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Dionysian orgies. In his despair over the negative results to which he had come, we can easily imagine how natural it would be for Strindberg to enter into the spirit of those wine-nights in the little café with the unattractive name.

In order to have something wherewith to counteract the romantic Pole, Strindberg engaged a couple of scientific assistants at this time who served him in the capacity of controllers—when they were allowed to do so, which was not always the case—with reference to those discoveries of “scientific mistakes” or “exact lies” which Strindberg made from time to time.

Despite the fact that Strindberg now had renounced his artistic activities, he showed himself in all his artistic glory in these scientific investigations. He did not study the sciences in the same manner as the sponge-brains at our universities who absorb mechanically; on the contrary, he reacted against everything, added up his suspicions until he had quite a batch, and when he had several such blocks ready, he began to make his syntheses sometimes based on a real blunder and thus leading nowhere, but on other occasions bringing results which were reached intuitively and proved to be of real value.

It must be granted that what Strindberg accomplished was not scientific achievement in the strict sense of the word. But time and time again, he raised questions of such surprising ingenuity that the ordinary servants of the Temple of the Sciences probably would not have hit upon them for a long time, had they not had this original forerunner.