Human comedy:
By “human comedy,” I mean what I understood while I was still young, crude, and inadequate, namely the absurdity and amusements of human beings. Rather, I go further than Aristotle did in his definition of the word comedy, where he said: (Comedy is what causes laughter, rather than the defect that does not cause pain). As for me, I mean by comedy here, it is immorality, farce, play, contempt, recklessness, confusion, and the chaos of humanity, and there is no laughter in it. For me, comedy does not inspire reverence like the comedy of the Greeks or Dante, and it does not call for laughter like the comedy of Aristotle. Rather, it is a funny, crying comedy because of its contradiction and absurdity, and to those who say that humanity has accomplished a lot, I say that even if there are any notable highlights, achievements, or progress, they are the results of random interactions, scrambles, and quarrels that are unplanned and unplanned, like a gambler who sometimes wins and often loses, but it is an ungrateful gain. Or he should be praised for it, but it did not come from thought or action. Rather, it is absurdity, experimentation, and play.
«إبليس» على وجه الأرض كان كُلَّ الخير! خيرٌ حين بدأ التمييز بين الخير والشر؛ حيث لم يكن بينهما تمييز قبل معرفة الشيطان بأفعاله، ووساوسه، وصفاته، وخفايا مقاصده الدنيئة. فنحن أمام دراسة وافية من الدراسات المتميزة حول «قوة الشر» منذ قديم الأزل إلى منتصف القرن العشرين؛ ماذا كان قبل الشيطان؟ ولماذا سقط الشيطان في غيابات الشر ودروبه؟ وكيف كان في الحضارات السابقة؟ وما نظرة الأديان الثلاثة إليه؟ وإلَامَ آلت الأحوال به في هذا العصر؟ تلك هي الأسئلة التي حاول العقاد أن يُجيب عليها في هذا الكتاب.
Only fourteen pages, or perhaps a few lines are enough.
A different and dangerous experience until I know which is more important: what we said so that it would be very simple memoirs suitable for publication, or what we said over long periods, most of which was not for publication.
Like life, all details are important, but what we leave behind is just a small trace.
