot be that I ought to die. That would be altogether too horrible.”
In voicing such thoughts, Ivan Ilyich speaks for the whole
human race, then and now. A refusal to face one’s death appears to be built
into the human psyche as a kind of instinct of self-preservation. Here is a
quote from Sigmund Freud:
“It is indeed impossible to imagine our own death; and
whenever we attempt to do so we can perceive that we are in fact still present
as spectators. Hence the psychoanalytic school could venture on the assertion
that at bottom no one believes in his own death, or, to put the same thing in
another way, that in the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own
immortality” (from “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”).
But the matter more
often is expressed not by “I cannot conceive of my death,” but by the words
Ivan Ilyich screams out for three straight days at the end of the story: “Я не хочу (I don’t want to).”
Taking off on the Kiesewetter syllogism, other thinkers have
come up with their own:
(1)
The Israeli writer Amos Oz, in a discussion of
Tolstoy’s story: “Everyman [note that this is written as one word] is indeed
mortal; but I am not everyman—I am me.”
(2)
The writer R. Beauvais: Everyone in the history of
the world, so far, has ended up dying. But I’m still alive. Therefore I choose
never to die.”
(3)
Vladimir Nabokov in Pale Fire (Canto 2): “A syllogism: other men die; but I//Am not
another; therefore I’ll not die.”
(4)
The philosopher Arnold Arms, taking off on Oz: “Everyone
who has ever died since the creation of the world has been someone else; I am
not someone else, I am me: therefore, I do not consent to die.”
Eventually, Tolstoy forces his character Ivan Ilyich into the
final realization that he is Caius,
and, of course, all human beings are eventually forced down that same dead end.
The critic Ronald Blythe writes that if we do not take the trouble to grow up
and accept death, we’ll have to leave the world the same way we entered it:
kicking and screaming. He quotes the symbolist Maeterlinck as amazed at the
crudeness of Western man’s thought when it comes to the subject of his own
death: “We deliver death into the dim hands of instinct, and we grant it not
one hour of our intelligence.”
Perhaps true, but the instinct of self-preservation
precludes our acceptance of individual death. What kind of life can you live if
you have your own death ever on your mind? No kind of life. George Steiner has
written that human beings could not survive without the future tense, which is
a chimera. The future does not really exist, but we invent it and make our
plans for years in advance. This “looking forward” to the future gives us a
reason to live. Death, on the other hand, is a future event best ignored. At
least if we hope to enjoy what little time we have here on earth.
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