Fyodor Dostoevsky, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The underground man is what happens when consciousness turns inward and finds no floor. He is, first of all, a man of acute sensibility — and this is precisely his disease. The man of action, the plain fellow who strikes back when struck and sleeps soundly afterward, acts because he does not think too far. He finds a primary cause, calls it justice or honor or necessity, leans on it, and moves.
But the underground man cannot stop at any primary cause, because every cause immediately draws another behind it, still more primary, and so ad infinitum — and this is not his personal failing, he insists, but a law of nature, the inevitable result of consciousness itself.1 The result is paralysis. Not peace — paralysis. He wanted to love, he tried it twice, suffered genuinely, made scenes, was jealous; and all of it was, at bottom, because he was so confoundedly bored, crushed by doing nothing, which is what consciousness, pushed far enough, produces.2
Then there is the question of revenge — which is really the question of justice — which is really the question of whether the underground man can find any ground to stand on at all. L'homme de la nature et de la vérité, the plain natural man, avenges himself calmly because he calls it justice and the word satisfies him. The underground man cannot call it justice, because he can see no justice anywhere; so if he revenges himself it would be merely out of spite, and spite is not a cause, only a substitute for one.3
And so he accumulates his injury in his underground hole — for forty years, going over every detail, adding imaginary wrongs to real ones, worrying and exciting himself with his own imagination, forgiving nothing, believing in nothing, not even in his own contempt.4 But here is what makes him more than a clinical case. He knows all this about himself.
He watches himself perform. He sneers at his own suffering even while he suffers.2 And when the rationalists tell him that science will one day compute all human action into tables of logarithms, that his will is an illusion and he is nothing but a piano-key sounding when the laws of nature press down on him — he does not simply despair.5 He rebels.
Even if it were proved mathematically that he is a piano-key, he would do something out of sheer ingratitude, just to carry his point. He would plan destruction, devise suffering, send a curse over the world — because cursing is man's privilege, the one thing that distinguishes him from the organ-stop.6 And if even his chaos could be calculated in advance, he would go purposely mad rather than submit to reason's triumph.6
The whole meaning of human life, he says — and I gave him the words deliberately — can be summed up in this: that man exists only to prove to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key.6 He is not my hero. He is not my villain. He is the figure produced when European rationalism and Russian hyper-consciousness are taken seriously to their conclusions — when you remove faith, remove soil, remove any primary cause that does not immediately dissolve under scrutiny, and leave a man alone with his intelligence in a small room.
What lives there is spite and suffering and a terrible, ungovernable freedom that cannot be used for anything. That is the underground man. He refutes the rationalists not by argument but by existing.
every primary cause with me at once draws another one after itself, one still more primary, and so *ad infinitum*. That, in fact, is the basis of every sort of consciousness and analysis. That, too, therefore is a law of nature.Best Short Stories Anthology, pp. 118–119
I suffered terribly... I suffered agonies none the less, suffered in the most genuine manner imaginable... all because I was so confoundedly bored, gentlemen, all because I was so horribly bored. Crushed by doing nothing. For the direct, the inevitable, and the legitimate result of consciousness is to make all action impossible.Best Short Stories Anthology, pp. 118–119
I can't for the life of me see any justice here, and therefore if I should start revenging myself, it would be merely out of spite. Now spite, of course, could get the better of anything, of all my doubts, and so could very well take the place of any primary cause just because it is not a cause.Best Short Stories Anthology, pp. 118–119
For forty years it will continuously remember its injury to the last and most shameful detail, and will, besides add to it still more shameful details, worrying and exciting itself spitefully with the aid of its own imagination. It will be ashamed of its own fancies, but it will nevertheless remember everything, go over everything with the utmost care, think up all sorts of imaginary wrongs on the pretext that they, too, might have happened, and will forgive nothing.Best Short Stories Anthology, pp. 112–113
science itself will then teach man (though in my opinion it is an unnecessary luxury) that as a matter of fact he possesses neither will nor uncontrollable desires, and never has done, and that he himself is nothing more than a sort of piano-key or organ-stop.Best Short Stories Anthology, pp. 123–124
even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematically, even then he would refuse to come to his senses, but would on purpose, just in spite of everything, do something out of sheer ingratitude... the whole meaning of human life can be summed up in the one statement that man only exists for the purpose of proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not an organ-stop!Best Short Stories Anthology, pp. 129–130