Reason

The Theme in the Work

Reason enters the novel with Lodovico Settembrini in Chapter III. Hearing Hans Castorp invoke the devil, the Italian recites Carducci's hymn to Satan, the avenging force of Reason; he calls the doctors Minos and Rhadamanthus and the patients a fallen people; and that night he suggests the visitor pack his bags and leave on the next train. When Hans Castorp refuses, so as not to look like a coward, Settembrini bows before reason and courage.

In Chapter IV irony becomes doctrine. Settembrini declares that illness is not noble and that a soul without a body is as inhuman as a body without a soul; he says music is politically suspect, because quietism lurks in it; and he closes the lesson about the Carbonaro grandfather by uniting literature, humanity, and politics into a single force, civilization.

In Chapter VI reason gains an adversary. Leo Naphta, whom Settembrini reveals to be a Jesuit, opposes to it the "I believe in order to understand" of Saint Augustine, the City of God of Gregory the Great, and the necessity of terror. Settembrini responds with democracy, the rights of man, and freedom, and later with Voltaire's motto, "Écrasez l'infâme!" After a dispute on a walk to and from Davos-Platz, the narrator records the great confusion. In the Snow, Hans Castorp calls the two of them charlatans and concludes that only love, and not reason, is stronger than death. Beside the body of Joachim Ziemssen, Naphta still says that only where spirit is lacking does decency exist.

In Chapter VII the dispute loses force before Pieter Peeperkorn, whose presence leaves the two without a current, and afterwards it ends in blood. In the Great Irritation, Naphta tells Settembrini that only from radical skepticism is born the sacred terror, and Settembrini accepts the duel, though he disapproves of it. Hans Castorp can only reduce the conditions. Settembrini promises not to kill and fires into the air; Naphta calls him a coward and discharges the pistol into his own head.

Settembrini's reason has a geography: he calls it Europe and the West, and calls Asia what threatens it. In the lesson about the two grandfathers, in Chapter IV, humanity guided by reason is about to penetrate Asia. In Encyclopedia, in Chapter V, he warns Hans Castorp that there is much of Asia in the air of the Berghof, that only Tartar faces are to be seen, and with a jerk of the chin over his shoulder points to the types of Muscovite Mongolia as the model not to follow: the young man should speak as befits his European way of living. In Someone Else he answers Naphta that reason and action belong to the West; in Like a Soldier, Like a Hero, he sees Asia even in Luther's face; and in The Thunder his politics are measured against the "half-Asia without Latinity," of the knout and Schlüsselburg. On the other side are the Kirghiz eyes of Madame Chauchat, which Hans Castorp recognizes as Pribislav Hippe's.

For Settembrini reason has an address, Europe, and what threatens it comes from the East, which is why he points over his shoulder at the types of Muscovite Mongolia in the same tone with which he censures the sanatorium. Hans Castorp falls in love with a Russian woman with Kirghiz eyes, on the side of the world his mentor calls a threat, and this choice, more than any argument, measures the reach of Settembrini's reason.

The novel gives reason the best advocate it could have, eloquent, generous, and brave, and yet does not let it win. Settembrini comes out of the disputes more sympathetic than Naphta, but his reason does not reach what Hans Castorp seeks, and the book places the decisive phrase on the lips of a half-frozen young man, who owes it to a dream and not to an argument. It is not a condemnation of reason, it is its measure: virtue, says the chapter on the Snow, before a death that is freedom and voluptuousness. The duel confirms the measure: Settembrini's reason does not kill, and for that reason it does not win either.

Where It Appears

• Chapter III, Satan: When Hans Castorp invokes the devil, Settembrini recites Carducci's hymn to Satan and cites the verse that hails him as the avenging force of Reason.
• Chapter III, Satan Makes Dishonorable Proposals: Settembrini suggests Hans Castorp pack his bags and leave on the next train and, hearing him refuse so as not to look like a coward, says he bows before reason and courage.
• Chapter IV, Politically Suspect!: Settembrini tells Hans Castorp that music awakens time and is therefore moral, but that it seems politically suspect to him, because quietism lurks within it.
• Chapter IV, Dawning Dread. Of the Two Grandfathers and the Boat Ride at Dusk: After speaking of the Carbonaro grandfather, Settembrini raises politics, humanism, and the fine word into a single force, whose name is civilization.
• Chapter V, Freedom: On Krokowski's analysis, Settembrini says it is good when it liberates, refines, and humanizes, and bad when it hinders action and harms the roots of life.
• Chapter V, Encyclopedia: Settembrini cites Voltaire, who protested in the name of spirit and reason against the Lisbon earthquake, a scandalous excess of nature that claimed thousands of lives.
• Chapter V, Encyclopedia: Settembrini warns Hans Castorp that there is much of Asia in the air of the Berghof and asks him to speak as befits his European way of living.
• Chapter VI, Someone Else: Settembrini retorts to Naphta that reason and action belong to the West, and Naphta replies that the work of the monks was pure religious egoism.
• Chapter VI, Of the City of God and Redemption Through Evil: Naphta sums up the ecclesiastical conception of science in Saint Augustine's words, "I believe in order to understand," and Settembrini then defends democracy as a corrective to absolutism, in the name of personality, the rights of man, and freedom.
• Chapter VI, Operationes spirituales: In a dispute in the snow near Christmas, Settembrini and Naphta pass through God, the devil, nobility, and the bourgeois, and the narrator records the great confusion weighing on the two.
• Chapter VI, Snow: In the reverie of the snow, Hans Castorp concludes that love confronts death and that only love, and not reason, is stronger than it.
• Chapter VI, Like a Soldier, Like a Hero: Settembrini tells Hans Castorp that the future universal league will have the creed "Écrasez l'infâme!" and answers the charge of intolerance by saying that tolerance becomes a crime when it is devoted to evil.
• Chapter VI, Like a Soldier, Like a Hero: Settembrini describes to Hans Castorp the skull, cheekbones, and eyes of Luther and concludes that Asia is there, alien to Europe's vital law.
• Chapter VII, Mynheer Peeperkorn (continued): Peeperkorn's presence silences Naphta and Settembrini, and Hans Castorp, when the Italian wonders at his fascination, argues that personality is a positive value.
• Chapter VII, The Great Irritation: The hatred between Naphta and Settembrini erupts on an excursion to Monstein and leads to the duel, in which Settembrini, who had promised not to kill, fires into the air and Naphta, after calling him a coward, shoots himself in the head.
• Chapter VII, The Thunder: Settembrini approves of his country's alliance with Austria because it is aimed against a half-Asia without Latinity, and suffers because it is made with the old enemy.

Passages

On the first night, Settembrini approves Hans Castorp's refusal in the name of reason.

The lesson about the two grandfathers ends in a single word.

Naphta answers reason with terror.

In the Snow, love takes the place that reason does not occupy.

The duel ends without metaphor.