SOURCE: Glannon, Walter. “Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, mártir: Ethics through Fiction.” Modern Language Notes 102, no. 2 (March 1987): 316-33.

[In the following essay, Glannon provides a close reading of Unamuno's 1931 novel, San Manuel Bueno, mártir, to explore the ways in which the novel addresses the possibilities of meaning in a world that appears godless and pointless.]

“… hier am Ende der Leiter steht der Asket und Märtyrer.”

Nietzsche: Morgenröthe, 113

Miguel de Unamuno was a writer of chameleon-like shifts in both personal and intellectual mood throughout his life: the flirtation with the ideas of Comte, Spencer, Marx, and Hegel, and the brief affiliation with the Socialist Party in Spain in the early 1890's; his religious crisis of 1897; the strains of stoic resignation in his later writings, doubtless effected by his years of exile in France from 1924 until 1930. Yet through the fictional characters of his novels and personal avowals in other writings, a common element in Unamuno's work is the search for meaning. The most pronounced manifestation of this is in the essays of Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, where the impetus behind the writing is the desire for a teleos, a final purpose to render life meaningful in the face of man's finitude. It is in the later novel San Manuel Bueno, mártir (1931) where the exigency of the search culminates, since at this stage for Unamuno the apparent pointlessness of life becomes more keenly distressing given that God's existence virtually has evanesced into an empty hypothesis.

Schemantically summarized, San Manuel Bueno, mártir depicts an atheistic priest who willfully deceives his parishioners into believing in what for him is the illusion of immortality. From his perspective, religion is nothing more than a fiction promoted for the faithful on the ground that “‘la verdad … es acaso algo terrible, algo intolerable, algo mortal; la gente sencilla no podría vivir con ella.’”¹ The ‘truth’ is that there is nothing more to life than our own mortality. The form of the novel is an account written by Angela Carballino some years after the death of the priest Manuel, on the occasion of his beatification in the diocese of Renada, set in the imaginary village of Valverde de Lucerna. Cast within a timeless ambience, the village seemingly is immune to the passage of time and history, this being merely one aspect of Unamuno's broader fictive mode of presentation. Angela's past self is included in the account owing to the degree to which the priest's life affected her. Only she and her brother Lázaro, an erstwhile critic of religion converted by Manuel to the work of maintaining the religious fiction, know of Manuel's ‘secret', his lack of faith. Both the secret and the fiction generated by Manuel are carried on by the protege Lázaro following his mentor's death, and it is in the process of being sustained at the time of Angela's writing.

In allowing our intuitions about Manuel to take shape, the question arises as to how one can propagate a conceptual scheme that is incompatible with his own belief and avoid being overcome by a paralyzing sense of absurdity. Moreover, does not such a radical dichotomy in schemes tell of a hypocritical stance, thereby arousing suspicion concerning the intentions of the priest?

The predominant response within the critical literature has been that Manuel's ability to lose himself in the community, partaking of a reciprocal system of psychological exchange between himself and his worshipers, is his way of averting the absurd alternative.² I contend, on the contrary, that Manuel cannot participate in anything pertaining to the faithful masses, for the content of their belief is encapsulated in a fiction of his own making. Since the religious belief that he promotes is known by him to be an illusion, he could not possibly become immersed in it without the paradoxical consequence of implicating himself in what he knows to be an unreal state of affairs. Significantly, Manuel's cognitive belief that there is no afterlife dissociates him from the faithful and their desire for such a life, which assumes the form of religious belief.³ It is the asymmetry between cognitive belief and desire which enables Manuel to ascertain that faith hinges on a mere idea without a corresponding reality. Limited in his quest for value by the force of reason, the task of having to construct a fiction in order to “consolar a los amargados y atediados y ayudar a todos a bien morir” (1131) is a formidable one, since it amounts to a creation from which the creator cannot reap the benefits.

By raising such issues as Manuel's motives for action and the question of communal salvation, my aim is to explore what until now has been this novel's uncharted terrain, namely, the ethical implications of Manuel's actions. My thesis is twofold. First, Manuel constructs a deontological rather than consequentialist theory of value or meaning. That is, he is motivated primarily by a sense of duty, acting to ensure the happiness of the religious faithful without any benefit accruing to him as a consequence. Thus Manuel's sanctity and martyrdom are to be explained in terms of an altruism according to which he acts in the best interests of others without ulterior motives.⁴ In San Manuel Bueno, mártir, Unamuno suggests that the intrinsic value of one's actions, irrespective of how they result, is what alone confers meaning on a life in which there is no recourse to either a Judeo-Christian God or some eudaimonistic prescription for well-being. Accordingly, as the second aspect of my thesis, I hope to show how Unamuno's character presents a case for meaning as that which involves not having one's desires fulfilled. The ethical in this novel is borne out in great measure by the grammatical form of the text itself. In other words, the ethical content develops out of and is therefore relative to Manuel's fictive construct, as I shall illustrate in turn.

I

Some metaphysical and psychological assumptions must first be adumbrated so as to provide a foundation from which the discussion can take shape. In Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, Unamuno's point of departure is “el hombre de carne y hueso, el que nace, sufre y muere—sobre todo muere.”⁵ It is in the face of this affirmation of human finitude that Unamuno invokes the Sixth Proposition from Part III of Spinoza's Ethics: “conatus, quo unaquaeque res in suo esse perseverare conatur, nihil est praeter ipsius rei actualem essentiam; esto es, el esfuerzo con que cada cosa trata de perseverar en su ser no es sino la esencia actual de la cosa misma” (STV, 112). Indistinguishable from this categorical desire, or esfuerzo, is the positing of a dominant telos that will impart value on it.⁶ The effort is grounded in the belief that there must be some goal or purpose toward which our actions are directed, which is germane to the following cluster of questions advanced by Unamuno: “¿De dónde vengo yo y de dónde viene el mundo en que vivo y del cual vivo? ¿Adónde voy y adónde va cuanto me rodea? ¿Qué significa esto?” (STV, 128). Apropos of these questions, Unamuno spells out the tragic sense of life as the tension between rational belief in one's finitude and the passionate desire to perdure in an eternal life of the here and now. It is constituted by an irreconcilable conflict between intellect and will; a despair engendered by emotive affirmation constantly being thwarted by reason, which denies the possibility of the continuation of personal consciousness after death.

Although Del sentimiento trágico de la vida is an indispensable point of reference for San Manuel Bueno, mártir, in the latter one notices a shift in the relation of the elements comprising the binary opposition outlined above. The rational side becomes more potent and, as a result, relegates the emotive side to a subordinate status. This makes matters no less unsettling for Manuel, as his categorical desire still lingers within him; it has been attenuated by reason but not eradicated. Indeed, the strength of the belief that he cannot have what he still desires, albeit in a weakened sense, makes coming to grips with finitude all the more acute. The distinction between Manuel and the faithful derives from their respective psychological responses to the human condition and the concomitant fear of death. Devoid of Manuel's rational belief, the faithful are propelled by the desire, the need for a sense of purpose. Seeking protection out of a feeling of helplessness, the masses passively accept religious dogma, which entails submission to authority. The atheistic priest is the authority in whom they seek protection and invest their hopes for happiness. Granted the helplessness of the faithful, the responsibility for dealing with their ineffectual nature is projected onto a human figure who assumes quasi-divine attributes. Manuel (‘God with us’) thus becomes the demiurge with the burden of having to secure the happiness of his submissive followers, and his intuition that these people could not live within a godless universe leads him to assert the first principle of religion: “‘que estén todos contentos de vivir'” (1134). It is crucial to note that Manuel's assertions and observations to Lázaro and Angela are either in the indicative or conditional mood. They are expressions of what is the case, of what people actually need, and of the disastrous consequences that would follow if their religious needs were not satisfied. By contrast, the fictive space created by Manuel to meet these needs is governed by the subjunctive mood, which reflects his sympathetic response to the plight of believers under his guidance.

II

Manuel's method of consoling the faithful and helping them to die well is to create a fictional world. Motivated by the cognitive belief that they could not live without the fiction of an afterlife, Manuel stipulates a theodicy, a religious state of affairs. Although it appears real to his followers, the content of the religious fiction is governed by the scope of Manuel's belief and thus is not self-contained. The intelligibility of fictional worlds is parasitic on our understanding of the finite real world, and it is Manuel's grasp of this asymmetry which enables him to exert continuous control over the bounds of ignorance. Put another way, what this character wants to be the case for those who desire more than finitude is a function of what he believes to be a psychological necessity for them. In short, the context of desire for an afterlife is subsumed by that of cognitive belief.

With the creator's assumed role as priest inscribed within the confines of the fiction, the primary aim is to create a mode of presentation which permeates the space inhabited not only by the parishioners of Valverde de Lucerna but by Manuel's priestly function as well. What makes his role so effective is the religious aura in which he is able to become suffused as priest. Confusion surrounding what appear to be contradictory aspects of the same person can be surmounted by construing the priest's craft as dependent upon that of Manuel. Clearly the craft of the priest is to sustain the faith of the masses. On a deeper level, however, Manuel's craft entails sustaining the fiction that gives rise to and is thus definitive of such faith. Faith subserves fiction, and so the craft of the priest is contained within Manuel's intuition of what must be done to keep the people happy. Therefore the manner by which Manuel presents himself and his action as instances of a religious standard, more so than the action itself, is the constitutive element of the religious fiction.

Angela Carballino underscores the force of the priest's presence before the public and the spellbinding effect it has on them: “Y era tal la acción de su presencia, de sus miradas, y tal, sobre todo, la dulcísima autoridad de sus palabras y, sobre todo, de su voz—¡qué milagro de voz!—que consiguió curaciones sorprendentes” (1131). These curaciones are for psychological ailments and are developments of Manuel's—not of the priest in his fiction—control over the people of Valverde de Lucerna. The presentation of what he is not—a believing priest—is so credible that he is likened to a Christ figure: “Y era como si oyesen a Nuestro Señor Jesucristo mismo, como si la voz brotara de aquel viejo crucifijo …” (1131). That this image is part of Manuel's fictive construct is illustrated both by the como si locution and the resultant subjunctive mood of the verbs oír and brotar.

It would be tempting to conclude from the passage just cited that the novel should be read as a religious allegory. The analogies between Manuel and Christ are indeed striking; but the disanalogies are crucial. Manuel performs no miracles. What the parishioners would like to envisage as, and what the Biblical references throughout the novel suggest to be, a miraculous conversion of Lazaro, for example, is nothing more than a radical change in the attitude of a former disbeliever who has been won over to Manuel's cause. A miracle is an aberrant event within the natural order of things. For the faithful, if the fiction in which they are insulated is, for all practical purposes, the natural order, then nothing miraculous takes place. Manuel effects no change within the fiction in transforming Lazaro's attitude. Another dubious element in the supposed parallel between Christ and Manuel is that the former is the keeper of God's Commandment; his prescriptions to his followers comply with principles that already have been etched in stone. Contrariwise, Manuel's prescriptions as to how the faithful ought to act are his own invention. It is true that they roughly accord with the Biblical model, yet for him they are devoid of a theocentric foundation. Most important, though, is that the Biblical Christ is inconceivable outside of a Pauline emphasis with its own well-defined eschatology. The caveat from St. Paul at the outset of the novel, “Si sólo en esta vida esperamos en Cristo, somos los más miserables de los hombres todos” (1120, I Corinthians, XV, 19), suggests that, on an allegorical reading, everyone needs transcendent props in order for life to be rendered meaningful. Manuel, however, does not have the luxury to depend on such an external standard. Furthermore, ‘Christ’ divested of Pauline attributes would be reduced to a virtually vacuous term. Still, one critic contends “Unamuno is implying that Jesus was no more (or less) than a human hero who suffered death in order to create and reinforce human illusion.”⁷ As incisive as this observation may seem, the presence of Paul in San Manuel Bueno, mártir makes the point untenable as a means of understanding the principal character in the novel. Less provocative, perhaps, but nonetheless more plausible, the Biblical allusions should be construed as penetrating metaphors that accentuate the spell cast upon the people by Manuel in his role as priest.

Further in her narrative account, Angela relates how Manuel “estaba siempre ocupado, y no pocas veces en inventar ocupaciones” (1133). That these inventions are fictive states of affairs is substantiated by appeal to some of the dependent clauses in the text, wherein the content consists of present and imperfect-tense variants of the subjunctive mood. Most notable on this score is Manuel's wish that the people be happy, as the creation of a fictive context is borne out by the present subjunctive of estar in the clause “‘que estén todos contentos de vivir'” (1134). A similar wish on his part to create an illusion congenial to the desires of the faithful is evident at the wedding celebration, with the imperfect subjunctive of poder, beber and alegrar lending itself to the contrary-to-fact content of Manuel's intention: “‘¡Ay, si pudiese cambiar el agua toda de nuestro lago en vino, en un vinillo que, por mucho que de él se bebiera, alegrara siempre, sin emborrachar nunca … o por lo menos con una borrachera alegre!’” (1134). It is by virtue of such textual examples that one sees how religion and Manuel's fictive construct are interrelated.

In a later passage from the novel, Manuel avers that religion is not “‘para resolver los conflictos económicos o políticos de este mundo que Dios entregó a las disputas de los hombres'” (1146). Rather, its purpose is as follows: “‘piensen los hombres y obren los hombres como pensaren y como obraren, que se consuelen de haber nacido, que vivan lo más contentos que puedan en la ilusión que todo esto tiene una finalidad'” (1146). As both the term ilusión and the imperative force of Manuel's verbs indicate, expressions dealing with matters religious are not factual and thus have no truth value. Nevertheless, religion does serve a practical function for the faithful. Life is not pointless for them because they believe in a doctrine that guarantees a happy consequence in the hereafter.

Manuel intimates that the conceptual schemes in terms of which he, on the one hand, and the members of the priest's congregation, on the other, view the world are distinct when he asserts “‘hay dos reinos en este mundo'” (1146). But the fictive religious scheme in which the faithful are entrenched is the direct result of Manuel's action under the guise of the priest. It is to this scheme, expressed through sentences and clauses in subjunctive mood, that Manuel is alluding in saying “‘el otro (reino) … está aquí también'” (1146, parenthesis mine). Given that the fiction depends on the factual scheme with which he aligns himself, Manuel is causally related to yet conceptually distinct from his fiction. Moreover, owing to his control over language and the religious ideology it generates, Manuel relegates core concepts of the religious vocabulary to the status of ideal objects of his own making. For those believers subject to the illusion, however, God is countenanced as existent. Much like the Christ analogy, where Angela Carballino introduces the parallel with an ‘as if’ expression, Manuel makes it seem as if God did exist. It is precisely this ‘as if’ locution, instances of which Angela's account is so replete, which places both ‘God’ and Manuel's priestly role within the scope of the fiction. Manuel's cognitive belief that there is no afterlife demarcates the boundary between reality and his invented illusion, and hence his ability to sustain the illusion is commensurate with a weakened categorical desire.

There is a metaphor in the novel which especially elucidates the extent of Manuel's control over the people. Just prior to his death, he admonishes Lázaro and Angela “‘cuidad de estas pobres ovejas, que se consuelen de vivir, que crean lo que no he podido creer'” (1148). Again, the nonfactual mood of the verbs (consolar, creer) reinforces the notion of a fiction regulating the lives of the villagers. The metaphor is that the people of Valverde de Lucerna are sheep being led by a shepherd. This would have to be Manuel himself rather than his priestly character, for it is Manuel who has the detached view necessary to maintain control over his flock. Knowledge of the people's psychological needs enables Manuel to dissociate that part of himself which discerns the truth about human finitude from the part put into action to protect his parishioners from the destructive potential of the truth. Yet the priest cannot be envisaged as enjoying such a privileged status, since, according to the fiction, he shares the same religious belief as his followers. The necessity of positing a creator detached from his creation can be put in relief by considering the possibility of Manuel sincerely believing in God and immortality. He would then become one of the flock, which would preclude him from deploying a fictive lexicon. Consequently, this would lead to the irretrievable loss of his power to console. So without the distance occasioned by Manuel's disbelief, he and the priest would be indistinguishable, leading to the collapse of the fiction.⁸

III

Although in Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle claims that the best life for man is contemplative, in the earlier Books of the same work the stress falls on action. This allows us to draw a comparison with Manuel, who is more active than contemplative. If we are to distinguish Manuel and his belief from the behavior of the priest, likewise a distinction must be made between Manuel's action (praxis) and the product (poiesis) of his action. For Aristotle, the difference between the two is that praxis is its own end, performed for its own sake, although a poiesis may result from it.⁹ In other words, an action can at the same time be a production. In San Manuel Bueno, mártir, the notion of doing something for its own sake is applicable to the generation of Manuel's fiction on the ground that he views it non-instrumentally; he sees it as incapable of satisfying what remains of his categorical desire. Certainly constant action makes it easier not to dwell on the fact of his own mortality. But the motivation for the action derives from reasons independent of Manuel's self-interest. The poiesis of the religious illusion he effects is of no avail to him, given the degree to which his rational belief has attenuated the desire for an afterlife. Manuel produces something for others through his action, yet value for him is in the action alone and not in its consequences.

If value of a deontological sort inheres in the activity of giving or producing without seeking advantages in return, one's long-term self-interest must be overriden to achieve this. Some form of altruism must replace egoism. What distinguishes San Manuel Bueno, mártir from Unamuno's earlier novels and essays is that the self-interest of characters such as Augusto Pérez in Niebla and Unamuno himself in Del sentimiento trágico de la vida is supplanted by the other-directed interest embodied by Manuel. This is typified by the character's use of deber in lieu of querer to explain his commitment: “‘Yo no debo vivir solo; yo no debo morir solo; debo vivir para mi pueblo, morir para mi pueblo'” (1135). The use of deber reflects a shift in attitude from prudential considerations to a self-imposed imperative with respect to acting in the interests of others. Living thus becomes indissolubly linked to a sense of duty. The account of the puppeteer's work provides an example for an understanding of the significance of living (vivir) in Unamuno's novel. Despite the fact that his wife is gravely ill, the titeritero performs his art for the purpose of “haciendo reír a los niños” (1135). In Manuel's words, he does it “‘no sólo … para dar pan a tus hijos, sino también para dar alegría a los de los otros … '” (1135). As an analogue to Manuel, the puppeteer creates happiness for others in the face of his own despair, which results in the priest's ascription of sanctity to him. Later in the novel, Manuel, in the throes of death, proclaims “‘hay que vivir. Y hay que dar vida'” (1143). This leads one to equate living with giving life, an equation for which both Manuel and the puppeteer serve as exemplars.

In light of the image of bread that surfaces in Manuel's praise of the titeritero, one cannot avoid seeing the affinities between these two characters and the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.¹⁰ The Inquisitor advances the precept, reiterated by Unamuno in Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, that “the mystery of human existence lies not just in staying alive, but in finding something to live for” (BK, 306). Moreover, both the Inquisitor and Manuel have deciphered “the eternal craving of both individual man and human society as a whole—to have someone to worship” (BK, 306). It is with this in mind that Dostoevsky's character is able to establish his authority over the “weak and wretched” (BK, 316). Similarly, in Unamuno's novel Angela relates how Lázaro “pronto se dio cuenta de la clase de imperio que don Manuel ejercía sobre el pueblo” (1139). For the people of the village, who are likened to children throughout the narrative, to believe “no es más que soñar” (1148). The Inquisitor and Manuel fabricate the dream because it secures a happiness that comes at the expense of freedom, which for Manuel is the ability to face mortality.

The following words articulated by the Grand Inquisitor could very well have been uttered by Manuel to Lázaro: “They will marvel at us and worship us like gods, because, by becoming their masters, we have accepted the burden of freedom that they were too frightened to face” (BK, 305). “And they will finally understand that freedom and the assurance of daily bread for everyone are two incompatible notions that could never co-exist” (BK, 306). ‘Bread’ is simply a metaphor for the fiction on which the believing masses are parasitic. In San Manuel, this is best illustrated by the conversion of Lázaro to Manuel's cause, specifically, in the communion ceremony where Lázaro allows himself to be partaken of as ‘earthly bread,’ or as part of the illusion that there is some end for which to live. Owing to what the Inquisitor, Manuel, and Lázaro claim to know, happiness is ruled out; for “it is in this deception that our suffering will consist, because we will have to lie” (BK, 305).

It is because of this lie, or more precisely, the distress felt for having to lie, that Manuel confesses to Angela. The inversion of roles of confessor and penitent is necessary to mollify Manuel's conscience, troubled by having projected a story in which he does not believe. Yet what seems most unsettling for Manuel is not so much a feeling of shame or guilt for what is really a necessary deception; rather, he is disturbed by the awareness that what remains of his categorical desire to persevere can never be fulfilled. The absolution he asks from Angela, then, is a disguised desire for consolation. Nevertheless, when Manuel asks Angela to absolve him “‘en nombre del pueblo'” (1144), she does so “‘en nombre de Dios Padre, Hijo y Espíritu Santo'” (1144). Essentially, there is no absolution, for the request and response involve two separate conceptual schemes—one human, the other religious. In deference to the thoughts of the Inquisitor, the two notions are incompatible. ‘Heavenly bread,’ or freedom, the domain of Manuel and the Inquisitor, does not and indeed cannot interact with ‘earthly bread,’ the happiness of the faithful masses. Furthermore, Manuel's silence at Mass during the recitation of the creed, and, above all, his ojos cerrados (1149) at the time of his death support my point concerning Manuel's relation to his fiction. Given Manuel's awareness of the difference between fact and fiction, and in light of the transitive, non-reflexive relation between praxis and poiesis, his ojos cerrados suggest a closure that precludes him from participating within the bounds of religious illusion.

IV

What makes construction of an ethical résumé difficult with Manuel is that he is not readily amenable to appraisal by traditional models. My interpretation of this character's action as craft in Part II presupposes Socrates' Craft Analogy in Plato's Protagoras, wherein it is adduced that the value or goodness of one's craft is a function of the product: the practice is good only insofar as the production is good.¹¹ For Socrates, virtue in one's craft is equivalent to whatever contributes to the agent's happiness. In Manuel's case, conversely, the personal disinterest in what he creates rules out the possibility of his work being a means to happiness, that is, a completely fulfilling sense of pleasure in Socratic terms. It is thus inaccurate to say that the value in what Manuel does is directly related to the efficacy with which he produces a credible eschatology for the believing masses.

An Aristotelian view seems to be more suitable to Manuel's example. Aristotle makes a distinction—not unlike praxis and poiesis—between virtue and craft. Efficiency in production of the right product decides whether someone is a craftsman; but efficient action does not make one virtuous unless he chooses virtuous action consistently and for its own sake.¹² For Aristotle, however, a good man must take pleasure in his good actions, which are means to eudaimonia.¹³ What places Manuel at odds with this view is that his action is not eudaimonistic; it is not directed toward a final purpose. Eudaimonia is the state where all of a person's desires are satisfied. But Manuel's cognitive belief overrides his categorical desire, rendering it teleologically inert. Happiness is excluded from another perspective as well, namely the Stoic view that virtue alone suffices for fulfillment. Action is not enough to appease the desire that lingers in Manuel. It is the failure to fulfill this desire, conjoined with his inability to eradicate it, which makes happiness impossible for Manuel.

It would be counterintuitive to say that Manuel's acts are not good because they are not conducive to happiness. For this reason, it would seem more suitable for our purposes to adopt a Kantian model. Still, the problem in attempting to give a moral definition to Manuel lies in the fact that the value he creates for others and the value of his action as an end in itself are irreducibly distinct. By giving the faithful a God to worship, Manuel is, in a sense, promoting the utilitarian principle that happiness ought to be maximized for the greatest number. Yet he has no stake in such a consequentialist formula. Conceiving of Manuel in strictly Kantian terms is misleading on two counts. First, on the Kantian model what motivates one to act is a universal rational principle and not particular desires or sentiments. This cannot accommodate Manuel's sympathy for his parishioners, a concern traceable to an affective source. Second, whereas Kantian moral principles are universally applicable, in Manuel one sees the anomalous case of a person who invents principles for the sake of others without himself being subject to them. By wanting to secure the welfare of others, a welfare distinct from his own, Manuel endorses a subjective maxim that has the force but not the form of a categorical imperative. It is self-prescribed, applicable to himself alone. This exempts him from moral appraisal, for his attitudes and action are not in compliance with the publicity condition of morality.¹⁴ At bottom, Manuel is an ethical constructivist. For him, evaluative terms such as ‘good’ and ‘right’ do not correspond to objective facts waiting to be discovered. Rather, meaning or value is willed into his activity, the rationale being that it is simply the right thing to do.¹⁵

Perhaps what appears to be a picture of a self-abnegating saint has become unpalatable. It is only altruistic concern for the happiness of the masses which prompts Manuel to act? Is it not perhaps a pretext, an evasive strategem designed to distract him from having to contemplate mortality? After all, Angela Carballino does say that Manuel “huía de la ociosidad y de la soledad” (1134). Although its content is distinct from that of the people of Valverde de Lucerna, it still seems that consolation is one of his primary concerns. One could even go so far as to say that his own quest for solace makes him indifferent to the needs of his followers, and so their happiness results only fortuitously from the action of one whose sole purpose is not to think about his solitude. Or perhaps Manuel has the self-indulgent aim of gaining eternal sanctity as a result of his efforts. But the thought of sanctity, through beatification, which would be conferred upon Manuel after his death cannot bring him any consolation, since that possibility could be actualized only after the cessation of his consciousness. Not only could he not share in it, he could not even be aware of it. More importantly, Lázaro's claim that Manuel's intention in deceiving his flock “no era para medrar” (1142) supports the contention that the desire for sanctity is not the motivation for what he does. Moreover, assuming that the primary aim of his action is not his own long-term self-interest, Manuel cannot be held reprehensible merely because he wants to avoid thinking about the human condition, for doing so would leave him languishing in a contemplative solipsism on the way toward suicide.

V

The sanctity we accord Manuel is not vitiated provided that it is explained in terms of an altruism through which the interests of others are given due consideration irrespective of the agent's desires. There is, however, no great sacrifice on the part of Unamuno's character. It is not that he relinquishes his long-term self-interests in acting for his parishioners, since there are no such interests to be realized, no desires fulfillment of which would lead to happiness. Insofar as his belief overrides his categorical desire, Manuel's sense of duty does not come at the expense of an eudaimonistic end. Still, Manuel is no egoist. If egoism is defined in terms of whatever promotes one's self-interest, Manuel's belief in human finitude and knowledge of his imminent death preclude the intrusion of egoistic motives into his action.¹⁶ Belief therefore provides a built-in mechanism against egoism to the extent that it jettisons prudential considerations pertaining to Manuel's future. Furthermore, Manuel's belief separates him from the net benefits of his production. Unamuno employs the Moses analogy in the novel to show that Manuel cannot share in the tierra prometida (1148) that offers psychological benefit for those who believe in religious ideas. Yet it is not by divine fiat that Manuel cannot partake of that domain but rather by knowledge that the path from fact to fiction is transitive and thus non-reflexive. With the possibility of self-deception excluded, Manuel knows that a fiction of his own making is not for his own advantage.

These considerations have broader import, for they suggest paradoxically that sanctity and religious belief are mutually exclusive. If the aim of religious belief is to achieve happiness through satisfaction of one's desire for immortality, this entails considerable investment of egoistic energy in pursuing one's primary goal. Were Manuel to have a pronounced desire for immortality, his own prudential considerations would far outweigh concern for his parishioners. Questions about short-term interest aside, the altruist and saint cannot believe in something that would allow ulterior motives to eclipse the disposition to act for the benefit of others.

Nevertheless, there is a form of consolation built into Manuel's belief. Although his assiduous steering of people toward dying a happy death may close the door to the tierra prometida of happiness, at the same time another door opens to meaning. This is so because meaning or value is created in the ceaseless activity that stands in opposition to the resultant tedium of having one's desires completely fulfilled.¹⁷ Like the distinction between sanctity and religious belief, meaning and the altruistic disposition whence it derives are at odds with happiness and its egoistic source. Admittedly, this is an abrupt shift from the striving to persevere implanted in all of Unamuno's fictional characters antecedent to San Manuel. In this novel, satisfaction of the categorical desire would imply a sense of completion, which consequently would be conducive to a life of enhanced contemplation. Thus Manuel would desist from acting. Yet it is the active rather than the contemplative toward which Manuel is disposed. As the narrator Angela tells us, “su vida era activa, y no contemplativa, huyendo cuanto podía de no tener nada que hacer” (1133). Unamuno's arguments from Del sentimiento trágico de la vida imply that pure contemplation is tantamount to nothingness; for “ser es obrar y sólo existe lo que obra, lo activo, y en cuanto obra” (STV, 190).

But there are instances in which Manuel is virtually overcome by another type of tedium, namely, “‘el tedio de vivir'” (1144), of pointless action. This is Manuel's “‘suicidio continuo'” (1144), or what he feels to be the lack of any long-term significance pertaining to his actions. Adoption of an Epicurean attitude toward death is unavailing on this score, since the more he reflects on the limits of his life and the apparent purposelessness in what he does, the greater is the temptation to slip into the lake along whose shore he so often walks.¹⁸ Caught between the abysses of complete fulfillment and purposelessness, Manuel remains in control of himself. This enables him to keep the fiction alive. It is by means of this control over his suicidal tendencies, while remaining committed to the people of Valverde de Lucerna, that Manuel's virtue manifests itself.

For Manuel, the only point to life, the meaning, comes with this commitment. It is not something that he discovers, but rather what he and his good will deem to be so. This is his way of accepting fate. Manuel's sanctity is to be ascribed on the basis of the non-reciprocity of his giving, which amounts to the invention of a fictional state of affairs of which he cannot partake. Accordingly, he dissociates himself from what benefits others. In addition, Manuel is a martyr in two senses of the term. He is witness (in the Greek sense) to the thesis that life can be rendered meaningful in the absence of objective paradigms of goodness and truth. Moreover, he is a martyr in that he can overcome his suicidal tendencies and convert them into altruistic behavior. This is the culmination of what Nietzsche calls Das Streben nach Auszeichnung—the striving for excellence. For here, at the summit, stands the ascetic and martyr.¹⁹

Notes

1. San Manuel Bueno, mártir, y tres historias más (1933), in Unamuno's Obras completas, II (Madrid: Escelicer, 1967), p. 1142. Henceforth, all references to the text will be followed by page number in parenthesis.

2. This view has been put forth by the following: Douglas M. Carey and Phillip G. Williams, “Religious Confession as Perspective and Meditation in Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, mártir,” Modern Language Notes, 91 (1976), pp. 292-310; Ricardo Gullón, Autobiografías de Unamuno (Madrid: Gredos, 1964), pp. 347-348; David G. Turner, Unamuno's Webs of Fatality (London: Tamesis, 1976), p. 123; Frances Wyers, Miguel de Unamuno: The Contrary Self (London: Tamesis, 1976), pp. 107-112.

3. Another way of construing the distinction between cognitive belief and desire is in the manner of H. H. Price, who distinguishes belief ‘in', as an attitude toward a person, from belief ‘that', as an attitude toward a proposition. “Belief ‘In’ and Belief ‘That',” in The Philosophy of Religion, Basil Mitchell ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 143-167. Yet the belief/desire distinction seems to be a much less problematic formulation of the separate attitudes held by Manuel and his parishioners, respectively.

4. I am borrowing this definition from Thomas Nagel's The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 79.

5. Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y en los pueblos, Obras completas, VII (Madrid: Escelicer, 1967), p. 109. Hereafter, references to this text will be followed by the abbreviation STV and page number in parenthesis.

6. Bernard Williams uses the term ‘categorical desire’ in “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 82-100. It is the Unamuno of Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, as against Lucretius and the view that death is not an evil, whom Williams has in mind in the following passage: “Unamuno's affirmation of existence even through limitless suffering brings out something which is implicit in the claim against Lucretius. It is not necessarily the prospect of pleasant times that creates the motive against dying, but the existence of categorical desire, and categorical desire can drive through both the existence and the prospect of unpleasant times” (p. 99).

7. John Butt, San Manuel Bueno, mártir (London: Grant and Cutler-Tamesis, 1982), p. 62.

8. This is similar to the dynamic of author and fiction in the Quijote. See Ruth El Saffar, Distance and Control in Don Quixote (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in The Romance Languages and Literatures, 1975), and George Haley, The Narrator in Don Quixote: Maese Pedro's Puppet Show,” Modern Language Notes, 80 (1965), pp. 145-165. A closer comparison is with Unamuno's earlier novel Niebla (1914). In Niebla, it is the fiction of the fiction as truth which collapses upon intrusion by the creator/author. The fiction itself remains intact, although the truth of its fictive nature is revealed. Cf. C. A. Longhurst, “The Problem of Truth in San Manuel Bueno, mártir,” Modern Language Review, 76 (1981), pp. 581-597.

9. Aristotle defines the difference between praxis and poiesis in the Nicomachean Ethics VI, ii, 5, 1139b 1-4. See the discussion by Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Aristotle's Theory of Moral Insight (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), especially Chapter I, “Eudaimonia and Praxis,” pp. 3-36.

10. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Andrew H. MacAndrew (New York: Bantam Books, 1981). All page references in parentheses following quoted passages are from this translation, abbreviated BK. Limited commentary on the relation between Manuel and the Inquisitor is made by Ricardo Gullón, op. cit., p. 337, and Martin Nozick, Mugiel de Unamuno: The Agony of Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 165-166.

11. The relations of goodness to production and virtue to craft are nicely explicated by Terence Irwin in Plato's Moral Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), pp. 7-35, and J. C. B. Gosling and C. C. W. Taylor, The Greeks on Pleasure (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), especially pp. 75-82. It is in the Gorgias, in the dialogue between Socrates and Polus, where it is advanced that no action is performed for its own sake. Whatever an agent does which can be considered good must be beneficial to the agent (467c-468e). The identification of goodness and pleasure, however, is made in the extended dialogue between Socrates and Callicles in Gorgias 481c-522e.

12. See Irwin for a discussion of Plato's and Aristotle's refutation of the Craft Analogy, pp. 162-163.

13. Engberg-Pedersen, op. cit., pp. 3-36, and Gosling and Taylor, op. cit., pp. 264-283.

14. The publicity condition is the defining criterion of morality according to John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 133 and 182, note 31. In the Critique of Practical Reason, Section I, Kant distinguishes between subjective and objective practical principles. The latter are valid for every rational being and include both hypothetical and categorical imperatives. Subjective practical principles, on the other hand, are maxims, and are such that whoever accepts them need not regard their force as incumbent upon other rational agents. Hence my reason for labelling Manuel's self-willed ethical principle as a subjective maxim.

15. Perhaps the force of Manuel's act of will can be understood better by conceiving it in terms of a Kantian good will. In Kant's own words: “The good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes or because of its adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of its willing, i.e., it is good of itself. And, regarded for itself, it is to be esteemed incomparably higher than anything which could be brought about by it in favor of any inclination or even of the sum total of all inclinations.” Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L. W. Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1976), p. 10.

16. See the definitions of egoism given by Nagel, op. cit., p. 84, and by Derek Parfit in Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 127 and passim.

17. Bernard Williams, op. cit., p. 82, argues that life without death would be meaningless.

18. Succumbing to suicidal temptation, or what is the same, to drown himself in the waters of the unconscious, would be Manuel's ultimate expression of egoism. That is to say, the individual who wills to kill himself excludes all concern for others for the sake of saving himself from suffering. The futility of such an act, pointed out by Schopenhauer, is that the suffering of the world as a whole remains unchanged in spite of it. If Manuel were to commit suicide, he would be seen as deluded, unaware of what Schopenhauer calls the ‘principle of the conservation of agony.’ See the essays “On the Suffering of the World” and “On the Vanity of Existence,” in Essays and Aphorisms, trans. R. S. Hollingdale (New York: Penguin Books, 1978), pp. 41-54.

19. This is a paraphrase of the epigraph to this paper, which comes from a passage in Nietzsche's Morgenröthe, 113. Despite Unamuno's repeated insistence that he had never read Nietzsche, the signs of Nietzschean influence in him are too numerous to be coincidental. See Gonzalo Sobejano, Nietzsche en España (Madrid: Gredos, 1967), pp. 277-318.