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Title: The Positive Outcome of Philosophy
The Nature of Human Brain Work. Letters on Logic.
Author: Joseph Dietzgen
Translator: Ernst Unterman
Release Date: June 10, 2012 [EBook #39964]
Language: English
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THE POSITIVE OUTCOME OF PHILOSOPHY
The Nature of Human Brain Work
Letters on Logic.
The Positive Outcome of Philosophy
BY
JOSEPH DIETZGEN
_TRANSLATED BY ERNEST UNTERMANN_
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DR. ANTON PANNEKOEK
TRANSLATED BY ERNEST UNTERMANN
EDITED BY EUGENE DIETZGEN AND JOSEPH DIETZGEN, JR.
CHICAGO
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
1906
COPYRIGHT 1906
BY EUGENE DIETZGEN
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY ANTON PANNEKOEK 7
THE NATURE OF HUMAN BRAIN WORK
Preface 41
I. Introduction 47
II. Pure Reason or the Faculty of Thought in General 61
III. The Nature of Things 80
IV. The Practice of Reason in Physical Science 104
_a_ Cause and Effect 108
_b_ Matter and Mind 119
_c_ Force and Matter 124
V. "Practical Reason" or Morality 133
_a_ The Wise and Reasonable 133
_b_ Morality and Right 143
_c_ The Holy 156
LETTERS ON LOGIC
First Letter 177
Second Letter 181
Third Letter 186
Fourth Letter 191
Fifth Letter 198
Sixth Letter 205
Seventh Letter 212
Eighth Letter 217
Ninth Letter 225
Tenth Letter 230
Eleventh Letter 236
Twelfth Letter 242
Thirteenth Letter 248
Fourteenth Letter 255
Fifteenth Letter 260
Sixteenth Letter 265
Seventeenth Letter 271
Eighteenth Letter 277
Nineteenth Letter 283
Twentieth Letter 289
Twenty-first Letter 296
Twenty-second Letter 301
Twenty-third Letter (a) 307
Twenty-third Letter (b) 312
Twenty-fourth Letter 318
THE POSITIVE OUTCOME OF PHILOSOPHY
Preface 327
I. Positive Knowledge as a Special Object 333
II. The Power of Perception Is Kin to the Universe 337
III. As to How the Intellect Is Limited and Unlimited 342
IV. The Universality of Nature 348
V. The Understanding as a Part of the Human Soul 354
VI. Consciousness Is Endowed With the Faculty of Knowing
as Well as With the Feeling of the Universality
of All Nature 363
VII. The Relationship or Identity of Spirit and Nature 369
VIII. Understanding Is Material 376
IX. The Four Principles of Logic 381
X. The Function of Understanding on the Religious Field 393
XI. The Distinction Between Cause and Effect Is only
One of the Means to Facilitate Understanding 401
XII. Mind and Matter: Which Is Primary, Which Is
Secondary? 409
XIII. The Extent to Which the Doubts of the Possibility
of Clear and Accurate Understanding Have Been
Overcome 418
XIV. Continuation of the Discussion on the Difference
Between Doubtful and Evident Understanding 428
XV. Conclusion 436
INTRODUCTION
THE POSITION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF J. DIETZGEN'S PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS
BY DR. ANTON PANNEKOEK
In the history of philosophy we see before us the consecutive forms of
the thoughts of the ruling classes of society on life and on the world
at large. This class thought appears after the primitive communism has
given way to a society with class antagonisms, at a stage when the
wealth of the members of the ruling class gave them leisure time and
thus stimulated them to turn their attention to the productions of the
mind. The beginning of this thought is found in classic Greece. But it
assumed its clearest and best developed form when the modern bourgeoisie
had become the ruling class in capitalistic Europe and the thinkers gave
expression to the ideas of this class. The characteristic mark of these
ideas is dualism, that is to say the misunderstood contrast between
thinking and being, between nature and spirit, the result of the mental
unclearness of this class and of its incapacity to see the things of the
world in their true interconnection. This mental state is but the
expression of the division of mankind into classes and of the
uncomprehended nature of social production ever since it became a
production of goods for exchange.
In times of primitive communism, the conditions of production were clear
and easily understood. Things were produced jointly for use and consumed
in common. Man was master of his mode of production and thus master of
his own fate as far as the superior forces of nature admitted it. Under
such conditions, social ideas could not help being simple and clear.
There being no clash between personal and social interests, men had no
conception of a deep chasm between good and bad. Only the uncontrolled
forces of nature stood like unintelligible and mysterious powers, that
appeared to them either as well meaning or as evil spirits, above these
primitive little societies.
But with the advent of the production of commodities the picture
changes. Civilized humanity begins to feel itself somewhat relieved from
the hard and ungovernable pressure of fickle natural forces. But now new
demons arise out of social conditions. "No sooner did the producers give
their products away in exchange instead of consuming them as heretofore,
than they lost control of them. They no longer knew what became of their
products, and there was a possibility that these products might some day
be used for the exploitation and oppression of the producers--The
products rule the producers." (Engels) In the production of commodities,
it is not the purpose of the individual producer which is accomplished,
but rather that which the productive forces back of him are aiming at.
Man proposes, but a social power, stronger than himself, disposes; he is
no longer master of his fate. The inter-relations of production become
complicated and difficult to grasp. While it is true that the individual
is the producing unit, yet his individual labor is only a subordinate
part of the whole process of social production, of which he remains a
tool. The fruits of the labor of many are enjoyed by a few individuals.
The social co-operation is concealed behind a violent competitive
struggle of the producers against one another. The interests of the
individuals are at war with those of society. Good, that is to say the
consideration of the common welfare, is opposed to bad, that is to say
the sacrifice of everything to private interests. The passions of men as
well as their mental gifts, after they have been aroused, developed,
trained, strengthened, and refined in this struggle, henceforth become
so many weapons which a superior power turns against their helpless
possessors.
Such were the impressions out of which thinking men were obliged to
fashion their world-philosophy, while, at the same time, they were
members of the possessing classes and had thus an opportunity to employ
their leisure for a certain self-study, without, however, being in touch
with the source of their impressions, viz., the process of social labor
which alone could have enabled them to see through the social origin of
their ideas. Men of this class, therefore, were led to the assumption
that their ideas emanated from some supernatural and spiritual power or
that they were themselves independent supernatural powers. This dualist
metaphysical mode of thought has gone through various transformations in
the course of time, adapting itself to the evolution of production
beginning with ancient slavery, on through the serfdom of the Middle
Ages and of mediæval commodity production, to modern capitalism. These
successive changes of form are embodied in Grecian philosophy, in the
various phases of the Christian religion, and in the modern systems of
philosophy.
But we must not regard these systems and religions for what they
generally pass, that is to say, we must not think them to be only
repeated unsuccessful attempts to formulate absolute truth. They are
merely the incarnations of progressive stages of better knowledge
acquired by the human mind about itself and about the universe. It was
the aim of philosophical thought to find satisfaction in understanding.
And as long as understanding could not wholly be gotten by natural
means, there remained always a field for the supernatural and
incomprehensible. But by the painstaking mental work of the deepest
thinkers, the material of science was ceaselessly increased, and the
field of the supernatural and incomprehensible was ever more narrowed.
And this is especially the case since the progress of capitalist
production has promoted the persistent study of nature. For through this
study the human mind was enabled to test its powers by simple, quiet,
persistent and fruitful labor in the search for successive parts of
truth; and thus to rid itself from the overirritation of hopeless quest
after absolute truth. The desire to ascertain the value of these new
truths gave rise to the problems of the theory of understanding. The
attempts to solve these problems form a permanent part of modern systems
of philosophy, which represent a graduated evolution of the theory of
understanding. But the supernatural element in these systems prevented
their perfection.
Under the impulse of the technical requirements of capitalism, the
evolution of natural sciences became a triumphal march of the human
mind. Nature was subjugated first through the discovery of its laws by
the human mind, and then by the material subordination of the known
forces of nature to the human will in the service of our main object,
the production of the necessaries of life with a minimum expenditure of
energy. But this bright shining light rendered, by contrast, the gloom
which surrounded the phenomena of human society only the darker, and
capitalism in its development still accentuates this contrast, as it
accentuates and thus renders more easily visible and intelligible all
contrasts. While the natural sciences dispensed with all mysterious
secrecy within their narrower domain, the darkness shrouding the origin
of ideas still offered a welcome refuge to the belief in miracles on the
spiritual field.
Capitalism is now approaching its decline. Socialism is near. And the
vital importance of this transition in human history cannot be stated
more strongly than in the words of Marx and Engels: "This concludes the
primary history of man. He thereby passes definitely out of the animal
kingdom." The social regulation of production makes man fully the master
of his own fate. No longer does any mysterious social power then thwart
his plans or jeopardise his success. Nor does any mysterious natural
force control him henceforth. He is no longer the slave, but the master
of nature. He has investigated its effects, understands them, and
presses them into his service. For the first time in his history he will
then be the ruler of the earth.
We now see that the many centuries that filled the history of
civilization were a necessary preparation for socialism, a slow struggle
to escape from nature's slavery, a gradual increase of the productivity
of labor, up to the point where the necessaries of life for all may be
obtained almost without exertion. This is the prime merit of capitalism
and its justification, that after so many centuries of hardly
perceptible progress it taught man to conquer nature by a rapid assault.
At the same time it set loose the forces of production and finally
transformed and bared the springs of the productive process to such a
degree that they easily could be perceived and grasped by the human
mind; this was the indispensable condition for the control of this
process.
As never since the first advent of production of commodities there has
been such a fundamental revolution, it must necessarily be accompanied
by an equally fundamental spiritual revolution. This economic revolution
is the conclusion of the long period of class antagonisms and of
production of commodities; it carries with it the end of the dualist and
supernatural thoughts arising from this source. The mystery of social
processes passes away with this period, and the spiritual expression of
these mysteries must necessarily disappear with it. The slow development
of human thought from ignorance to an ever increased understanding
thereby ends its first chapter. This signifies the completion and
conclusion of philosophy, which is equivalent to saying that philosophy
as such passes out of existence, while its place is taken by the science
of the human mind, a part of natural science.
A new system of production sheds its light into the minds of men already
before it has fully materialized. The same science which teaches us to
understand and thereby to control the social forces, also unfetters the
mind from the bewitching effects of those forces. It enables him even
now already to emancipate himself from traditional superstitions and
ideas which were formerly the expression of things unknown. We may
anticipate with our mind the coming time. And thus the ideas which will
then dominate are already even now growing within us in a rudimentary
form corresponding to the present actual economic development. By this
means we are even now enabled to overcome the capitalist philosophy in
thought and to soberly and clearly grasp the matter-dependent nature of
our spirit.
The completion and the end of philosophy need not wait for the
realization of socialist production. The new understanding does not fall
from heaven like a meteor. It develops with the social-economic
development, first imperfectly and imperceptibly, in a few thinkers who
most strongly feel the breath of the approaching time. With the growth
of the science of sociology and with that of its practical application,
the socialist labor movement, the new understanding simultaneously
spreads and gains ground step by step, waging a relentless battle
against the traditional ideas to which the ruling classes are clinging.
This struggle is the mental companion of the social class struggle.
************
The methods of the new natural science had already been practiced for a
few centuries before the new theory was formulated. It first found vent
in the expression of surprise at the great confidence with which men
assumed to predict certain phenomena and to point out their connections.
Our experience is limited to a few successive observations of the
regularity or coincidence of events. But we attribute to natural laws,
in which are expressed causal relations of phenomena, a general and
necessary applicability which far exceeds our experience. The English
thinker Hume was the first who clearly expressed and formulated the
question--since called the problem of causality--why men always act in
this manner. But as he believed the reason for such action should be
sought in the nature of experience alone, experience being the only
source of knowledge, and as he did not further investigate the special
and distinct part played by the nature of the human mind in this
experiential connection, he could not find any satisfactory answer.
Kant, who made the first important step toward the solution of this
question, had been trained in the school of rationalism which then
dominated in Germany and which represented an adaptation of mediæval
scholasticism to the requirements of increased knowledge. Starting from
the thesis that things which are logical in the mind must be real in
nature, the rationalists formulated by mere deduction general truths
about god, infinity and immortality. Under the influence of Hume, Kant
became the critic of rationalism and thus the reformer of philosophy.
The question, how it is that we have knowledge of generally applicable
laws in which we have implicit confidence--such as mathematical theses,
or the maxim that every change has a cause--was answered by Kant in this
way: Experience and science are as much conditioned on properties
inherent in the organization of our mind as on the impressions of the
outer world. The former properties must necessarily be contained in all
experience and science. Therefore everything dependent on this common
mental part of science must be perfectly certain and independent of
special sense impressions. Common to all experience, and inseparable
from it, are the pure sense-conceptions (reine Anschauungsformen), such
as space and time, while the many experiences, in order to succeed in
forming understanding and science, must be connected by the pure
mind-conceptions (reine Verstandesbegriffe), the so-called categories;
among the latter also belongs causality.
Now Kant explains the necessity and general applicability of the pure
sense and mind conceptions by the fact that they arise from the
organization of our mind. Accordingly, the world appears to the senses
as a succession of phenomena in time and space. Our reason transforms
these phenomena into things which are welded into one aggregate nature
by laws of cause and effect. On the things as they really are in
themselves, in the opinion of Kant, these pure conceptions cannot be
applied. We know nothing of them and can neither perceive nor
reconstruct them by reason, because "in themselves" they are wholly
beyond reason and knowledge.
The result of this investigation, which was the first valuable
contribution to a scientific theory of understanding and forms, from our
standpoint, the most important part of Kant's philosophy, served him
mainly as a means of answering the following questions: What is the
value of knowledge which exceeds experience? Can we, by mere deduction
through concepts which go beyond experience, arrive at truths? His
answer was: No, and it was a crushing blow to rationalism. We cannot
exceed the boundaries of experience. By experience alone can we arrive
at science. All supposed knowledge about the unlimited and infinite,
about concepts of pure reason, called Ideas by Kant, (as the soul, the
world, and God) is nothing but illusions. The contradictions in which
the human mind becomes involved whenever it applies the categories
outside of experience to such subjects, are manifested in the fruitless
strife between the philosophical systems. Metaphysics as a science is
impossible.
This did not give the deathblow to rationalism alone, but also to
bourgeois materialism which reigned among the French radical thinkers.
Kant's researches refuted the negative as well as the positive
assertions anent the supernatural and infinite. This cleared the field
for faith, for intuitive conviction. God, freedom and immortality are
concepts the truth of which cannot be proved by reason, like the natural
truths derived from experience. But nevertheless their reality is no
less certain, only it is of a different nature, being subjective and,
therefore, necessarily a matter of personal conviction. The freedom of
the will, for instance, is not a knowledge gained by experience, because
experience never teaches us anything but lack of freedom and dependence
on the laws of nature. But nevertheless freedom of will is a necessary
conviction of every one who feels it in the categorical imperative: Thou
shalt! of every one possessed by a sense of duty and of the knowledge
that he can act accordingly: therefore freedom of will is
unconditionally certain and requires no proof by experience. And from
this premise there follows in same way the assurance of the immortality
of the soul and of the existence of God. It gives the same kind of
certainty to all ideas which were left in a state of uncertainty by the
critique of pure reason. At the same time freedom of will determines the
form of the theory of understanding. In the entire world of phenomena
there was no room for freedom, for these phenomena follow strict rules
of causality, as demanded by the organization of our mind. Therefore it
was necessary to make room for freedom of will somewhere else, and so
"things in themselves," hitherto a phrase without value and meaning,
assumed a higher importance. They were not bound to space, time or
categories, they were free: they formed so to say a second world, the
world of noumena, which stood behind the world of phenomena and which
solved the contradiction between the lawful dependence of things in
nature and between the personal conviction of freedom of will.
These opinions and reasonings were fully in accord with the conditions
of science and the economic development of Kant's time. The field of
nature was left entirely to the inductive method of science which based
itself on strictly materialist experience and observation, classifying
things systematically in their causal order and excluding all
supernatural interference. But while faith was banished from the natural
sciences forever, it could not be dispensed with. The ignorance as to
the origin of the human will left room for a supernatural ethic. The
attempts of the materialists to exclude the supernatural also from this
field failed. The time had not come as yet for a materialist and natural
ethics, for science was not yet able to demonstrate as an indisputable
truth, founded on experience, in what manner ethical codes and moral
ideas in general had a material origin.
This state of things shows that the Kantian philosophy is the purest
expression of bourgeois thought, and this is still more emphasized by
the fact that freedom is the center of his system and controls it.
Rising capitalism required freedom for the producers of commodities in
order to expand its productive forces, it required freedom of
competition and freedom of unlimited exploitation. The producers of
commodities should be free from all fetters and restrictions, and
unhampered by any coercion, in order that they could go, under the sole
direction of their own intelligence, into free competition with their
fellow citizens. For this reason, freedom became the slogan of the young
bourgeoisie aspiring to political power, and Kant's doctrine of the free
will, the basis of his ethics, was the echo of the approaching French
Revolution. But freedom was not absolute; it was to be dependent on the
moral law. It was not to be used in the quest for happiness, but in
accord with the moral law, in the service of duty. If the bourgeois
society was to exist, the private interest of the individual must not
be paramount, the welfare of the entire class had to be superior to that
of the individual, and the commandments of this class had to be
recognized as moral laws taking precedence over the quest for happiness.
But for this very reason, these moral laws could never be fully obeyed,
and every one found himself compelled to violate them in his own
interest. Hence the moral law existed only as a code which could never
be fulfilled. And so it stood outside of experience.
In Kant's ethics the internal antagonism of bourgeois society is
reflected, that antagonism which is the compelling force of the ever
increasing economic development. The foundation of this antagonism is
the antagonism, already mentioned, between the individual and social
character of production that gives rise to omnipotent, but unconceived
social forces ruling the destiny of man. In capitalistic production it
is still intensified by the antithesis of the wealthy ruling class and
the poor producing class that is continuously augmented by those who are
expropriated by competition. This antagonism gives rise to the
contradiction between the aims of men and the results achieved, between
the desire of happiness and the misery of the great mass. It is the
basis of the contradiction between virtue and vice, between freedom and
dependence, between faith and science, between phenomenon and "thing
itself." It is at the bottom of all contradictions and of the entire
pronounced dualism of the Kantian philosophy. These contradictions are
to blame for the downfall of the system, and the work of disintegration
was unavoidable from the moment that the contradictions of the bourgeois
production became apparent, that is to say immediately after the
political victory of the bourgeoisie. The system of Kant could, however,
not be overcome, unless the material origin of morality could be
uncovered. Then these contradictions could be understood and solved by
showing that they were relative and not absolute as they appeared. And
not until then could a materialist ethics, a science of morality, drive
faith from its last retreat. This was at last accomplished by the
discovery of social class struggles and of the nature of capitalist
production, by the pioneer work of Karl Marx.
The practice of developed capitalism about the middle of the 19th
century directly challenged proletarian thinkers to criticise Kant's
doctrine of practical reason. Bourgeois ethics and freedom manifested
themselves in the form of freedom of exploitation in the interest of the
bourgeoisie, as slavery for the working class. The maintenance of human
dignity appeared in reality as the brutalization and degradation of the
proletarians, and the state founded on justice proved to be nothing but
the class state of the bourgeoisie. And so it was seen that Kant's
sublime ethics, instead of being the basis in all eternity of human
activity in general, was merely the expression of the narrow class
interests of the bourgeoisie. This proletarian criticism was the first
material for a general theory, and once it had been stated, its
correctness was demonstrated more and more by the study of previous
historical events, and these events were thereby shown in their proper
light. It was then understood by this theory that the social classes,
distinguished by their position in the process of production, had
different and antagonistic economic interests, and that each class did
necessarily regard its own interest as good and sacred. These general
class interests were not recognized in their true character but appeared
to men in the guise of superior moral motives; in this form they crowded
the special individual interests into the background, and since the
class interests were generally felt, all the members of the same class
recognized them. Moreover, a ruling class could temporarily compel a
defeated or suppressed class to recognize the class interests of the
rulers as a moral law, so long as the inevitability of the mode of
production in which that class ruled was acknowledged. Owing to the fact
that the nature and significance of the productive process was not
understood, the origin of human motives could not be discovered. They
were not traced back to experience, but simply felt directly and
intuitively. And consequently they were thought to be of a supernatural
origin and eternal duration.
Not only the moral codes, but also other products of the human mind,
such as religion, science, arts, philosophy, were then understood to be
intimately connected with the actual material conditions of society. The
human mind is influenced in all its products by the entire world outside
of it. And thus the mind is seen to be a part of nature, and the science
of the mind becomes a natural science. The impressions of the outer
world determine the experience of man, his wants determine his will, and
his general wants his moral will. The world around him determines man's
wants and impressions, but these, on the other hand, determine his will
and activity by which he changes the world; this will-directed activity
appears in the process of social production. In this manner man by his
work is a part, a link in the great chain of natural and social
development.
This conception overturns the foundations of philosophy. Since the human
mind is seen now to be a part of nature and interacts with the rest of
the world according to laws which are more or less known, it is classed
among Kant's phenomena. There is no longer any need of talking about
noumena. Thus they do not longer exist for us. Philosophy then reduces
itself to the theory of experience, to the science of the human mind. It
is at this point that the beginning made by Kant had to be farther
developed. Kant had always separated mind and nature very sharply. But
the understanding that this separation should only be made temporarily
for the purpose of better investigation, and that there is no absolute
difference between matter and mind made it possible to advance the
science of thought processes. However, this could be accomplished only
by a thinker who had fully digested the teachings of socialism. This
problem was solved by Joseph Dietzgen in his work on "THE NATURE OF
HUMAN BRAIN WORK," the first edition of which appeared in 1869, and by
this work he won for himself the name of philosopher of the proletariat.
This problem could be solved only by the help of the dialectic method.
Therefore, the idealist philosophical systems from Kant to Hegel which
consist chiefly in the development of the dialectic method, must be
regarded as the indispensable pioneers and precursors of Dietzgen's
proletarian philosophy.
************
The philosophy of Kant necessarily broke down on account of its dualism.
It had shown that there is safety only in finite and material
experience, and that the mind becomes involved in contradictions
whenever it ventures beyond that line. The mind's reason calls for
absolute truth which cannot be gotten. Hence the mind is groping in the
dark and critique may perhaps explain why it is in the dark, but it
cannot show the way out. What is called with Kant dialectics is in
reality resignation. True, the mind finds knowledge about things outside
of experience by some other way, viz., by means of its moral
consciousness, but this intuitive knowledge in the form of faith remains
sharply separated from scientific understanding. It was the task of the
philosophical development immediately after Kant, to do away with this
sharp separation, this unreconciled contradiction. This development
ended with Hegel; its result was the understanding that contradiction is
the true nature of everything. But this contradiction cannot be left to
stand undisturbed, it must be solved and still retained in a higher
form, and thus be reconciled. Therefore the world of phenomena cannot be
understood as being at rest. It can be understood only as a thing in
motion, as activity, as a continuous change. Action is always the
reconciliation of contradiction in some higher form, and contradiction
appears in this way as the lever of progressive development. That which
accomplishes this dialectic self-development does not appear in the
idealistic systems as the material world itself, but as the spiritual,
the idea. In Hegel's philosophy, this conception assumes the form of a
comprehensive system outlining the self-development of the Absolute
which is spiritual and is identical with God. The development of this
Absolute takes place in three stages; in its primitive pure spiritual
form it develops out of its undifferentiated being the conceptions of
logic; then it expresses itself in another, an external form, opposite
to itself, as Nature. In nature all forms develop by way of
contradictions which are eliminated by the development of some higher
form. Finally the Absolute awakens to consciousness in nature in the
form of the human mind and reaches thus its third stage, at which the
opposite elements, matter and spirit, are reconciled into a unity. The
human mind evolves in the same way to ever higher stages, until it
arrives, at the end of its development by understanding itself, that is
to say, by knowing intuitively the Absolute. This is what happens
unconsciously in religion. Religion, which in the form of faith must be
satisfied with a modest corner in the system of Kant, appears in the
system of Hegel very proudly as a higher sort of understanding superior
to all other knowledge, as an intuitive knowledge of absolute truth
(God). In philosophy this is done consciously. And the historical
development which finds its conclusion and climax in the Hegelian
philosophy corresponds to the logical development of the human mind.
Thus Hegel unites all sciences and all parts of the world into one
masterly system in which the revolutionary dialectics, the theory of
evolution, that considers all finite things as perishable and
transitory, is given a conservative conclusion by putting an end to all
further development when the absolute truth is reached. All the
knowledge of that period was assigned to its place somewhere in this
system, on one of the steps of the dialectic development. Many of the
conceptions of the natural sciences of that day, which later on were
found to be erroneous, are there presented as necessary truths resting
on deduction, not on experience. This could give the impression that the
Hegelian philosophy made empirical research superfluous as a source of
concrete truths. This appearance is to blame for the slight recognition
of Hegel among naturalists; in natural sciences, this philosophy
therefore has won much less importance than it deserved and than it
might have won, if its actual significance, which consists in the
harmonious connection between widely separated events and sciences, had
been better understood under its deceptive guise.
On the abstract sciences the influence of Hegel was greater, and here he
held an exceptionally prominent position in the scientific world of that
time. On one hand, his conception of history as a progressive evolution
in which every imperfect previous condition is regarded as a necessary
phase and preparation for subsequent conditions and thus appears natural
and reasonable, was a great gain for science. On the other hand, his
statements on the philosophy of law and religion met the requirements
and conceptions of his time. In his philosophy of law, the human mind is
taken in that stage in which it steps into reality, having as its
principal characteristic a free will. It is first considered as a single
individual which finds its freedom incorporated in its property. This
personality enters into relations with others like it. Its freedom of
will is thereby expressed in moral laws. By combining all individuals
into one aggregate whole, their contradictory relations are merged into
the social units, viz., the family, the bourgeois society (bürgerliche
Gesellschaft) and the state. There the moral rules are carried from the
inner to the outer reality. As the expressions of a superior, common and
more general will, they stand forth in the generally accepted moral
codes, in the natural laws of bourgeois society and in the authoritative
laws of the state. In the state, the highest form of which is the
monarchy, the mind finds itself at its highest stage of objective
realization as the idea of the state.
The reactionary character of Hegelian philosophy is not merely a
superficial appearance that rests on the glorification of state and
royalty, thanks to which this philosophy was raised to the position of
Prussian state philosophy after the restauration. It was in its very
essence a product of reaction which in those days represented the only
possible advance after the revolution. This reaction was the first
practical critique of bourgeois society. After this society had been
firmly established, the relative amenities of the old time appeared in a
better light, because the shortcomings of the new society made
themselves soon felt. The bourgeoisie had recoiled before the
consequences of its revolution, when it recognized that the proletariat
was its barrier. It arrested the revolution as soon as its bourgeois
aims had been accomplished, and it was willing to acknowledge again the
mastery of the feudal state and monarchy, provided they would protect it
and serve its interests. The feudal powers that previously had been
overcome by the weight of their own sins and by the unconditional
superiority of the new social order, again lifted their heads when the
new order in its turn gave cause for well founded criticisms. But they
could not keep the revolution in check, unless they recognized it in a
limited degree. They could once more rule over the bourgeoisie, provided
they compromised with it so far as it was inevitable. They could no
longer prevail against capitalism, but they could govern for it. Thus,
by their rule, the imperfectness of capitalism was revealed.
The theory of restauration, therefore, had to consist first of all of a
thorough critique of the revolutionary bourgeois philosophy. But this
philosophy could not be thrown aside entirely. So far as a critique of
the old order was concerned, the truth of bourgeois philosophy had to be
admitted. On the other hand, the sharp distinction it made between the
falsity of the old and the truth of the new order was found to be beside
the mark. So the correctness of the bourgeois philosophy itself proved
to be relative and limited, like that of a herald of some higher truth
which in its turn would acknowledge that which was temporarily and
partially true in its vanquished precursor. In this way the
contradictions became moments in the evolution of absolute truth, in
this way, furthermore, the dialectics became the main feature and method
of post-Kantian philosophy; and in this way, finally, the theorists of
the reaction were the men who steered philosophy over new courses and
who thereby became the harbingers of socialism. Scepticism and a
critique of all traditional things, yet a careful protection of
endangered faith, had characterized the tendencies of bourgeois thought
during its revolutionary period. In the reactionary stage, the bourgeois
implicitly accepted the belief in absolute truth and cultivated a
self-righteous faith. The practice of Metternich and of the Holy
Alliance corresponded to the theory of Hegelian philosophy.
The practice of the Prussian police state, which embodied the
shortcomings of capitalism without its advantages and thus represented a
higher degree of reaction, destroyed the Hegelian philosophy, as soon as
the practices of maturing capitalism began to rebel against the fetters
by which reaction endeavored to bind it. Feuerbach returned in his
critique of religion from the fantastical heights of abstraction to
physical man. Marx demonstrated that the reality of bourgeois society
expresses itself in its class antagonisms which herald its imperfectness
and approaching downfall, and he discovered that the actual historical
development rested on the development of the process of material
production. The absolute spirit that was supposed to be embodied in the
constitution of the despotic state before the March revolution now
revealed itself as the narrow bourgeois spirit which regards bourgeois
society as the final aim of all historical development. The Hegelian
statement that all finite things carry within themselves the germ of
their own dissolution came home to his own philosophy, as soon as its
finiteness and limitations had been grasped. Its conservative form was
abandoned, but its revolutionary content, the dialectics, was preserved.
The Hegelian philosophy was finally superseded by dialectic materialism
which declares that absolute truth is realized only in the infinite
progress of society and of scientific understanding.
This does not imply a wholesale rejection of Hegelian philosophy. It
merely means that the relative validity of that philosophy has been
recognized. The vicissitudes of the absolute spirit in the course of its
self-development are but a fantastical description of the process which
the real human mind experiences in its acquaintance with the world and
its active participation in life. Instead of the evolution of the
absolute idea, the dialectics henceforth becomes the sole correct method
of thought to be employed by the real human mind in the study of the
actual world and for the purpose of understanding social development.
The great and lasting importance of Hegel's philosophy, even for our own
time, is that it is an excellent theory of the human mind and of its
working methods, provided we strip off its transcendental character, and
that it far excels the first laborious contributions of Kant to the
theory of understanding.
But this quality of the Hegelian philosophy could not be appreciated,
until Dietzgen had created the basis for a dialectic and materialistic
theory of understanding. The indispensable character of dialectic
thought, which is illustrated by the monumental works of Marx and
Engels, has been first demonstrated in a perfectly convincing manner by
Dietzgen's critical analysis of the human force of thinking. It was only
by means of this method of thought--of which he was according to Engels'
testimony an independent discoverer--that he could succeed in completing
the theory of understanding and bringing it to a close for the time
being.
************
If we refer to the ideas laid down by Dietzgen in this work as "his
philosophy," we say too much, because it does not assume to be a new
system of philosophy. Yet, on the other hand, we should not say enough,
because it would mean that his work is as passing as the systems before
it. It is the merit of Dietzgen to have raised philosophy to the
position of a natural science, the same as Marx did with history. The
human faculty of thought is thereby stripped of its fantastic garb. It
is regarded as a part of nature, and by means of experience a
progressive understanding of its concrete and ever changing historical
nature must be gained. Dietzgen's work refers to itself as a finite and
temporary realization of this aim, just as every new theory in natural
science is a finite and temporary realization of its aims. This
realization must be further improved and perfected by successive
investigations. This is the method of natural science; philosophical
systems, on the contrary, pretended to give absolute truth, that could
not be improved upon. Dietzgen's work is fundamentally different from
these former philosophies, and more than they, because it wishes to be
less. It presents itself as the positive outcome of philosophy toward
which all great thinkers have contributed, seen by the sober eyes of a
socialist and analyzed, recounted and further developed by him. At the
same time, it attributes to previous systems the same character of
partial truths and shows that they were not entirely useless
speculations, but ascending stages of understanding naturally related,
which contain ever more truth and ever less error. Hegel had likewise
entertained this broader view, but with him this development came to a
self-contradictory end in his own system. Dietzgen also calls his own
conception the highest then existing, and its distinctive step in the
evolution is that it for the first time adopts and professes this
natural and scientific view, instead of the supernatural point of view
of the former systems. The new understanding that the human mind is a
common and natural thing is a decisive step in the progressive
investigation of the mind, and this step places Dietzgen at the head of
this evolution. And it is a step which cannot be retraced, because it
signifies a sober awakening after centuries of vain imaginings. Since
this system does not pretend to be absolute truth, but rather a finite
and temporal one, it cannot fall as its predecessors did. It represents
a scientific continuation of former philosophies, just as astronomy is
the continuation of astrology and of the Pythagorean fantasies, and
chemistry the continuation of alchemy. It takes the place that formerly
was held by its unscientific predecessors and has this in common with
them, apart from its essential theory of understanding, that it is the
basis of a new world-philosophy, of a methodical conception of the
universe.
This modern world-philosophy (Weltanschauung), being a socialist or
proletarian one, takes issue with the bourgeois conceptions; it was
first conceived as a new view of the world, entirely opposite to the
ruling bourgeois conceptions, by Marx and Engels, who developed its
sociological and historical contents; its philosophical basis is here
developed by Dietzgen; its real character is indicated by the terms
dialectic and materialist. By its core, historical materialism, it gains
a wholly new theory of social evolution that forms its chief content.
This theory was for the first time sketched in its main outlines in the
Communist Manifesto, and later on fully developed in a number of other
works and thoroughly vindicated by innumerable facts. It gives us the
scientific assurance that the misery and imperfectness of present
society, which bourgeois philosophy regards as inevitable and natural,
is but a transitory condition, and that man will within measurable time
emancipate himself from the slavery of his material wants by the
regulation of social production. By this certainty socialism is put on
an eminence so far above all bourgeois conceptions that these appear
barbarous in comparison with it. And what is more significant, our
world-philosophy may justly claim to have for the first time thrown the
light of an indisputable science on society and man; combined with the
maturest products of natural sciences it forms a complete science of the
world, making all superstitions superfluous, and thus involving the
theoretical emancipation, that is to say the emancipation of the mind.
The science treating of the human mind forms the essence and foundation
of this theory of society and man, not only because it gives us the
same as the natural sciences a scientific or experience-proven theory of
the function of human thinking, but also, because this theory of
cognition can alone assure us that such sciences are able to furnish us
an adequate picture of the world, and that anything outside of them is
mere fantasy. For this reason we owe to Dietzgen's theory of cognition
the firm foundation of our world-philosophy.
Its character is primarily materialistic. In contradistinction to the
idealist systems of the most flourishing time of German philosophy which
considered the Mind as the basis of all existence, it starts from
concrete materialist being. Not that it regards mere physical matter as
its basis; it is rather opposed to the crude bourgeois materialism, and
matter to it means everything which exists and furnishes material for
thought, including thoughts and imaginations. Its foundation is the
unity of all concrete being. Thus it assigns to the human mind an equal
place among the other parts of the universe; it shows that the mind is
as closely connected with all the other parts of the universe as those
parts are among themselves; that is to say, the mind exists only as a
part of the entire universe so that its content is only the effect of
the other parts. Thus our philosophy forms the theoretical basis of
historical materialism. While the statement that "the consciousness of
man is determined by his social life" could hitherto at best be regarded
as a generalization of many historical facts and thus seemed imperfect
and open to criticism, capable of improvement by later discoveries, the
same as all other scientific theories, henceforth the complete
dependence of the mind on the rest of the world becomes as impregnable
and immutable a requirement of thought as causality. This signifies the
thorough refutation of the belief in miracles. After having been
banished long ago from the field of natural science, miracles were now
banished from the domain of thought.
The enlightening effect of this proletarian philosophy consists
furthermore in its opposition to all superstition and its demonstration
of the senselessness of all idol worship. Socialist understanding
accomplished something which the bourgeois reformers could not do,
because they were limited to natural science in a narrow sense and could
not solve the mystery of the mind; for in explaining all the mental,
spiritual phenomena as natural phenomena our proletarian philosophy
furnishes the means for a trenchant critique of Christian faith which
consists in the belief in a supernatural spiritual being. In his
dialectic discussions of mind and matter, finiteness and infinity, god
and the world, Dietzgen has thoroughly clarified the confused mystery
which surrounded these conceptions and has definitely refuted all
transcendental beliefs. And this critique is no less destructive for the
bourgeois idols: Freedom, Right, Spirit, Force, which are shown to be
but fantastic images of abstract conceptions with a limited validity.
This could be accomplished in no other way than by simultaneously
determining, in its capacity as a theory of understanding, the relation
of the world around us to the image which our mind forms of it. In this
respect Dietzgen completed the work begun by Hume and Kant. As a theory
of understanding, his conceptions are not only the philosophical basis
of historical materialism, but also of all other sciences as well. The
thorough critique directed by Dietzgen against the works of prominent
natural scientists, shows that he was well aware of the importance of
his own work. But, as might be expected, the voice of a socialist
artisan did not penetrate to the lecture hall of the academies. It was
not until much later that similar views appeared among the natural
scientists. And now at last the most prominent theorists of natural
science have adopted the view that explaining signifies nothing else but
simply and completely describing the processes of nature.
By this theory of understanding Dietzgen has made it plainly perceptible
why the dialectic method is an indispensable auxiliary in the quest for
an explanation of the nature of understanding. The mind is the faculty
of generalization. It forms out of concrete realities, which are a
continuous and unbounded stream in perpetual motion, abstract
conceptions that are essentially rigid, bounded, stable, and
unchangeable. This gives rise to the contradiction that our conceptions
must always adapt themselves to new realities without ever fully
succeeding; the contradiction that they represent the living by what is
dead, the infinite by what is finite, and that they are themselves
finite though partaking of the nature of the infinite. This
contradiction is understood and reconciled by the insight into the
nature of the faculty of understanding, which is simultaneously a
faculty of combination and of distinction, which forms a limited part of
the universe and yet encompasses everything, and it is furthermore
solved by the resulting penetration of the nature of the world. The
world is a unity of the infinitely numerous multitude of phenomena and
comprises within itself all contradictions, makes them relative and
equalizes them. Within its circle there are no absolute opposites. The
mind merely constructs them, because it has not only the faculty of
generalization but also of distinguishing. The practical solution of all
contradictions is the revolutionary practice of infinitely progressing
science which moulds old conceptions into new ones, rejects some,
substitutes others in their place, improves, connects and dissects,
still striving for an always greater unity and an always wider
differentiation.
By means of this theory of understanding, dialectic materialism also
furnishes the means for the solution of the riddles of the world
(Welträtsel). Not that it solves all these riddles; on the contrary, it
says explicitly that this solution can be but the work of an ever
advancing scientific research. But it solves them in so far as it
deprives them of the character of a mysterious enigma and transforms
them into a practical problem, the solution of which we are approaching
by an infinite progression. Bourgeois thought cannot solve the riddles
of the world. A few years after the first publication of Dietzgen's
work, natural science in the person of Du Bois-Reymond acknowledged its
incapacity by his "Ignorabimus:" "We shall never know." Proletarian
philosophy, in solving the riddle of the human mind, gives us the
assurance that there are no insoluble riddles before us.
In conclusion, Dietzgen in this work indicates the principles of a new
ethics. Starting with the understanding that the origin of the ideas of
good and bad is found in the needs of man, and designating as really
moral that which is generally useful, he logically discovers that the
essence of modern morality rests in its class interests. At the same
time, a relative justification is accorded to these temporary ethics,
since they are the necessary products of definite social requirements.
The link between man and nature is formed by the process of social
production carried on for the satisfaction of man's material wants. So
long as this link was a fetter, it bound man by a misapprehended
supernatural ethics. But once the process of social labor is understood,
regulated and controlled, then this fetter is dropped and the place of
ethics is taken by a reasonable understanding of the general wants.
************
The philosophical works of Dietzgen do not seem to have, until now,
exerted any perceptible influence on the socialist movement. While they
may have found many a silent admirer and contributed much toward a
clearing up of their thoughts, yet the importance of his writings for
the theory of our movement has not been realized. But this is not a
matter for great surprise. In the first decade after their publication,
even the economic works of Marx, the value of which was much more
apparent, were little appreciated. The movement developed spontaneously,
and the Marxian theory could exert a useful and determining influence
only by means of the clear foresight of a few leaders. Hence it is no
wonder that the philosophy of the proletariat, which is less easily and
directly applicable than our economics, did not receive much attention.
The political maturity of the German working class, which was farthest
advanced in the theories of the international movement, did not develop
to the point of adopting Marxian theses as party principles, until after
the abolition of the anti-socialist laws. But even then they were for
most of the spokesmen of the party rather concise formulations of a few
practical convictions than the outcome of a thorough scientific training
and understanding. It was no doubt the great expansion of the party and
of its activity which demanded all their powers for its organization and
management, that led the younger intellectuals of the party to devote
themselves to practical work and to neglect the theoretical studies.
This neglect has bitterly avenged itself in the theoretical schisms of
the subsequent years.
The decrepit condition of capitalism is now evidenced very plainly by
the decay of the bourgeois parties, so that the practical work of the
socialist party is in itself sufficient to attract every one who has an
independent turn of mind and a capacity for deep feeling. But under the
present circumstances, such a transition was not accompanied by a
proletarian world-philosophy acquired by painstaking study. Instead of
such a philosophy, we are confronted by a critique of socialist science
from the bourgeois standpoint. Marxism is measured by the standard of
the immature bourgeois theory of understanding, and the Neokantians,
unconscious of the positive outcome of philosophy of the past century,
are trying to connect socialism with Kantian ethics. Some even speak of
a reconciliation with Christianity and a renunciation of materialism.
This bourgeois method of thought, which, being anti-dialectic and
anti-materialistic, is opposed to Marxism, has acquired some practical
importance in the socialistic movement of countries where by lack of
economical development the class-consciousness of the workers is
hindered by relics of the narrow-minded views of the class of little
producers--as in France and Italy under the name of reformism. In
Germany where it could not obtain much practical importance it
presented itself mostly as a theoretical struggle against Marxism under
the name of revisionism. It combines bourgeois philosophy and
anti-capitalist disposition and takes the place formerly occupied by
anarchism, and, like anarchism, it again represents in many respects the
little bourgeois tendencies in the fight against capitalism. Under these
circumstances, a closer study of Dietzgen's philosophical works becomes
a necessity.
Marx has disclosed the nature of the social process of production, and
its fundamental significance as a lever of social development. But he
has not fully explained, by what means the nature of the human mind is
involved in this material process. Owing to the great traditional
influence exerted by bourgeois thought, this weak spot in Marxism is one
of the main reasons for the incomplete and erroneous understanding of
Marxian theories. This shortcoming of Marxism is cured by Dietzgen, who
made the nature of the mind the special object of his investigations.
For this reason, a thorough study of Dietzgen's philosophical writings
is an important and indispensable auxiliary for the understanding of the
fundamental works of Marx and Engels. Dietzgen's work demonstrates that
the proletariat has a mighty weapon not only in proletarian economics,
but also in proletarian philosophy. Let us learn to wield these weapons!
ANTON PANNEKOEK.
Leyden, Holland, December, 1902.
The Nature of Human Brain Work
A Renewed Critique of Pure and Practical Reason
BY A MANUAL WORKER
Translated by Ernest Untermann
THE NATURE OF HUMAN BRAIN WORK
PREFACE
It may not be amiss here to say a few words to the kind reader and the
unkind critic in regard to the personal relation of the author to the
present work. The first objection which I anticipate will be aimed at my
lack of scientific learning which is shown indirectly rather, between
the lines, than in the work itself. "How dare you," I ask myself, "come
before the public with your statements on a subject, which has been
treated by such heroes of science as Aristotle, Kant, Fichte, Hegel,
etc., without being thoroughly familiar with all the works of your
famous predecessors?"
At best, will you not merely repeat what has long since been
accomplished?
In reply, I wish to say that the seeds sown by philosophy in the soil of
science have long since blossomed and borne fruit. The product of
history develops historically, grows and passes away, in order to live
eternally in another form. The original deed, the original work, is
fertile only in the contact with the conditions and relations of the
time in which it is born. But it finally becomes an empty shell, when it
has yielded its kernel to history. Whatever of a positive nature was
produced by the science of the past, lives no longer in the words of
the author, but has become more than spirit, has become flesh and blood
in present science. In order, e. g., to know the products of physics and
produce something new in its field, it is not necessary to first study
the history of this science, nor derive the hitherto discovered laws
from their fundamental source. On the contrary, historical research
might only be an obstacle to the solution of a definite physical
problem, for concentrated strength will naturally accomplish more than
divided strength. In this sense, I consider my lack of other knowledge
an advantage, because I am thus enabled to devote myself so much more
intensely to my special object. I have striven hard to study this object
and to learn everything which is known about it in my time. The history
of philosophy has in a certain sense been repeated in the development of
my individuality, since I speculated from my earliest youth on the means
of satisfying my longing for a consistent and systematic conception of
the world, and I believe I have finally found this satisfaction in the
inductive understanding of the human faculty of thought.
Note that it is not the faculty of thought in its various
manifestations, not the different forms of it, but its general form, its
general nature, that satisfied me and that I propose to discuss. My
object is then very plain and circumscribed, indeed it is so simple,
that I had difficulties in showing its nature from different points of
view and was compelled to resort to numerous repetitions. At the same
time, the question concerning the nature of the mind is a popular one,
which is not limited to professional philosophy, but concerns all
sciences. And whatever the history of science has contributed towards
the solution of this question, must be generally alive in the
scientific conceptions of the present. I could well be satisfied with
this source.
I may, then, confess in spite of my authorship, that I am not a
professor of philosophy, but a mechanic by profession. If any one should
feel justified in telling me: "Shoemaker, stick to your last!" I would
reply to him with Karl Marx: "Your non plus ultra professional wisdom
became enormously foolish from the moment when the watchmaker Watt
invented the steam engine, the barber Arkwright the loom, the jeweler
Fulton the steamship." Without classing myself among these great men, I
can strive to emulate them. Besides, the nature of my object is
especially pertinent to the class, a member of which I have the
pleasure, if not the honor, of being.
I treat in this work of the faculty of thought as the organ of the
general. The oppressed fourth estate, the working class, is the true
exponent of this organ, the ruling classes being prevented by their
special class interests from recognizing the demands of general reason.
Our first consideration is, of course, the relation of our object to
human conditions. However, so long as conditions are not equalized for
men in general, but vitiated by class interests, our view of things is
influenced by these class limitations. A truly objective understanding
requires a subjective theoretical freedom. Before Copernicus saw the
Earth was moving and the Sun stationary, he had to place himself outside
of his terrestrial standpoint. The faculty of thought, having all
relations for its object, must abstract from all of them in order to
grasp its own real nature. Since we can understand things only by means
of thought, we must abstract from everything in order to understand
thought in general. This task was too difficult, so long as man was
bound to some limited class standpoint. Not until historical development
has proceeded to the point of striving at dissolution of the last
society based on a ruling and a serving class, can prejudices be
overcome to the extent of enabling the faculty of understanding to grasp
the nature of human brain activity in the abstract. It is only a
historical movement aiming at the direct and general liberty of the
masses, the new era of the fourth estate based on much misunderstood
premises, which can dispense with the spirit cult sufficiently to be
enabled to expose the real author of every spook, the "pure" mind. The
man of the fourth estate represents at last the "pure" man. His
interests are no longer mere class interests, but mass interests,
interests of humanity. This indicates that we are now approaching the
end of a development in which the interests of the mass were dependent
on the interests of a ruling class and in which humanity made progress
not so much in spite of as by means of continuous oppression by Jewish
patriarchs, Asiatic conquerors, antique slaveholders, feudal barons,
guildmasters, modern capitalists and even capitalist Cæsars. The class
conditions of the past were inevitable in the general development. Now
this development has arrived at a point where the mass becomes conscious
of itself. Man has hitherto developed by class antagonism. By this means
he has now arrived at the point where he wants to develop himself
consciously. Class antagonisms were _phenomena_ of humanity. The working
class strives to abolish class antagonism in order that humanity itself
may be a _truth_.
Just as the Reformation was conditioned on the actual environment of the
sixteenth century, so, like the discovery of the electric telegraph, the
research of the theory of human understanding is based on the actual
conditions of the nineteenth century. To this extent the contents of
this little work are not an individual, but a historical product. In
writing it, I feel myself, if I may use this mystic phrase, as a mere
organ of the idea. Only the form of presenting the subject is mine, and
I beg the kind reader to judge it leniently. I ask that the reader may
direct his or her silent or loud objections, not against the form, but
against the substance of my remarks, not to cling to the letter, but to
understand the spirit of my words.
If I should not succeed in developing the idea, and if my voice should
thus be drowned in the hubbub of our overstocked book market, I am
nevertheless certain that the cause itself will find a more talented
champion.
JOSEPH DIETZGEN, _Tanner_.
SIEGBURG, May 15, 1869.
THE NATURE OF HUMAN BRAIN WORK
I.
INTRODUCTION
Systematization is the essence and the general expression of the
aggregate activity of science. Science seeks to classify and systematize
the objects of the world for the understanding of our brain. The
scientific understanding of a certain language, e. g., requires an
orderly arrangement of that language in general categories and rules.
The science of agriculture does not simply wish to produce a good crop
of potatoes, but to find a system for the methods of cultivation and
thus to furnish the knowledge by which success in cultivation can be
determined beforehand. The practical result of all theory is to acquaint
us with the system and method of its practice and thus to enable us to
act in this world with a reasonable certainty of success. Experience is,
of course, an indispensable condition for this purpose; but it alone is
not sufficient. Only by means of empirically developed theories, by
science, do we overcome the play of accident. Science gives us the
conscious domination over things and unconditional security in handling
them.
No one individual can know everything. The capacity of the individual
brain is no more adequate for the knowledge of everything that is
necessary than the skill and strength of the individual's hands are
sufficient to produce all he needs. Faith is indispensable to man, but
only faith in that which others know, not in what they believe. Science
is as much a social matter as material production. "One for all and all
for one."
But just as there are some wants of the body which every one has to
satisfy by himself, so every one has to know certain scientific facts
which are not the prerogative of any special science.
This is true of the faculty of human understanding. The knowledge and
study of this theory cannot be left to any particular guild. Lassalle
justly says: "Thinking itself has become a special trade in these days
of division of labor, and it has fallen into the worst hands, those of
our newspaper writers." He thus urges us not to acquiesce in this
appropriation any longer, not to submit any more to the harangues of
public opinion, but to resume thinking for ourselves. We may leave
certain objects of scientific research to professionals, but general
thought is a public matter which every one should be required to attend
to himself.
If we could place this general work of thinking on a scientific basis,
if we could find a theory of general thought, if we were able to
discover the means by which reason arrives at understanding, if we could
develop a method by which truth is produced scientifically, then we
should acquire for science in general and for our individual faculty of
judgment the same certainty of success which we already possess in
special fields of science.
Kant says: "If it is not possible to harmonize the various co-operators
on the question of the means by which their common aim is to be
accomplished, then we may safely infer that such a study is not yet on
the secure road of science, but will continue to grope in the dark."
Now, if we take a look at the sciences, we find that there are many,
especially among the natural sciences, which fulfill the requirements of
Kant, agreeing unanimously and consciously on certain empirical
knowledge and building further understanding on that. "There we know,"
as Liebig says, "what is to be called a certain fact, a conclusion, a
rule, a law. We have touchstones for all this, and every one makes use
of them before making known the fruits of his labors. The attempt to
maintain any proposition by lawyer's tricks, or the intention to make
others believe anything that cannot be proven, are immediately wrecked
by the ethics of science."
Not so in other fields, where concrete and material things are left
behind and abstract, so-called philosophical, matters are taken up, as,
for instance, questions of general conceptions of the world and of life,
of beginning and end, of the semblance and the essence of things, of
cause and effect, of matter and force, of might and right, of wisdom of
life, of morality, religion, and politics. Here we find, instead of
irrefutable proofs, mere "lawyer's tricks," an absence of reliable
knowledge, a mere groping amid contradictory opinions.
And it is precisely the prominent authorities of natural science who
show by their disagreements on such matters that they are mere tyros in
philosophy. It follows, then, that the socalled ethics of science, the
touchstones of which the boast is made that they never fail in
determining what is knowledge and what is mere conjecture, are based on
a purely instinctive practice, not on a conscious theory of
understanding. Although our time excels in diligent scientific research,
yet the numerous differences among scientists show that they are not
capable of using their knowledge with a predetermined certainty of
success. Otherwise, how could misunderstandings arise? Whoever
understands understanding, cannot misunderstand. It is only the absolute
accuracy of astronomical computations which entitles astronomy to the
name of a science. A man who can figure is at least enabled to test
whether his computation is right or wrong. In the same way, the general
understanding of the process of thought must furnish us with the
touchstone by which we can distinguish between understanding and
misunderstanding, knowledge and conjecture, truth and error, by general
and irrefutable rules. Erring is human, but not scientific. Science
being a human matter, errors may exist eternally, but the understanding
of the process of thought will enable us quite as well to prevent errors
from being offered and accepted as scientific truths as an understanding
of mathematics enables us to eliminate errors from our computations.
It sounds paradoxical and yet it is true: Whoever knows the general rule
by which error may be distinguished from truth, and knows it as well as
the rule in grammar by which a noun is distinguished from a verb, will
be able to distinguish in both cases with equal certainty. Scientists as
well as scribes have ever embarrassed one another by the question: What
is truth? This question has been an essential object of philosophy for
thousands of years. This question, like philosophy itself, is finally
settled by the understanding of the faculty of human thought. In other
words, the question of what constitutes truth is identical with the
question of the distinction between truth and error. Philosophy is the
science which has been engaged in solving this riddle, and the final
solution of the riddle by the clear understanding of the process of
thought also solves the question of the nature of philosophy. Hence a
short glance at the nature and development of philosophy may well serve
as an introduction to our study.
As the word philosophy is connected with various meanings, I state at
the outset that I am referring only to socalled speculative philosophy.
I dispense with frequent quotations and notes of the sources of my
knowledge, as anything that I may say in this respect is so well
established that we can afford to discard all scientific by-work.
If we apply the above-named test of Kant to speculative philosophy it
appears to be more the playground of different opinions than of science.
The philosophical celebrities and classic authorities are not even in
accord on the question: What is philosophy and what is its aim? For this
reason, and in order not to increase the difference by adding my own
opinion, I regard everything as philosophy that calls itself by that
name, and we select from the voluminous literature of philosophy that
which is common and general in all philosophers, without taking any
notice of their special peculiarities.
By this empirical method we find first of all that philosophy is
originally not a specialized science working with other sciences, but a
generic name for all knowledge, the essence of all science, just as art
is the essence of the various arts. Whoever made knowledge, whoever made
brain work his essential occupation, every thinker without regard to the
contents of his thoughts, was originally a philosopher.
But when with the progressive increase of human knowledge, the various
departments detached themselves from the mother of all wisdom,
especially since the origin of natural sciences, philosophy became
known, not so much by its content as by its form. All other sciences are
distinguished by their various objects, while philosophy is marked by
its own method. Of course, it also has its object and purpose. It
desires to understand the universal whole, the cosmos. But it is not
this object, this aim, by which philosophy is characterized; it is
rather the manner in which this object is accomplished.
All other sciences occupy themselves with special things, and if they
consider the universe at all, they do so only in its bearing on the
special objects of their study, the parts of which the universe is
composed. Alexander von Humboldt says in his introduction to his
"Cosmos" that he is limiting himself to an empirical consideration, to a
physical research, which seeks to elucidate the uniformity and unity by
means of the great variety. And all inductive sciences arrive at general
conclusions and conceptions only by way of their occupation with special
and concrete things. For this reason they claim that their conclusions
are based on facts.
Speculative philosophy proceeds by the opposite method. Thought, the
object of its study, may be some special question, yet it does not
follow this up in the concrete. It rejects as fallacious the evidence of
the senses, the physical experience gained by means of the eye and ear,
hand and brain, and limits itself to "pure" and absolutely abstract
thought, in order to understand thus by the unit of human reason the
multiplicity of the universe. In seeking for an answer to the question:
What is philosophy? which question we are specially discussing just now,
speculative philosophy would not start out from its actual material
form, from its wooden and pigskin volumes, from its great and small
essays, in order to arrive at a conception of its object. On the
contrary, the speculative philosopher turns to introspection and looks
in the depths of his own mind for the true concept of philosophy. And by
this standard he separates the impression of his senses into true or
erroneous. This speculative method has hardly ever dealt in tangible
things, unless we recognize this philosophical method in every
unscientific concept of nature which populated the world with spooks.
The rudiments of scientific speculation occasionally dealt with the
course of the sun and the globe. But since inductive astronomy
cultivates these fields with greater success, speculative philosophy
limits itself entirely to abstract discussions. And in this line of
research as well as in all others it is characterized by the production
of its results out of the idea or the concept.
For empirical science, for the inductive method, the multiplicity of
experiences is the first basis, and thought the second. Speculative
philosophy, on the other hand, seeks to arrive at scientific truth
without the help of experience. It rejects the socalled transient facts
as a foundation of philosophical understanding, and declares that it
should be absolute, exalted above time and space. Speculative philosophy
does not wish to be scientific physics, but metaphysics. It regards it
as its task to find by "pure" reason, and without the assistance of
experience, a system, a logic, or a theory of science, by which
everything worth knowing is supposed to be reeled off logically and
systematically, in about the same way in which we derive grammatically
the various forms of a word from its root. But the physical sciences
operate on the assumption that our faculty of understanding, to use a
familiar illustration, resembles a piece of soft wax which receives
impressions from outside, or a clean slate on which experience writes
its lines. Speculative philosophy, on the other hand, assumes that
certain ideas are innate and may be dipped and produced from the depths
of the mind by means of thought.
The difference between speculative and inductive science is that between
fantasy and sound common sense. The latter produces its ideas by means
of the outer world, by the help of experience, while fantasy gets its
product from the depth of the mind, out of itself. But this method of
production is only seemingly one-sided. A thinker can no more think
transcendental thoughts which are beyond the reach of experience, than a
painter can invent transcendental pictures, transcendental forms. Just
as fantasy creates angels by a combination of man and bird, or mermaids
by a composition of woman and fish, so all other products of fantasy,
though seemingly derived out of itself, are in fact only arbitrarily
arranged impressions of the outer world. Reason operates with numbers
and orders, time and measures, and other means of experience, while
fantasy reproduces the experiences without regard to law and in an
arbitrary form.
The longing for knowledge has been the cause of speculative attempts to
explain the phenomena of life and nature at a time when lack of
experience and observation made inductive understanding impossible.
Experience was then supplemented by speculation. In later times, when
experience had grown, previous speculation was generally recognized as
erroneous. But it nevertheless required thousands of years of repeated
disappointments on one side and numerous brilliant successes of the
inductive method on the other, before these speculative hobbies came
into disfavor.
Fantasy has certainly a positive power, and speculative intuition,
derived from analogy, very often precedes empirical and inductive
understanding. But we must remain aware of the fact that so much is
assumption and so much actual scientific knowledge. Conscious intuition
stimulates scientific research, while pseudo-science closes the door to
inductive research. The acquisition of the clear understanding of the
distinction between speculation and knowledge is a historical process,
the beginning and end of which coincides with the beginning and end of
speculative philosophy.
In ancient times, common sense operated in common with fantasy, the
inductive with the speculative method. The discussion of their
differences begins only with the understanding of the numerous
disappointments caused by the still inexperienced judgment which have
prevented an unobstructed view of the question up to modern times. But
instead of attributing these disappointments to lack of understanding,
they were charged to the account of the imperfection of the senses. The
senses were called impostors and material phenomena untrue images. Who
has not heard the lament about the unreliability of the senses? The
misunderstanding of nature and of its phenomena led to a serious rupture
with sense perceptions. The philosophers had deceived themselves and
thought they had been deceived by the senses. In their anger they turned
disdainfully away from the world of sensations. With the same uncritical
faith with which the semblance had hitherto been accepted as truth, now
uncritical doubt rejected the truth of sensations altogether. Research
abandoned nature and experience, and began the work of speculative
philosophy by "pure" thought.
But no! Science did not permit itself to be entirely led astray from the
path of common sense, from the way of truth of sense perceptions.
Natural science soon stepped into the breach, and its brilliant
successes gained for the inductive method the consciousness of its
fertility, while on the other hand philosophy searched for a system by
which all the great general truths might be opened up without
specialized study, without sense perception and observation, by mere
reason alone.
Now we have a more than sufficient quantity of such speculative systems.
If we measure them with the aforementioned standard of unanimousness, we
find that philosophy agrees only on its disagreements. In consequence,
the history of speculative philosophy, unlike the history of other
sciences, consists less of a gradual accumulation of knowledge, than of
a series of unsuccessful attempts to solve the general riddles of nature
and life by "pure" thought, without the help of the objects and
experience of the outer world. The most daring attempt in this line, the
most artificial structure of thought, was completed by Hegel in the
beginning of the nineteenth century. To use a common expression, he
became as famous in the world of science as Napoleon I did in the world
of politics. But Hegelian philosophy has not stood the test of time.
Haym, in his work entitled "Hegel and His Time," says of Hegelian
philosophy that "it was pushed aside by the progress of the world and by
living history."
The outcome of philosophy up to that time, then, was a declaration of
its own impotence. Nevertheless, we do not underestimate the fact that a
work occupying the best brains for thousands of years surely contained
some positive element. And in fact, speculative philosophy has a
history, which is not merely a series of unsuccessful attempts, but also
a living development. However, it is less the object of its study, less
the logical world system, which developed, than its method.
Every positive science has a material object, a beginning in the outer
world, a premise on which its understanding is based. Every empirical
science has for its fundament some material of the senses, some given
object, on which its understanding is dependent, and thus it becomes
"impure." Speculative philosophy seeks a "pure, absolute,"
understanding. It wishes to understand by "pure" reason, without any
material, without any experience. It takes its departure from the
enthusiastic conviction of the superiority of understanding and
knowledge over experience gained by sense perceptions. For this reason
it wishes to leave experience entirely aside in favor of absolutely
"pure" understanding. Its object is truth; not concrete truth, not the
truth of this or that thing, but truth in general, truth "in itself."
The speculative systems seek after an absolute beginning, an indubitably
self-supporting starting point, from which they may determine the
absolutely indubitable. The speculative systems are thus by their own
mentality perfectly complete and selfsufficient systems. Every
speculative system found its end in the subsequent knowledge that its
totality, its selfsufficiency, its absoluteness, was imaginary, that it
could be determined empirically and externally like all other knowledge,
that it was not a philosophical system, but a relative and empirical
attempt at understanding. Speculation finally dissolved into the
knowledge that understanding is by its very nature "impure," that the
organ of philosophy, the faculty of understanding cannot begin its
studies without a given point of departure, that science is not
absolutely superior to experience, but only so far as it can organize
numerous experiences. It followed from these premises that the object of
philosophy can be a general and objective understanding, or "truth in
itself," only in so far as understanding or truth in general can be
derived from given concrete objects. In plain words, speculative
philosophy was reduced to the unphilosophical science of the empirical
faculty of understanding, to the critique of reason.
Modern conscious speculation takes its departure from the experienced
difference between semblance and truth. It denies all sense phenomena in
order to find truth by thinking, without being deceived by any
semblance. The subsequent philosophers, however, found every time that
the truths of their predecessors, gained by this method, were not what
they pretended to be, but that their positive result consisted simply in
having advanced the science of the thought process to a certain extent.
By denying the actuality of the senses, by endeavoring to separate
thought from all sense perceptions, by isolating it, so to say, from its
sensory cover, speculative philosophy, more than any other science, laid
bare the structure of the mind. The more this philosophy advanced in
time, the more it developed in its historical course, the more
classically and strikingly did this kernel of its work spring into view.
After the repeated creation of giant fantasmagorias, it found its
solution in the positive knowledge that socalled pure philosophical
thought, abstracting from all concrete contents, is nothing but
thoughtless thought, thought without any real object back of it, and
produces mere fantasmagorias. This process of speculative deception and
scientific exposure was continued up to recent times. Finally the
solution of the main question, and the solution of speculation, was
introduced with the following words of Feuerbach: "My philosophy is no
philosophy."
The long story of speculative work was finally reduced to the
understanding of reason, of the intellect, the mind, to the exposure of
those mysterious operations which we call thinking.
The secret of the processes by which the truths of understanding are
produced, the ignorance of the fact that every thought requires an
object, a premise, was the cause of the idle speculative wanderings
which we find registered in the history of philosophy. The same secret
is today the cause of those numerous speculative mistakes which we
observe in passing over the words and works of naturalists. Their
knowledge and understanding is far developed, but only so far as it
refers to tangible objects. The moment they touch upon abstract
discussions, they offer "lawyers' proofs" in place of "objective facts."
For although they know intuitively and in a concrete case that this is a
truth, that a conclusion, and that a rule, they do not apply this
knowledge in general with consciousness and theoretical consistency. The
successes of natural science have taught them to operate the instrument
of thought, the mind, instinctively. But they lack the systematic
understanding which operates with conscious and predetermined certainty.
They ignore the outcome of speculative philosophy.
It will be our task to set forth in a short summary what speculative
philosophy has unconsciously produced of a positive nature by a tedious
process, in other words, to explain the general nature of the thought
process. We shall see that the understanding of this process will
furnish us with the means of solving scientifically the general riddles
of nature and of life. And thus we shall learn how that fundamental and
systematic world conception is developed which was the long coveted goal
of speculative philosophy.
II
PURE REASON OR THE FACULTY OF THOUGHT IN GENERAL
When speaking of food in general, we may mention fruits, cereals,
vegetables, meat and bread and classify them all, in spite of their
difference, under this one head. In the same way, we use, in this work,
the terms reason, consciousness, intellect, knowledge, discernment,
understanding, as referring to the same general thing. For we are
discussing the general nature of the thought process rather than its
special forms.
"No intelligent thinker of our day," says a modern physiologist,
"pretends to look for the seat of the intellectual powers in the blood,
as did the ancient Greeks, or in the pineal gland, as was the case in
the middle ages. Instead we have all become convinced that the central
nerve system is the organic center of the intellectual functions of the
brain." Yes, true enough, thinking is a function of the brain and nerve
center, just as writing is a function of the hand. But the study of the
anatomy of the hand can no more solve the question: What is writing?
than the physiological study of the brain can bring us nearer to the
solution of the question: What is thought? With the dissecting knife, we
may kill, but we cannot discover the mind. The understanding that
thought is a product of the brain takes us closer to the solution of
our problem, in as much as it draws it into the bright light of reality
and out of the domain of fantasy in which the ghosts dwell. Mind thereby
loses the character of a transcendental incomprehensible being and
appears as a bodily function.
Thinking is a function of the brain just as walking is a function of the
legs. We perceive thought and mind just as clearly with our senses as we
do pain and other feelings. Thought is felt by us as a subjective
process taking place inside of us. According to its contents this
process varies every moment and with each person, but according to its
form it is the same everywhere. In other words, in the thought process,
as in all processes, we make a distinction between the special or
concrete and the general or abstract. The general purpose of thought is
understanding. We shall see later that the simplest conception, or any
idea for that matter, is of the same general nature as the most perfect
understanding.
Thought and understanding cannot be without subjective contents any more
than without an object which suggests individual reflection. Thought is
work, and like every other work it requires an object to which it is
applied. The statements: I do, I work, I think, must be completed by an
answer to the question: What are you doing, working, thinking?
Every definite idea, all actual thought, is identical with its content,
but not with its object. My desk as a picture in my mind is identical
with my idea of it. But my desk outside of my brain is a separate object
and distinct from my idea. The idea is to be distinguished from thinking
only as a part of the thought process, while the object of my thought
exists as a separate entity.
We make a distinction between thinking and being. We distinguish between
the object of sense perception and its mental image. Nevertheless the
intangible idea is also material and real. I perceive my idea of a desk
just as plainly as the desk itself. True, if I choose to call only
tangible things material, then ideas are not material. But in that case
the scent of a rose and the heat of a stove are not material. It would
be better to call thoughts sense perceptions. But if it is objected that
this would be an incorrect use of the word, because language
distinguishes material and mental things, then we dispense with the word
material and call thought real. Mind is as real as the tangible table,
as the visible light, as the audible sound. While the idea of these
things is different from the things themselves, yet it has that in
common with them that it is as real as they. Mind is not any more
different from a table, a light, a sound, than these things differ among
themselves. We do not deny that there is a difference. We merely
emphasize that they have the same general nature in common. I hope the
reader will not misunderstand me henceforth, when I call the faculty of
thought a material quality, a phenomenon of sense perception.
Every perception of the senses is based on some object. In order that
heat may be real, there must be an object, something else which is
heated. The active cannot exist without the passive. The visible cannot
exist without the faculty of sight, nor the faculty of sight without
visible things. So is the faculty of thought a phenomenon, but it can
never exist in itself, it must always be based on some sense
perception. Thought appears, like all other phenomena, in connection
with an object. The function of the brain is no more a "pure" process
than the function of the eye, the scent of a flower, the heat of a
stove, or the touch of a table. The fact that a table may be seen,
heard, or felt, is due as much to its own nature as to that of another
object with which it enters into some relation.
But while each function is limited by its own separate line of objects,
while the function of the eye serves only for the perception of the
visible, the hand for the tangible, while walking finds an object in the
space it crosses, thought, on the other hand, has everything for its
object. Everything may be the object of understanding. Thought is not
limited to any special object. Every phenomenon may be the object and
the content of thought. More than this, we can only perceive anything
when it becomes the object of our brain activity. Everything is
therefore the object and content of thought. The faculty of thought may
be exerted quite generally on all objects.
We said a moment ago that everything may be perceived, but we now modify
this to the effect that only perceivable things may be perceived. Only
the knowable can be the object of knowledge, only the thinkable the
object of thought. To this extent the faculty of thought is limited, for
it cannot replace reading, hearing, feeling, and all other innumerable
activities of the world of sensations. We do, indeed, perceive all
objects, but no object may be exhaustively perceived, known, or
understood. In other words, the objects are not wholly dissolved in the
understanding. Seeing requires something that is visible, something
which is, therefore, more than seeing. In the same way, hearing requires
something that can be heard, thinking an object that can be thought of,
something which is more than our thoughts, something still outside of
our consciousness. We shall learn later on how we arrive at the
knowledge that we see, hear, feel, and think of objects, and not merely
of subjective impressions.
By means of thought we become aware of all things in a twofold manner,
viz., outside in reality and inside in thought, in conception. It is
easy to demonstrate that the things outside are different from the
things in our thoughts. In their actual form, in their real dimensions,
they cannot enter into our heads. Our brain does not assimilate the
things themselves, but only their images, their general outlines. The
imagined tree is only a general object. The real tree is different from
any other. And though I may have a picture of some special tree in my
head, yet the real tree is still as different from its conception as the
special is different from the general. The infinite variety of things,
the innumerable wealth of their properties, has no room in our heads.
I repeat, then, that we become aware of the outer world in a twofold
way, viz., in a concrete, tangible, manifold form, and in an abstract
form, which is mental and unitary. To our senses the world appears as a
variety of forms. Our brains combine them as a unit. And what is true of
the world, holds good of every one of its parts. A sense-perceived unit
is a nonentity. Even the atom of a drop of water or the atom of any
chemical element, is divisible, so long as it exists at all, and its
parts are different and distinct. A is not B. But the concept, the
faculty of thought, makes of every tangible or sense-perceived part an
abstract whole and conceives of every whole or quantity as a part of the
abstract world unit. In order to understand the things in their
entirety, we must take them practically and theoretically, with body and
mind. With the body we can grasp only the bodily, the tangible, with the
mind only the mental, the thinkable. Things also possess mental quality.
Mind is material and things are mental. Mind and matter are real only in
their inter-relations.
Can we see the things themselves? No, we see only the effects of things
on our eyes. We do not taste the vinegar, but the relation of the
vinegar to our tongue. The result is the sensation of acidity. The
vinegar is acid only in relation to our tongue. In relation to iron it
acts as a solvent. In the cold it becomes hard, in the heat liquid. It
acts differently on different objects with which it enters into
relations of time and space. Vinegar is a phenomenon, just as all things
are. But it never appears as vinegar by itself. It always appears in
connection with other phenomena. Every phenomenon is a product of a
subject and an object.
In order that a thought may appear, the brain or the faculty of thought
is not sufficient in itself. It requires, besides, an object which
suggests the thought. From this relative nature of our topic it follows
that in its treatment we cannot confine ourselves "purely" to it. Since
reason, or the faculty of thought, never appears by itself, but always
in connection with other things, we are continually compelled to pass
from the faculty of thought to other things, which are its objects, and
to treat of their connections.
Just as the sight does not see the tree, but only that which is visible
of the tree, so does the faculty of thought assimilate only the
perceivable image of an object, not the object itself. A thought is a
child begotten by the function of the brain in communion with some
object. In a thought is crystalized on one side the subjective faculty
of thought, and on the other the perceivable nature of an object. Every
function of the mind presupposes some object by which it is caused and
the spiritual image of which it is. Or vice versa, the spiritual content
of the mind is derived from some object which has its own existence and
which is either seen or heard, or smelled, or tasted, or felt, in short,
experienced.
Referring back to the statement that seeing is limited to the visible
qualities of some object, hearing to its audible qualities, etc., while
the faculty of thought has everything for its object, we now understand
this to mean that all objects have certain innumerable, but concrete,
qualities which are perceptible by our senses, and in addition thereto
the general spiritual quality of being thought of, understood, in short,
of being the object of our faculty of thought.
This mode of classifying all objects applies also to the faculty of
thought itself. The spirit, or mind, is a bodily function connected with
the senses which appear in various forms. Mind is thought generated at
different times in different brains by different objects through the
instrumentality of the senses. We may choose this mind as the object of
special thought the same as all other things. Considered as an object,
mind is a manysided and sense-perceived fact which in connection with a
special function of the brain generates the general concept of "Mind" as
the content of this special thought process. The object of thought is
distinguished from its contents in the same way in which every object is
distinguished from its mental image. The different kinds of motion
perceived by the help of the senses are the object of a certain thought
process and supply to it the idea of "motion." It is easier to
understand that the mental image of some object perceived by the senses
has a father and a mother, being begotten by our faculty of thought by
means of some sense-perceived object, than it is to grasp the existence
of that trinity which is born when our present thought experiences its
own existence and thus creates a conception of its own self. This has
the appearance of moving around in a circle. The object, the content and
the function of thought apparently coincide. Reason deals with itself,
considers itself as an object and is its own content. But nevertheless
the distinction between an object and its concept, though less evident,
is just as actual as in other cases. It is only the habit of regarding
matter and mind as fundamentally different things which conceals this
truth. The necessity to make a distinction compels us everywhere to
discriminate between the object of sense perception and its mental
concept. We are forced to do the same in the case of the faculty of
thought, and thus we find it necessary to give the name of "Mind" to
this special object of our sense perceptions. Such an ambiguity of terms
cannot be entirely avoided in any science. A reader who does not cling
to words, but rather seeks to grasp the meaning, will easily realize
that the difference between being and thinking applies also to the
faculty of thought, that the fact of understanding is different from the
understanding of understanding. And since the understanding of
understanding is again another fact, it will be permitted to call all
spiritual things facts or sense perceptions.
Reason, or the faculty of thought, is therefore not a mystical object
which produces the individual thought. On the contrary, it is a fact
that certain individual thoughts are the product of perception gained in
contact with certain objects and that these in connection with a certain
brain operation produce the concept of reason. Reason as well as all
other things of which we become aware has a two-fold existence: one as a
phenomenon or sense-perception, the other as a concept. The concept of
any thing presupposes a certain sense-perception of that thing, and so
does the concept of reason. Since all men think as a matter of fact,
every one has himself perceived reason as a part of reality, as a
phenomenon, sense-perception or fact.
Our object, reason, by virtue of the fact that it partakes of the nature
of the senses, has the faculty of transforming the speculative method,
which tries to dip understanding out of the depths of the spirit without
the help of sense-perception, into the inductive method, and vice versa
of transforming the inductive method, which desires to arrive at
conclusions, concepts, or understanding exclusively by means of
sense-perception, into the speculative method, by virtue of its
simultaneous spiritual nature. Our problem is to analyze the concept of
thought, or of the faculty of thought, or of reason, of knowing, of
science, by means of thought.
To produce thoughts and to analyze them is the same thing inasmuch as
both actions are functions of the brain. Both have the same nature. But
they are different to the same extent that instinct differs from
consciousness. Man does not think originally because he wants to, but
because he must. Ideas are produced instinctively, involuntarily. In
order to become fully aware of them, to place them within the grasp of
knowing and willing, we must analyze them. From the experience of
walking, for instance, we derive the idea of walking. To analyze this
idea means to solve the question, what is walking generally considered,
what is the general nature of walking? We may answer: Walking is a
rythmical motion from one place to another, and thus we raise the
instinctive idea to the position of a conscious analyzed idea. An object
is not consciously, theoretically, understood, until it has been
analyzed. In examining what elements constitute the concept of walking,
we find that the general attribute of that experience which we agree in
calling "walking" is a rythmical motion. In actual experience steps may
be long or short, may be taken by two feet or by more, in brief may be
varied. But as a concept walking is simply a rythmical motion, and the
analysis of this concept furnishes us with the conscious understanding
of this fact. The concept of light existed long before science analyzed
it, before it was understood that undulations of the ether form the
elements which constitute the concept of light. Instinctive and
analytical ideas differ in the same way in which the thoughts of every
day life differ from the thoughts of science.
The analysis of any idea and the theoretical analysis of any object, or
of the thing which suggested the idea, is one and the same. Every idea
corresponds to some real object. Ludwig Feuerbach has demonstrated that
even the concepts of God and immortality are reflections of real objects
which can be perceived by the senses. For the purpose of analyzing such
ideas as animal, light, friendship, man, etc., the phenomena, the
objects, such as animals, friendships, men, and lights, are analyzed.
The object which serves for the analysis of the concept "animal" is no
more any single animal, than the object of the concept "light" is any
single light. These concepts comprise classes, things in general, and
therefore the question, or the analysis, of what constitutes the animal,
the light, friendship, must not deal with any concrete, but with the
abstract elements of the whole class.
The fact that the analysis of a concept and the analysis of its object
appear as two different things is due to our faculty of being able to
separate things into two parts, viz., into a practical, tangible,
perceptible, concrete thing and into a theoretical mental, thinkable,
general thing. The practical analysis is the premise of the theoretical
analysis. The individually perceptible animals serve us as a basis for
the analysis of the animal concept, the individually experienced
friendships as the basis for the analysis of the concept of friendship.
Every idea corresponds to an object which may be practically separated
into its component parts. To analyze a concept is equivalent, therefore,
to analyzing a previously experienced object by theoretical means. The
analysis of a concept consists in the understanding of the common or
general faculties of the concrete parts of the analyzed object. That
which is common to the various modes of walking, the rythmical motion,
constitutes the concept of walking, that which is common to the various
manifestations of light constitutes the concept of light. A chemical
factory analyzes objects for the purpose of obtaining chemicals, while
science analyzes them for the purpose of obtaining their concepts.
The special object of our analysis, the faculty of thought, is likewise
distinguished from its concept. But in order to be able to analyze this
concept, we must analyze the object. It cannot be analyzed chemically,
for not everything is a matter of chemistry, but it may be analyzed
theoretically or scientifically. As we have already stated, the science
of understanding deals with all objects. But all objects which this
science may wish to analyze theoretically, must first be handled
practically. According to their special natures, they must either be
handled in various ways, or carefully inspected, or scrutinized by
intent listening, in short they must be thoroughly experienced in some
way.
It is a fact of experience that men think. The object or suggestion is
furnished by facts, and we then derive the concept instinctively. Thus,
to analyze the faculty of thought means to find that which is common or
general to the various personal and temporary processes of thought. In
order to follow this study by the methods of natural science, we require
neither physical instruments nor chemical reagents. The sense
perception which is indispensable for every scientific understanding, is
so to say present in this case _a priori_, without further experience.
Every one possesses the object of our study, the fact of thought faculty
and its experience, in the memories of himself or herself.
We have seen that thought like any other activity as well as its
scientific analysis is everywhere developing the general or abstract out
of particular and concrete sense perceptions. We now express this in the
following words: The common feature of all separate thought-processes
consists in their seeking the general character or unity which is common
to all objects experienced in their manifold variety by sense
perceptions. The general element which is common to the different
animals, or to the different manifestations of light, is that which
constitutes the general animal or light concept. The general is the
nature of all concepts, of all understanding, all science, all thought
processes. Thus we arrive at the understanding that the analysis of the
faculty of thought reveals its nature of finding that which is general
and common to concrete and distinct things. The eye studies the visible,
the ear the audible, and our brain that which is generally conceivable.
We have seen that thought like any other activity requires an object;
that it is unlimited in the choice of its objects, because all things
may become the objects of thought; that these objects are perceived in
manifold forms by various senses; and that they are transformed into
simple ideas by extricating that which they possess in common, which is
similar, which is general in them. If we apply this experienced
understanding of the general method of thought processes to our special
object, the faculty of thought, we realize that we have thus solved our
problem, because all we were looking for was the general method of the
thought process.
_If the development of the general out of the concrete constitutes the
general method by which reason arrives at understanding, then we have
fully grasped reason as the faculty of deriving the general out of the
concrete._
Thinking is a physical process and it cannot exist or produce anything
without materials any more than any other process of labor. My thought
requires some material which can be thought of. This material is
furnished by the phenomena of nature and life. These are the concrete
things. In claiming that the universe, or all things, may be the object
of thought, we simply mean that the materials of the thought process,
the objects of the mind, are infinite in quantity and quality. The
materials which the universe furnishes for our thought are as infinite
as space, as eternal as time, and as absolutely manifold as the nature
of these two forms of being. The faculty of thought is a universal
faculty in so far as it enters into relations with all things, all
substances, all phenomena, and thus generates thought. But it is not
absolute, since it requires for its existence and action the previous
presence of matter. Matter is the boundary, beyond which the mind cannot
pass. Matter furnishes the background for the illumination of the mind,
but is not consumed in this illumination. Mind is a product of matter,
but matter is more than a product of mind, being perceived also through
the five senses and thus brought to our notice. We call real, objective
products, or "things themselves" only such products as are revealed to
us simultaneously by the senses and the mind.
Reason is a real thing only in so far as it is perceived by the senses.
The perceptible actions of reason are revealed in the brain of man as
well as in the world outside of it. For are not the effects tangible by
which reason transforms nature and life? We see the successes of science
with our eyes and grasp them with our hands. It is true that science or
reason cannot produce such material effects out of themselves. The world
of sense perceptions, the objects outside of the human brain, must be
given. But what thing is there that has any effects "in itself?" In
order that light may shine, that the sun may warm, and revolve in its
course, there must be space and other things which may be lighted and
warmed and passed. In order that my table may have color, there must be
light and eyes. And everything else which my table is besides, it can be
only in contact with other things. Its being is just as manifold as
those various contacts or relations. In short, the world consists only
in its interrelations. Any thing that is torn out of its relations with
the world ceases to exist. A thing is anything "in itself" only because
it is something for other things, by acting or appearing in connection
with something else.
If we wish to regard the world in the light of the "thing itself," we
shall easily see that the world "itself" and the world as it appears,
the world of phenomena, differ only in the same way in which the whole
differs from its component parts. The world "itself" is nothing else but
the sum total of its phenomena. The same holds good of that part of the
world phenomena which we call reason, spirit, faculty of thought.
Although we distinguish between the faculty of thought and its phenomena
or manifestations, yet the faculty of thought "itself," or "pure"
reason, exists in reality only in the sum total of its manifestations.
Seeing is the physical existence of the faculty of sight. We possess the
whole only by means of its parts, and we can possess reason, like all
other things, only by the help of its effects, by its various thoughts.
But we repeat that reason does not precede thought in the order of time.
On the contrary thoughts generated by perceptible objects serve as a
basis for the development of the concept of the faculty of thought. Just
as the understanding of the world movements has taught us that the sun
is not revolving around the earth, so the understanding of the thought
process tells us that it is not the faculty of thought which creates
thought, but vice versa, that the concept of this faculty is created out
of a series of concrete thoughts. Hence the faculty of thought
practically exists only as the sum total of our thoughts, just as the
faculty of sight exists only through the sum of the things that we see.
These thoughts, this practical reason, serve as the material out of
which our brain manufactures the concept of "pure" reason. Reason is
necessarily impure in practice, which means that it must connect itself
with some object. Pure reason, or abstract reason without any special
content, cannot be anything else but the general characteristic of all
concrete reasoning processes. We possess this general nature of reason
in two ways: In an impure state, that is as practical and concrete
phenomenon, consisting of the sum of our real perceptions, and in a pure
state, that is theoretically or abstractly, in the concept. The
phenomenon of reason is distinguished from reason "itself" just as the
real animals are distinguished from the concept of the animal.
Every actual reasoning process is based on some real object which has
many qualities like all things in nature. The faculty of thought
extracts from this many-sided object those properties which are general
or common with it. A mouse and an elephant, as the objects of our
reasoning activity, lose their differences in the general animal
concept. Such a concept combines many things under one uniform point of
view, it develops one general idea out of many concrete things. Since
understanding is the general or common quality of all reasoning
processes, it follows that reason in general, or the general nature of
the reasoning process, consists in abstracting the general ideal
character from any concrete thing perceptible by the help of the senses.
Reason being unable to exist without some objects outside of itself, it
is understood that we can perceive "pure" reason, or reason "itself,"
only by its practical manifestations. We cannot find reason without
objects outside of it with which it comes in contact and produces
thought, any more than we can find any eyes without light. And the
manifestations of reason are as varied as the objects which supply its
material. It is plain, then, that reason has no separate existence "in
itself," but that on the contrary the concept of reason is formed out of
the material supplied by the senses.
Mental processes appear only in connection with perceptible phenomena.
These processes are themselves phenomena of sense perception which, in
connection with a brain process, produce the concept of the faculty of
thought "itself." If we analyze this concept, we find that "pure" reason
consists in the activity of producing general ideas out of concrete
materials, which include so-called immaterial thoughts. In other words,
reason may be characterized as an activity which seeks for unity in
every multiplicity and equalizes all contrasts whether it deals with the
many different sides and parts of one or of more objects. All these
different statements describe the same thing in different words, so that
the reader may not cling to the empty word, but grasp the living
concept, the manifold object, in its general nature.
Reason, we said, exists in a "pure" state as the development of the
general out of the special, of the abstract out of concrete sense
perceptions. This is the whole content of pure reason, of scientific
understanding, of consciousness. And by the terms "pure" and "whole" we
simply indicate that we mean the general content of the various thought
processes, the general form of reason. Apart from this general abstract
form, reason, like all other things, has also its concrete, special,
sense form which we perceive directly through our experience. Hence our
entire process of consciousness consists in the experience of the
senses, that is in the physical process, and its understanding.
Understanding is the general reflection of any object.
Consciousness, as the Latin root of the word indicates, is the knowledge
of being in existence. It is a form, or a quality, of existence which
differs from other forms of being in that it is aware of its existence.
Quality cannot be explained, but must be experienced. We know by
experience that consciousness includes along with the knowledge of being
in existence the difference and contradiction between subject and
object, thinking and being, between form and content, between phenomenon
and essential thing, between attribute and substance, between the
general and the concrete. This innate contradiction explains the various
terms applied to consciousness, such as the organ of abstraction, the
faculty of generalization or unification, or in contradistinction
thereto the faculty of differentiation. For consciousness generalizes
differences and differentiates generalities. Contradiction is innate in
consciousness, and its nature is so contradictory that it is at the same
time a differentiating, a generalizing, and an understanding nature.
Consciousness generalizes contradiction. It recognizes that all nature,
all being, lives in contradictions, that everything is what it is only
in co-operation with its opposite. Just as visible things are not
visible without the faculty of sight, and vice versa the faculty of
sight cannot see anything but what is visible, so contradiction must be
recognized as something general which pervades all thought and being.
The science of understanding, by generalizing contradiction, solves all
concrete contradictions.
III
THE NATURE OF THINGS
In so far as the faculty of understanding is a physical object, the
knowledge of its nature is a matter of physical science. But in so far
as we understand all things by the help of this faculty, the science of
understanding becomes metaphysics. Inasmuch as the scientific analysis
of reason reverses the current conception of its nature, this specific
understanding necessarily reverses our entire world philosophy. With the
understanding of the nature of reason, we arrive at the long sought
understanding of the "nature of things."
We wish to know, understand, conceive, recognize all things in their
very nature, not in their outward appearance. Science seeks to
understand the nature of things, or their true essence, by means of
their manifestations. Every thing has its own special nature, and this
nature is not seen, or felt, or heard, but solely perceived by the
faculty of thought. This faculty explores the nature of all things just
as the eye explores all that is visible in things. Just as the nature of
sight is understood by the theory of vision, so the nature of things in
general is understood by the theory of understanding.
It is true that it sounds contradictory to say that the nature of a
thing does not appear to the eye, but to the faculty of thought, and at
the same time to imply that the opposite of appearance, nature, should
appear. But we here refer to the nature of a thing as a phenomenon in
the same way in which we referred to the mind as a perception of the
senses, and we shall demonstrate further on that every being is a
phenomenon, and every phenomenon is more or less of an essential thing.
We have seen that the faculty of thought requires for its vital activity
an object, or raw material. The effect of reasoning is seen in science,
no matter whether we understand the term science in its narrow classical
sense or in its broadest meaning of any kind of knowledge. The phenomena
of sense perception constitute the general object or material of
science. Sense perceptions arise from infinite circulation of matter.
The universe and all things in it consist of transformations of matter
which take place simultaneously and consecutively in space and time. The
universe is in every place and at any time itself, new, and present for
the first time. It arises and passes away, passes and arises under our
very hands. Nothing remains the same, only the infinite change is
constant, and even the change varies. Every particle of time and space
brings new changes. It is true that the materialist believes in the
permanency, eternity, indestructibility of matter. He teaches us that
not the smallest particle of matter has ever been lost in the world,
that matter simply changes its forms eternally, but that its nature
lasts indestructibly through all eternity. And yet, in spite of all
distinctions between matter itself and its perishable form, the
materialist is on the other hand more inclined than any one else to
dwell on the identity of matter and its forms. Inasmuch as the
materialist speaks ironically of formless matter and matterless forms,
in the same breath with perishable forms of imperishable matter, it is
plain that materialism is not informed any more than idealism as to the
relation of content to form, of a phenomenon to the essential nature of
its subject. Where do we find such eternal, imperishable, formless
matter? In the world of sense perceptions we never meet anything but
forms of perishable matter. It is true that there is matter everywhere.
Wherever anything passes away, something new instantly arises. But
nowhere has any homogeneous, unchangeable matter enduring without any
form, ever been discovered. Even a chemically indivisible element is
only a relative unit in its actual existence, and in extension of time
as well as in extension through space it varies simultaneously and
consecutively as much as any organic individual which also changes only
its concrete forms, but remains the same in its general nature from
beginning to end. My body changes continually its fleshy tissue, bones,
and every other particle belonging to it, and yet it always remains the
same. What constitutes, then, this body which is distinguished from its
transient form? It is the sum total, in a generalized way, of all its
varied concrete forms. Eternal and imperishable matter exists in reality
only as the sum total of its perishable forms. The statement that matter
is imperishable cannot mean anything but that there will always and
everywhere be matter. It is just as true to say that matter is
imperishable and merely changes its forms, as it is to say that matter
exists only in its changing forms, that it is matter which changes and
that only the change is eternal. The terms "changeable matter" and
"material change" are after all only different expressions for the same
thing.
In the practical world of sense perceptions, there is nothing permanent,
nothing homogeneous, nothing beyond nature, nothing like a "thing
itself." Everything is changing, passing, phantomlike, so to say. One
phantom is chased by another. "Nevertheless," says Kant, "things are
also something in themselves," for otherwise we should have the absurd
contradiction that there could be phenomena without things that produce
them. But no! A phenomena is no more and no less different from the
thing which produces it than the stretch of a twenty-mile road is
different from the road itself. Or we may distinguish between a knife
and its blade and handle, but we know that there would be no knife if
there were no blade and no handle. The essential nature of the universe
is change. Phenomena appear, that is all.
The contradiction between the "thing itself," or its essence, and its
outward appearance is fully solved by a complete critique of reason
which arrives at the understanding that the human faculty of thought may
generalize any number of varied sense perceptions under one uniform
point of view, by singling out the general and equivalent forms and thus
regarding everything it may meet as a concrete part of one and the same
whole.
In other words, the relative and transient forms perceived by our senses
serve as raw material for our brain activity, which abstracts the
general likeness out of the concrete forms and systematizes or
classifies them for our consciousness. The infinite variety of sense
perceptions passes in review before our subjective mind, and it
constructs out of the multiplicity the unity, out of the parts the
whole, out of the phenomena the essential nature, out of the perishable
the imperishable, out of the attributes the subject. The essence, the
nature of things, the "thing itself" is an ideal, a spiritual
conception. Consciousness knows how to make sums out of different units.
It can take any number of units for its sums. The entire multiplicity of
the universe is theoretically conceived as one unit. On the other hand,
every abstract sum consists in reality of an infinite number of sense
perceptions. Where do we find any indivisible unit outside of our
abstract conceptions? Two halves, four fourths, eight eighths, or an
infinite number of separate parts form the raw material out of which the
mind fashions the mathematical unit. This book, its leaves, its letters,
or their parts, are they units? Where do I begin, where do I stop? In
the same way, I may call a library with many volumes, a house, a farm,
and finally the whole universe, a unit. Is not everything a part, is not
every part a thing? Is the color of a leaf less of a thing than that
leaf itself? Perhaps some would call the color simply an attribute and
the leaf its substance, because there might be a leaf without color, but
no color without a leaf. But as surely as we exhaust a heap of sand by
scattering it, just as surely do we remove all the substance of a leaf
when we take away its attributes one after the other. Color is only the
sum of reactions of leaf, light, and eye, and so is all the rest of the
matter of a leaf an aggregate of interactions. In the same way in which
our reason deprives a leaf of its color attributes and sets it apart as
a "thing itself," may we continue to deprive that leaf of all its other
attributes, and in so doing we finally take away everything that makes
the leaf. Color is in its nature no less a substance than the leaf
itself, and the leaf is no less an attribute than its color. As the
color is an attribute of a leaf, so a leaf is an attribute of a tree, a
tree an attribute of the earth, the earth an attribute of the universe.
The universe is the substance, substance in general, and all other
substances are but its attributes. And this world-substance reveals the
fact that the nature of things, the "thing itself" as distinguished from
its manifestations, is only a concept of the mind.
In its universal search from the attribute to the substance, from the
relative to the absolute, from the appearance of things to the true
things, the mind finally arrives at the understanding that the substance
is nothing but a sum of attributes collected by brain activity, and that
the mind itself, or reason, is a substantial being which creates
abstract mental units out of a multitude of sense perceptions and
conceives of the universe as an absolute whole, as an independent "thing
itself," by adding all its transient manifestations. In turning away
full of dissatisfaction from attributes, searching restlessly after the
substance, throwing aside phenomena, and forever groping for truth, for
the nature of things, for the "thing itself," and in finally realizing
that this substantial truth is merely the sum of all socalled untruths,
the totality of all phenomena, the mind proves itself to be the creator
of the abstract concept of substance. But it did not create this
concept out of nothing. On the contrary, it generated the concept of a
world substance out of attributes, it derived truth out of
manifestations of things.
The idealist conception that there is an abstract nature behind
phenomena which materialises itself in them, is refuted by the
understanding that this hidden nature does not dwell in the world
outside of the human mind, but in the brain of man. But since the brain
differentiates between phenomena and their nature, between the concrete
and the general, only by means of sense perception, it cannot be denied
that the distinction between phenomena and their nature is well founded;
only the essential nature of things is not found back of phenomena, but
by means of phenomena. This nature is materially existent and our
faculty of thought is a real and natural one.
It is true of spiritual things as well as of physical ones, in fact it
is true of all things, metaphysically speaking, that they are what they
are, not "in themselves," not in their abstract nature, but in contact
with other things, in reality. In this sense one might say that things
are not what they seem, but manifest themselves because they are
existent, and they manifest themselves in as many different ways as
there are other things with which they enter into relations of time and
space. But the statement that things are not what they seem requires, in
order to be rightly understood, the modification that whatever manifests
itself, exists in nature, and its existence is limited by its
manifestations. "We cannot perceive heat itself," says a book on physics
written by Professor Koppe, "we merely conclude from its manifestations
that it is present in nature." Thus reasons a naturalist who seeks to
understand a thing by practical and diligent study of its
manifestations, but who seeks refuge in the speculative belief in a
hidden "thing itself" whenever a lack of understanding of the
fundamentals of logic embarrasses him. We, on the contrary, conclude
that there is no such thing as "heat itself," since it cannot be found,
in nature, and we conceive of heat as effects of matter which the human
brain translated into the conception of "heat itself." Because science
was, perhaps, as yet unable to analyse this conception, the professor
says we cannot perceive the natural object which gives rise to this
conception. "Heat itself" is simply composed of the sum total of its
manifold effects, and there is nothing else to it. The faculty of
thought generalizes this variety of effects under the concept of heat in
general. The analysis of this conception, the discovery of the general
character of the various manifestations of heat, is the function of
inductive science. But the conception of heat separated from its effects
is a speculative idea, similar to Lichtenberg's knife without handle and
blade.
The faculty of thought in touch with sense perceptions produces the
nature of things. But it produces them no more independently of things
outside than do the eye, the ear, or any other sense of man. It is not
the "things themselves" which we see or feel, but their effects on our
eyes, hands, etc. The faculty of reason to generalize different
perceptions of the eye permits us to distinguish between concrete sights
and sight in general. The faculty of thought conceives of any concrete
sight as an object of sight in general. It furthermore distinguishes
between subjective and objective sight perceptions, the latter being
sights which are visible not alone to the individual eye, but to
eyesight in general. Even the visions of a spiritualist, or such
subjective impressions as forked lightning, circles of fire, caused by
excited blood of closed eyes, serve as objects for the critical
consciousness. A glittering object revealed by bright sunlight miles
away is no more and no less tangible in substance, no more and no less
true, than any optical illusion. A man whose ear is tingling hears
something, though it is not the tinkling of bells. Every sense
perception is an object, and every object is a sense perception. The
object of any subjective mind is a passing manifestation, and every
objective perception is but a perishable subject. The object of
observation may exist in a more tangible, less approachable, more
stable, or more general form, but it is not a "thing itself." It may be
perceived not alone by my eyes, but also by those of others, not by the
eyes, but also by the feeling, the hearing, the taste, etc. And it may
be noticed not alone by men, but also by other objects. But nevertheless
it appears only as a manifestation, it is different in different places,
it is not today what it is tomorrow. Every existence is relative, in
touch with other things, and entering into different relations of time
and space with them.
Every sense perception is an actual and natural object. Truth exists in
the form of natural phenomena, and whatever is, is true. Substance and
attribute are only terms for certain relations. They are not
contradictions, and, as a matter of fact, all contradictions disappear
before our faculty of generalization and differentiation. For this
faculty reconciles all contradictions by finding a general quality in
all differences. Existence, or universal truth, is the general object,
the raw material, of the faculty of thought. This material is of the
utmost variety and supplied by the senses. The senses reveal to us the
substance of the universe in the forms of concrete qualities, in other
words, the nature of perceptible matter is revealed to the faculty of
thought through a variety of concrete forms. It is not perceived as a
general essence, but only through interdependent phenomena. Out of the
interdependence of the sense perceptions with our faculty of thought
there arise quantities, general concepts, things, true perceptions, or
understood truths.
Essence and truth are two terms for the same thing. Truth, or the
essence and nature of things, is a theoretical concept. As we have seen,
we receive impressions of things in two ways, viz., a sense impression
and a mental impression, the one practical, the other theoretical.
Practice furnishes us with the sense impression, theory with the mental
nature of things.
Practice is the premise of theory, sense perception the premise of the
nature which is also called the truth. The same truth manifests itself
in practice either simultaneously or consecutively in the same place or
in different places. It exists theoretically as a homogeneous
conception.
Practice, phenomena, sense perceptions, are absolute qualities, that is
to say they have no quantitative limitation, they are not restricted by
time or space. They are absolute and infinite qualities. The qualities
of a thing are as infinite as its parts. On the other hand, the work of
the faculty of thought, of theory, creates at will an infinite number of
quantities, and it conceives every quality of sense _perceptions_ in the
form of quantities, as the essential nature of things, as truths. Every
conception has a quality of some sense perception for its object. Every
object can be conceived by the faculty of thought only as a quantitative
unit, as true nature, as truth.
The faculty of thought produces in contact with sense perceptions that
which manifests itself as true nature, as a general truth. A primitive
concept accomplishes this at first only instinctively, while a
scientific concept is a conscious and voluntary repetition of this
primitive act. Scientific understanding wanting to know an object, such
as for instance heat, is not hunting after the phenomena themselves. It
does not aim to see or hear how heat melts iron or wax, how it benefits
in one case or injures in another, how it makes eggs solid or ice
liquid, nor does it concern itself with the difference between the heat
of an animal, of the sun, or of a stove. All these things are from the
point of view of the faculty of understanding, only effects, phenomena,
qualities. It desires to get at the essence, the true nature of things,
it strives to find a general law, a concise scientific extract, of
things seen, heard, and felt. The abstract nature of things cannot be a
tangible object. It is a concept of theory, of science, of the faculty
of thought. The understanding of heat consists in singling out that
which is common to all phenomena of heat, which is essential or true for
all heat. _Practically the nature of heat consists of the sum total of
all its manifestations, theoretically in its concept, scientifically in
the analysis of this concept. To analyze the concept of heat means to
ascertain that which is common to all manifestations of heat._
The general nature of the thing is its true nature, the general quality
its true quality. We define rain more truly as being wet than as being
fertilizing, because it gives moisture wherever it falls, while it
fertilizes only under certain circumstances and in certain places. My
true friend is one who is constant and loyal to me all my life under all
circumstances. Of course, we must not believe in any absolute and
unconditional friendship any more than in any absolute and eternal
truth. Perfectly true, perfectly universal, is only the general
existence, the universe, the absolute quantity. But the real world is
absolutely relative, absolutely perishable, an infinity of
manifestations, an infinity of qualities. All truths are simply parts of
this world, partial truths. Semblance and truth flow dialectically into
one another like hard and soft, good and bad, right and wrong, but at
the same time they remain different. Even though I know that there is no
rain which is "fertile in itself," and no friend who is true in an
absolute sense, I may nevertheless refer to a certain rain as fertile in
relation to certain crops, and I may distinguish between my more or less
true friends.
The universe is the truth. The universe is that which is universal, that
is, things which exist and are perceived. The general mark of truth is
existence, because universal existence is truth. Now, existence is not a
general abstraction, but a reality in the concrete form of sense
perceptions. The world of sense perceptions has its true and perceptible
existence in the passing and manifold manifestations of nature and life.
Therefore all manifestations are recognized as relative truths, all
truths as concrete and temporal manifestations. The manifestation of
practice is considered as a truth in theory, and vice versa, the truth
of theory is manifested in practice. Opposites are mutually relative.
Truth and error differ only comparatively, in volume of degree, like
being and seeming, life and death, light and dark, like all other
opposites in the world. It is a matter of course that all things of this
world are worldly, consequently are of the same matter, the same nature,
the same family, the same quality. In other words, every volume of
perceptible manifestation forms in contact with the human faculty of
thought a being, a truth, a general thing. For our consciousness, every
particle of dust as well as every dust cloud, or any other mass of
material manifestations, is on the one hand an abstract "thing in
itself," and on the other a passing phenomenon of the absolute object,
the universe. Inside of this universe the various manifestations are
systematized or generalized at will and on purpose by means of our mind.
The chemical element is as much a manysided system as the organic cell
or the whole vegetable kingdom. The smallest and the largest being is
divided into individuals, species, families, classes, etc. This
systematization, this generalization, this generation of beings is
continued in an ascending scale up to the infinity of the universe, and
in the descending scale down to the infinity of the parts. In the eyes
of the faculty of thought all qualities become abstract things, all
things relative qualities.
Every thing, every sense perception, no matter how subjective or
shortlived it may be, is true, is a certain part of truth. In other
words, the truth exists, not only in the general existence, but every
concrete existence has also its own distinct generality or truth. Every
object, whether it be a mere passing idea, or a volatile scent, or some
tangible matter, constitutes a sum of manifold phenomena. The faculty of
thought turns various quantities into one, discerns the equality in
different things, seeks the unity in the multiplicity. Mind and matter
have at least actual existence in common. Organic nature agrees with
inorganic nature in being material. It is true that there are wide
divergences between man, monkey, elephant, and plants attached to the
soil, but even greater differences are reconciled under the term
"organism." However much a stone may differ from a human heart, thinking
reason will discover innumerable similarities in them. They at least
agree in being matter, they are both visible, tangible, and may be
weighed, etc. Their differences are as manifold as their likenesses.
Solomon truly says that there is nothing new under the sun, and Schiller
also says truly that the world grows old and again grows young. What
abstract thing, being, existence, generality is there that is not
manifold in its sense manifestations, and individually different from
all other things? There are no two drops of water alike. I am now in
many respects different from what I was an hour ago, and the likeness
between my brother and myself is only relatively greater than the
likeness between a watch and an oyster. In short, the faculty of thought
is a faculty of absolute generalization, it classes all things without
exception under one head, it comprises and understands everything
uniformly, while sense perceptions show absolutely everything in a
different, new and individual light.
If we apply this metaphysics[1] to our study, the faculty of thought,
we see that its functions, like all other things, are material
manifestations, which are all equally true. All manifestations of the
mind, all ideas, opinions, errors, partake of a certain truth, all of
them have a kernel of truth. Just as inevitably as a painter derives all
forms of his creation from perceptible objects around him, so are all
ideas, images of true things, theories of true objects. So far as
perceptions are perceptions, it is a matter of course that all
perceptions perceive something. So far as knowledge is knowledge, it
requires no explanation that all knowledge knows something. This follows
from the rule of identity, according to which a equals a, or from the
rule of contradiction, according to which 100 is not 1,000.
All perceptions are thoughts. One might claim, on the other hand, that
all thoughts are not perceptions. One might define "perceiving" as a
special kind of thought, as real objective thought in distinction from
supposing, believing, or imagining. But it cannot be denied that all
thoughts have a common nature, in spite of their many differences.
Thought is treated in the court of the faculty of thought like all other
things, it is made uniform. No matter how different the thoughts I had
yesterday may be from those I have to-day, no matter how much the
thoughts of different human beings may vary at different times, no
matter how clearly we may distinguish between such thoughts as those
expressed by the terms idea, conception, judgment, conclusion,
impression, etc., they each and all possess the same common and
universal nature, because all of them are manifestations of mind.
It follows, then, that the difference between true and erroneous
thoughts, between understanding and misunderstanding, like all other
differences, is only relative. A thought "in itself" is neither false
nor true, it is either of these only in relation to some other object.
Thoughts, conceptions, theories, natures, truths, all have this in
common that they belong to some object. We have seen that any object is
a part of the multiplicity of sense perceptions in the world outside of
our brains. After as much of the universal being as constitutes the
object which is to be understood has been defined by some customary term
of language, truth is to be found in the discovery of the general nature
of this perceptible part of being.
The perceptible parts of being which constitute the things of this world
have not only a semblance and manifestation, but also a true nature
which is given by means of their manifestation. The nature of things is
as infinite in number as the world of sense perceptions is infinitely
divisible in space and time. Every part of any phenomenon has its own
nature, every special phenomenon has its general truth. A phenomenon is
perceived in touch with the senses, while the true or essential nature
of things is perceived in contact with our faculty of thought. In this
way we find ourselves face to face with the necessity of speaking here,
where the nature of things is up for discussion, simultaneously of the
faculty of thought, and on the other hand of dealing with the nature of
things when the faculty of thought is our main subject.
We said at the outset: The criterion of truth includes the criterion of
reason. Truth, like reason, consists in developing a general concept,
or an abstract theory, from a given sum of sense perceptions. Therefore
it is not abstract truth which is the criterion of true understanding,
but we rather refer to that understanding as being true which produces
the truth, or the general hall-mark of any concrete object. Truth must
be objective, that is to say it must be the truth about some concrete
object. Perceptions cannot be true to themselves, they are true only in
relation to some definite object, and to some outside facts. The work of
understanding consists in the abstraction of the general hall-mark from
concrete objects. The concrete is the measure of the general, the
standard of truth. Whatever is, is true, no matter how much or how
little true it may be. Once we have found existence, its general nature
follows as truth itself. The difference between that which is more or
less general, between being and seeming, between truth and error, is
limited to definite conditions, for it presupposes the relation to some
special object. Whether a perception is true or false will, therefore,
depend not so much on perception as on the scope of the question which
perception tries to solve of its own accord or which it is called upon
to solve by external circumstances. A perfect understanding is possible
only within definite limits. A perfect truth is one which is always
aware of its imperfection. For instance, it is perfectly true that all
bodies have weight only because the concept of "body" has previously
been limited to things which have weight. After reason has assigned the
conception of "body in general" to things of various weights, it is no
longer a matter for surprise to find that bodies must inevitably have
weight. Once it is assumed that the term "bird" was abstracted
exclusively from flying animals, we may be sure that all birds fly,
whether they are in heaven, on earth, or in any other place. And to
explain this we do not require the belief in _a priori_ conceptions
which are supposed to differ from empirical conceptions by their strict
necessity and generality. Truths are valid only under certain
conditions, and under certain conditions errors may be true. It is a
true perception that the sun is shining, provided we understand that the
sky is not covered by clouds. And it is no less true that a straight
stick becomes crooked in flowing water, provided we understand that this
truth is an optical one. _Truth is that which is common or general to
our reasoning faculty within a given circle of sense perceptions. To
call within a definite circle of sense perceptions that which is
exceptional or special the rule or the general, is error._ Error, the
opposite of truth, arises when the faculty of thought, or consciousness,
inadvertently or shortsightedly and without previous experience concedes
to certain phenomena a more general scope than is supported by the
senses, for instance when it hastily attributes to what is in fact only
an optical existence, a supposed plastic existence also.
The judgment of error is a prejudice. Truth and error, understanding and
misunderstanding, knowing and not knowing, have their common habitation
in the faculty of thought which is the organ of science. Thought at
large is the general expression of experienced facts perceived by the
senses, and it includes errors as well. Error is distinguished from
truth in that the former assigns to any definite fact of which it is a
manifestation, a wider and more general existence than is supported by
sense perceptions and experience. Unwarranted assumption is the nature
of error. A glass bead does not become a counterfeit, until it pretends
to be a genuine pearl.
Schleiden says of the eye: "When the excited blood expands the veins and
presses on the nerves, we feel it in the fingers as pain, we see it in
the eyes as forked lightning. And thus we obtain the irrefutable proof
that our conceptions are free creations of the mind, that we do not
perceive the external world as it really is, but that its reflex actions
on us simply give rise to a peculiar brain activity, on our part. The
products of this activity are frequently connected with certain
processes of the external world, but frequently they are not. We close
our eyes and we see a circle of light, but there is in reality no
shining body. It is easy to see that this may be a great and dangerous
source of errors of all kinds. From the teasing forms of a misty
moonlight night to the threatening and insanity-producing visions of the
believer in ghosts we meet a series of illusions which are not derived
from any direct processes of external nature, but belong to the field of
the free activity of the mind which is subject to error. It requires
great judgment and wide education, before the mind learns to break away
from all its own errors and to control them. Reading in general seems so
easy, and yet it is a difficult art. It is only by degrees that the mind
learns to understand which of the messages of the nerves may be trusted
and used as a basis for conceptions. The light, if we consider it
entirely by itself, is not clear, not yellow, nor blue nor red. The
light is a movement of a very fine and everywhere diffused substance,
the ether."
The beautiful world of light and splendor, of color and form, is
supposed not to be a perception of something which really is. "Through
the thick covering of the grape arbor, a ray of sunlight undulates into
the cooling shadows. You think you see the ray of light itself, but what
you really see is nothing but a flock of dust particles." The truth
about light and color is said to be that they are "waves rushing through
ether in restless succession at the rate of 160,000 miles per second."
This true physical nature of light and color is supposed to be so
illusive, that "it required the sharp intellects of the greatest
thinkers to reveal to us this true nature of light. We find that every
one of our senses is susceptible only to definite external influences,
and that the stimulation of different senses produces different
conceptions in our mind. Thus the sense organs are the mediators between
the external soulless world (undulations of the ether), which is
revealed to us by science, and the beautiful world of sense perceptions
in which we find ourselves with our minds."
Schleiden thus gives an illustration of the fact that there is still a
great deal of embarrassment, even in our times, when the understanding
of these two worlds is under discussion, that there is still much
helpless groping to explain the connection between the world of thought,
of knowledge or science, which is in this case represented by
undulations of the ether, and between the world of our five senses,
represented by the bright and colored lights of the eyes or of reality.
At the same time this illustration shows how queer the traditional
survivals of speculative philosophy sound in the mouth of a modern
scientist. The confused condition of this mode of thought is seen in the
distinction between "an external sense-perceived world of science" and
another one, "in which we find ourselves with our minds." The
distinction between the senses and the mind, between theory and
practice, between the special and the general, between truth and error,
has been noticed by such thinkers, but they have no solution for it.
They know there is something missing, but they do not know where to look
for it, and therefore they are confused.
The great scientific achievement of the XIXth century consists in the
victory over speculation, over knowledge without sense perception, in
the delivery of the senses from the thraldom of such knowledge, and in
the foundation of empirical investigation. To acknowledge the
theoretical value of this achievement means to come to an understanding
about the source of error. Contrary to a philosophy that tries to
discover truth with the mind, and error with the senses, we seek for
truth with the senses and regard the mind as the source of errors. The
belief in certain messages of the nerves which are alone worthy of
confidence and which can be understood only by degrees without any
specific mark of distinction, is a superstition. Let us have confidence
in all testimonials of the senses. There is nothing false to be
separated from the genuine. The supernatural mind idea is the only
deceiver whenever it undertakes to disregard the sense perceptions, and,
instead of being the interpreter of the senses, tries to enlarge their
statements and repeat what has not been dictated. The eye, in seeing
forked lightning or radiant circles when the blood is excited or a
pressure exerted on it, perceives no more errors than it does in
perceiving any other manifestation of the external world. It is our
faculty of thought which makes a mistake, by regarding without further
inquiry such subjective events as objective bodies. One who sees ghosts
does not commit any mistake, until he claims that his personal
apparition is a general phenomenon, until he prematurely takes something
for an experience which he has not experienced. Error is an offense
against the law of truth which prescribes to our consciousness that it
must remember the limits within which a perception is true, or general.
Error makes out of something special a generality, out of a predicate a
subject, and takes the part for the whole. Error makes _a priori_
conclusions, while truth, its opposite, arrives at understanding by _a
posteriori_ reasoning.
_A priori_ and _a posteriori_ understanding are related in the same way
as philosophy and natural science, taking the latter in the widest
meaning of the term, that of science in general. The contrast between
believing and knowing is duplicated in that between philosophy and
natural science. Speculative philosophy, like religion, lives on faith.
The modern world has transformed faith into science. The reactionists in
politics who demand that science retrace its steps desire its return to
faith. The content of faith is acquired without exertion. Faith makes _a
priori_ perceptions, while science arrives at its knowledge by hard _a
posteriori_ study. To give up faith means to give up taking things easy.
And to confine science to _a posteriori_ knowledge means to decorate it
with the characteristic mark of modern times, work.
It is not a result of scientific study, but merely a freak of
philosophy on the part of Schleiden to deny the reality and truth of
light phenomena, to call them fantasmagoria created by the free play of
the mind. His superstitious belief in philosophical speculation misleads
him into abandoning the scientific method of induction and speaking of
"waves rushing through ether in restless succession at the rate of
160,000 miles per hour" as being the real and true nature of light and
color, in contradistinction to the color phenomena of light. The
perversion of this mode of procedure becomes evident by his referring to
the material world of the eyes as a "creation of the mind" and to the
undulations of the ether, revealed by the "sharp intellect of the
greatest thinkers" as "physical nature."
The truth of science maintains the same relation to the sense perception
that the general does to the special. Waves of light, the so-called
truth of light and color, represent the "true" nature of light only in
so far as they represent what is common to all light phenomena, whether
they are white, yellow, blue, or any other color. The world of the mind,
or of science finds its raw material, its premise, its proof, its
beginning, and its boundary in sense perception.
When we have learned that the nature, or the truth, of things is not
back of their phenomena, but can be perceived only by the help of
phenomena, and that it does not exist "in itself," but only in
connection with the faculty of understanding, that the nature is
separated from the phenomena only by thought; and when we see on the
other hand, that the faculty of understanding does not derive
conceptions out of itself, but only out of their relations with some
phenomenon; then this discussion of the "nature of things" is an
evidence that the nature of the faculty of thought is a conception which
we have obtained from its sense manifestations. To understand that the
faculty of thought, although universal in the choice of its objects, is
nevertheless limited in that it requires some object; to recognize that
the true thought process, that is to say the thought with a scientific
result, differs from unscientific thinking by consciously attaching
itself to some external object; to realize that truth, or universality,
is not perceived "in itself," but can be perceived only by means of some
given object; this frequently varied statement reveals the nature of the
faculty of thought. This statement re-appears at the end of every
chapter, because all special truths, all special chapters, serve only to
demonstrate the general chapter of universal truth.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] E. g., this all-embracing physics.--EDITOR.
IV
THE PRACTICE OF REASON IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE
Although we know that reason is attached to perceptible matter, to
physical objects, so that science can never be anything else but the
science of the physical, still we may, according to the prevailing ideas
and usage of language, separate physics from logic and ethics, and thus
distinguish them as different forms of science. The problem is then to
demonstrate that in physics as well as in logic, as also in ethics, the
general or intellectual perceptions can be practically obtained only on
the basis of concrete perceptible facts.
This practice of reason, to generate thought from matter, to arrive at
understanding by sense perceptions, to produce the general out of the
concrete, has been universally accepted in physical investigation, but
only in practice. The inductive method is employed, and one is aware of
this fact, but it is not understood that the nature of inductive science
is the nature of science in general, of reason. The process of thought
is misunderstood. Physical science lacks the theory of understanding and
for this reason often falls out of its practical step. The faculty of
thought is still an unknown, mysterious, mystical being for natural
science. Either it confounds the function with the organ, the mind with
the brain, as do the materialists, or it thinks with the idealists that
the faculty of thought is an imperceptible object outside of its field.
We see modern investigators marching toward their goal with firm and
uniform steps, so far as physical matters are concerned. But they
aimlessly grope around in the abstract relations of these things. The
inductive method has been practically adopted by natural science and its
successes have secured a great reputation for it. On the other hand, the
speculative method has become discredited by its failures. There is,
however, no conscious understanding of these various methods of thought.
We see the men of physical research, when they are outside of their
special field, offer lawyer-like speculations in lieu of scientific
facts. While they arrive at the special truths of their chosen fields by
sense perceptions, they still pretend to derive speculative truths out
of the depths of their own minds.
Listen to the following statements of Alexander von Humboldt, which he
makes in the initial argument of his "Cosmos" in regard to speculation:
"The most important result of physical research by sense perception is
this: that it finds the element of unity in a multitude of forms; that
it grasps all the individual manifestations offered by the discoveries
of recent times, carefully scrutinizes and distinguishes them; yet does
not succumb under their mass; that it fulfills the sublime mission of
the human being, of understanding the nature of things which is hidden
under the cover of phenomena. In this way our aim reaches beyond the
narrow limits of the senses, and we may succeed in grasping the nature
by controlling the raw material of empirical observation through ideas.
In my observations of the scientific treatment of general cosmic
phenomena, I am not deriving unity out of a few fundamental principles
found by speculative reason. My work is the expression of a thoughtful
observation of empirical phenomena seen as one and the same nature. I am
not going to venture into a field which is foreign to me. What I call
physical cosmology does not, therefore, aspire to the rank of a rational
science of nature.... True to the character of my former occupation and
writings, which were devoted to experiments, measurements, and
investigations of facts, I confine myself in this work to empirical
observations. It is the only ground on which I can move with a measure
of security." In the same breath Humboldt says that "without the earnest
desire for the knowledge of concrete facts any great and universal world
philosophy would be merely a castle in the air" and in another place
that "an understanding of the universe by speculative and introspective
reason would represent a still more sublime aim" than understanding by
empirical thought. And on page 68 of volume I. he says: "I am far from
finding fault with endeavors of others the success of which still
remains in doubt, when I have had no practical experience with them."
Now natural science shares with Humboldt the consciousness that the
practice of reason in physical research consists exclusively in
"perceiving the element of unity in a multitude of forms." But on the
other hand, though it does not always admit its belief in speculative
introspection as frankly as Humboldt does, it nevertheless proves that
it does not fully understand the practice of science and that it
believes in a metaphysical as well as a physical science by using the
speculative method in the treatment of so-called philosophical topics,
in which the element of unity is supposed to be discovered by
introspective reason instead of an analysis of multiform sense
perceptions, and it demonstrates its lack of unity by being unaware of
the unscientific character of disagreements, by believing in a
metaphysical science outside of the physical domain. The relations
between phenomenon and its nature, cause and effect, matter and force,
substance and spirit, are certainly physical ones. But what is there of
unity that science teaches about them? Plainly then, the work of
science, like that of the farmer, has so far been done only practically,
but not scientifically, not with a predetermination of success.
Understanding, that is to say the practice of understanding, is well
applied in science, I readily admit. But the instrument of this
understanding, the faculty of thought, is misunderstood. We find that
natural science, instead of applying this faculty scientifically, simply
experiments with it. What is the reason for this? Natural science has
neglected the critique of reason, the theory of science, logic.
Just as the handle and the blade of a knife constitute its general
content, so we found that the general content of reason was the
universal, the general "itself." We know that it does not produce this
content out of itself, but out of given objects, and these objects are
the sum of all natural or physical things. The object of reason is,
therefore, an infinite, unlimited, absolute quantity. This infinite
quantity manifests itself in finite quantities. In the treatment of
relatively small quantities of nature the true essence of reason, the
true method of understanding, is well recognized. It remains to be
demonstrated that the great relations of the world, the treatment of
which is still doubtful, are likewise intelligible by the same method.
Cause and effect, mind and matter, matter and force, are such great
world problems, and they are of a physical character. We shall
demonstrate that the most general distinction between reason and its
object furnishes the key to the solution of the great world problems.
+(a) Cause and Effect.+
"The nature of natural history," says F. W. Bessell, "lies in the fact
that it does not consider phenomena as facts in themselves, but looks
for their causes. The knowledge of nature is thus reduced to the minimum
number of facts." But the causes of the phenomena of nature had been
investigated even before the age of natural history. The characteristic
mark of natural history is not so much that it investigates causes, but
that the causes which it investigates have a peculiar nature and a
particular quality.
Inductive science has materially changed the conception of causes. It
has retained the term, but uses it in a different sense from that
employed by speculation. The naturalist conceives of causes differently
within his special field and outside of it; here, outside of his
specialty, he frequently indulges in introspective speculation, because
he understands science and its cause in a concrete, but not in a general
way. The unscientific forces are of a supernatural make-up, they are
transcendental spirits, gods, forces, little and big goblins. The
original conception of causes is an anthropomorphic one. In a state of
inexperience, man measures the objective by a subjective standard,
judges the world by himself. Just as he creates things with conscious
intent, so he attributes to nature his human manner, imagines the
existence of an external and creative cause of the phenomena of sense
perception, similar to himself who is the special cause of his own
creations. This subjective mood is to blame for the fact that the
struggle for objective understanding has so long been in vain. The
unscientifically conceived cause is a speculation of the _a priori_
kind.
If the term understanding is retained for subjective understanding, then
objective science differs from it in that such a science penetrates to
the causes of its objects not by faith or introspective speculation, but
by experience and induction, not _a priori_, but _a posteriori_. Natural
science looks for causes not outside or back of nature's phenomena, but
within or by means of them. Modern research seeks no external creator of
causes, but rather the immanent system, the method or general mode of
the various phenomena as they are given by succession in time. The
unscientifically conceived cause is a "thing in itself," a little god
who generates his effects independently and hides behind them. The
scientific conception of causes, on the other hand, looks only for the
theory of effects, the general element of phenomena. To investigate a
cause means then to generalize a variety of phenomena, to arrange the
multiplicity of experienced facts under one scientific rule. "The
knowledge of nature is thus reduced to the minimum number of facts."
The commonplace and inept knowledge differs from the most exalted,
rarest, and newly discovered science in the same way in which a petty
and childish superstition differs from the historical superstition of a
whole period. For this reason we may well choose our illustrations from
our daily circle, instead of looking for them in the so-called higher
regions of a remote science. Human common sense had long practiced the
investigation of causes by inductive and scientific methods, before
science realized that it would have to pursue its higher aims in the
same way. Common sense does arrive at the faith in a mysterious cause of
speculative reason, just like the naturalist, as soon as it leaves the
field of its immediate environment. In order to stand firmly on the
ground of real science, every one requires the understanding of the
manner in which inductive reason investigates its causes.
To this end let us glance briefly at the outcome of the study of the
nature of reason. We know that the faculty of understanding is not a
"thing in and by itself," because it becomes real only in contact with
some object. But whatever we know of any object, is known not alone
through the object, but also through the faculty of reason.
Consciousness, like all other being, is relative. Understanding is
contact with a variety of objects. To knowledge there is attached
distinction, subject and object, variety in unity. Thus things become
mutual causes and mutual effects. The entire world of phenomena, of
which thought is but a part, a form, is an absolute circle, in which the
beginning and end is everywhere and nowhere, in which everything is at
the same time essence and semblance, cause and effect, general and
concrete. Just as all nature is in the last instance one sole general
unity, in view of which all other unities become a multitude, so this
same nature, or objectivity, or world of sense perceptions, or whatever
else we may call the sum of all phenomena or effects, is the final cause
of all things, compared to which all other causes become effects. But we
must remember that this cause of all causes is only the sum of all
effects, not a transcendental or superior being. Every cause has its
effect, every effect causes something.
A cause cannot be physically separated from its effect any more than the
visible can be separated from the eye, the taste from the tongue, in
brief the general from the concrete. Nevertheless, the faculty of
thought may separate the one from the other. We must keep in mind that
this separation is a mere formality of thought, although it is a
formality which is necessary in order to be reasonable or conscious, in
order to act scientifically. The practice of understanding, or
scientific practice, derives the concrete from the general, the natural
things from nature. But whoever has been behind the scenes, and has
looked at the faculty of thought at work, knows that, conversely the
general is derived from the concrete, the concept of nature from natural
things. The theory of understanding or science teaches us that the
antecedent is understood by its consequent, the cause by its effect,
while our practical understanding regards the after as a consequence of
the before, the effect as a result of the cause. The faculty of
understanding, the organ of generalization, regards its opposite, the
concrete, as secondary, while the faculty of thought which understands
itself regards it as primary. However, the practice of understanding is
not to be changed by its theory, nor can it be; the theory intends
simply to render the steps of consciousness firm. The scientific farmer
differs from the practical farmer, not because he employs theory and
method, for both do that, but because he understands the theory, while
the practical man theorizes instinctively.
To continue: From a given multitude of facts, reason generates truth in
general, and out of a succession of forms and transformations it
abstracts the true cause, just as absolute multiplicity is the nature of
space, so absolute variability is the nature of time. Every particle of
time and space is new, original, and has never been there before. The
faculty of thought enables us to find our way through this absolute
medley by abstracting general concepts out of the multitude of things in
space, and tracing the variations of time to general causes. The entire
nature of reason consists in generalizing sense perceptions, in
abstracting the common elements out of concrete things. Whoever does not
fully understand reason by understanding that it is the organ of
generalization forgets that understanding requires an object which must
remain something outside of its conception, since such object cannot be
dissolved by its conception. The being of the reasoning faculty cannot
be understood any more than being in general. Or rather, being is
understood when we take it in its generality. Not being itself, but the
general element of being, is understood by the faculty of thought.
Let us realize, for instance, the process which takes place when reason
understands something it did not know before. Think of some peculiar,
unexpected and unknown chemical transformation which takes place
suddenly and without apparent cause in some mixture. Assume furthermore
that the same reaction takes place more frequently after that, until
experience demonstrates that this inexplicable change occurs whenever
sunlight touches the mixture. This already constitutes a certain
understanding of the process. Assume furthermore that subsequent
experience teaches us that several other substances have the faculty of
producing the same reaction in connection with sunlight. We have then
arranged the new reaction in line with a number of phenomena of the same
class, that is to say we have enlarged, deepened, completed our
understanding of it still more. And if we finally discover that a
special part of the sunlight unites with a special element of the
mixture and thereby produces this new reaction, we have generalized this
experience, or experienced this generalization, in a "pure" state, in
other words, the theory of this reaction is complete, reason has solved
its problem, and yet it has done nothing more than it did when it
classified the animal and vegetable kingdoms in families, genera,
species, etc. To find the species, the genus, the sex, etc., of anything
means to understand it.
Reason proceeds in the same way when it investigates the causes of
certain transformations. Causes are, in the last instance, not noticed
and furnished by means of sight, hearing, feeling, not by means of the
sense perceptions. They are rather supplied by the faculty of thought.
It is true, causes are not the "pure" products of the faculty of
thought, but are produced by it in connection with sense perceptions and
their material objects. This raw material gives the objective existence
to the causes produced by the mind. Just as we demand that a truth
should be the truth about some objective phenomenon, so we also demand
that a cause should be real, that it should be the cause of some
objective effect.
The understanding of any concrete cause is conditioned on the empirical
study of its material, while the understanding of any general cause is
based on the study of the faculty of reason. In the understanding of
concrete causes, the material of study varies, but reason maintains a
constant or general attitude. The cause, as a general cause, is a pure
conception, and it is based on the study of the multiformity of concrete
understandings of causes, or on the multiplied study of concrete causes.
Hence we are compelled to return to the concrete material of the general
concept, to the understanding of concrete causes, if we wish to analyze
the concept of a general cause.
When a stone falls into the water and causes ripples on the surface, the
stone is no more the cause of the ripples than the liquid condition of
the water. If the stone falls on solid substances, it causes no ripples.
It is the contact of the falling stone with liquid substances which
causes the ripples. The cause is itself an effect, and the effect, the
ripples, become a cause when they carry a piece of cork ashore. But in
either case the cause is based on a mutual effect, on the interaction of
the waves with the light condition of the cork.
A stone falling into the water is not a cause "in itself," not a cause
in general. We arrive at such a cause only, when the faculty of thought
uses concrete causes for its raw material and constructs out of them
the "pure" concept of the cause in general. A stone falling into the
water is only the cause of the subsequent ripples, and it becomes a
general cause only through the experience that ripples always follow the
falling of a stone into water.
We call cause that which generally precedes a certain manifestation, and
effect that which generally follows it. We refer to the stone as the
cause of ripples merely because we know that it always causes them when
falling into water. But since ripples sometimes appear without being
preceded by the fall of a stone, ripples have another general cause. So
far as there is anything general in ripples which precedes them, it is
the elasticity of the water itself which is the general cause of
ripples. Circular ripples, which are a special form of ripples, are
generally preceded by the falling of some body into the water, and this
body is then considered as their cause. The cause is always different in
proportion and to the extent of the phenomena under consideration.
We cannot ascertain causes by mere introspective reasoning, we cannot
derive them out of our head. Matter, materials, sense perceptions are
required for this purpose. A definite cause requires a definite
material, a definite amount of sense perceptions. In the abstract unity
of nature, the variations of matter are represented by the variations of
concrete quantities. Every quantity is given in time before and after a
certain other quantity, as antecedent and subsequent. The general
element of the antecedent is called cause, the general element of the
subsequent, effect.
When the wind sways a forest, the yielding character of the forest is as
much instrumental in producing this effect as the bending power of the
wind. The cause of a thing is its connection with other things. The fact
that the same wind leaves rocks and walls standing shows that the cause
is not qualitatively different from the effect, but that it is a matter
of aggregate effects. If nevertheless science or knowledge determines
any special fact to be the cause of any change, that is to say of any
succession of phenomena, this cause is no longer regarded as the
external creator, but merely as the general mode, the immanent method of
succession. A definite cause can be ascertained only when we have under
consideration a definite circle, series, or number of changes, the cause
of which is to be determined. And within a definite circle of succeeding
phenomena, that which generally precedes is their cause.
The wind which sways a forest differs from wind as a general cause only
in that the latter has other general effects, inasmuch as it howls in
one place, stirs up dust in another, or acts in many different ways. In
the special case of the forest, the wind is a cause only in so far as it
precedes the swaying of the trees. But in the case of rocks and walls,
the solidity precedes the wind and is therefore the general cause of
their resistance to the swaying power of the wind. In a still wider
circle of hurricane phenomena, a gentle wind may be regarded as a cause
of the stability of the objects last mentioned.
The _quantity_ or _number_ of given objects varies the name of their
cause. If a certain company of people return from a walk in a tired
condition, this change of condition is just as much due to the physical
weakness of the people as to the walk. In other words, a manifestation
has in itself no cause which can be separated from it. Everything which
was connected with a phenomenon has contributed toward its appearance.
In the case of the promenaders, the physical constitution of their
bodies has to be considered as well as the physical constitution and
length of the road and duration of the walk. If reason is nevertheless
called upon to determine the special cause of some concrete change, for
instance, of a tired feeling, it is simply a question of determining
which one of the various factors has contributed most to that feeling.
In this case as well as in all others, the work of reason consists in
developing the general from the concrete, that is to say in this case,
singling out from a given number of tired sensations that which
generally precedes the tired feeling. If most of the promenaders or all
of them are found to be tired, the walk will be considered as the cause.
But if only a few are tired, the weak constitution of these people will
be considered as the general cause of their tired condition.
To use another illustration: If the discharge of a shot frightens some
birds, this effect is due to the combined action of the shot and the
timidity of the birds. If the majority of the birds fly away, the shot
will be considered as the cause. But if the minority fly away, their
timidity will be regarded as the cause.
Effects are subsequences. Since all things in nature follow other things
and all things have an antecedent and a subsequent, we may call the
natural, the real, the sense perceptions absolute effects, having no
cause unless we find one with our faculty of thought by systematizing
the given material. Causes are mental generalizations of perceptible
changes. The supposed relation of cause and effect is a miracle, a
creation of something out of nothing. For this reason this relation has
been and still is an object of speculative reasoning. The speculative
cause creates its effects. But in reality the effects are the material
out of which the brain, or science, forms its causes. The cause concept
is a product of reason; not of "pure" reason, but of reason married to
the world of sense perceptions.
If Kant maintains that the statement: "Every change has its cause" is an
_a priori truth_ which we cannot experience because no one can possibly
experience all changes, although every one has the irrefutable feeling
of the correctness of this statement, we know now that this statement
expresses merely the experience that the phenomenon which we call reason
recognizes the uniform element in all multiformity. Or in other words,
we now know that the development of the general element out of the
concrete facts is called reason, thought, or mind. The secure knowledge
that every change has its cause is nothing else but the conviction that
we are thinking human beings. _Cogito, ergo sum._ I think, therefore I
am. We have experienced the nature of our reason instinctively even if
we have not analyzed it scientifically. We are as well aware of the
faculty of our reason to abstract a cause out of every given change, as
we are that every circle is round, that a is equal to a. We know that
the general is the product of reason, and reason produces this general
thing in contact with every given object. And since all objects before
and after a certain other object are temporal changes, it follows that
all changes which we as thinking beings experience must have a general
antecedent, a cause.
Already the English sceptic Hume felt that true causes are different
from assumed causes. According to him the concept of a cause contains
nothing but the experience of that which generally precedes a certain
phenomenon. Kant rightfully remarks on the other hand that the
conception of cause and effect expresses a far more intimate relation
than that indicated by a loose and accidental succession, and that the
concept of a cause rather comprises that of a certain effect as a
necessity and strict general result. Therefore he claimed that there
must be something _a priori_ in reason which cannot be experienced and
which extends beyond experience.
We reply to the materialists who deny all autonomy of the mind and hope
to detect causes by experience alone that the general necessity which
presupposes the relation of cause and effect represents an impossible
experience. And we reply to the idealists: Although reason explores
causes which cannot be experienced, this research cannot take place _a
priori_, but only _a posteriori_, only on the basis of empirically given
effects. It is true that the mind alone discovers the imperceptible and
abstract generality, but it does so only within the circle of certain
given sense perceptions.
+(b) Matter and Mind.+
The understanding of the general dependence of the faculty of thought on
material sense perceptions will restore to objective reality that right
which has long been denied to it by ideas and opinions. Nature with its
varied concrete phenomena which had been crowded out of human
considerations by philosophical and religious imaginings, and which has
been scientifically re-established again on special fields by the
development of natural sciences, gains general theoretical recognition
by the understanding of the functions of the brain. Hitherto natural
science has chosen for its object only special matters, special causes,
special forces, but has remained ignorant in general questions of
so-called natural philosophy regarding the cause of all things, of
matter, of force in general. The actual existence of this ignorance is
revealed by that great contradiction between idealism and materialism
which pervades all works of science like a red thread.
"May I succeed in this letter in strengthening the conviction that
chemistry as an independent science represents one of the most powerful
means for the higher cultivation of the mind, that its study is useful
not alone for the promotion of the material interests of mankind, but
because it permits a deeper penetration of the wonders of creation, with
which our existence, our welfare, and our development are intimately
connected."
In these words Liebig expresses the prevalent views which have
accustomed themselves to look upon material and spiritual differences as
absolute opposites. But the untenability of such a distinction is
vaguely felt even by the just quoted advocate of this view, who speaks
of material interests and of a mental penetration which is the condition
for our existence, welfare, and development. But what else does the term
material interests mean but the abstract expression of our existence,
welfare, and development? Are not these the concrete content of our
material interests? Does he not say explicitly that the penetration of
the wonders of creation promotes our material interests? And on the
other hand, does not the promotion of our material interests require a
penetration on our part of the wonders of creation? In what respect are
our material interests different from our mental penetration of things?
The superior, spiritual, ideal, which Liebig in conformity with the
views of the world of naturalists opposes to our material interests, is
only a special part of those interests. Mental penetration and material
interests differ no more than the circle differs from the square.
Circles and squares are contrasts, but at the same time they are but
different and special classes of form in general.
It has been the custom, especially since the advent of Christian times,
to speak contemptuously of material, perceptible, fleshly things which
are destroyed by rust and moths. And nowadays people continue on this
conservative track, although their antipathy against perceptible reality
has long disappeared from their minds and actions. The Christian
separation of mind and body has been practically abandoned in the age of
natural science. But the theoretical solution of the contradiction, the
demonstration that the spiritual is material and the material at the
same time spiritual, by which the material interests would be freed from
the stigma of inferiority, has not yet been forthcoming.
Modern science is natural science. Science is deemed worthy of its name
only in so far as it is natural science. In other words, only that
thought is scientific which consciously has real, perceptible, natural
things for its object. For this reason representatives and friends of
science can not be enemies of nature or of matter. Indeed they are not.
But the very existence of science shows that this nature, this world of
sense perceptions, this matter or substance, does alone and by itself
not satisfy us. Science, or thought, which has material practice or
being for its object, does not strive to reproduce nature in its
integrity, in its entire perceptible substance, for these are already
present. If science were to aim at nothing new, it would be superfluous.
It is entitled to special recognition only to the extent that it carries
a new element into matter. Science is not so much concerned in the
material of its study as in understanding. Of course it is the
understanding of this material which is desired, the understanding of
its general character, of the fixed pole in the succession of phenomena.
That which religion supernaturally separates from the material, which
science opposes to the material as something higher, diviner, more
spiritual, is in reality nothing but the faculty of rising above
multiformity, of proceeding from the concrete to the general.
The nobler spiritual interests are not absolutely different from the
material interests, they are not qualitatively different. The positive
side of modern idealism does not consist in belittling eating and
drinking, the pleasure in earthly possessions and in intercourse with
the other sex, but rather in pleading for the recognition of other
material enjoyments besides these, as for instance those of the eye, the
ear, of art and science, in short of the whole man. You shall not
indulge in the material revelries of passion, that is to say you shall
not direct your thought one-sidedly to any concrete lust, but rather
consider your entire development, take into account the total general
extension of your existence. The bare materialist principle is
inadequate in that it does not appreciate the difference between the
concrete and the general, because it makes the individual synonymous
with the general. It refuses to recognize the quantitative superiority
of the mind over the world of sense perceptions. Idealism, on the other
hand, forgets the qualitative unity in the quantitative difference. It
is transcendental and makes an absolute difference out of the relative
one. The contradiction between these two camps is due to the
misunderstood relation of our reason to its given object or material.
The idealist regards reason alone as the source of all understanding,
while the materialist looks upon the world of sense perceptions in the
same way. Nothing is required for a solution of this contradiction but
the comprehension of the relative interdependence of these two sources
of understanding. Idealism sees only the difference, materialism sees
only the uniformity of matter and mind, content and form, force and
substance, sense perception and moral interpretation. But all these
distinctions belong to the one common genus which constitutes the
distinction between the special and the general.
Consistent materialists act like purely practical men without any
science. But, since knowing and thinking are real attributes of man
regardless of his party affiliation, purely practical men do not exist
in reality. Even the merest attempt at practical experiment on the basis
of experienced facts differs only in degree from scientific practice
based on theoretical principles. On the other hand, consistent
idealists are just as impossible as purely practical men. They would
like to have the general without the special, the spirit without matter,
force without substance, science without experience or material, the
absolute without the relative. How can thinkers who search for truth,
being, relative causes, such as naturalists, be idealists? They are so
only outside of their specialties, never inside of them. The modern
mind, the mind of natural science, is immaterial only so far as it
embraces all matters. But men like the astronomer Madler find so little
of the ridiculous in the current expectation of the materially increased
spiritual power after our "emancipation from the bonds of matter," that
he has nothing better to substitute for it and flatters himself with
having defined the "bonds of matter" as material attraction. Truly, so
long as mind is still conceived in the form of a religious ghost, the
expectation of an increased mental power after the emancipation from the
bonds of matter is not so much an object for ridicule as for compassion.
But if we regard mind as the expression of modern science, we offer the
better scientific explanation for the traditional faith. By bonds of
matter we do not mean, in that case, the bond of gravitation, but the
multiplicity of sense perceptions. And matter holds the mind in bondage
only so long as the faculty of thought has not overcome the multiplicity
of things. The emancipation of the mind from the bonds of matter
consists in developing the general element out of the concrete
multiplicity.
+(c) Force and Matter.+
The reader who has closely followed our main idea, which will be
further illustrated, will anticipate that the question of matter and
force finds its solution in the understanding of the relation between
the general and the special. What is the relation of the concrete to the
abstract? This is the common problem of those who see the active impulse
of the world either in the spiritual force or in the material substance,
who think to find the nature of things, the _non plus ultra_ of science,
in either of these facts.
Liebig, who is especially fond of straying from his inductive science
into the field of speculative thought, says in an idealist sense: "Force
cannot be seen, we cannot grasp it with our hands; in order to
understand its nature and peculiarities, we must investigate its
effects." And if a materialist replies to him: "Matter is force, force
is matter, no matter without force, no force without matter," it is
plain that either has determined this relation only negatively. In
certain shows, the clown is asked by the manager: "Clown, where have you
been?" "With the others," answers the clown. "And where were the
others?"--"With me."
In this case we have two answers with the same content, in the other we
have two camps which quarrel with different words about an indisputable
fact. And this dispute is so much more ridiculous because it is taken so
seriously. If the idealist makes a distinction between matter and force,
he does not mean to deny that the real phenomenon of force is
inseparably linked with matter. And if the materialist claims that there
is no matter without force and no force without matter, he does not mean
to deny that matter and force are different, as his opponent claims.
The dispute exists for a good reason and has its object, but this
object is not revealed in the dispute. It is instinctively kept under
cover by both parties, so that they may not be in a position where they
would have to acknowledge their own ignorance. Each wants to prove to
the other that the other's explanations are inadequate, and both
demonstrate this sufficiently. Büchner admits in the closing statements
of his "Matter and Force" that the empirical material is insufficient to
permit of definite answers to transcendental questions, and that
therefore no positive answer can be given to them. And he furthermore
says that the empirical material "is fully sufficient to answer them
negatively and to do away with hypothesis." This is saying in so many
words that the science of the materialist is adequate for the proof that
his opponent knows nothing.
The spiritualist or idealist believes in a spiritual, which means in a
ghostlike and inexplicable, nature of force. The materialist thinkers,
on the other hand, are skeptical. A scientific proof of faith or of
skepticism does not exist. The materialist has only this advantage over
his idealist opponent, that he looks for the transcendental, the nature,
the cause, the force, not back of the phenomenon, not outside of matter.
But he remains behind the idealist when he ignores the difference
between matter and force. The materialist dwells on the actual
inseparability of matter and force and does not admit any other reason
for a distinction between the two than "an external reason derived from
the demand of our mind for systematization." Büchner says in "Nature and
Mind," page 66: "Force and matter, separated from one another, are for
me nothing but thoughts, fantasies, ideas without any substance,
hypotheses which do not exist for any healthy study of nature, because
all phenomena of nature are rendered obscure and unintelligible by such
a separation." But if Büchner deals with any special department of
natural science in a productive way, instead of handling phrases of
natural philosophy, his own practice will show him that the separation
of forces from matter is not an "external," but an internal, an imminent
necessity, by which alone we are enabled to elucidate and understand the
phenomena of nature. Although the author of "Force and Matter" chose for
his motto: "Now, what I want is--facts," we assure the reader that this
device is more a thoughtless word than a serious opinion. Materialism is
not so coarse-grained that it wants purely facts. Those facts which
Büchner is looking for are by themselves not specifics for his desires.
The idealist likewise wants such facts. No student of nature wants mere
hypotheses. What all cultivators of the field of science want is not so
much facts as explanations or an understanding of facts. Even the
materialist will not deny that science, the "natural philosophy" of
Büchner not excepted, is more concerned with mental forces than with
bodily matter, that it cares more for force than for matter. The
separation of force and matter is derived from "the demand of our mind
for systematization." Very true! But so does all science emanate from
the demand of our reason for systematization.
The contradistinction between force and matter is as old as that between
idealism and materialism. The first conciliation between the two was
attempted by imagination which, through the belief in spirits,
suggested a secret nature as the cause of all natural phenomena. Science
has of late expelled many of these special spirits by replacing the
fantastic demons with scientific, or general, explanations. And after we
have succeeded in explaining the demon of "pure" reason, it is not
difficult to expel the special spirit of force by the general
explanation of its nature and thus to reconcile scientifically the
contradiction between spiritualism and materialism.
In the universe which constitutes the object of science and of the
faculty of reason, both force and matter are unseparated. In the world
of sense perceptions force is matter and matter is force. "Force cannot
be seen." Oh, yes! Seeing itself is pure force. Seeing is as much an
effect of its object as an effect of the eye, and this double effect and
other effects are forces. We do not see the things themselves, but their
effects on our eyes. We see their forces. And force cannot alone be
seen, it can also be heard, smelled, tasted, felt. Who will deny that he
can feel the force of heat, of cold, of gravitation? We have already
quoted the words of Professor Koppe to the effect that we "cannot
perceive heat itself, we merely conclude from its effects that this
force exists in nature." This is saying in other words that we do not
see, hear, or feel the things themselves, but their effects or forces.
It is just as true to say that we feel matter and not its force as it is
to say that we feel force and not matter. Indeed, both are inseparable
from the object, as we have already remarked. But by means of the
faculty of thought we separate from the simultaneously and successively
occurring phenomena the general and the concrete. For instance, we
abstract the general concept of sight from the various phenomena of our
sight and distinguish it by the name of power of vision from the
concrete objects, or substances, of our eyes. From a multitude of sense
perceptions we develop by means of reason the general element. The
general element of different water phenomena, for instance, is the water
power distinguished from the substance of the water. If levers of
different materials but of the same length have the same power, it is
plain that in this case force is different from matter only in so far as
it represents the general element of various substances. A horse does
not pull without force, and this force does not pull without the horse.
Indeed, in practice the horse is force and force is the horse. But
nevertheless we may distinguish the power of pulling from other
qualities of the horse, or we may refer to the common element in
different services of horses as general horse power, without thereby
starting from any other hypothesis than we do in distinguishing the sun
from the earth. For in reality the sun does not exist without the earth,
nor the earth without the sun.
The world of sense perceptions is made known to us only by our
consciousness, but consciousness is conditioned on the world of sense
perceptions. Nature is infinitely united or infinitely separated,
according to whether we regard it from the standpoint of consciousness
as an unconditional unit or from the standpoint of sense perceptions as
an unconditional multiplicity. There is truth in both unity and
multiplicity, but it is truth only relatively speaking, under certain
conditions. It matters a great deal whether we look about with the eyes
of the body or with the eyes of the mind. For the eyes of the mind,
matter is force. For the eyes of the body, force is matter. The abstract
matter is force, the concrete force is matter. Matter is represented by
the objects of the hand, of practice, while force is an object of
understanding, of science.
Science is not limited to the so-called scientific world. It reaches
beyond all classes, it belongs to the full depth and width of life.
Science belongs to thinking humanity in its entirety. And so it is with
the separation of matter and force. Only a stultified fanaticism can
ignore the practical distinction. The miser who accumulates money
without adding any wealth to his life process forgets that the valuable
element of money resides in its force, which is different from, its
substance. He forgets that not mere wealth as such, not the paltry gold
substance, lends a reasonableness to the quest for its possession, but
its spiritual content, its inherent exchange value, which buys the
necessities of life. Every scientific practice, which means every action
carried on with a predetermined success and with understood substances,
proves that the separation of matter and force, though only performed in
thought and existing in thought, is nevertheless not an empty phrase,
not a mere hypothesis, but a very fertile idea. A farmer manuring his
field is handling "pure" manuring force, in so far as it is immaterial
for the abstract conception whether he is handling cow dung, bone dust,
or guano. And in weighing bundles of merchandise, it is not the iron,
copper, stone, etc., which is handled by the pound, but their gravity.
True, there is no force without matter, no matter without force.
Forceless matter and matterless force are nonentities. If idealist
naturalists believe in an immaterial existence of forces which, so to
say, carry on their goblin-pranks in matter, forces which we cannot see,
cannot perceive by the senses and yet are asked to believe in, then we
say that such men are to that extent that naturists, but mere
speculators, in other words spiritualists. And the word of the
materialists who refer to the intellectual separation of matter and
force as a mere hypothesis, is quite as brainless.
In order that this separation may be appreciated according to its
merits, in order that our consciousness may neither etherealize force in
a spiritualist sense nor deny it in a materialist sense, and in order to
comprehend it scientifically, we have only to understand the faculty of
thought in general or "in itself," that is to say its abstract form. The
intellect can not operate without some perceptible material. In order to
distinguish between matter and force, these things must exist and be
experienced by sense perception. By means of this experience we refer to
matter as the expression of force and to force as the expression of
matter. The perceptible object which is to be studied is therefore
matter and force in one, and since all objects are in their tangible
reality such matter and force-things, the distinction made by the mind
consists in the general method of brain work, in the derivation of the
general unity, from the special multiplicity in any one and in all given
objects. The distinction between matter and force is summarized in the
universal distinction between the concrete and the abstract. To deny the
value of this distinction is equivalent to denying the value of any and
all distinction, equivalent to ignoring the function of the intellect
altogether.
If we refer to phenomena of sense perception as forces of matter in
general, then this generalized matter is nothing but an abstract
conception. But if we mean by the term sense perception the various
concrete substances, then the general element which embraces the
differences of things and pervades and controls them is force producing
concrete effects. And whether we say matter or force, the mental which
science is studying, not with its hands, but with its brain, the
so-called essence, nature, cause, ideal, superior or spiritual, is the
generality comprising the special things.
V
"PRACTICAL REASON" OR MORALITY
+(a) The Wise and Reasonable.+
The understanding of the method of science, the understanding of the
mind, is destined to solve all the problems of religion and philosophy,
to explain thoroughly all the great and small riddles, and thus fully to
restore research to its mission of empirically studying details. If we
are aware that it is a law of reason to require some perceptible
material, some cause, for its operation, then the question regarding the
first or general cause becomes superfluous. Human understanding is then
seen to be first and last cause of all concrete causes. If we understand
that it is a law of reason to require for its operation some given
object, some beginning at which to start, then the question of the first
beginning must necessarily become inane. If we understand that reason
derives abstract units out of concrete multiplicities, that it
constructs truth out of phenomena, substance out of attributes, that it
perceives all things as parts of a whole, as individuals of some genus,
as qualities of some object, then the question regarding a "thing
itself," a something which in reality is back of all things, must needs
become irrelevant. In brief, the understanding of the interdependence of
reason reveals the unreasonableness of the demand for independent
reason.
Now, although the main object of metaphysics, the cause of all causes,
the beginning of all beginnings, the nature of things, causes little
inconvenience to modern science, and even though the needs of the
present have overcome the leaning for speculation, this practical
downfall of speculation does not suffice for the solution of its
problems. So long as the theoretical law is not understood, according to
which reason requires some concrete object for its operation, there is
no hope of abandoning objectless thought, this malpractice of
speculative philosophy, which pretends to generate knowledge without
intercourse with objective reality. Our naturalists demonstrate this
very clearly as soon as they turn from their tangible specialties to
abstract things. The dispute over questions of life's wisdom, of
morality, or the quarrel over the wise, good, right, or bad, reveals
that here is the boundary of scientific agreement. The scientific
explorers of the exact sciences abandon every day their inductive method
when dealing with social problems, and stray off into the regions of
speculative philosophy. Just as in physics they believe in imperceptible
physical truths, in "things themselves," so in social matters they
believe in the reasonable, wise, right, or bad, in the sense of "things
themselves," of absolute phases of life, of unconditional conditions. It
is here where the outcome of our studies, of the critique of pure
reason, must be applied.
In recognizing that consciousness, the nature of understanding, the
mental activity in its general form, consists in developing general
concepts out of concrete objects, we circumscribe this insight by
stating that reason develops its understanding out of contradictions.
It is the nature of the mind to perceive, in given phenomena of
different dimensions and different duration, the nature of things by
their semblance, and their semblance by their nature; to distinguish in
wants of various degrees the most essential and necessary from the less
pressing; to measure within a certain circle of magnitudes the large by
the small and the small by the large, or in other words to compare the
contrasts of the world with one another, to harmonize them by
explanation. Common parlance instinctively calls understanding judging;
judging requires a certain standard. Just as surely as we cannot
perceive any objects which are "in themselves" great or small, hard or
soft, clear or dark, just as surely as these terms denote certain
relations and require a certain standard by which their relations can be
determined, even so does reason require a certain standard for the
determination of that which is reasonable.
The fact that we consider certain actions, institutions, conceptions,
maxims of other periods, nations, or persons unreasonable is simply due
to the application of a different standard, because we ignore the
premises, the conditions, which cause another's reason to differ from
our own. Men who differ in their mental estimates, in their
understanding of things, may be likened to the thermometers of Reaumur
and Celsius, one of which designates the boiling point by 80 and the
other by 100. A different standard is the cause of this different
result. On the so-called moral field there is no scientific agreement,
such as we enjoy in some physical matters, because we lack the uniform
standard which natural science has long since found. It is still
attempted to perceive the reasonable, good, right, etc., without
empirical data, by speculative reasoning without experience. Speculation
seeks the cause of all causes, the immeasurable cause; truth "itself,"
the unconditional and standardless truth; the unlimited good, the
unboundedly reasonable, etc. The absence of a standard is the essence of
speculation, and its practice is characterized by unlimited
inconsistency and disagreement. If there are followers of certain
positive religions who agree in the matter of morals, they owe this to
the positive standard which certain dogmas, doctrines and commandments
have given them. But if any one tries to perceive things by "pure"
reason, the dependence of this reason on some standard will be
demonstrated by its "impure," that is to say individual, perceptions.
Sense perception is the standard of truth, or of science in general. The
phenomena of the outside world are the standard of physical truths, and
man with his many wants is the standard of moral truth. The actions of
man are determined by his wants. Thirst teaches him to drink, need to
pray. Wants are regulated in the South by southern conditions, in the
North by northern conditions. Wants rule time and space, nations and
individuals. They induce the savage to hunt and the gourmand to indulge.
Human wants give to reason a standard for judging what is good, right,
bad, reasonable, etc. Whatever satisfies our need is good, the opposite
is bad. The physical feeling of man is the object of moral standards,
the object of "practical reason." The contradictory variety of human
needs is the basis for the contradictory variety of moral standards.
Because a member of a feudal guild prospered in a restricted
competition, and a modern knight of industry in free competition,
because their interests differ, therefore their views differ, and the
one justly considers an institution as unreasonable which the other
regards as reasonable. If the intellect of some person attempts to
define by mere introspection the standard of reasonableness as a general
thing, this person makes himself or herself the standard of humanity. If
reason is credited with the faculty of finding within itself the source
of moral truth, it commits the speculative mistake of attempting to
produce understanding without perceptible objects. The same mistake is
to blame for the idea that man is subordinate to the authority of
reason, for the demand that man submit to the dictates of reason. This
idea transforms man into an attribute of reason, while in reality reason
is an attribute of man.
The question whether man depends on reason or reason on man is similar
to the one whether the citizen exists for the state or the state for the
citizen. In the last and highest instance, the citizen is the primary
fact and the state is modified according to the requirements of the
citizen. But whenever the dominant interests of the citizenship have
acquired the authority in the state, then the citizen is indeed
dependent on the state. This is saying in so many words that man is
guided in minor matters by more important ones. He sacrifices the less
important, minor, particular things to the great, essential, general
things. He subordinates his desire for more individual indulgence to his
fundamental social needs. It is not pure reason, but the reason of a
weak body or of a limited purse which teaches man to renounce the
pleasures of dissipation for the benefit of the general welfare. The
wants of the senses are the material out of which reason fashions moral
truths. To single out the essential need among different physical needs
of various degrees of intensity or extension, to separate the true from
the individual, to develop general concepts, that is the mission of
reason. The difference between the apparently and the truly reasonable
reduces itself to the difference between the special and the general.
We recall that reason requires sense perceptions for its existence and
operation, that it needs some object which it can perceive. Existence is
the condition or premise of all understanding. Just as the understanding
of true existence is the function of natural science, so the
understanding of reasonable existence is the function of wisdom. Reason
in general has the mission of understanding things as they are. As
physical science it has to understand what is true, as wisdom, what is
reasonable. And just as true may be translated by general, so reasonable
may be translated by generally appropriate to need. We saw a while ago
that a sense perception is not true "in itself," but only relatively
true, that it is called true or general only in relation to other
perceptions of lesser importance. In the same way, no human action can
be reasonable or appropriate "in itself," it can be reasonable only in
comparison with some other action which attempts to accomplish the same
purpose in a less practicable, that is an impracticable, form. Just as
the true, the general, is conditioned on the relation to some other
object, on a definite quantity of phenomena, on definite limits, so the
reasonable or practicable is based on definite conditions which make it
reasonable or unreasonable. The end in view is the measure of the
practicable. The practicable can be determined only by some definite
object that is wanted. Once this object is known, then that action is
called reasonable which accomplishes it in the fullest, most general
way, and all other actions appear unreasonable compared to it.
In view of the law which we evolved by our analysis of pure reason and
which showed that all understanding, all thought, is based on some
perceptible object, on some quantity of sense perceptions, it is evident
that everything distinguished by our faculty of distinction is a certain
quantity and that, therefore, all distinctions are only quantitative,
not absolute, only graduated, not irreconcilable. Even the difference
between the reasonable and the unreasonable, or in other words between
that which is momentarily or individually reasonable and that which is
generally reasonable, is merely a quantitative distinction, like all
others, so that the unreasonable may be conditionally reasonable, and
nothing is unreasonable but that which is supposed to be unconditionally
reasonable.
If we understand that reason requires some perceptible object, some
perceptible standard, then we shall no longer try to understand the
absolutely reasonable, the purely reasonable. We shall then limit
ourselves to look for the reasonable, as for all other things, in
concrete objects. The definite, accurate, certain, uniform result of
some understanding depends on the definite formulation of the task, on
the accurate limitation of the perceptible quantity which is to be
understood. If a certain moment, a certain person, a certain class, a
certain nation are given and at the same time an essential need, a
general and predominating purpose, then the question regarding the
reasonable or suitable is easily answered. It is true that we may also
know something of things which are generally reasonable for mankind in
the aggregate, but in that case our standard must be abstract mankind
instead of some concrete part of it. Science may study the anatomical
structure of some concrete body as well as the general type of the human
body, but this again it can do only when it supplies the faculty of
understanding with general instead of individual material. If science
divides the whole human race into four or five races, by establishing a
certain standard of physiognomy, and later on discovers some individuals
or tribes whose characters are so peculiar and rare that they cannot be
classed under any of the established races, the existence of such
exceptions is not a crime against the physical order of the world, but
merely a proof of the inadequacy of our scientific classification. If,
on the other hand, some conventional mode of thought considers a certain
action as universally reasonable or unreasonable and then encounters
opposition in actual life, convention fancies itself exempt from the
work of understanding and assumes to deny civic rights in the moral
order of the world to its opponents. Instead of realizing the limited
applicability of its rules by the existence of opposing practices,
convention seeks to establish an absolute applicability of its rules by
simply ignoring the cause of the opposition. This is a dogmatic
procedure, a negative practice, which ignores facts on the pretense
that they are irrational, but it is not a positive understanding, not an
intelligent knowledge, such as manifests itself by the conciliation of
contradictions.
If our study aims to ascertain what is universally human and reasonable,
and if these predicates are given only to actions which are reasonable
and practicable for all men, at all times, and under all conditions,
then such concepts are absolute, indeterminate, and to that extent
meaningless, indefinite generalities. We are stating such universal and
indeterminate, and therefore unimportant and unpractical concepts, when
we say that physically the whole is greater than a part, or that morally
the good is preferable to the bad. The object of reason is that which is
general, but it is the generality of some concrete object. The practice
of reason deals with individual and concrete objects, with the things
which are the opposite of the general, with special and concrete
knowledge. In order to perceive in physics whether we are dealing with a
part or with the whole object, we must handle definite and concrete
objects or phenomena. If we desire to ascertain what is morally
preferable as good or bad, we must start out with a definite quantity of
human needs. Abstract and general reason, with its socalled eternal and
absolute truths, is a phantasmagoria of ignorance which binds the rights
of the individual with crushing chains. Real and true reason is
individual, it cannot produce any other but individual perceptions, and
these perceptions cannot be generalized to any greater extent than the
general material with which they operate. Only that is universally
reasonable which is acknowledged to be so by all reasons. If the reason
of some time, class, or person is referred to as rational, and if some
other time, class or person considers it irrational; if, for instance,
the Russian noble considers serfdom a rational institution and the
English bourgeois the so-called liberty of his wage worker, both of
these institutions are not absolutely rational, but only relatively,
only in a more or less limited circle.
It is not necessary to state that I do not mean to question the great
importance of our reason by the foregoing remarks. Even though reason
cannot independently, or absolutely, discern the objects of the
speculative introspection, such as the objects of the moral world, the
true, the beautiful, the right, the bad, the reasonable, etc., it
nevertheless is well fitted to distinguish relatively, by means of
concrete sense perceptions, between general and concrete things, between
the object and its manifestation, between fundamental needs and fanciful
appetites. Although we may dispense with the belief in absolute reason
and consequently realize that there can be no absolute peace, still we
may call war an unmitigated evil when comparing it with the peaceful
interests of our time or of our class. Not until we abandon our
fruitless exploring trip after absolute truth, shall we learn to find
that which is true in space and time. It is precisely the consciousness
of the relative applicability of our knowledge which is the strongest
lever of progress. The believers in absolute truth have adopted the
monotonous diagram of "good" men and "rational" institutions as a basis
for their views of life. For this reason they oppose all human and
historical institutions which do not fit into their pattern, but which
reality nevertheless produces without regard to their brains. Absolute
truth is the arch foundation of intolerance. On the other hand tolerance
proceeds from the consciousness of the relative applicability of
"eternal truths." The understanding of pure reason leads to the
realization that the consciousness of the universal interdependence of
reason is the true road toward practical reason.
+(b) Morality and Right.+
The nature of our task limits us to the demonstration that pure reason
is a nonentity, that reason is the sum of all acts of individual
understanding, that it deals only seemingly with pure and general, but
in reality with practical, or concrete, perceptions. We have been
discussing that philosophy which pretends to be the science of pure or
absolute understanding. We found its aim to be idle, inasmuch as the
development of speculative philosophy represents a succession of
disappointments, because its unconditional or absolute systems proved to
be limited in space and time. Our presentation of the matter has
revealed the relative character of so-called eternal truths. We
perceived that reason was dependent on sense perceptions, we found that
any truth required definite limits for its determination. As regards
more especially life's wisdom, we saw that the acquired knowledge of
"pure" reason manifested itself in practice by the dependence of the
wise or the rational upon concrete sense perceptions. If we now apply
this theory to morality as such, we must be able to establish harmony
also in this field, where there is some doubt as to what is right and
wrong, by means of the scientific method.
Pagan morality is different from Christian morality. Feudal morality
differs from modern bourgeois morality as does bravery from solvency. In
brief, we need no detailed illustration to show that different times and
nations have different moralities. We have but to understand that this
change is necessary, a special characteristic of the human race and of
its historical development, and we shall then exchange the belief in
"eternal truths," which every ruling class claims to be identical with
its own selfish laws, for the scientific knowledge that absolute right
is purely a concept which we derive by means of the faculty of thought
from the various successive rights. Right as an absolute concept means
no more and no less than any other general concept, for instance, the
head in general. Every real head is a concrete one and belongs either to
man or to some other animal, it is either long or broad, narrow or wide,
in other words it has special peculiarities. But at the same time, every
concrete head has certain general qualities which are universal in all
heads, for instance the quality of being the superintendent of the body.
Moreover, every head has as many general as individual traits, it is no
more personal than it is common. The faculty of thought abstracts the
general traits from the actual concrete heads and in this way creates
the concept of the absolute head. Just as the absolute head, or _the_
head, is composed of the general qualities of all heads, so the absolute
right stands merely for the general characters of all rights. Both of
these concepts exist merely as ideas, not as objects.
Every real right is a concrete right, it is right only under certain
conditions, at definite periods, for this or that nation. "Thou shalt
not kill," is right in peace, but wrong in war; it is right for the
majority of bourgeois society that wishes to see the outbursts of
passion controlled in the interest of its own predominant needs, but
wrong for the savage who has not arrived at the period where a peaceful
and social life is appreciated, and who therefore would consider the
above commandment as an immoral restriction of his liberty. For the love
of life, murder is a detestable abomination, for revenge it is a sweet
satisfaction. In the same way robbery seems right to the robber, wrong
to the robbed. There can be no question of any absolute wrong in such
cases, only of wrong in a relative sense. An action is wrong in a
general sense only in so far as it is generally disliked. Plain robbery
is wrong in the opinion of the great majority today because our
generation takes more interest in bourgeois affairs of commerce and
industry than in the adventures of the knights of the road.
If there were such a thing as an absolutely right law, dogma, or action,
it would have to serve the welfare of all mankind under all conditions
and at all times. But human welfare is as different as men,
circumstances, and time. What is good for me is bad for another, and the
thing which may be beneficial as a rule may be injurious as an
exception. What promotes some interests in one period may interfere with
them in another. A law which would presume to be absolutely right would
have to be right for every one and at all times. No absolute morality,
no duty, no categorical imperative, no idea of _the_ good, can teach
man what is good, bad, right, or wrong. That is good which corresponds
to our needs, that is bad which is contrary to them. But is there
anything which is absolutely good? Everything and nothing. It is not the
straight timber which is good, nor the crooked. Neither is good, or
either is good, according to whether I need it or not. And since we need
all things, we can see some good in all of them. We are not limited to
any one thing. We are unlimited, universal, and need everything. Our
interests are therefore innumerable, inexpressibly great, and therefore
every law is inadequate, because it always considers only some special
welfare, some special interest. And for this reason no right is right,
or all of them are right, and it is as right to say "Thou shalt not
kill" as it is to say "Thou shalt kill."
The difference between good needs and bad needs, right wants and wrong
wants, like that between truth and error, reasonable and unreasonable,
finds its conciliation in the difference between the concrete and the
general. Reason cannot discover within itself any positive rights or
absolutely moral codes any more than any other speculative truth. It
cannot estimate how essential or unessential a thing is, or classify the
quantity of concrete and general characters, until it has some
perceptible material to work upon. The understanding of the right, or of
the moral, like all understanding, strives to single out the general
characteristics of its object. But the general is only possible within
certain defined limits, it exists only as the general qualities of some
concrete and determined perceptible object. And if any one tries to
represent some maxim, some law, some right in the light of an absolute
maxim, law or right, he forgets this necessary limitation. Absolute
right is merely a meaningless concept, and it does not assume even a
vague meaning until it is understood to stand for the right of mankind
in general. But morality, or the determination of that which is right,
has a practical purpose. Yet, if we accept the general and unconditional
right of mankind as a moral right, we necessarily miss our practical
aim. An act or a line of action which is universally or everywhere right
requires no law for its enforcement, for it will recommend itself. It is
only the determined and limited law, adapted to certain persons,
classes, nations, times, or circumstances, which has any practical
value, and it is so much more practical the more defined, exact, precise
and the less general it is.
The most universal and most widely recognized right or need is in its
quality no more rightful, better, or valuable than the most
insignificant right of the moment, than the momentary need of some
individual. Although we know that the sun is hundreds of thousands of
miles in diameter, we are nevertheless free to see it no larger than a
plate. And though we may acknowledge that some moral law is
theoretically or universally good or holy, we are free in practice to
reject it momentarily, in parts, or individually, as bad and useless.
Even the most sacred right of the most universal extent is valid only
within certain definite limits, and within particular limits an
otherwise very great wrong may be a valid right. It is true that there
is an eternal difference between assumed and true interests, between
passion and reason, between essential, predominating, general,
well-founded needs and inclinations, and accidental, subordinate,
special appetites. But this difference is not one of two separated
worlds, a world of the good and a world of the bad. It is not a
positive, general, continuous, absolute difference, but merely a
relative one. Like the difference between beautiful and homely, it
depends on the individuality of the person who distinguishes. That which
is a true and fundamental need in one case, is a secondary, subordinate,
and wrong desire in another.
_Morality is the aggregate of the most contradictory ethical laws which
serve the common purpose of regulating the conduct of man toward himself
and others in such a way that the future is considered as well as the
present, the one as well as the other, the individual as well as the
genus. The individual man finds himself lacking, inadequate, limited in
many ways. He requires for his complement other people, society, and
must therefore live and let live. The mutual concessions which arise out
of these relative needs are called morality._
The inadequacy of the single individual, the need of association, is the
basis and cause of man's consideration for his neighbor, of morality.
Now since the one who feels this need, man, is necessarily an
individual, it follows that his need must likewise be individual and
more or less intensive. And since my neighbors are necessarily different
from me, it requires different considerations to meet their needs.
Concrete man needs a concrete morality. Just as abstract and meaningless
as the concept of mankind in general is that of absolute morality, and
the ethical laws derived from this vague idea are quite as unpractical
and unsuccessful. Man is a living personality, whose welfare and
purpose is embodied within himself, who has between himself and the
world nothing but his needs as a mediator, who owes no allegiance to any
law whatever from the moment that it contravenes his needs. The moral
duty of an individual never exceeds his interests. The only thing which
exceeds those interests is the _material power_ of the generality over
the individuality.
If we regard it as the function of reason to ascertain that which is
morally right, a uniform scientific result may be produced if we agree
at the outset on the persons, conditions, or limits within which the
universal moral right is to be determined; in other words, we may
accomplish something practical if we drop the idea of absolute right and
search for definite rights applicable to well-defined purposes by
clearly stating our problem. The contradiction in the various standards
of morality, and the many opposing solutions of this contradiction, are
due to a misunderstanding of the problem. To look for right without a
given quantity of sense perceptions, without some definite working
material, is an act of speculative reason which pretends to explore
nature without the use of senses. The attempt to arrive at a positive
determination of morality by pure perception and pure reason is a
manifestation of the philosophical faith in understanding _a priori_.
"It is true," said Macaulay in his History of England, in speaking of
the rebellion against the lawless and cruel government of James II.,
"that to trace the exact boundary between rightful and wrongful
resistance is impossible: but this impossibility arises from the nature
of right and wrong, and is found in every part of ethical science. A
good action is not distinguished from a bad action by marks so plain as
those which distinguish a hexagon from a square. There is a frontier
where virtue and vice fade into each other. Who has ever been able to
define the exact boundary between courage and rashness, between prudence
and cowardice, between frugality and avarice, between liberality and
prodigality? Who has ever been able to say how far mercy to offenders
ought to be carried, and where it ceases to deserve the name of mercy
and becomes a pernicious weakness?"
It is not the impossibility of accurately determining this limit to
which the nature of the difference between right and wrong, in the sense
of Macaulay, is due. It is rather due to the vague thought which
believes in an unlimited right, in absolute virtues and faults, which
has not risen to the understanding that the terms good, brave, right,
and bad are valid always and everywhere only in relation to some
concrete individual who reasons, and that they have no validity in
themselves. Courage is foolhardiness in the eyes of the cautious, and
caution is cowardice in the opinion of the daring. The revolt against
existing governments is always right in the eyes of the rebels, always
wrong in the opinion of the attacked. No action can be absolutely right
or wrong.
The same qualities of man are good or bad, according to his needs and
their uses, according to time and place. Here trickery, slyness, and bad
faith prevail, there loyally, frankness and straightforwardness. Here
compassion and charity serve their purpose and promote welfare, there
ruthless and bloody severity. The quantity, the more or less beneficial
effect of a human quality, determines the difference between virtue and
vice.
Reason can distinguish between right and wrong, virtue and vice, only to
the extent that it can measure the relative quantity of right in any
faculty, rule, or action. No categorical imperative, no ethical code,
can serve as a basis for the real practical right. On the contrary,
ethics finds its justification in the actual righteousness of
perceptible objects. For general reason, frankness is not a better
quality than slyness. Frankness is preferable to slyness only inasmuch
as it is quantitatively, that is to say, more frequently, better, and
more generally appreciated than slyness. It follows that a science of
right can serve as a guide in practice only to the extent that practice
has served as a basis for science. Reason cannot determine the action of
man beforehand, because it can only experience, but not anticipate
reality, because every man, every situation, is new, original, exists
for the first time, and because the possibilities of reason are confined
to understanding _a posteriori_.
Absolute right, or right in itself, is an imagined right, is a
speculative desire. A scientifically universal right requires certain
definite and perceptible premises which form the basis of the
determination of the general. Science is not a dogmatic infallibility
which may say: This or that is right, because it is so understood.
Science requires for its perceptions some external object. It can
perceive right only if it rightly exists. The universal existence is the
material, premise, condition, and cause of science.
From the foregoing follows the postulate that morality must be studied
inductively or scientifically, not speculatively by the method of
traditional philosophy. We must not attempt to study absolute, but only
relative rights, only rights based on certain premises, and only this
can be the moral problem of reason. Thus the belief in a moral order of
the world is dissolved in the consciousness of human freedom. The
understanding of reason, of knowledge, of science, includes the
understanding of the limited validity of all ethical maxims.
Whatever impressed man as salutary, valuable, divine, was exhibited by
him in the tabernacle of faith as the most venerable thing. The Egyptian
worshipped the cat, the Christian venerates the divine providence. So,
when his needs led him to live a well-regulated life, the benefits of
the law inspired him with such a high opinion of its noble origin that
he adopted his own handiwork as a gift of heaven. The invention of the
mouse-trap or other useful appliances pushed the cat out of its exalted
position. Whenever man becomes his own master, takes care of himself,
and provides for himself, then all other providences become useless, and
his own mastership makes all superior tutelage unbearable. Man is a
jealous creature. Ruthlessly he subordinates everything to his own
interests, even God and His commandments. No matter how great or
venerable an authority any code may have acquired by long and faithful
service, as soon as new needs oppose it, they degrade the divine
authority to the ranks of human law and transform ancient right into
modern wrong. The Christian frivolity refused to respect the threat of
physical retribution which the Hebrew had anointed as an authority in
moral questions and revered under the maxim: Eye for eye, tooth for
tooth. The Christian had learned to cherish the blessings of
peacefulness; he carried submissive tolerance into the holy land, and
decorated the vacant tabernacle with the gentle injunction to offer the
left cheek when the right was tired of cuffs. In our times which are
Christian in name, but very anti-Christian in deeds, the long venerated
tolerance has long gone out of use.
Just as every religion has its own peculiar God, so every time has its
own peculiar right. To this extent, religion and morality are in harmony
with the worship of their sanctum. But they become arrogant upstarts
whenever they assume to exceed their natural boundaries, whenever they
attempt to saddle upon all circumstances, under the pretense of offering
something incomparable, absolute, permanent, that which is divine and
right at certain times and under definite conditions; whenever they
proclaim a successful remedy for their own peculiar disease as a
universal patent medicine for all diseases; whenever they overbearingly
forget their descent. A law is originally dictated by some individual
need, and then mankind with its universal needs is supposed to balance
itself on the thin rope of this one rule. Originally that which is
really good is right, and thereafter only some decreed right is supposed
to be really good. That is the unbearable arrogance. Ordained right is
not satisfied to serve as the right of this time, this nation or
country, this class or caste. It wants to dominate the whole world,
wants to be absolute right, just as if a certain pill could be absolute
medicine, could be good for everything. It is the mission of progress to
repulse this assumption, to pluck this peacock feather out of the tail
of the rooster, by leading mankind on beyond the boundaries prescribed
by ordained law, by extending the world for him, by conquering for his
cramped interests a wider liberty. The migration from Palestine to
Europe where the consumption of pork does not cause leprosy emancipates
our natural freedom from a once divine restriction by making it
irrelevant. But progress does not deprive one God of his shoulder straps
for the purpose of decorating some other God with them. That would
merely be an exchange, not an acquirement. Evolution does not drive the
saints of tradition out of the country; it simply retires them from the
wrongfully occupied field of universality into their peculiar
boundaries. Progress picks up the child and then pours the water out of
the bath tub. Though the cat may have lost its aureole and ceased to be
a God, it does not give up catching mice; and though the Jewish rules
for bodily cleanliness at certain definite times have long been
forgotten, a clean body is still highly respected. The present wealth of
civilization is due only to the economical administration of the
acquirements of the past. Evolution is as much conservative as it is
revolutionary, and it finds as much wrong as right in every law.
It is true that the believers in absolute duty scent a difference
between moral and legal right. But their self-interested narrowness does
not permit them to realize that every law is originally moral and that
every special morality is gradually reduced to the level of a mere law.
Their understanding reaches into other times and other classes, but does
not reach their own time and class. The laws of the Chinese and
Samoyeds are understood to refer to the peculiar requirements of those
people. But the rules of bourgeois society are supposed to be far more
sublime. Our present day institutions and moral codes are either
regarded as eternal truths of nature or reason, or as permanent oracular
expressions of a pure conscience. Just as if the barbarian did not have
a barbarian reason; as if the Turk did not have a Turkish conscience and
the Hebrew a Hebrew one; as if man could follow the dictates of some
absolute conscience, instead of the conscience being conditioned on the
man.
Whoever limits the purpose of man to the love and service of God, and to
eternal blessedness hereafter, may devoutly recognize the traditions of
abstract morality as authoritative and guide himself accordingly. But
whoever regards development, education, and blessedness on earth as
man's life purpose, will not think that the questioning of the assumed
superiority of traditional morals is irrelevant. It is only the
consciousness of individual freedom which creates sufficient unconcern
for the rules made by others to permit a brave advance, which
emancipates us from the striving for an illusory absolute ideal, for
some "best world," and which restores us to the definite practical
interests of our time and personality. At the same time we are thus
reconciled with the world as it really is, because we no longer regard
it as the unsuccessful realization of that which ought to be, but rather
as the systematization of that which cannot but be. The world is always
right. Whatever exists, is right and is not fated to be otherwise until
it changes. Wherever there is existence, which is power, there is also
right without any further condition, because it is right in a formative
stage. Weakness has no other right than that of striving for supremacy
and then enforcing a recognition of its long denied needs. The study of
history shows us not only the negative and ridiculous side of the
religions, customs, institutions and ideas of the past, but also their
positive, reasonable and necessary side. It explains to us, for
instance, that the deification of animals was due to an enthusiastic
recognition of their usefulness. And so the study of history shows not
alone the inadequacy of the things of the present, but also demonstrates
that they are the reasonable and necessary conclusions from the premises
of previous stages.
+(c) The Holy.+
In the well-known statement: The end sanctifies the means, the developed
theory of morality finds its practical expression. This maxim, used in
an ambiguous sense, may stand as a common reproach for us and for the
Jesuits. The defenders of the society of Jesus make efforts to prove
that it is a malignant attempt to discredit their clients. We shall not
try to speak for either party to this dispute, but will devote ourselves
to the subject matter itself, and seek to substantiate the truth and
reasonableness of this maxim, to rehabilitate it in the public opinion.
It will be sufficient for the refutation of the most general opposition
to understand that end and means are very relative terms, that all
concrete ends are means and all means are ends. There is no more of a
positive difference between great and small, right and wrong, virtue
and vice, than there is between end and means. Considered as something
integral by itself, every action has its own end and its means are the
various moments of which even the shortest action is composed. Every
concrete action is a means in relation to other actions which aim at the
same common effect. But in themselves actions are neither ends nor
means. Nothing is anything by itself. All being is relative. Things are
what they are only within and by their interrelations. Circumstances
alter cases. In so far as every action is accompanied by other actions,
it is a means, and serves a common end which exceeds its own special
end; but inasmuch as every action is complete in itself it is an end
which includes its own means. We eat in order to live; but so far as we
are living while we are eating, we are living in order to eat. As life
to its functions, so the end is related to its means. Just as life is
simply the sum of all life's functions, so the end is the sum of all its
means. The difference between means and end reduces itself to that
between the concrete and the general. And all abstract differences
reduce themselves to this difference, because the faculty of abstraction
or distinction reduces itself to the faculty of distinguishing between
the concrete and the general. But this distinction presupposes the
existence of some material, some given objects, some circle of sense
perceptions by which it manifests itself. If this circle is found in the
field of actions or functions, in other words, if a previously defined
number of different actions is the object of our study, then we refer to
the general character of these objects as the general end and to every
more or less extended part of them, or to every function, as a means.
Whether any definite action is considered as an end or as a means,
depends on the question whether we consider it as a whole in relation to
its own parts, or as a part of some whole in which it is connected with
other parts, with other actions. From a general point of view which has
all human actions for the object of its study, and encompasses them all,
there exists only one end, viz., the human welfare. This welfare is the
end of all ends, is the final end, is the real, true, universal end
compared to which all special ends are but means.
Now, our claim that the end sanctifies the means can have absolute
validity only in regard to some absolute end. But all concrete ends are
relative and finite. The one and sole absolute end is human welfare, and
it is an end which sanctifies all rules and actions, all means, so long
as they are subservient to it, but which reviles them as soon as they go
their own way without serving it. The human weal is literally and
historically the origin of the holy. That which is hale is holy. At the
same time we must not ignore the fact that the weal, or hale, in
general, the hale which sanctifies all means, is but an abstraction, the
real content of which is as different as are the times, the nations, or
persons which are seeking for their welfare. It must be remembered that
the determination of that which is holy or for the human weal requires
definite conditions, that no action, no means, is holy in itself, that
each one of them is sanctified only by definite relations. It is not
every end which sanctifies the means, but the holy end which sanctifies
its own means. But since every real and concrete end is only relatively
holy, it can sanctify its own means only relatively.
The opposition against our maxim is not so much directed against it, as
against the wrong application of it. Recognition is denied and the
socalled sanctified ends are accorded only limited means, because there
is lurking in the background the consciousness that these ends have only
a relative holiness. On the other hand our defense of the maxim does not
imply that the various nominally holy means and ends are sanctified
because some authority, some scriptural statement, some reason or
conscience, has declared them to be so, but only in so far as they
answer the common end of all ends, the human welfare. Our maxim of ends
does not at all teach that we should sacrifice love and truths to
sanctified faith, but neither does it demand that we should sacrifice
faith for love and truth. It merely states the fact that, whenever some
superior end has been determined by sense perceptions or circumstances,
all means contrary to that end are unholy, and that on the other hand
means which are generally unholy may become temporarily and individually
sanctioned by their relation to some momentary or individual welfare.
Wherever peacefulness is actually in favor as a sanctified means, war is
unholy. When, on the other hand, man seeks his salvation in war, then
murder and incendiarism are holy means. In other words, our reason
requires for a valid determination of that which is sanctified certain
definite material conditions or facts as premises; it cannot determine
_the_ holy in general, not _a priori_, not philosophically in the old
speculative way, but only in concrete cases, _a posteriori_, only
empirically.
If we understand that human welfare is the end of all ends, the ideal
of all means; if we furthermore dispense with all special determinations
of this welfare, with all personal ideas of it, and recognize that it is
different under different circumstances, then we understand at the same
time that no means is sanctified beyond the sanctity of its end. No
means, no action, is positively sanctified or makes for human welfare
under all circumstances. According to circumstances and relations one
and the same means may be good or bad. A thing is good only to the
extent that its results are good, only to the extent that there is good
in its end. Lying and cheating are bad only because they result
injuriously for ourselves, because we do not wish to be lied to or
cheated. But whenever a sanctified end is in question, the deceptive
means used in lying and cheating are called tricks of war. If any one is
firmly rooted in the goodness of chastity because he thinks it was
ordained by God, we cannot discuss the matter with him. But if one
honors virtue for the sake of virtue and abhors vice for the sake of
vice, in other words, for their consequences, he admits that he
sacrifices the lust of the flesh to the end of good health. In short, he
admits that the means are sanctified by the end.
In the Christian conception of the world, the commandments of its
religion are absolutely good for all time, they are considered good
because Christian revelation declares them to be so. This conception
does not know that, for instance, its acme of virtue, the specifically
Christian virtue of abstemiousness, received its value only by contrast
with corrupt heathenish licentiousness, but that it is not a virtue
when compared to reasonable and normal satisfaction of material needs.
It deals with certain means which it calls indiscriminately good without
any relation to their ends, and others which it calls indiscriminately
bad in the same absolute way. And for this reason, it opposes the above
named maxim.
But modern Christianity, modern civilization, has practically long done
away with this faith. It does indeed call the soul the likeness of God
and the body a putrid food for worms; but its deeds prove that it does
not take its religious phrases seriously. It cares little for the better
part of man and directs all its thoughts and actions toward the
satisfaction of the despised body. It employs science and art, and the
products of all climates, for the glorification of the body, clothing it
sumptuously, feeding it luxuriously, caring for it tenderly, resting it
on soft cushions. Although they speak slightingly of this earthly life
in comparison to the eternal life beyond, yet in practice they cling for
six days of the week to the uninterrupted pleasures of this body, while
heaven is hardly considered worthy of careless attention for more than
one short hour on Sundays. With the same thoughtless inconsistency the
socalled Christian world also attacks our maxim with words, while in
practical life it sanctifies the despised means by the end of its own
welfare, going even so far as to demonstrate its inconsistency in its
own life by subsidizing prostitution with state funds. The fact that the
legislative bodies of our representative states keep down the enemies of
their bourgeois order by courtmartials and exile, that they justify this
course by the proverb, "Do unto others as you would that they should do
unto you," in the interest of "public" welfare, or that they defend
their divorce codes by the plea of individual welfare, proves that the
bourgeoisie also believes in the motto: The end sanctifies the means.
And even though the citizens delegate rights to the state which they
deny to themselves, also our opponents cannot but admit that in so doing
the citizens are simply delegating their own rights to the superior
authority of the state.
True, whoever employs lying and cheating in the bourgeois world for the
end of gaining wealth, even though he may make it one of his ends to
give to charity, or whoever steals leather, like Saint Chispinus, for
the purpose of making shoes for poor people, does not sanctify his means
by his end, because the end in that case is not sanctified, or only
nominally so, only in general, but not in the concrete case quoted. For
charity is an end of but inferior holiness which must not be more than a
means compared to the main end of maintaining bourgeois society, and
whenever it contravenes this main purpose, charity loses its character
of a good end. And we have already seen that an end which is sanctified
only under certain circumstances cannot sanctify its means beyond them.
The indispensable condition of all good ends is that they must be
subservient to human welfare, and whether this welfare is secured by
Christian or pagan, by feudal or bourgeois means, it always demands that
the things which are considered unessential and of lesser importance
should be subordinated to the essential and necessary things, while in
the above quoted cases the more salutary honesty and bourgeois
respectability would be sacrificed to the less salutary charity. "The
end sanctifies the means" signifies in other words that in ethics as
well as in economics, the profit must justify the investment of the
capital. Again, if we call the forcible conversion of infidels a good
end, and an arbitrary police measure a bad means, this does not prove
anything against the truth of the maxim, but only testifies to its wrong
application. The means is not sanctified in the case, because the end is
not, because a forced conversion is not a good end, but rather an evil
one resulting in hypocrisy, and because such a conversion does not
deserve this name, or because force is a means which is unworthy of this
term. If it is true that a forcible conversion or wooden iron are
senseless ideas, how is it that people will persist in fighting against
universally recognized truths with such inconsistencies, such inane word
plays, such tricks of rhetoric and sophistry? The means of the Jesuits,
sly tricks and intrigues, poison and murder, appear unholy to us only
because the Jesuitic purpose, for instance that of extending the wealth
and influence and glorifying power of the order, is an inferior end
which may make use of the innocent language of the pulpit, but is not an
absolutely sanctified end, no supreme end, to which we would grant means
that would deprive us of some essential end, for instance of our
personal and public safety. Murder and manslaughter are considered
immoral as individual actions because they are not means to accomplish
our main end, because we incline not toward revenge or
blood-thirstiness, nor toward arbitrariness and the wilful dispensation
of justice by some judge, but toward lawful decisions and the more or
less impartial decrees of the state. But do we not explicitly declare in
favor of the maxim "The end sanctifies the means," when we constitute
ourselves into juries and render dangerous criminals powerless by the
rope and the ax of the executioner?
The same people who boast of having dropped Aristotle, that is to say
the belief in authority, for centuries, and who therefore replaced the
dead traditional truth by living self-gained truth, are found to be
completely at odds with their own development in the above cited cases.
If we listen to the recital of some funny story, which may be told by
even a reliable witness, we nevertheless remain loyal to the principles
of free reason, that is to say we are free to regard as serious and
regrettable any incident which the narrator may consider funny and
ridiculous. People know how to distinguish between a story and the
subjective impression its incidents created on the mind of the narrator,
and which depends more on the personality of the witness than on the
actual facts. But in the matter of good ends and bad means it is
proposed to neglect the distinction between an object and its subjective
end which is otherwise the point of all critique. Such ends as charity,
the conversion of infidels, etc., are thoughtlessly, a priori, called
good and holy, because they once were so under particular conditions,
while now their effect in the cases above cited is just the opposite,
and then people wonder that the unrighteous title carries with it
unrighteous privileges.
Only that end is worthy of the predicate good or holy in practice which
is itself a means, a servant, of the end of all purposes, of welfare.
Whenever man seeks his welfare in bourgeois life, in production and
commerce of commodities, and in the undisturbed enjoyment of his private
property, he clips his long fingers by the commandment: "Thou shalt not
steal." But wherever, as among the Spartans, war is regarded as the
supreme end and craftiness as a necessary quality of a warrior, there
thieving is used as a means of acquiring craftiness and sanctioned as a
means for the main end. To blame the Spartan for being a warrior instead
of a sedate bourgeois would be to ignore the facts of reality, would be
equivalent to overlooking that our brain is not designed to substitute
imaginary pictures for the actual conditions of the world, but is
organized to understand that a period, a nation, an individual is always
that which it can and must be under given circumstances.
It is not from mere individual and unpraiseworthy fondness for the
paradox that we subvert current views by defending the maxim "The end
sanctifies the means," but from a consistent application of the science
of philosophy. Philosophy originated out of the belief in a dualist
contrast between God and the world, between body and soul, between the
flesh and the spirit, between brain and senses, between thinking and
being, between the general and the concrete. The conciliation of this
contrast represents the end, or the aggregate result, of philosophical
research. Philosophy found its dissolution in the understanding that the
divine is worldly and the worldly divine, that the soul is related to
the body, the spirit to the flesh, thinking to being, the intellect to
the senses, in the same way in which the unity is related to the
multiplicity or the general to the concrete. Philosophy began with the
erroneous supposition that the one, as the first thing, was the basis
on which developed the two, three, four, and the entire multiplicity of
things by succession. It has now arrived at the understanding that
truth, or reality, turns this supposition upside down, that the reality
with its multiplicity of forms, perceivable by the senses, is the first
and foremost thing out of which the human brain gradually derived the
conception of unity or generality.
No achievement of science can be compared with the amount of talent and
intellectual energy consumed in harvesting this one little fruit from
the field of speculative philosophy. But neither does any scientific
novelty encounter so many deep-rooted obstacles to its recognition. All
brains unfamiliar with the outcome of philosophy are dominated by the
old belief in the reality of some genuine, true, absolutely universal
panacea, the discovery of which would make all sham, false individual
panaceas impossible. But we, on the other hand, have been taught by the
understanding of the thought process that this coveted panacea is a
product of the brain and that, since it is supposed to be a general and
abstract panacea, it cannot be any real, perceptible, concrete panacea.
In the belief in an absolute difference between true and false welfare,
there is manifested an ignorance of the actual operations of brain work.
Pythagoras made numbers the basis of things. If this Grecian philosopher
could have realized that this basic nature was a thing of the mind, of
the intellect,[2] and that numbers were the basis of reason, the common
or abstract content of all intellectual activity, then we should have
been spared all the disputes which have raged around the various forms
of absolute truth, about "things in themselves."
Space and time are the general forms of reality, or reality exists in
time and space. Consequently all real welfare must be attached to space
and time, and every welfare which exists in these dimensions must be
real. The different welfares, in so far as their beneficent qualities
are concerned, are to be distinguished only by their height and breadth,
by the quantity of their dimensions, by their numeral relations. Every
welfare, whether true or seeming, is perceived by the senses, by
practices of life, not by abstract reason. But practice assigns the most
contradictory things to different people at different times as means to
their welfare. What is welfare in one place, is disaster in another, and
vice versa. Understanding, or reason, has nothing else to do in the
matter than to number these various welfares as they are made real by
sense perceptions in various persons and times, and degrees of
intensity, in the order in which they appear, and thus to distinguish
the small from the great, the essential from the unessential, the
concrete from the general. Reason cannot dictate to us autocratically in
matters of some absolutely true welfare, it can only indicate the most
frequent, most essential, and most universal welfare in a certain
perceived number of welfares. But it must not be forgotten that the
truth of such an understanding, or enumeration, depends on certain
definite premises. It is therefore a vain endeavor to search for the
true and absolute welfare. This search becomes practical and successful
only when it limits itself to the understanding of a definite amount of
welfare of some particular objects. The general welfare can be found
only within definite boundaries. But the various determinations of
welfare agree in this respect, that they all consider it well to
sacrifice the little for the great, the unessential for the essential,
and not vice versa. In so far as this principle is right, it is also
right for us to employ for the good end of a great welfare some small
means in the shape of a small evil and to endure it, and thus we see
once more that the end sanctifies the means.
If people were liberal enough to permit every one to go to heaven in his
or her own way, the opponents of our maxim would be easily convinced of
its truth. But instead of doing this, people follow the usual course of
shortsightedness and make their private standpoint a universal one. They
call their own private welfare the only true welfare, and regard the
welfare of other nations, times and conditions a mistake. So does every
school of art declare its own subjective taste to be objective beauty,
ignoring the fact that unity is but a matter of ideas, of thought, while
reality is full of the most varied forms. The real welfare is manifold
and the true welfare but a subjective choice which, like a funny story,
may make an entirely different impression on others, and be a false
welfare. Even though Kant, or Fichte, or some other particular
philosopher, may discuss at length the purpose of mankind and solve the
problem to his full satisfaction and to that of his audience, we
nevertheless have learned enough today to know that one can define one's
own personal idea of the purpose of mankind by means of abstract
speculation, but that one cannot discover any unknown and hidden object
in this way. Thought, or reason, requires some object, and its work is
that of measuring, of criticising. It may distinguish between true and
false welfare, but will also remember that they have their limits,
remember that it is itself personal and that its distinctions are
likewise personal and cannot be generalized beyond the point where
others receive the same impression of the same object.
Humanity is an idea, while man is always some special person who has his
or her peculiar life in a definite environment and is therefore
subservient to general principles only from motives of self-interest.
The sacrifice of ethics, like that of religion, is only seemingly a
self-denial and serves the ends of reasonable self-interest, an
expenditure with a view to greater gains. A morality worthy of that name
which is not better defined by the term obedience can be exercised only
through the understanding of its worth, of its value for our welfare, of
its usefulness. The variety of political parties is conditioned on the
varieties of the interests concerned, and the difference in the means is
conditioned on the difference in ends. In questions of less importance
even the champions of absolute morality testify to this fact.
Thiers in his history of the French Revolution tells of a peculiar
situation in the year 1796, when the patriots held the public power and
the royalists carried on a revolutionary propaganda. It was then that
the partisans of the revolution, who should have been the champions of
unlimited liberty, demanded coercive measures, while the opposition, who
secretly cared more for a monarchy than for a republic, voted for
unlimited liberty. "To such an extent are parties governed by their
self-interests," comments Thiers, just as if this were an anomaly
instead of being the natural, necessary and inevitable course of the
world. When, on the other hand, it is a question of the fundamental laws
of bourgeois order, then the moral representatives of the ruling classes
are egotistic enough to deny the connection of their material interests
with these laws and to claim that theirs are eternal, metaphysical world
laws, that the pillars of their special class rule are the eternal
pillars of humanity, and that their own means alone are holy ones and
their end the final end of the universe.
It is a disastrous deception, a robbing of human liberty, an attempt to
cause the stagnation of the historical development, if any age or class
thus proclaims its own peculiar purposes and means to be for the
absolute welfare of humanity. Morality originally reflects one's
interests just as fashion reflects one's taste, and finally the action
is moulded after the conceived pattern like the coat in dressing. In
this process, force naturally is exerted for the maintenance and
protection of one's own life and those who resist are subdued. Interest
and duty, though perhaps not entirely synonymous, are certainly closely
related. Both of them are merged in the term welfare. Self-interest
represents more nearly the concrete, immediate, tangible welfare, while
duty concerns itself with the more remote and general welfare of the
future also. While self-interest considers the present tangible metallic
welfare of the purse, duty demands that we keep not only a part of
welfare, but all welfare in mind, that we consider the future as well as
the present, that we remember the spiritual welfare as well as the
physical. Duty thinks also of the heart, of social needs, of the
future, of the spiritual weal, in brief of interest in general and urges
us to renounce the superfluous in order to secure and retain the
necessary. Thus your duty is your self-interest and your self-interest
your duty.
If our ideas are to adapt themselves to truth, or to reality, instead of
reality or truth adapting itself to our notions or thoughts, we must
understand that the mutability of that which is right, holy, moral, is a
natural, necessary and true fact. And we must grant to an individual the
theoretical freedom which cannot be taken from it in practice, we must
admit that it is as free now as it has ever been, that laws must be
adapted to the needs of the social individual and not to the vague,
unreal, and impossible abstractions, such as justice or morality. What
is justice? The embodiment of all that is considered right, an
individual conception, which assumes different forms in different
persons. In reality only individual, definite, concrete rights exist,
and man simply comes along and abstracts from them the idea of justice,
just as he abstracted from different kinds of wood the conception of
wood in general, or from material things the conception of matter. It is
just as far from the truth, to think that material things consist of, or
are by virtue of, abstract matter, although this view is widely spread,
as it is to believe that the moral or bourgeois laws were derived from
the idea of justice.
The ethical loss caused by our realistic, or if you prefer,
materialistic, conception of morality is not so great as it appears. We
need not fear that through this conception social beings will become
lawless cannibals or hermits. Freedom and lawfulness are closely allied
by the need for association which compels us to permit others to live
together with us. If a man is prevented by his conscience or by other
spiritualistic or bourgeois ethics from committing unlawful
actions--unlawful in the wider meaning of the term--he is either not
exposed to very grave temptations, or he has a nature so tame that the
natural or legal punishments fully suffice to keep him within prescribed
bounds. But where these checks are ineffective, morality is likewise
powerless. If it were otherwise, we should have to assume that morality
exerts in secret the same influence on the faithful which is exerted by
public opinion on the faithless. But we know from actual experience that
there are more pious thieves than infidel robbers. That the world, which
attributes so much value for social welfare to morality by word of
mouth, actually shares this view of ours, is proven by the fact that
bourgeois society gives more attention to the penal code and to the
police than to the influence of morality.
Moreover, our fight is not directed against morality, not even against
any special form of it, but only against the arrogance which assumes to
stamp some concrete form of morality with the trade mark of absolute
morality. We recognize that morality is eternally sacred, in so far as
it refers to considerations which a man owes to himself and to his
fellowmen in the interest of their common welfare. But the freedom of
the individual demands that each one should be at liberty to determine
the degree of consideration and the manner of giving it expression.
Under these circumstances it is as inevitable that the ruling powers,
classes or majorities should enforce their special needs under the form
of a prescribed right, as it is that a man's shirt should be closer to
his skin than his coat. But it appears to us not merely very
superfluous, but even detrimental to the energies required for the
progress of the future, that some decreed right should be elevated to
the position of absolute right and transformed into an insuperable
barrier to the advance of humanity.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Which was gained by the mind's contact with its sense-perceived
multiplicity of the world.--Editor.
Letters on Logic
Especially Democratic-Proletarian Logic
BY JOSEPH DIETZGEN
Translated by Ernest Untermann
Editorial Remark.
The "Letters on Logic," treating on the same subjects as "The Positive
Outcome of Philosophy," were intended by the author to be replaced by
this subsequent work.
We publish, however, both these works in hopes that the reader will
pardon the frequent repetitions on account of the additional light that
other parts of the "Letters on Logic" are apt to impart.
LETTERS ON LOGIC
FIRST LETTER
Dear Eugene:
You have now reached the age at which the students go to the university.
There, according to custom, they register first of all for a course in
logic, whether they choose the study of law, medicine, or theology.
Logic is, so to say, the elementary study in all branches of learning.
Now you know, my dear, that school and life are regarded as two separate
things. I should like to call your attention to their connection. We
live also in school, we are schooled also by life. I should like to
consider your trip across the Atlantic ocean as your first venture in
the high school of life, and assume the role of your professor of logic.
I feel well qualified for this office. Although I am not well up in
Latin and Greek, still I feel competent to guide you to the depths of
logical science better than a German professor trained and installed
according to the most approved pattern. You will admit the possibility
of such a thing. For one who knows little may explain that little with
more ease and efficacy than one who has his head stuffed full of the
prescribed bunch of official wisdom.
You, my son, have been so fortunate as to enjoy a seven years' course in
a German college. And since your teachers, at your departure, gave you
the highest certificate, I may well consider you as qualified not only
to enter the school of life in the United States, but also to listen
intelligently to my lectures on logic.
But in order that my well trained pupil may not look down upon his
self-taught teacher, I appeal to the fact that even the man with the
best all-around education will be a tyro in specialties; and that, on
the other hand, ignorance in many things does not exclude the
possibility of knowing more about a certain specialty than science has
heretofore grasped. Now I claim in this case to have acquired a
knowledge of the subject with which I intend to deal here that surpasses
anything I have been able to find in the professional literature. I
mention this, my dear Eugene, with all due modesty, not for the purpose
of throwing a halo around my personality, but in order to give a certain
authority to my office as teacher and to inspire my pupil with
confidence.
Yes, I value confidence. Although you know me as a democrat who cares
nothing for authority, you shall also learn to know me as a graduate in
dialectics who, though he may empty the bath, still retains his hold on
the child and does not permit it to float off with the water. Children,
and one may say nations in their childhood, cannot do without authority,
and a teacher, whether he instruct children or nations, cannot dispense
with a certain confidence-inspiring air. The pupil must believe in the
wisdom of his teacher, in order that he may approach the master with the
necessary attention and willingness to learn. Later on the understanding
of the subject makes all authority superfluous. Thus a thing so sublime
as authority is subject to the destructive tendencies of time, to the
historical process.
Hitherto mankind has often been tempted by preconceived notions to
idolize vain things. It has been attempted to shield not only authority
in general, but, what is still worse, this or that throne or altar,
against the attacks of time. The relation between the perishable and the
imperishable has always been subject to much misunderstanding. Now since
logic is that science which aims to set the intellect aright, we shall
have to touch occasionally on the general misconception of time and
eternity.
The most famous expounders of logic are reproached for their cumbrous
style and their obscure mode of explanation. Even masters of languages
have complained in my hearing about the foreign terms used by that
branch of science, terms which even they could not understand. Much of
the blame for this condition of things may fall on the difficulties of
the subject, which have baffled all elucidation for thousands of years.
Some of the blame also falls on the bad habit of using learned
vernacular. But the greatest fault lies with the mental laziness of the
students. Nothing can be learned without mental exertion. If you are
concerned in your further development, you will recognize the Christian
word as to the curse of work as untrue. Work cannot be descended from
sin, for it is a blessing. You will have experienced in yourself how
elated one feels after successful physical or mental work.
The things which science yields without exertion can be at most
axiomatic commonplaces.
I assume that you are quite willing to perform the necessary mental
labor, and I promise you that I shall do my best to make this study easy
for you. I do this so much more readily, as I frankly confess that these
letters to my son are written with the intention of making them
accessible to a wider circle of readers by means of the press.
Before concluding, let me say a word about my aim of speaking especially
of democratic-proletarian logic. You will think or say: Logic may be a
subject worthy of study, but a special democratic-proletarian logic can
surely treat of nothing but party matters. But just as the special
accomplishments in this or that line, the special advances of this or
that nation, are at the same time general advances, progress of
civilization, so the ideas of proletarian logic are not party ideas, but
conclusions of logic in general. You may reply: Even though the special
thought of a Chinaman may be quite consistent and logical, still we
would not call it Chinese logic. That would be quite true, but it does
not meet my point.
The thought on which the proletarian demands are based, the idea of the
equality of all human beings, this ultimate proletarian idea, if I may
say so, is fully backed up by the deeper insight into the tortuous
problem of logic. Now, since this idea dominates mankind, it certainly
has more right than any Chinese idea. Furthermore, industrial
development has leveled, simplified, cleared all social conditions to
such an extent that it becomes ever easier to penetrate with sober eyes
into the secrets of logic. Finally, my logic deserves its proletarian
qualification for the reason that it requires for its understanding the
overcoming of all prejudices by which the capitalist world is held
together.
The cause of the people is not a party matter, but the general object of
all science.
The people's cause as the ultimate object, and logic as the most
elementary and most abstract science, as ultimate science, are as
intimately connected as plants and botany, or as laws and the legal
profession. So are the interests of democracy and the proletariat
intimately connected. The fact that this has not been well recognized in
the United States so far, is more a proof of the lucky condition of that
country than of the scientific knowledge of its democracy. The spreading
primeval forests and prairies offered innumerable homesteads to the poor
and they obscured the antagonism between capitalists and wage workers,
between capitalist and proletarian democracy. But you still lack the
knowledge of proletarian economics which would enable you to recognize
without a doubt that it is precisely on the republican ground of America
that capitalism makes giant strides and reveals ever more clearly its
twofold task of first enslaving the people for the purpose of freeing
them in due time.
SECOND LETTER
Dear Eugene:
Having written the first letter by way of introduction, I now am ready
for a gradual approach to my subject.
Logic aims to instruct the human mind as to its own nature and
processes; it will lay bare the interior working of our mind for our
guidance. The object of the study of logic is thought, its nature, and
its proper classification.
The human brain performs the function of thinking as involuntarily as
the chest the function of breathing. However, we can, by our will, stop
breathing for a while, and accelerate or retard the breathing movements.
In the same way, the will can control the thoughts. We may choose any
object as the subject matter of our thought, and yet we may quickly
convince ourselves that the power of our will and the freedom of the
mind are not any greater than the freedom of the chest in breathing.
While logic undertakes to assign the proper position to our brain, still
it has to remember that nature has already assigned that position.
It is with logic as it is with other sciences. They draw wisdom from the
mysterious source of plain experience. Agriculture, e. g., aims to teach
the farmer how to cultivate the soil; but fields were tilled long before
any agricultural college had begun its lectures. In the same way human
beings think without ever having heard of logic. But by practice they
improve their innate faculty of thought, they make progress, they
gradually learn to make better use of it. Finally, just as the farmer
arrives at the science of agriculture, so the thinker arrives at logic,
acquires a clear consciousness of his faculty of thought and a
professional dexterity in applying it.
I have two purposes in mind in saying this. Firstly, you must not expect
too much from this science, for you cannot set contrary brains to rights
by any logic. Secondly, you must not think too little of it, by
regarding the matter as mere scholastic word-mongery and useless
hairsplitting. In daily life, as well as in all sciences, we never
operate without the help of thought, but only with it, hence an
understanding of the nature of the processes of thought is of eminent
value.
Logic has its history like all sciences. Aristotle, whom Marx calls the
"Grecian giant of thought," is universally recognized as its founder.
After the classic culture of antiquity had been buried by barbarism, the
name of Bacon of Verulam rose with the beginning of modern times as a
philosophical light of the first order. His most famous work is entitled
"Novum Organon." By the new organ he meant a new method of research
which should be founded on experience, instead of the subtleties of the
purely introspective method hitherto in vogue. After him, Descartes, or
Cartesius, as he called himself in literature, wrote his still famous
work, "About Methods." I furthermore recall Immanuel Kant's "Critique of
Reason," Johann Gottlieb Fichte's "Theory of Science," and finally
Hegel, of whom the biographer said that he was as famous in the
scientific world as Napoleon in the political.
Hegel calls his chief work "Logic," and bases his whole system on the
"dialectic method." You have only to look at the titles of these
philosophical masterpieces in order to recognize that they all treat of
the same subject which we are making our special study, viz., the light
of understanding. The great philosophers of all times have searched for
the true method, the method of truth, for the way in which understanding
and reason arrive at science.
I merely wish to indicate that this subject has its famous history, but
I do not care to enter more deeply into it. I will not speak of the
oppression and persecution, which was inaugurated by religious
fanaticism. I will not enumerate the various events that led to a
greater and greater light from generation to generation. The attempt to
trace this history would entangle us in many disputed questions and
errors which would only increase the difficulties of this study for the
beginner.
If a teacher of technology were to instruct you on steam engines and, to
explain their first incomplete invention, trace their further
development historically from improvement to improvement, until he
should arrive at the height of perfection attained in their present day
construction, he would also be advancing on a path, but on a tedious
one. I shall endeavor to show my subject at the outset in the very
clearest light which has ever been thrown on it by the help of the
nations of all times. If I succeed in this, it will be easy in the
future, in the reading of any author, to separate the chaff from the
wheat.
I can afford to dispense with quotations and proofs from others in
trying to make my case and demonstrating the positive product of social
culture, for we are dealing with the most universal and omnipresent
object,--one which enters into every spoken or written sentence with its
own body. If anybody tells of far off times or wonderful things, he must
quote witnesses. Now, much of what I have to say for my case may sound
wonderful, because it runs counter to the popular prejudice, but the
only witness required to prove the truth of my statements is the clear
brain of my pupil, who has only to examine his own experience without
preconceived notions, in order to find proofs on every hand.
It is surprising in the first place, that such a near at hand object has
not been understood long ago and that so much still remains to be
explained and to be taught after thousands of years of study. But you
know that just as the small things are often great, and great things
small, so the nearest things are often hidden and the hidden things
nearest.
I promised you in the first sentences of this letter, dear Eugene, that
I would now pass from introduction to subject matter. But since I have
really continued to move around the outer edge of the subject instead of
entering into its midst, you might become impatient, and so I will
justify my method. It is a peculiarity of this subject matter that it
exposes me to this charge. It is a peculiarity of thought that it never
stays with itself, but always digresses to other things. The thought is
the plank to which I should stick, but it is the nature of this plank
never to stick. Thinking is a thing full of contradictions, a
dialectical secret.
Now I know that here I am saying something which it is very hard for you
to understand. But look here, has it not always been so? When you began
declining Latin words in the sixth class, you were unable at once to
grasp the full meaning of declension. You knew what you were doing, and
yet you did not entirely understand it. Only after penetrating more
deeply into the construction of the language did the meaning and purpose
of the beginning become clear to you. In the same way, you now must try
to digest as much as you can of what I say, and after you have gone more
deeply into this matter, you will fully understand me from beginning to
end. In taking lessons from an author, on an unknown subject, I have
always followed the method of first getting a superficial view of the
subject, of glancing over its many pages and chapters, in order to
return to the beginning and acquire a thorough knowledge by repeated
study. With the growing familiarity with the subject the ability to
understand it grew, and at the conclusion the thing became clear to me.
This is the only correct method I can recommend to you.
In conclusion let me say for to-day in passing that the recommendation
of the correct method for studying logic is not only an introduction,
but, as I have already said, the subject matter of science itself.
THIRD LETTER
Dear Eugene:
My task of teaching logic requires two things: a logician and a teacher.
The last named capacity requires that I should clothe the subject in an
attractive way. Permit me, therefore, to combine the didactic style with
that of the story teller, and to relate at this point an episode from a
novel of Gustav zu Putlitz:
The organist of a certain village is lying on his deathbed. His last
strength has been spent on the previous day in playing a hymn, and after
its conclusion he was carried from the church in an unconscious state.
He had played his masterpiece, but at the same time his last piece. A
despised stage girl had accompanied him with a voice like that of a
nightingale. But neither she nor the organ player had earned any
applause from the stupid villagers.
The old man looked around in his room, his eyes were first riveted on
his faithful piano, his friend and companion through life. He extended
his hand, but it sank down exhausted. He had not had the intention to
touch the piano anyway. It was only like stretching out one's hand for a
friend far away. Then he looked through the window trying to recollect
what time of the day it was. And when he had taken in the situation, he
turned to the girl kneeling at his feet.
"Poor child," he began, "you were deeply disappointed yesterday. I felt
very much hurt, when I first heard of it, but after that everything
became clear to me while I heard the music all night, until a short
while ago. Rejoice, my girl, at being reviled, for it is done for the
sake of that sacred music, and it is an ecstasy, a blessing, to be
martyred for one's music which is well worth all injuries. I did not
fare any better all my life, and if I thank God for all the good he has
done me until this hour, I also thank him first and most fervently for
the gift of music which he bestowed on the world, and which he revealed
to me most wonderfully in my most painful hours.
"For my music I have starved and suffered all my life, and my gain was
delicious, my reward celestial for this poor perishable stake.
"My father was an organist in a little town of Eastern Frisia. His
father had held the same position in the same church, and, I think, so
did the father of his father follow music for a profession. Music has
been the heirloom of our family for generations. True, it was the only
heirloom, but I have cherished it and held its flag aloft all my life.
When God calls me away, I shall leave nothing behind but that old piano
and the sheet music which I wrote myself, for in all other respects I
have always been poor. I might have done differently, and my wife has
often upbraided me for it, but she does not understand the blessing of
music. I do not blame her for that, for it was not her fault that God
closed her ear to music as he did the ears of many others. Poor people,
how cold and dreary must be their lives when music does not scatter
blossoms in their path and bathe their temples in light. But there will
come a time when their ears will be opened, and God will compensate them
in heaven for what they missed here below.
"We who love music have tasted a part of eternal bliss here below, for
harmony which dissolves all chords is eternal life and its wings are
fanning us in this terrestrial life----
"Do you see, I know it well, and no one besides me, how it is when the
soul prepares to leave the perishable body and enter the song of the
spheres--
"You do not understand me, my girl, but do not worry, you also will
understand some day. I will only tell you this much, and it shall be a
consolation to you when the world treats you roughly hereafter. All of
us, whether rich or poor, whether reclining on soft silken cushions or
on hard straw, all of us enter life with the celestial melodies in our
hearts. The beating of time goes with us as long as we are breathing. It
is the beating of the heart in our breast. We may seem to lose the
melody, even the measured step of time seems to become confused by our
passion, but in the blessed hours we always find our melody anew, and
then we feel at home in the path of our life."
Thus the old organist idolized his music.
But it is not alone the harmony of music which has such a power over the
mind. The harmony of colors, every art and science, has the same power.
Even the most common craft, and the most prosaic of all prose, the chase
after the dollar, may take possession of a man's soul and prostrate him
in adoration before its idol. True, not every one is so sentimentally
inclined, and even the sentimentalist is so only in especially
sentimental moments. Furthermore it cannot be denied that artists,
inventors, and explorers are worshipping the most worthy and most
adorable objects. And I admit that no great success can be accomplished
without putting your whole soul into some great aim.
Nevertheless you should know that anything which may take possession of
one's soul shares its sublimity with all other things, and is for this
reason at the same time something ordinary. Without such a dialectic
clarification of our consciousness all adoration is idol worship.
The actual experience, then, that anything and everything may serve as
an idol should clearly convince you that no one thing, but only the
universe is the true God, is truth and life.
Now, is this logic or is it theology?
It is both. At closer range you will notice that all great logicians
occupy themselves a great deal with God and deity, and that on the other
hand all honest theologians are trying to base their faith on some
logical order. Logic is by its whole nature metaphysical.[3]
There exists a class of logicians who attempt to deny the inevitable
connection between the celestial region and the tangible universe. Some
of them do so from excessive religious delicacy of feeling, in order to
protect the sublime from the disintegrating effects of critique. Others
have such an antipathy against the religious abuses that they do not
wish to hear any more about religion. Both classes adhere to the
so-called formal logic.
These adherents of formal logic may be compared to a maker of porcelain
dishes who would contend that he was simply paying attention to the form
of his dishes, pots, and vases, but that he did not have anything to do
with the raw material, while it is evident that he is compelled to form
the body in trying to embody forms. These things can be separated by
words only, but not by actions. In the same way as body and form, the
finite and infinite or so-called celestial spheres, the physical and the
metaphysical, are inseparable.
Logic analyzes thought. But it analyzes thought as it is in reality, and
therefore it unavoidably searches for truth. And whether this truth is
found above or below, or anywhere, is a question which just as
inevitably brings the logician into contact with the theologian. To
think of avoiding such a meeting from considerations of sympathy or
antipathy, would be a rude lack of consideration for science.
Metaphysical logic which aims to extend its field to eternity, which
looks for logical order even in heaven, and seeks to solve even the
so-called last questions of all knowledge, differs in a distinct way
from formal logic, which selects a restricted field for its research and
confines itself to investigating the logical order of the socalled
physical world. This difference is worthy of your special attention,
because in it there is hidden the kernel of our whole correspondence.
It is quite a practical method to set a limit for one's investigations,
not to fly into clouds, not to undertake anything that cannot be
accomplished. Yet you must not forget that practical boundaries are not
theoretical boundaries, that they are not invariable boundaries for you,
or for others. Although you cannot fly to heaven and will give up the
idea of flying machines from considerations of practical expediency, yet
you will not wish to deny to man the theoretical freedom of infinite
striving even in the matter of airships, and you will not be so small as
to give up the idea of the capacity for our race for metaphysical, or in
other words, infinite development.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] In the sense of: mental and physical world embracing,
all-embracing.--Editor.
FOURTH LETTER
Dear Eugene:
In my first letter I acquainted you with my purpose, in the second I
lifted the subject on my finger tips, so to say, to show it for a brief
moment; in the third I showed that its color had inevitably a religious
shade. Now, to continue, permit me to introduce another point to your
consideration.
The great cause of the working class has hitherto always been the beast
of burden of a small and exclusive minority. This is most evident in the
slave states of antiquity, in Egypt, Greece, Rome. Likewise in the
feudal and guild systems of the middle ages the oppression of the mass
of the people is sufficiently apparent. At present this condition of
things is more visible in Eastern Europe, in Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria,
Hungary, Eastern Prussia, etc., than in the industrial countries of the
West. In the United States of America it is most obscured, so that there
the people hardly realize their enslaved condition. In America, many of
the upper ten thousand have made their way from the bottom up, and it
happens more frequently than in Europe that the captains of industry
laid their foundation by hard work. The shortsighted observers then
easily forget out of sympathy for the hard beginning that there is
sharper's practice at the end, and they indulge in the idle hope that
every hard working beast of burden might transform itself into a happy
millionaire by thrift and smartness.
You will probably ask: What has that to do with logic or the art of
reasoning? Patience! You will admit that the emancipation of the nations
from beastly toil, misery and suffering is the highest goal of the human
mind. Nor will you deny that the thought is the most essential
instrument for reaching this high goal. The accomplishments of thought
are visible in the results of civilization. The proletariat of the
present, also that of Russia, Turkey, East Prussia, participates in
these accomplishments of thought. It participates not alone in the sense
that its brains are better educated and cultured, but also that its
food, clothing, and shelter have become more civilized through the
progressive deeds of intellect.
You see, then, that the people's cause is connected with the faculty of
thought, and the nature of the latter may be illustrated as well by the
example of the development of civilization. The complicated network of
wheels in a watch may also serve to demonstrate the nature of that which
language designates by many names, such as spirit, intellect, faculty of
knowledge, reason, etc. Only it must be remembered that this mysterious
something cannot be shown by itself, but only in connection with other
things, whether they be the history of civilization or a watch. There
will then be no contradiction in finding that the intellectual life
appears more powerful and magnificent through the clockwork of the
history of civilization than through any miniature product of thought.
In searching for the connection of things, one generally seeks to
recognize the manner or the degree of the connection. But we, in this
case, disregard the question as to how the things of this world are
related to one another and to thought, and we simply make a note of the
fact of the interdependence of thought and being, of nature and mind.
This fact of the universal interconnection of things contradicts the
untrained prejudice. The uncultivated brain nurses the illusion that the
earth, the trees on it, and the clouds and the sun above them are
separate things. But it requires a better training of reason to
understand that the earth, the tree, the clouds, and the sun, can be
what they are only in the universal interconnection. I remember reading
an article from Fichte, in a German school reader, which clearly showed
that the disarrangement of an insignificant object during the process of
thinking causes us to disarrange the whole history of the world in our
thoughts. It is well known that one unfamiliar with political economy
overlooks the fact that the business men not only carry on their trading
for their private benefit, but are also members of the process of social
production. It is overlooked that all labor, aside from being individual
activity, is at the same time an organic part of social labor. And just
as ignorance of economics overlooks the industrial interdependence, so
ignorance of logic overlooks the cosmic interrelations.
Here is a drop of water. Look how different it is according to the
different things with which it is connected. It cannot be what it is
without a certain temperature. According to changes in temperature, it
will assume either the form of ice or of steam. In fat the drop remains
compact, in salt it divides infinitely, runs downhill in general and
uphill in a loaf of sugar. According to the specific gravity of a
certain fluid, with which it may come into contact, it either floats on
the surface or sinks. Without a connection with the earth, its
temperature and gravitation, this drop and all others would disappear in
the fathomless abyss and have no existence. Thus the forms of things
change according to their connections, and they are what they are only
as parts of the universal interrelation.
What is true of a drop of water, is true of all things, all forces and
substances, even of our thoughts. The human mind lives and works only in
connection with the rest of the material universe--and the recognition
of the organic unity of all things is the fulcrum of my logic.
Old line metaphysical logic was so enamored of its object that the
descent, the kinship, and the connection with the common things of this
world seemed too ordinary for the exquisite spirit. That logic was
transcendental, and therefore its chosen object likewise had to be in
touch with a transcendental world. And though it was scientific enough
to regard the tale of the creation of the first soul by the breath of
God as a fable, it was nevertheless so prejudiced in favor of the
extraordinary nature of the intellect that it did not abandon, for
thousands of years, the hope of finding in that intellect a source which
would reveal transcendental matters. Formal logic now entirely discards
this hope of a fantastical world, but at the same time it misunderstands
the natural connection between the spirit and the common world. It
isolates the instrument of thought and leaves the question undecided
whether this instrument has a natural, supernatural, or no connection at
all. It overlooks that just as logic is real, so reality is logical, and
does not see that the back door which leads to illogical heaven by way
of faith deserves the disdain of science.
Thought, intellect, are really existing, and their existence is a
uniform part of the universal existence. That is the cardinal point of
sober logic.
The fact that the thoughts are of the same worldly substance as the
other parts of the universe, that they are parts of common nature and
not a transcendental essence, has already been expressed by Cartesius in
the famous words: "_Cogito, ergo sum_," I think, therefore I am.
The fact of my thinking, says the philosopher, proves my existence. In
order to come to an absolute conviction on the nature of truth and
error, he sets out by doubting everything. And then he says that he
cannot doubt the existence of his thoughts. He thus placed the spirit on
the basis of real life, delivered it of its transcendentalism, and that
constitutes his everlasting merit.
However, not alone Cartesius, but also your own experience testifies to
the inseparable connection between thinking and being. Have not your
thoughts been connected always and everywhere with some worldly or real
object? If you attempt to isolate thought in order to ponder over it,
you can only do so because that thought has been experienced by you and
therefore was in every instance attached to some worldly object. True,
you have thought of Greek gods, brownies, and mermaids. But you, an
amateur in painting, are familiar enough with that part of the mind
which is called imagination in order to admit that even this eccentric
part of the mind does not only act, and therefore, exist in reality, but
also derives all its products from reality, so that even its most
fantastical vagaries and illusions are still real pictures, reflections
of reality.
But how is it that I require such a multitude of words in order to state
over and over again that the thought has a real existence and is a
uniform part of the universe? Simply because from time immemorial the
confusion in matters of logic is so great that the human spirit is in
the same breath exalted to heaven, and yet its thoughts regarded as
nothing real, nothing true. This is made plain by the fact that a sharp
distinction is commonly made between that which is real and that which
is only imagined, and this difference is exaggerated to such an extent
that it appears as if the idea, which indeed is only in the brain, has
no real existence at all.
In order that you may understand the interrelations of the things of the
universe, I must warn you against this exaggeration and prove that the
intellect has a real existence which is connected with the universe or
reality. Botany, which occupies itself with plants, does not only teach
us to divide them into classes, orders, and families, but it also does
more by showing us what place in the entire realm of nature is occupied
by the vegetable kingdom, by pointing out the differences which
distinguish the plants from the inorganic mineral kingdom or the organic
animal kingdom. Formal logic similarly dissects the spirit into its
parts, makes distinctions between conceptions, ideas, judgments,
conclusions, divides these into subdivisions, classifies conceptions
according to species, separates abstract and concrete thought, knows
many varieties of judgments, registers three, four, or more modes of
conclusion. But at the same time this formal logic recoils from touching
on the question as to how the universal spirit is related to the
universe, what role it plays in the general existence, whether it is
part and parcel of nature or transcendental. And yet this is the most
interesting part, the part which logically connects the intellect and
the science of the intellect with all other sciences and things.
Logic must teach us how to distinguish. It is not a question, however,
of distinguishing sheet iron from gold, or a greyhound from a pug-dog,
for this is done by special lines of knowledge. Logic must rather
enlighten us about that part of the faculty of distinguishing which is
generally required in all branches of knowledge, whereby truth and
error, imagination and reality are recognized. To this end I feel
impelled to advise you not to overlook that even error and imagination
belong to the one infinite and absolutely coherent reality. For the
purpose of distinguishing true imagination from actual reality, it must
be remembered that just as rye bread and cream puffs agree in belonging
to the general category of baker's products, so imagination and truth,
thought and reality, are two different kinds of the same nature.
To sum up the contents of this letter, let me point out that its
beginning shows the connection of the intellect with the development of
the people, while its conclusion explains the wider connection of the
mind with the universal existence.
FIFTH LETTER
A man not trained in logical thinking is handicapped by the absence of a
monistic method of thought. Monistic is synonymous with systematic,
logical, or uniform.
If we call a cream puff a tidbit and rye bread a food without
remembering that every food is a tidbit and every tidbit food, and if we
ignore the fact that both of them, in spite of their difference, belong
to the same category and are, therefore, related, then we lack logic.
And logic is lacking whenever the fact is ignored that all things
without exception: substances, forces, or qualities of the world, are
chips of the same block, finite parts of the infinite, which is the only
truth and reality.
That insects, fishes, birds, and mammals form one and the same animal
kingdom, is an old story which has long been patched up by the logical
instinct. Darwin did not only enrich the natural sciences, but also
perform an invaluable service for logic. In proving how amphibia
developed into birds, he bored a hole into the hitherto fixed order of
classification. He brought motion, life, spirit into the zoological
swamp.
In case you should not be familiar enough with Darwin's work to
understand my allusions, I will enter a little more deeply into the
matter in a few sentences. The zoologists knew well enough that all
species of animals belonged to the animal kingdom; but this
classification was a mechanical affair. Now the "Origin of Species,"
which demonstrates that the zoological classification is not constant
but variable, which outlines the actual transition from one species of
animals to another, reveals at the same time that this alignment of all
animal species in one kingdom is not only a logical mechanism, but also
a fact of actual existence. This classification of all animals from the
minutest to the most gigantic in one kingdom appeared before the time of
Darwin as an order which had been accomplished by thought alone, while
after him it was known as an order of nature.
What the zoologists did to the animal kingdom, must be done by the
logician to existence in general, to the cosmos. It must be shown that
the whole world, all forms of its existence, including the spirit, are
logically or monistically connected, related, welded together.
A certain narrow materialism thinks that everything is done and said
when the inter-connection between thought and brain is pointed out. A
good many things may still be discovered by the help of the dissecting
knife, microscope, and experiment; but this does not make the function
of logic superfluous. True, thought and brain are connected, just as
intimately as the brain is related to the blood, the blood with oxygen,
etc.; but moreover thought is connected quite as intimately with all
other things as all physical objects are.
That the apple is not alone dependent on the stem which attaches it to
the tree, but also on sunshine and rain, that these things are not
one-sidedly but universally connected, this is what logic wants to teach
you particularly in regard to the spirit, the thought.
If a traveler in Africa had to report a new animal species, he would not
make special mention of the fact of its existence, because that is
obvious. And though he were to relate things about the most abnormal
existence, we should still know that this abnormality is only a
deviation in degree which does not overstep the bounds of existence in
general. But the human intellect is a greater novelty than the most
wonderful animal species of the interior of Africa.
You know my sharpwitted friend Engländer. When I told him that I was
writing articles on the human mind, he advised me not to bother my head
about it. He said that this was a subject no man knew anything about.
And when the learned Mr. Hinze, whom you also know, wanted to prove the
inevitability of religious faith and the inadequacy of all science, he
always asked the pathetic question: What is consciousness? And he used
to take on an expression, as if he had presented a book with seven
seals. Now I don't want to class the professors of logic with such men.
But it is a fact that the great multitude, among them many scientists,
are quite unfamiliar with the truth that the existence of the blue sky
and of the green trees is a uniform part of the same generality with the
existence of our intellect.
For this reason it is necessary to prove that the intellect exists in
the same way that all other things do. For it is denied and
misunderstood, not only by those who regard the spirit as a being of a
transcendental nature, but also by those who admit the existence of the
true contents of an ideological concept, but not of thought itself. In
short, the matter is so obscure that I feel sure that you will likewise
be as yet in doubt whether there are not two kinds of ideological
concepts, one of them real, the other unreal.
For two thousand years logic has proclaimed the sentence that thought is
a form to be filled with real contents. True thought "must coincide with
reality." It is true that there is a germ of sense in this statement,
but it is misunderstood. The central point of logic is overlooked. Every
thought must not only have a real content, but it is also necessary, in
order to distinguish true thoughts or perceptions from untrue, to
realize that thought is always and everywhere a part of reality and
truth, even when it contains the most singular imaginations and errors.
Just as the domestic cat and the panther are different species of cats
and yet belong to the same genus of cats, so true and false thoughts, in
spite of all their differences, are of the same genus. For truth is so
great that it comprises absolutely everything. Truth, reality, the
world, the all, the infinite and the absolute are synonymous
expressions. A clear conception of truth is indispensable for the
understanding of logic. And in the last analysis it is simply using
different words for the same thing, when I base the quintessence of
logic, its fulcrum, cardinal, salient, or distinctive point on the
spirit intimately united to nature or on the concept of a uniform world,
truth, or reality. I cannot give you a clearer view of truth than by
quoting at this place the famous words of Lessing: "If God were to offer
me the ever active striving for truth in his left hand and truth in his
right hand, I should grasp his left and say: Father, keep truth, it is
for you alone." This statement is somewhat highflown and mystical, and
Lessing was no doubt somewhat embarrassed by mystical thinking. Still
there is a sober truth in these words, which is quite clear and to the
point.
"Truth itself" is the universe, the infinite and inexhaustible. Every
part of it is a finite part of the infinite and is, therefore, finite
and infinite, perishable and imperishable at the same time. Every part
is a separate part and connected inseparably with the whole. The human
mind, among others, is such a part.
The universal existence, or truth, is the inexhaustible object of the
human mind. The fact that in the study of logic the human mind has
itself for an object must be explained to the student by pointing out
that in this case the subject and the object are both things like all
other things, in other words, are a part of truth, a part of natural
existence.
"Truth itself" cannot be wholly conceived by the human brain, but in
parts. For this reason we possess only the ever active striving for
truth; for this reason, furthermore, the conception or knowledge can
never be completely identical with reality, but can be only a part of
it.
Now permit me to say a few words which do not sound as would those
spoken on the throne of logic, but which are expressed in popular
language. If you conceive some real object, whether a church steeple or
a thimble, then this object exists twice, viz., in reality and in
conception. On the other hand, a certain creation of imagination has
only a simple fantastical existence. Such a popular way of thinking is
undoubtedly correct. It is incorrect only when the fact is universally
ignored that all modes of existence belong to the same genus, the same
as a domestic cat and a panther, so that the existence of a thing in our
brains, and outside of them in the heavens, on earth, and in all places
has a logical meaning only when it is the same existence in spite of all
multiplicity. An existence not partaking of the general nature of all
existence would be an illogical, nonsensical, thing.
Now, I think you will have no difficulty in understanding me when I say
that a church steeple in imagination and the same church steeple in
reality are not two church steeples, but that imagination and reality
are forms of the same existence.
Ancient logic ordered a medal and had stamped on its face: The thought
must be identical with the reality. We now stamp on its reverse side:
(1) The thought is itself a part of reality and (2) the reality outside
of thought is too voluminous and cannot enter thought even with its
smallest particle. What good, under these circumstances, is the old
inscription, especially since it does not teach us at all how the
identity between thought and its real object is to be attained, known,
or measured?
If you, my dear Eugene, should become confused by these statements
instead of enlightened, you should have patience and consider that a
thing which is to be illuminated by logic must, of course, be first
obscure. I believe that I have served you in some way by simply raising
a doubt in your mind as to the soundness of the popular way of speaking
and if I thus have convinced you of the confusion and inadequacy of the
plausible idea of the identity of thought and reality.
True, a thought must agree with its object just as a portrait should.
But what good will it do a painter to have his special attention called
to this fact?
Have you ever seen a portrait or a copy that did not agree in some
respect with the original? I am convinced that this has never been your
experience any more than a portrait which was a complete likeness of its
object. Your experience will be sufficiently cultivated to know that it
can always be a question only of a more or less. I would seriously
recommend to you to reflect on the relativeness of all equality,
similarity, and identity. By far the greater part of humanity is in this
respect barbarously thoughtless. It is very difficult to grasp for the
logically untrained brain that two drops of water or twins are only
relatively alike or unlike, just as are man and woman, negro and white
man, and that all existence is just as alike as it is unlike.
It is with the thinker as it is with the painter. They both search for a
likeness of reality and truth. In painting as in understanding there are
excellent pictures and bad ones. In this respect one may make a
distinction between true and false thoughts, but you must also know that
even the unsuccessful portrait has some likeness, and that even the most
accurate likeness is yet far from being in perfect harmony and identical
with its object.
Reality, truth, universal nature, stands in the pulpit and preaches: "I
am the Lord, thy God. Thou shalt not make any graven image to worship
it." You must have a far too sublime conception of truth to entertain
the idea that any painter or thinker might encompass it fully within the
limit of a picture, no matter how good a likeness it may be.
Now, that we have recognized the human mind as a part of actual reality
and truth, we see at the same time that undivided reality, the sum of
all that is, represents absolute truth which comprises everything. In
their capacity of parts of the universe, true and false thoughts, good
and bad men, heaven and hell, and all other things, are all pieces of
the same cloth, bombs of the same caliber.
SIXTH LETTER
My Dear Son:
After the third letter had acquainted you with the fact that the subject
of logic has a certain religious flavor, the two subsequent letters
endeavored to show that the logical subject is interconnected with the
universal existence of the world, that the faculty of thought is an
inseparable part of actual truth. In the vernacular of theology my last
two letters have represented the human mind as a part of the living true
God.
Christianity teaches: God is a spirit and who would worship him must
worship in spirit and in truth.
And logic teaches: The spirit is a part of universal existence. Whoever
worships the spirit, is an idolator, for he worships a part and
misunderstands the whole truth. Truth itself is identical with the
universal existence, with the world, and all things are simply forms,
phenomena, predicates, attributes, passing expressions of it. The
universal existence may be called divine because it is infinite, being
the alpha and omega which comprises all things as special truths. The
intellect is such a limited part among other special parts of divine
truth, and the latter is frequently called world without any bombastic
emphasis.
Undoubtedly, every science, profession and trade can say the same thing
of its object. The blue sky and the green trees are divine parts.
Everything is interrelated and connected. If that were a good reason for
not making any subdivisions, every part and description would become
endlessly tiresome.
However, the specialty of logic is the cosmic sum of all truths, because
it aims at a general elucidation of the nature of the human brain. This
purpose is not so well served by an accumulation of other knowledge as
by the general understanding of truth.
Logic, which seeks to enlighten the mind for the purpose of scientific
thinking, does not so much treat of true conceptions as of the general
and absolute conception of truth which is inseparably linked to the
infinite universal life.
If you wish to think scientifically, you will first of all strive after
clear ideas. And yet your head may be quite clear in regard to everyday
things, without getting any nearer to general clearness. Nor is such
clearness obtainable by the accumulation of mere special knowledge, for
even if you were to grow in wisdom to the end of your days, nevertheless
the fountain of wisdom, the universe, is inexhaustible and your brain
will remain imperfectly informed or unclear as before. Yea, even the
smallest part of the world is so inexhaustible that the most talented
can never acquire all the knowledge necessary to understand entirely
even the most minute object. The strongest microscope cannot see all
there is to see in a drop of water, and the wisest man can never learn
all there is to shoemaking.
You can see by all this that the scientific use of our intellect is
furthered by special knowledge only in the corresponding details. For
this reason it does not satisfy us to have some logicians tell us how
many kinds of concepts, judgments and conclusions are contained in our
intellect. These are special details of logic. But the thing of first
importance for the student of logic is the elucidation of the universal
concept of truth, not the accumulation of special truths.
Special truths enlighten the intellect. But the understanding that all
specialties are connected with one another by one monad or unit which is
truth itself gives us a certain general enlightenment which certainly
does not render any special research unnecessary, or take the place of
it, but which may well serve as the foundation of all research, which
may therefore be called a fundamental assistance.
I may remark in passing that the understanding of logical science is
rendered especially difficult by the fact that the unpracticed
understands all terms and concepts only in their narrow popular meaning,
while the subject matter leads up continually into the widest fields.
When I speak of parts of the world, you must not think merely of
geographical parts, but you must think farther until you arrive at the
insight that stars and bricks, matter and force, in short all parts of
the world are world parts.
The logical difficulty may be principally traced to the lack of
familiarity with the comprehensive categories. It will be clear to you
that thinking and being, phenomenon and truth, etc., are conceptions of
the widest scope. So you may have some difficulty in distinguishing
between concepts of truth, and true concepts. And yet this is the same
as making a distinction between the general class of herbs and its
individual species. The mere intercourse with such comprehensive
concepts as truth, existence, universe, is an excellent school of
intellectual enlightenment.
Perhaps you may object to the deviation of a science devoted to the
special study of the faculty of thought into such fields as existence or
truth. But a logic confined to an analysis of the faculty of
understanding would be narrow compared to one representing this faculty
of understanding at work in real life. If the science of the eye were to
treat only of the various parts of the eye without considering the
things outside connected with its function, the light, the objects, in
short, the vision of the eye, it would be more an anatomy of the eye
than a general science of the eye. At all events a science which
represents not alone the subjective faculty of vision, but also the
living activity of the eye, the objective field of vision inseparable
from the subjective faculty, is a far more comprehensive instruction, a
higher enlightenment of the human brain.
In my opinion, logic should not so much treat of the analysis of the
intellectual subject as of the purpose and object of the faculty of
thought, its culture, which is not accomplished by the intellect itself,
but by its connection with the world of truth, its interrelation with
the universal existence.
What can a logic accomplish which divides thought into analytical and
synthetical thoughts, which speaks of inductive and deductive
understanding and of a dozen other kinds, but which finally declines to
meet the question of the relation of thought and understanding to truth,
and fails to indicate what and where is divine truth and how we may
arrive at it?
Pilate, the typical sceptic, shrugs his shoulders; the clergymen make a
mystery of divine truth; the natural sciences care only for the true
conceptions, but naught for the concept of truth; and then the special
science of understanding, formal logic, tries to refer its task to
philosophy or world wisdom.
I have already pointed out that the titles of the principal works on
philosophy indicate that the whole world wisdom turns around the
question: How can our brain be enlightened, how can it arrive at truth?
The naturalists answer that this can be accomplished by special studies,
and they are frequently opposed to philosophical research which makes
general truth its main object, and belittle it. You will readily see
that this is a mistake when you consider that, to illustrate, a machine
or an organism as a whole is still something more than a mere sum of its
parts.
No matter how well you may know each single part, yet you will not
understand the whole machine or organism by this means alone. The
universe is not an aggregation of unorganized parts, but a living
process which must be understood not only in its parts but also as a
whole. We may pass for the moment the question whether the Milky Way may
be dissolved into stars, and whether the stars may become globes like
our Earth which may develop plants, animals, and intelligent beings. The
thing which is evident is that there is a process of development, that
all nature takes part in this movement, that the universe is a whole
without end, composed of an infinite number of parts; a coming and
going, an eternal transformation, which is always identical with itself
and always the same world. What all this would be without our eyes and
ears and without the intellect by means of which we use eyes and ears,
what the world "in itself" is, that is a senseless and transcendental
speculation.
The science of logic must deal only with the actual world which is
inseparable from us and from our thoughts.
This world which we hear, see, smell, in which we live and breathe, is
the world of truth or the true world. That is a fact. Must I prove this?
And how is a fact proven? How do we prove that a peach is a delicious
fruit? One goes and eats it. In the same way, you may now go and enjoy
life, of course in a rational manner, and I am convinced that your own
love of life will tell you that it is proof positive of the truth of the
world, of its actuality.
But even in the midst of this actual world there is present an
inconsistent element, a human race with a confused logic. This race has
been led by various depressing and saddening circumstances to blacken
the delicious truth of this world and to look for a transcendental truth
in philosophical metaphysics or religious fantasmagorias, both of which
are parts of the same stew. The philosophers of misery who make of the
world of truth a vain shadow and a miserable vale of sorrow must needs
be convinced by logic that the living world is the only true one.
Well, that is not so difficult. But there is a danger of getting into a
vicious circle of errors, imitating a snake biting its own tail. I have
to prove logically that the world and truth are one and the same thing,
before we have come to an agreement as to what is logical truth or true
logic. Nevertheless, nature has assisted us. The logic of nature is the
true logic by the help of which we can agree. Nothing more is required
than a somewhat trained brain.
Take two men having a dispute about truth. One of them says it is one
thing, the other that it is something else. So they are arguing about
that which is. This last word is a form of the verb to be. Hence in
arguing whether the remote nebula in the heavens is a brick or a star, a
male or a female, one is always discussing some form of existence. All
disputes turn around forms of existence, but existence itself is an
undisputable truth.
Have I now still to prove that all existence is of the same category?
Are there any stones that do not belong to the category of stones, or
any kind of wood which is iron? What would become of reason and
language, if such a thing were to be considered? And yet, much that is
being said by opponents is of such a nature.
If I have succeeded in convincing you that the universe is the truth,
there still remains the special question: What place shall we assign to
fantastic ideas, error, and untruth? If the universe is the truth, then
everything would be true, and hence it seems contradictory that error
and untruth should have a place in truth or in the world. Of this more
anon. I shall only point out in passing that untruth may without any
contradiction belong to truth, just as weeds are a negation of herbs and
still at the same time herbs.
In conclusion I call your attention to the eminently proletarian
character of the science of truth. It gives to the working class the
logical justification to renounce all clerical and mystic control and to
look for salvation in this same world in which divine truth is living.
SEVENTH LETTER
The philologists distinguish carefully between a science of language and
a science of languages. The latter teaches Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, English, French, etc., while the former treats of the
general characteristics common to all languages, of language itself.
Philosophical logic stands in the same relation to other sciences. The
latter make us acquainted with special truths, while logic treats of
truth in general. Those overintelligent people who claim that truth is
merely a collective term for many truths do not see the woods for trees.
Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Max Müller, Steinthal, etc., have many
things to say about the science of language of which the linguists with
many languages never dream.
The science of language, aside from its many amenities, is also burdened
with a difficult problem which it cannot solve without the help of
logic. This problem is the point of differentiation where babbling and
word-mongery cease and intelligent speech begins. For human speech has a
certain meaning, and even the cries of the animals are not without
sense. The sparrows know how to converse together, the rooster calls
his flock together, the dog knows how to announce that a stranger
enters his master's home. Not alone the jokers, but serious thinkers
speak of animal language, of a sign language, and maintain that speech
does not alone consist of words, but also of inarticulate sounds and
gestures. Poets endow even the storm, the thunder and the winds with
speech. We wish to clear this confusion and ascertain what language is
and where it begins. Languages, as is well known, have their beginning
at the Tower of Babel. But in order to get close to language, we must
look for a beginning of things either in God or in logic.
You know the old question: Which was first, the egg or the hen? But only
a frivolous mind overlooks the serious side of this question and turns
it into a mere joke. The question of beginning and end is an eminently
logical one, and an unequivocal and clear answer to it would bring light
not alone into the science of language, but also into the human brain.
Let us, therefore, follow up the problem of the "origin of language" a
little farther. When our forefathers dealt with this question, they
thought that a God had given speech to man or some genius had invented
it. They thought of a beginning in time. The modern thinkers speculate
more deeply. They have found out that language is not a fixed thing, but
fluid, and has risen from low beginnings to a great perfection. We can
no more find its temporal beginning by looking backward than we can see
its end by looking ahead. For this reason we no longer look for its
temporal, but for its ideological beginning. (Steinthal.) We should like
to have a fixed mark where we might say: Up to this point that which
resembles speech is only roaring, exclamation, noise, and here is the
beginning of the well articulated sound which deserves the name of
"spoken word."
But there is still another factor which complicates the question
further. Some say: It is not only the sound, the word, which constitutes
speech, but the connected sentence; there must be sense and reason mixed
with it. And this applies to the speaker and to the listener. Language
presupposes reason.
Then, again, intellect is not a fixed thing, but a fluid process which
develops in, from, and by speech. So it appears on one side as if the
mind produces language, and on the other, as if language produces the
mind, the reason. Where, then, is the beginning and end, and how can we
bring order into these relations?
For us, who are studying the mind, not the language, the conclusion
follows that it is not alone the word, but also the sound, the tone, the
gesture, that all things have a meaning and speak a language. We find
mind wherever we penetrate with our mind. Not alone language, but the
world is connected with the mind, with the thought. But the connection
with language may well serve as an illustration by which the connection
of the cosmic mind may be demonstrated and the human brain illuminated.
Language shares the honor with the mind of being extolled, even in this
sober century, if not to the skies, at least far out of the general
connection of common things. For this reason, we must emphasize in the
case of language as in that of the mind, that they exist, that they are
part and parcel of the universal existence. At this point I wish to give
you a vivid illustration of the unity of all being by pointing out that
it is indubitably established by the existence of one single name which
is sufficient to designate _All_. True, language employs many names for
this unity of the world, but that is a luxury. It is logical and
necessary for the intellect to have _one_ name for the _All_, because
everything is not only infinitely variegated, but also infinitely one,
or a unit. There are many different waters, but all water partakes of
the general nature of water. Unless that nature is present, there is no
water and the name of water does not apply. In the same way there are
many kinds of oil; olive oil, kerosene oil, castor oil, etc., and each
kind has its own subdivisions. But everything that has a common name is
a unit.
Kindly observe, now, that the names of things form just such circles as
the water does after being struck by a stone. Just as the name water, so
the name oil indicates a ring. Then the name fluid constitutes another
and wider ring which includes both oil and water. Then the name matter
draws a still wider circle and includes solids as well as fluids, and
finally the name being, or _All_, includes mind and matter, all matter
and force, including heaven and hell, in one sole ring, in one unit.
On the basis of this universal unity, from which it becomes apparent
that high and low, dry and fluid, in short the whole universe is made of
the same substance, any fantastic thinker can prove that human and
animal language is one, for otherwise one could not refer to both of
them as language. He may then justly contend that speech, producing a
sound, is a noise, that speech and noise are one. Speech is sound and
sound speaks. In this way language would have no beginning and no end.
In the last analysis it would be one with all things, and all things
would be one with it. In this way the whole universe would become an
inexplicable, incomprehensible, inexpressible mixture of speech.
And yet it is an old story that man's insight grows the more he
magnifies a thing. The more excessively we exaggerate a thing, the
plainer become its boundaries. Language indeed requires one single name
for _All_, but it also requires an infinite number of names in order to
specify the parts of _All_. Inasmuch as language claims to be only a
part of existence, this part has to be bounded, and you should in this
connection remember the unlimited freedom of man in drawing such
boundaries. Words are not merely empty words, but names of cosmic parts,
of cosmic rings of undulation. Language, or rather the mind connected
with language, wishes to bound the infinite by the help of language. The
instinctive popular use of language does this in a haphazard way.
Conscious science proceeds in an exact manner. Just as it has determined
on the field of temperature what should be called hot and what warm, so
it is at liberty on the field of sounds to determine where the name of
language begins or ceases. The end of the discussion of language is
therefore this: That which has already been done to horse power has not
yet been done to the concept of language; it has been somewhat fixed by
common usage, but only insufficiently. And so the moral of this tale is
that the things of this world, even mind and language, are connected and
intermingling undulations of the same stream, which has neither
beginning nor end.
Let me say it once more clearly and without circumlocution: The logic
which I teach and the thought which is its object are parts of the
world, of the infinite, and every part being a piece of the infinite is
likewise infinite. Every part partakes of the nature of the infinite.
Hence you must not expect that I should exhaust my infinite subject. I
confine myself to the logical chapter of "the One and the Many." I
simply wish to make it plain that without any contradiction the whole
multiplicity of existence is of the same nature, and that this oneness
of nature subdivides into manifold forms. The world is interconnected
and this interconnection is subdivided into departments. It adds to the
general enlightenment of the human brain to recognize this in regard to
language, to mind, to all parts of the universe.
I repeat, then: One may think logically without having attended any
lectures on logic, just as one may raise potatoes without a scientific
knowledge of agriculture. It was possible to invent the thermometer, to
clearly distinguish between sounds and colors, and a hundred other
things, without having explained the faculty of discrimination. But the
most abstract distinctions, such as beginning and end, word and meaning,
body and soul, man and animal, matter and force, truth and error,
presuppose for their explanation a logical explanation of their
interconnection with our intellect.
EIGHTH LETTER
Dear Eugene:
Logic is going through the same experience as economics. The economists
of the capitalist era talk solely of the means and ways by which profit
and surplus value may be increased. They discuss only its relative size,
its increase or decrease. But the thing itself, its origin and descent,
is not discussed. It is passed in silence that profit is extracted from
labor power by paying less for a day's work than is produced by it. The
gentlemen talk only of the "wealth of nations," but not of their
poverty. And though this was due to ignorance in the beginning, it has
later become sheer roguery.
The formal logicians are as ignorant as they are roguish, when they
persist in discussing the intellect or thought in the traditional manner
as if they were isolated things, while ignoring the necessary connection
of the object of the logical study with the world of experiences. This
interconnection leads to an explanation of truth and error, of sense and
nonsense, of god and idols, and this is very inopportune for the
professors. For this reason this unwelcome problem is handed over to the
mystical departments, to metaphysics and religion, so that these
venerable pillars of official wisdom may continue their services to the
ruling classes.
I have already stated in my letters that the kernel of my discussion
turns on the distinction between formal and what I call proletarian
logic. The formal logicians treat the intellect as a thing "in itself,"
while I express in many different ways the fact that the intellect does
not exist by itself, but is interconnected with all things and with the
universe.
That intellect has indeed a transcendental leaning, which seeks vent by
trying to exclude now music, now language, now itself, now some other
fetich from the universal interrelation. But the science of the mind
teaches that the brain watching its own activity finds out that all
affirmations and negations, assertions and contradictions, belong to the
one omnipotent world mechanism, which keeps them stored within itself
and which is actually truth and life. Inasmuch as the human brain is of
the same nature as this automatic universal being and interconnected
with it, logic is at the same time religion, metaphysics, and world
wisdom.[4]
Formal logic teaches that our intellect must keep all things apart, but
does not teach that it must also connect them. This logic is right in
one way and yet does not arrive at the goal of a clear world philosophy,
because it permits the transcendental leaning to exaggerate the
differences and distinctions. It overlooks the paradoxical or
dialectical nature of things which are not only separated but also
connected. What must be understood is that, generally speaking, the
classification of the universe is only a formality. We are, indeed,
justified in distinguishing between above and Below, right and left,
beginning and end, gold and sheet metal, good and bad, but we must also
enlighten ourselves as to how multiplicity can be a unity, the variable
constant, and the constant variable. Formal logic has a wrong name. It
is not formal, but transcendental. It shares the common prejudice that
there are absolutely contradictory things or irreconcilable opposites,
that there are essential differences which have no connection, no bridge
between them, nothing in common. It teaches that contradictions cannot
exist, and contradicts itself by clinging to the belief that there are
irreconcilable contradictions. It teaches that a thing which contradicts
itself is inconceivable, is not true, and thus reveals that it is not
well informed on the formality of contradictions, on the true
conciliation of contradictions, and on universal truth. Gold is not
sheet iron, that is true enough. Whoever calls gold sheet metal or
sheet metal gold, contradicts himself. In the actual world both things
are separated. Yet they are not separated to such extent that gold and
sheet iron do not partake of the same nature, of the nature of all
metal. Gold and sheet iron are unlike metals, but they have the same
metallic likeness. That like things are different and different things
alike, that it is everywhere only a question of the degree of
difference, of formal differences, this is overlooked by "formal" logic
and by all who seek truth in any logical diagram or fetich, instead of
in the eternal, omnipresent existence of the inseparable universe.
Our logic deals with truth or with the universe, which contains the most
sublime gods and the meanest deviltry, in other words, which contains
everything. In the world truth there is contained error, pretense, lies,
just as death also lives in it. In other words, error, pretense, lies,
death are only phenomena, formalities, passing trifles or things which
are nothing compared to the one thing, that thing of all things, which
is being, truth, life.
The understanding of the one living world truth is so greatly aggravated
by the so-called contradictions which it contains. We find for instance
that where one thing ends another begins. The end of the one is the
beginning of another. Every beginning is at the same time an end. Both
are contained in one another, and yet in our minds beginning and end are
separated. We find the beginning and the end everywhere and nowhere. Or
look into space. You do not see any boundary, and yet your vision
reaches only a certain distance. Your vision is bounded and yet there is
no boundary to be seen. Or look at life. Death soon arrives, and yet a
closer look shows that death is not really death, for "a new life arises
from the ruins." The world proves to be the eternal life which does not
know death. It is a contradiction to say that death lives, but this
contradiction can be solved by the understanding that the difference
between life and death, however great, is still a formal one, a
difference which like all other differences is reduced to relative
insignificance by the infinite cosmic life.
There exists a widely diffused school, if this term may be applied to
the unschooled, that preaches patience in the matter of the
systematization of our thoughts or the enlightenment of our intellect,
and though it no longer hopes for a mysterious revelation, yet founds
its faith on natural science which has explained so many things to us
and which is finally supposed to throw light on the "last questions of
all knowledge." But I can easily convince you that the new countries,
plants, animals. Esquimaux, that may be discovered on polar expeditions,
or the inventions which Edison may perhaps make on the field of
electricity, or the experiences which future astronomers may gather in
regard to suns, moons, and comets, while they may add valuable
contributions to science and life, will yet do little toward a correct
general employment of our intellect or to a universal enlightenment of
the human brain. On the other hand, an enlightenment as to the nature
and meaning of contradictions will spread light to the remotest corners
of imagination, into the heavens and eternity, into the existence of the
whole, the unity and difference of all things.
The most drastic, and perhaps the most instructive, illustration of the
correct meaning of contradictions is given by the contrast between
truth and untruth. These two poles are perhaps more widely separated
than the North Pole and the South Pole, and yet they are as intimately
connected as these two. The commonplace logic will hardly listen to the
demonstration of the unity of such apparently wide opposites as truth
and untruth. Therefore you will pardon me, if I illustrate this example
by others, for instance by the contrast between day and night. Take it
that the day lasts twelve hours and the night likewise. Day and night
are opposites. Where there is day cannot be any night, and yet day and
night constitute one single day of twenty-four hours, in which they both
dwell harmoniously. It is the same with truth and untruth. The world is
the truth, and error, pretense, and lies are embodied in it, are parts
of the actual world, just as night is a part of day without confusing
logic. We may honestly speak of genuine pretense and true lies, without
any contradiction. Just as unreason has still some reason left, so
untruth still lives inevitably in truth, because the latter is
all-embracing, is the universe.
"Contradictions cannot exist." But confused brains full of
contradictions nevertheless exist. Knives without handles and blades,
two mountains without a valley between them, and other nonsense, exist
as a phrase. There are two kinds of contradictions: Senseless ones and
very sensible ones. Yea, the whole world[5] is an infinite and
inexhaustible contradiction, which contains innumerable sensible
statements and misstatements, which never disappear and yet may be
solved harmoniously by the help of time and reason.
From this it follows that the formal criteria of truth which are on
everybody's tongue, such as the identity of thought with its object, and
the absence of all contradictions, do not furnish a basis at all for the
analysis of truth and cannot define it, except in an ignorant and
roguish way.
Since the prophet Daniel scattered ashes in the temple and unmasked the
servants of Baal, other idol worshippers have continued to stimulate the
people to daily sacrifices, in order to steal the victuals at night.
This continual rascality and its repeated exposure has blunted the
desire of the people to serve truth, so that a great many have become
frivolous and indifferent. This rascally logic, not to mention
ignorance, encourages the frivolous and indifferent in their godless
departure from truth. In the pulpit and in the garb of science it
preaches the vanity and inadequacy of research. This is preached not as
a dogma, but as a logical science, and thus the senseless contradiction
is committed of trying to prove truly by the help of the intellect that
the intellect is too limited to grasp the truth and prove it.
In its historical course logical research once arrived at such a result
in good faith. This happened in the famous "Critique of Reason" of
Immanuel Kant. Our shrewd friends of darkness now seek to utilize the
fame of this work, to which it is entitled on account of its great
contribution toward the elucidation of cosmic truth, for the purpose of
preventing on the strength of it a progress of enlightenment beyond the
standpoint of Kant.
By the way, Kant has demonstrated that the truth in general is as much a
matter of experience as the brain with which we search for it. He has
shown beyond a doubt that our eyes and ears are inseparably connected
with our mind and with the whole cosmic truth. But the persistent spirit
of transcendentalism, or what is the same thing, the traditional belief
in the transcendental spirit, has led him to grant a mysterious
existence alongside of or above the human mind, alongside of or above
the cosmic truth, to an incomprehensible monster spirit and to a
fantastical hyper-truth.
The Kantian critique of reason did not understand the universality of
truth. It still affirmed the existence of two worlds and two truths
without any unity. And as it is the curse of the evil deed to generate
more evil, it produced two intellects. (1) The poor little subservient
intellect of man, and (2) the enormous and abnormal intellect of the
_Lord_, who is supposed to understand the incomprehensible and to untie
the most senseless contradictions like so many knots.
The truth which is the universe, the cosmic or universal truth, will
reveal to you the absurdity of abnormal humility which is contained in
the dualistic doctrine of the two minds. Of course, the philosopher Kant
had a greater intellect than Peter Simple. But nevertheless all
intellects partake of the nature of the general intellect, and no
intellect can step above or below this general nature without losing
sense or reason. One cannot speak of another, higher, faculty of thought
than that acquired by man through experience without dropping from logic
to absurdity. No doubt the animal world possesses something similar to
intellect. No doubt, also, the animal mind may be separated from the
human mind by some special name, for instance "instinct." No doubt,
furthermore, our reason is strengthened by culture from generation to
generation. But that anywhere and at any time there should come into
existence a faculty of thought which would stand outside of the cosmic
interconnection, that is an absurd conception and a senseless thing.
Just as necessarily as all water has one and the same nature, that of
being wet, just so necessarily every intelligence and every thought
partakes of the general nature of thought and must logically be a part,
a particular part, of the one universal and empirical world.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Religion denotes here as much as conception of the world and
explanation of its last questions; and metaphysics stands here for
everything conceivable, which meaning embraces more than the mere
tangible.--EDITOR.
[5] When we consider its many parts as such.--EDITOR.
NINTH LETTER
Repetition, my dear Eugene, is the mother of all study.
Logic aims to teach you the proper use of the intellect, not only in
this or that branch of study, but in the general branch of truth. Its
result is the following precept: In all things always remember the
universal interrelation.
In order to illustrate this statement a little, let me point out that in
the period of scholasticism thinking was practiced without any
interconnection with the rest of the world, merely by brown study. The
present age of natural sciences then cultivated a better method. But the
method of the natural sciences has not succeeded so far in being applied
to the field of law, morals, politics, psychology, and philosophy,
because the logical understanding of the total interrelation of the
indivisible world truth was lacking, because the concept of truth was
enveloped in darkness, and because the privileged classes have a great
interest in maintaining darkness.
For this reason, the true method of reasoning still requires many
explanations. The socialist, for instance, is charged with inciting the
people, with promising more than he can keep and with sowing strife in
the hearts of men. Those who make this charge in the commonplace sense,
tear two things, viz., peace and strife, out of their due connection. As
a matter of fact, peace and strife must always dwell together. A nation
whose peace were not intermingled with a certain strife, would be a
nation of sluggards. Thanks to the strife in their breasts, the nations
are progressive and stirring. Motion is the essence of the world, and
national motion is inconceivable without the striving of men. For the
sake of development and culture, nations must always demand more than
they can immediately attain. On the other hand, striving of this sort is
not sufficient. One must not demand more than one can obtain, nor
promise more than one can give. For this reason the logical socialist
must know that even in the future society the trees will not grow into
the clouds, and that the peace for which we hope and strive will always
be mixed with strife. The music of the future, although more harmonious
than the music of the present, will nevertheless be eternally marred by
disharmony. There is nothing perfect in the world, because only the
whole universe is perfect, because the universe alone is perfectness
itself.
Eternal peace, as the warriors may justly claim, is an illusion, so long
as we think of peace in a transcendental way and as being separated from
strife. But the sons of the war god who would like to continue the
thunder of cannons and the rattle of sabers eternally, are no less the
victims of illusion, if not something worse. Eternal is only war in
peace and peace in war, although that may seem senseless to the
logicians of the old school. Thus even the inevitable war will become
more peaceful and humane in the course of time. The barbarian form of
war, of which the Prussians are masters, is not destined to last
forever, unless we speak of the illogical eternity of the preacher which
opens its doors by leaving the temporal world. In defending the social
war, I wish to have it understood that neither the conceptions nor the
things called war and peace are separated by a Chinese wall.
Everything is interconnected and interdependent. It is true that strife
and animosities may be exaggerated, and so may peace. But whatever blame
attaches to this, refers only to the exaggeration. It is not the
animosity, but the excessive animosity which deserves censure. By
recognizing the logical interconnection between peace and strife, the
dispute of the parties is rendered saner. There is then no longer a
question of a yawning chasm between satisfaction and dissatisfaction,
but of something about which an agreement is possible, viz., how much
there is of either.
As peace and war in the human breast, so all variety intermingles in the
cosmic unit. In the novel "_Homo Sum_," by Ebers, the monk Paulus, who
tasted the delights of the preliminary celestial ecstasy when
castigating his body, says: "I truly believe that it is just as
difficult on this globe to find pain without joy as joy without pain."
And Till Eulenspiegel, that type of a practical joker, showed an
understanding of dialectics when he lightened the difficulty of
ascending a mountain by the reflection that the descent on the other
side would be so much easier. Logic is no more senseless in teaching
that all things, even the most opposite, are of the same substance than
it is in showing that night belongs to day and weeds to herbs.
In order that these petty illustrations may not confuse your mind, it
should be remembered that the essential point is the elucidation of the
great contradiction between mind and matter, between thinking and being,
which includes all petty contradictions.
In order to think in accordance with logical consistency, you must not
regard a thing as something independent, but consider everything as
fluid particles of the same substance, which is the thing of all things,
the world, the truth, and life.
Our logic is therefore the science of truth. This truth is neither above
nor below, neither in Jerusalem nor in Jericho, neither in the spirit
nor in the flesh, but everywhere.
Our logic is the science of understanding. It teaches that you must not
search for understanding by cudgeling your brain, but only in connection
with experience, with the interrelation of things.
Since man in his experience also meets errors, science was dominated for
centuries by the question whether truth and experience are not two
different things, whether all our experience is only an illusion of our
senses. Cartesius replied to this: "No; the belief in a perfect, true
being cannot admit of such a delusion." By substituting the concept of
truth for the concept of God, we are certain that the world of
experience is not a ghost, but the most actual reality.
Although the great Kant called the cosmic truth a phenomenon, because he
could not divest his mind of transcendental faith, of the faith in a
transcendental truth, still we know today that all distinctions which
are ever made constitute but a nibbling at the universal unit. As
necessarily as all variety in baking produces bakery wares, just as
necessarily heaven and earth, and everything connected with them, are
parts of the indivisible truth which is also called nature, cosmos,
universe, God, and experience. Language gives to its darling truth many
different pet names, just as a happy mother calls her heart's treasure
by a thousand endearing terms.
Feuerbach reasons in this fashion: "If God is not a personal being
different from nature and man, then he is an entirely superfluous
being.... The use of the word God which is always combined with the
conception of a separate being, is a disturbing and confusing abuse. Why
do you want to be a theist, if you are a naturalist, or a naturalist if
you are a theist? Away with this contradiction! Where God is confounded
with nature, or nature with God, there is neither God nor nature, but a
mystical amphibious hermaphrodite."
Feuerbach is right. The name of God is much abused. But truth is also
blasphemed by negation and frivolousness. The sober understanding that
God, truth, nature, are various names for the same thing permits us to
play with them without despairing of the matter. Indeed, this play of
words serves to make the subject clear.
But logic demands that we recognize truth as the absolute, as the power,
the force, and the glory, which comprises all logical and illogical
distinctions, together with the things to be distinguished, even the
faculty of distinguishing itself.
Such an understanding of the absolute, such world wisdom, will not make
you conceited, because it makes you conscious of the fact that your
understanding has grasped celestial truth which at the same time is
terrestrial, only in a very general way. You possess nothing but a
definition of truth. And without denying that definitions are valuable
and instructive, I, at the same time, point out that you know very
little about astronomy when you know that it is the science of the
stars. No matter, therefore, how clearly I may have defined truth, we
require for its complete understanding all the details of science, and
that is too much for me, for you, and for any individual human being.
Just as our vision never exhausts the visible, because the eye sees an
object but does not fully penetrate it, just so can the intellect never
fully understand and fathom the absolute all, the truth, or God. But we
can understand and fathom individual truths, parts of the universal
truth. What understanding grasps is not the truth itself, but yet it is
true understanding.
TENTH LETTER
Dear Eugene:
My previous lectures instructed you as to the very trivial fact that the
thought is a part of the world. In proceeding from the part to the
whole, I passed logically from the mouth of the river to its source. The
universe is the maternal womb of the intellect as of all things.
It occurs to me that you or some teacher of logic might accuse my
letters of lack of logic. It may seem that these lectures fail to
present the subject matter in a strictly systematized form. You will,
please, excuse this in part with the fact that they appear in the form
of letters. This form demands that the contents should be logically
arranged and rounded off in each letter. It should furthermore serve as
an excuse for any defect, that my subject is not a finished one, not
perfectly elaborated by others before me. I am here not merely a
lecturer, but also an explorer on a field which, though much
investigated, yet is still rather obscure.
The conclusion of my last letter explained that the use of the term God
for the universe has much to recommend it and much to disqualify it. But
it is easily apparent that the universe with its absolute qualities is
closely related to that infinite being of whom Jakob Böhme, the
philosophical shoemaker, said: "He is neither the light nor the
darkness, neither love nor anger, but the eternal One.... Hence all
forces are merely one sole force."
That nothing exists outside of the universe, that everything is
contained in the All, that the All, with all real and imagined beings,
is everything, that it is neither sweet nor sour, neither great nor
small, but just everything and all, this statement is as obvious as the
often and long repeated statement of identity: A equals A.
The All is omnipotent, omnipresent, all-wise. This last term might be
questioned, since the universe is not a dummy with a monster head and
giant brain. For this very reason it was considered inappropriate to
apply the name of God to the universe, because that creates the
impression of a personal being. The All thinks only by means of human
brains, and for this reason omniscience cannot be anything but common
human knowledge. Of course, you, I, and every other man, are very
limited in our knowledge. But still we may indulge in the hope that the
things which we do not know are known by other men or will be discovered
by future generations, so that the collective human mind will know
everything that is knowable. We cannot see everything that is visible;
there are animals that can see even better than we can. But since even
the most intelligent animal is supposed to lack the highest degree of
intelligence, reason and science, there is no one who knows anything
except the human race. Mankind is omniscient. But since all our science
is derived only from the world, mankind is only the formal bearer of
intelligence, and it belongs to the fountain of all things, to eternal
nature. Our wisdom is the wisdom of nature, is world wisdom. Although
there may be inhabitants of the moon and of other stars who may know
things which are unknown to us, still that is in the first place a mere
speculation of little value, and in the second place universal
omniscience or the omniscient universe would not in the least be
affected thereby. It is a reasonable use of the language to regard human
wisdom as the only and omniscient wisdom, just as all natural and wet
water is called water without any further modification. I believe in the
statement of Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things." Whoever
uses a different measure, uses a superhuman, transcendental measure.[6]
Hence, when I call the cosmic essence of all existence omnipotent, you
will not think of a senseless magic power which forges knives without
handles and blades, nor will you read any transcendental meaning into my
use of the term omniscience.
Omniscience belongs obviously under the head of logic, because the organ
of science and wisdom is the object of the study of logic. And it must
now be stated that the human mind does not only exceed the animal mind
by far, but is also the _non plus ultra_ of all minds. But it must be
retained that this mind can only be whatever it is in connection with
the divine universe which I may also be permitted to call worldly deity.
This name is fitting because it is a means of understanding that in the
first place no monster mind rules the world, and in the second place the
natural universe is not a mere sum of all things, but truth and life.
Of course, the identification of the universe with the religious God is
only a comparison, and comparisons are lame. Still we may compare the
sun with an eternal lamp or the moon with a candle, or the German prime
minister with a butler.
Logic shall teach you that everything which may be distinguished by the
faculty of understanding is of the same kind, everything is of common
clay, but the whole is sublimely elevated above all that is commonplace.
Mere frivolous atheism, as created by the free-thinkers, is not
sufficient. A bare denial of God always creates some other idol worship.
The positive understanding of the divine world truth is an indispensable
requirement for the radical extermination of all idol worship.
Logic must begin with the sublime, infinite, absolute. All logical,
consistent or interconnected thinking must take its departure from it.
The so-called scientific research after temporal causes, after the egg
from which the chicken was hatched, after the hen from which the egg
came, after the kindred organisms which developed the hen by natural
selection and adaption according to Darwin, this is a very valuable
research without which we can never understand the world process. But
nevertheless, such research must not satisfy the thinking man. Logic
demands from everybody that he or she should search for the highest, for
the cause of all causes. Whoever feels the desire to bring logical order
into his consciousness, must know that the finite and infinite, the
relative and the absolute, the special truths and the one general truth,
are contained in one another.
Logical thought as demanded by science means nothing but to be aware of
the final cause, the absolute foundation of all thought. This foundation
is the universe, an attribute of which is the external and internal
human head. The thousand year old dispute between the materialists and
the idealists turns on the question whether the spirit is material or
the world spiritual. Our answer is plain and clear: They both belong
together, they together make up the one thing, the thing of all things.
Mind and matter are two attributes of the same substance. They may be
compared the same as fish and flesh, the former being called very
appropriately by some African tribes "water flesh." In this way, matter
and mind are two kinds of meat of a different and yet of the same
nature.
I remember reading in a satirical paper the question: "What is a
gentleman? Answer: A gentleman is a loafer with money, and a loafer is a
gentleman without money." Just as these two types of men are essentially
alike and differ only in the small matter of money, so you should
remember that there are no essential differences, that all differences
are merely matters of attributes and qualities of the same absolute
world substance. To distinguish correctly and logically, that is the
point which logic is aiming to teach us. To make distinctions is the
function which is also called perceiving, knowing, understanding,
comprehending. When you consider that this function is innate in man,
and that man together with his faculty of understanding is innate in
nature, then you recognize all distinctions and the distinguished
objects as attributes of the undistinguished One, of the absolute,
compared to which all things are only relative things, in other words,
attributes.
I am endeavoring to make clear to you that logical thinking requires the
awakening of the consciousness of the one supreme general nature. And
you must not think of this sum of all existence in the stupid way in
which people used to think of the animal kingdom before Darwin, but
regard the world as a living organic unit, from which the faculty of
understanding has blossomed the same as all other things. In the logic
of the narrow-minded, all animal species are widely separated, without
any living interconnection, while Darwin has demonstrated the uniform
process, the intermingling life in multiform creation. The illustration
of this famous zoologist of the transition from one species to another
may serve as an example of the logical transitions in the world process,
in which all differences are but undulations. All our classifications
must always remember the undivided basis on which they are resting.
We have shown that the intellect divides the universal nature,
classifies and analyzes it, and we have learned of the universal nature
that it not only furnishes to the intellect the material for its work,
but also that the world comprises within its general process the
intellectual process, that the intellectual movement is a specialization
of the natural movement.
The world is not only the object, but also the subject of understanding,
it understands, it dissects its own multiplicity by means of the human
intellect. Our wisdom is world wisdom in a two-fold sense: The world is
that which is being understood, classified, analyzed, and at the same
time it is that which, by the help of our intellect, practices
understanding, classification, etc. When I call the human mind the
cosmic mind, the mind of the supreme being, I wish to have it understood
that there is nothing mysterious about this, that I merely intend to
show that thought or intelligence can only operate in the universal
cosmic interconnection, that it is not an abnormal and transcendental
thing, but a thing like all other things.
You must not conceive of the spirit as the producer of truth, as a
little god, but only as a means. The true god, the divine truth, has our
intellect for an attribute. The latter does not produce truth, but only
the understanding of truth. It produces only pictures of truth which are
all more or less perfect. Of course, it is not at all immaterial whether
we produce a more or less faithful, a true or a false picture of truth,
but still this is, at present and for us here, a secondary matter. The
main thing is to know that truth, or nature, is far above all pictures,
and still consists of parts, of forms, which together constitute the
whole.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] Please note the additional explanation on page 77.--EDITOR.
ELEVENTH LETTER
Dear Eugene:
Johannes Scherr relates in the "Gartenlaube," a German family paper, in
an article entitled "Mahomet and His Work," that insane doctrinarians
are searching for people without religion. This has not succeeded, it is
said, although the spark of religious feeling is glowing very dimly in
peoples that are close to the animal. But nevertheless, he continues,
the expressions of religious feeling mark the boundary line where the
beast ceases and man begins. For just as in the higher stages of
civilization religion means the consciousness of the finite of being one
with the infinite, so in the lower stages of civilization the indefinite
impulse is felt by man to connect his special nature with the universal
nature and bring them into harmony. This is idealism, the idealistic
need. It is obvious that, and why, the people have always and everywhere
sought and found satisfaction for their idealistic longings in religion.
But, adds the shrewd observer, I must remark that I do not refer to the
shifting population when I say "people," for sad to relate, that
population is torn away from all connection with natural conditions. I
refer to the "settled, the permanent, the true people."
This quotation shows that a champion of the "true people" is in conflict
with true logic. In dividing a population into shifting and settled
people, one should retain as a basis the logical consciousness that all
classes of people are embraced by one class; furthermore, that human,
monkey, ant, and other nations are parts of the one and the same nation;
until finally man and animal, real and imaginary, with all religious and
godless things, are ultimately fused in the world unit and can never be
"torn away from all connection with natural conditions."
All distinctions must logically be based on the consciousness of the
absolute and universal unity, of the interconnection of all things. For
this reason some pious people, with their God in whom everything is
living and has its being, have more logic than some freethinkers of the
class of Johannes Scherr who have no coherence in their method of
thought. The faithful think more logically than the narrowly skeptical,
for they begin and end with God. But still they cannot think quite
logically, because they cannot establish any logical connection between
their eternally perfect Lord and evil, the devil, disease, misery, sin,
in short all the sufferings and vanities here below.
The unit of nature, the infinite, is the quintessence of logic. Neither
natural science in the narrow sense of the word, nor metaphysics, nor
formal logic, can give any clue as to the nature of this thing of
things. This can be done only by a science of understanding which
recognizes matter and mind and all opposites and contradictions as
formalities of the universe. How can a man who is out of touch with the
mass of the shifting population feel that he is one with the universe?
Whoever regards any special class as the true people, has no
understanding either of the common people or of the absolute universe.
Proletarian logic teaches not only the equality of all human beings, but
universal equality. And mark well, this universal equality does not
conflict with variety any more than a variety of pots and jugs conflicts
with the unity of vessels, or the manifold forms of bretzels and rolls
with the unity of bakery ware.
The enemies of democratic development, in attacking the idea of freedom
and equality, point to the manifoldness of nature, the individual
differences of men, the distinctions between weak and strong, wise and
fools, men and women, and consider it tyranny to attempt to equalize
that which nature has made different. They cannot understand that like
things may be different and different things alike. They are blinded by
their class logic which sees only the differences, but not the unity,
not the transfusion of all classes.
Class logic teaches that contradictory things cannot exist. According to
it, a thing cannot be genuine and false at the same time. This class
logic has a narrow conception of existence. It has only observed that
there are many different things in nature, but has overlooked the fact
that all these things have also a general nature. We, on the other hand,
recognize that every thing, every person, is a part of the infinite
world and partakes of its general nature, is eternal and perishable,
true and untrue, great and small, one sided and manyfold, in short
contradictory.
Before and after Socrates, philosophy and religion have searched for the
genuine, right, good, true, and beautiful, but have reached no
harmonious results. But it cannot be denied that in the course of the
centuries the problem has become clearer and clearer. The great names of
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Cartesius, Spinoza,
Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, are milestones on the highway of this progress.
The evolution is apparent, but the interrelation between the
intellectual and physical, and especially between intellectual and
economic evolution, is much ignored. The bridge between mind and body
was not found, and philosophical evolution has been regarded up to our
day as a purely mental process accomplished by one or two dozen of
famous brains. I wish to point out to you now, that proletarian logic is
the continuation of the preceding research after the genuine, true,
good, and beautiful. It teaches how to conceive of these ideals
logically, and it has not so much proceeded from any one talented
brain, but is rather the product of the entire cosmic process.
Philosophical brains have developed the science of logical thought only
to the extent that the material development of the world has stimulated
them to do so. You must regard the human brains only as secondary levers
of the universal lever which is not only genuine, true, good, and
beautiful, but truth, goodness, and beauty itself, or the world and the
absolute.
The understanding of the absolute which is called "good Lord," and then
again "the bad world," in other words the selfsufficient cosmos, is very
inconvenient to the wisdom of the professors, and they are attempting to
assign it to a special study which they call "metaphysics." This
division of labor is not introduced for the purpose of making research
more productive, but of surrounding this study by mysterious darkness.
The professors who lecture to the young people on formal logic set aside
the ancient research after the true, the good, the beautiful, and try to
place these ideals outside of the light of science in order to be able
to preserve them unchanged in the tabernacle of faith.
This charge may seem unjust, because the learned gentlemen reserved a
corner for the true, the good, and the beautiful in their metaphysical
department. But there is something peculiar about this. The great Kant
has asked the plain question: "Is metaphysics practicable as a science?"
Answer: No! The transcendental truth, etc., sought by metaphysics, and
named God, freedom, immortality in Christian language, cannot be found
by any reason. But being a child of his time, the great philosopher
makes a small concession to the transcendental.
He teaches: Although transcendental truth cannot be located
scientifically, still the religious faith in its existence is wholesome.
We, in our time, think more soberly about this theory of salvation and
accept the elimination of all transcendentalism from science. While the
spokesmen of the "true people" would like to hide their exalted truth,
freedom, and immortality behind the curtains of temples, we throw the
full daylight of logic on the absolute truth, goodness, and beauty of
the material world.
Logic as the science of correct thought cannot be restricted to any one
object, it cannot exclude any object, whether terrestrial or heavenly,
from its sphere. The great lights of present day learning do not wish to
subordinate the intellect as the object of the logical department, and
absolute truth as the object of the metaphysical department, to one
another, but to co-ordinate them side by side.
But two co-ordinated things which are not subordinated to a third higher
thing lack logic, and the brain which is satisfied by such a condition
suffers from disorder. Logical truth must inevitably be a part of
absolute truth, and it is our duty to remove absolute truth from the
field of metaphysics, of transcendentalism, and to transfer it to the
sober world which forms an inseparable unit with the human mind.
So much for the proletarian duty to continue the research after the
true, the good, and the beautiful which was the object of the
philosophers before and after Socrates. But remember that I am referring
only to the truly good, beautiful, etc., which is contained in the
universal truth of all true specifications. The question of the
ethically good, the esthetically beautiful and the absolutely perfect is
as necessarily contained in the question of the universal truth as red,
blue, and green in the rainbow, of course only in an abstract sense.
Our logic which has for its object the truth of the universe, is the
science of the understanding of the universe, a science of universal
understanding or conception of the world. It teaches that the
interrelation of all things is truth and life, is the genuine, right,
good, and beautiful. All the sublime moving the heart of man, all the
sweet stirring his breast, is the universal nature or the universe. But
the vexing question still remains: What about the negative, the ugly,
the evil, what about error, pretense, standstill, disease, death, and
the devil?
True, the world is vain, evil, ugly. But these are merely accidental
phenomena, only forms and appendages of the world. Its eternity, truth,
goodness, beauty, is substantial, existing, positive. Its negative is
like the darkness which serves to make the light more brilliant, so that
it may overcome the dark and shine so much more brightly.
The spokesmen of the ruling classes are not open for such a sublime
optimism, because they have the pessimistic duty of perpetuating misery
and servitude.
TWELFTH LETTER
Logic, the science of correct thought, demands in the first place true,
or in other words, reasonable thought. Logic deals with reason and
truth.
These two things have been endowed with a mysterious nature, while they
obviously belong to the entire universe and its tangible nature. Reason
and truth are not separated from the other things, are not things in
themselves. There is no such thing. Philosophers who have looked for
them in the depths of the human brain with their hands over their eyes
and engaged in brown study, were on the wrong road. Proletarian logic
differs from conventional logic in that it does not look for reason and
truth behind the curtains of temples, nor in the brains of the learned,
but it discovers them in the actual interconnection of all things and
processes of nature.
Preachers, professors, judges, and politicians are the leaders of "the
wise men of Gotham," and since we have all passed our youth among them,
we find it difficult to get rid of their confused logic.
We owe much of our better insight to the famous philosophers. These men
had many an eccentric notion, but on the whole they were reasonable
fellows who followed the doctrine of the unreliability of the senses and
the faith in the hidden truth and reason more in a theoretical than in a
practical way. In practice they operated with open eyes and ears. Thus
correct logic, although confused by queer notions, has been handed down
to us from generation to generation. Preachers, professors, judges, and
politicians cling to the confused notions, while we take the liberty to
discard them.
Now we recognize not only that reason and truth are connected with the
world, but also that the universe is the supreme reason and truth, is
that being which religion and philosophy have long been looking for, the
most perfect being, which Plato called the true, good and beautiful,
Kant God, freedom, and immortality, and Hegel the absolute.
If he is an atheist who denies that perfection can be found in any
individual, then I am an atheist. And if he is a believer in God who has
the faith in the "most perfect being" with which not alone the
theologists, but also Cartesius and Spinoza have occupied themselves so
much, then I am one of the true children of God.
The abuse of sublime feelings and exalted ideas has filled many hearts
with disgust, so that they care no longer for any unctuous sermons. The
mere flavor of religion is odious to them. Nevertheless I assure you
that we shall never get rid of idol worship, unless we understand the
supreme being, reason or truth, in its true nature.
"Understand" is a mysterious word. To bring light into the mystery of
understanding by a clear theory of understanding, is an integral part of
the science of thought, of logic.
Permit me to compare the faculty of understanding with a photographic
apparatus, by the help of which you strive to obtain a picture of the
cosmic truth. Then you will see at a glance that in this way we can
obtain but a dim picture of the whole. The object appears boundless, too
infinitely great and sublime to permit of copying. And yet we can
approach it. Although we cannot get a true picture of universal truth,
yet we can obtain clear pictures of individual truths, in other words,
we can picture the infinite in its parts. By the help of your
intellect, you can grasp the infinite by means of limitation.
Absolute truth appears to us in relative phenomena. The perfect being is
composed of imperfect parts. A "wise man of Gotham" may regard this as a
senseless contradiction. But we can separate the arms, legs, head, and
trunk from one another, and so separated they will be mere parts of a
corpse, while connected they certainly possess the chance of vitality.
Life is composed of the dead, the most perfect being is composed of
imperfect parts. In the universal truth everything is contained. It is
the perfect being, it includes the whole existence, even the imperfect.
The false, the ugly, the evil, the nasty are involved in the true, the
good, the beautiful. The universal existence is the absolute truth, the
whole is composed of relativities, of parts, of phenomena. Our
understanding, our instrument of thought, is likewise an imperfect part
of the perfect being. Our intellect produces only a dim, imperfect
picture of the absolute, but it reproduces true pictures of its parts,
although pictures only.
There are good and bad, adequate and inadequate, true and false thoughts
and understanding. But there are no absolutely true thoughts. All our
conceptions and ideas are imperfect pictures of the most perfect being
which is inexhaustible in great things as in small things, as a whole
and in parts. Every part of nature is a natural part of the infinite.
I repeat: All parts or things of this world have, apart from their
imperfect nature as parts, also the world nature of the absolute being.
They are imperfect perfections. Our intellect is no exception. The human
mind is the only mind having the name of reason, and is the most
perfect reason which can possibly exist. In the same way, the water of
this earth is the non plus ultra of all water. The belief in another and
different mind, in a monster mind, belongs to the same transcendental
category as the belief in a celestial river without the nature of water
flowing around the castle of Zion. Even the most perfect mind is nothing
else, and cannot be anything else, but an imperfect part of the absolute
world being.
The first thing a student of correct thought has to learn is to
distinguish true thought from false thought, and for this purpose he
must know above all that distinction must not be exaggerated. All
differences can only be relative. The bad and the good pictures belong
to the same family, and all families finally belong to the absolute, are
individuals of the universe.
For the purpose of distinguishing true thoughts from false, it should be
remembered that the true thought is only a part of the truth, a part
which does not exaggerate its own importance, but subordinates itself to
the absolute.
The following illustration may explain this. Although astronomy teaches
that the earth revolves daily around its axis and that the sun is
standing still, it nevertheless knows that the fixed state of the sun is
only a relative truth, so that from a higher point of view both the
earth and the sun are revolving. The consciousness of its relative truth
alone makes the statement of the sun's standstill true. Again, when the
farmer sees that the earth is fixed and that the sun is moving every day
from East to West, he is mistaken only so far as he regards his
standpoint as the whole truth, his farmers' knowledge for absolute
knowledge. The knowledge of the absolute alone enables you to
distinguish correctly between truth and error. Whoever sees the sun
turning around the earth with the consciousness that this revolution is
but a partial truth is not in error, but sees truly. The knowledge of
the absolute truth clears up error and instructs us as to the method of
correct thought. This thought makes us apt, humble, and tolerant in
judging.
The "wisest of men" was very proud of his modesty in knowing that he
knew nothing. His example may well be recommended to-day. Although we
have learned a great deal, we know very little compared to the
inexhaustible fountain of all wisdom, good mother nature. We learn every
day, but we never learn all there is to learn. What was to the credit of
Socrates, was his firm faith in the truth, his conviction of its
existence, and his faith in the mission of the human intellect to search
for truth.
On the contrary, the sophists confused and disputed everything. They
frivolously flouted all truth and research. This same frivolousness now
relies upon Kant who, misled by the prejudice of his time, removed truth
to a transcendental world and therefore deprecatingly called our actual
world the "world of phenomena." In distinction from him, our logic
teaches that the phenomena of this world without exception are parts of
the one truth, and that the true art of understanding consists in
studying the parts.
The doctrine of the sophists to the effect that everything may be denied
and disputed has a certain similarity with ours in that we declare that
the universe is the truth and all parts of it true parts, that smoke and
fog, reason and imagination, dreams and realities, subject and object,
are true parts of the world. They are not the whole truth, but still
true. For this reason it is well to call your attention to the
difference between the sophistical and the logical method of thought.
The contemporaries of Socrates are still alive to-day. They are teaching
in the name of God and believe in nothing, while to us truth, every day
naked and sober truth, is sacred.
THIRTEENTH LETTER
In his "Three Books On The Soul," Aristotle discussed at length the
question whether the human soul has five senses or one. The commentator,
J. H. von Kirchmann, the publisher of the "Philosophical Library,"
remarks in his footnote 172 that man has six senses. He divides feeling
into pure and active feeling. According to this, the phrase of the five
senses belongs to the old iron the same as that of the four elements.
Now neither you, nor I, nor any reader should worry about the question
whether all sensation may be summed up in the one sense of feeling,
whether there are five senses according to Aristotle, or six according
to Kirchmann, or whether there is even a seventh sense for the
transcendental, the organ of which, as some optimists hope, will
gradually be developed with the growing perfection of man. We are
concerned in this matter only so far as it is connected with the
cardinal question, whether the world is only one thing or a mere
collection of an infinite number of disconnected things; whether the
so-called things are independent subjects and objects, or whether they
are only predicates of the one world subject.
Looking through the window I see the river, the street, the bridge,
houses, and trees. Everything is a thing in itself and yet is connected
inseparably with all others. The qualities of the world are regarded by
the intellect as subjects; but the intelligent subject should also know
that its actions, its distinguishing and understanding, are formalities,
a formal dismemberment of the absolute, which in spite of all division
always remains the undivided whole.
In order to master this method of thought, you must understand above all
that the things are only so-called things, but are in reality qualities
of the universe, in other words, relative things or predicates of the
absolute. You will then understand, that our thought has a right to make
one thing as well as six of a chair, its back, its seat, and its four
legs. You will recognize that the five senses of Aristotle are not an
eternal truth, but a classification, which is eternally variable.
Distinguishing means classifying.
I know very well that I am making a bold statement here, and that it is
not easy to justify it. For this reason you must not expect that I can
make my meaning clear in a few sentences. It is not only the general
prejudice which prevents this by making a most mysterious and miraculous
thing of the intellectual function, but also the fact that this thing is
still very obscure, although it has become clearer and clearer in the
course of time.
The freethinking pastor Hironymi writes on this point: "The most
prominent naturalists of the present, such as Dubois-Reymond, who are at
the same time thinkers, admit that they do not know what feeling, life,
consciousness, are, and how they arise. And this ignorance is far more
valuable for truth and religion than the alleged knowledge. Let us,
therefore, continue in the devotion with which we have hitherto admired
the universe without understanding it. The higher existence, the
consciousness, has not been explained, it has remained a miracle, the
only lasting, absolute, miracle."
Thus speaks the preacher who is a know-nothing by nature and makes a
business of admiring and wondering, while we are interested in
understanding and knowing. We wish to fathom the mystery, and hence I
may write still more letters on logic and you may study some more.
I shall try to demonstrate by a trivial example, how it is that
understanding or distinguishing is based on classification.
Take it that you awake at early dawn and notice in a corner of your bed
room something uncouth and moving which you cannot clearly distinguish.
To know that a phenomenon appears is not enough because the term
phenomenon applies to everything, natural and unnatural things, good and
evil spirits. Even if you are sufficiently enlightened to know that the
thing in question must be something natural, still this explains very
little, for the term "nature" again means everything. But you understand
or recognize more when you ascertain that the uncouth thing is dead or
alive, wall paper or garment, man or animal. You will notice that in
this intellectual enlightenment it is simply a matter of classification,
of the head under which the mystery should be classed. To classify the
phenomena of truth and life, means to understand, to use the intellect,
to enlighten the brain.
But we must well consider how far we shall have to go in our
classification in order to find the place in the system which will fully
clarify and determine understanding. Suppose that in the above mentioned
case you have ascertained that the motion is due to a cat, then the
inquiring faculty of understanding has not yet reached the end of its
tether. The next question is then, whether it is your cat or that of
your neighbor, whether it is black, white, or grey, young or old. And
when you finally recognize that it is your tomcat Peter, you must
remember that the subject which understands as well as the object to be
recognized, being parts of the absolute, are absolutely and infinitely
divisible parts, which are never fully understood and never fully
exhausted.
Please remember that in speaking of something uncouth, we are not so
much concerned in Peter or Tabby, but in the intellect which we desire
to understand so that we may make a correct use of it. And I refer to it
as uncouth merely because its understanding is beset with so many
difficulties. When I compared it in the preceding letter with a
photographic apparatus which should furnish us with pictures, and in
likening it now to an instrument designed to distinguish things by
classification, I warn you not to be confused thereby. Classification is
most essential as a means of producing intellectual pictures. In this
connection I emphasize once more that the faculty of understanding, the
same as other things, is not independent by itself, but can accomplish
something only in the universal interconnection. The understanding that
the phenomenon quoted above belongs to the category of tomcats, and more
especially into the column labeled Peter, would not be any
understanding at all, if you had not become previously acquainted with
the mouse-devouring race and individual in question. Only in connection
with your previous experience is the understanding that this tomcat and
the uncouth motion are one and the same thing, or belong to the same
category, a true understanding.
Ludwig Feuerbach says: A talented writer is recognized by the fact that
he assumes talent on the part of the reader also and does not chew up
his subject into minute parts like a petty schoolmaster. On the other
hand, it seems to me that it is possible to assume too much, and I
pursued a schoolmasterly course in this case, because the subject is new
to you and still leaves plenty of room for reflection.
I wanted to show by a commonplace example what I mean by insight and
understanding and how by means of it the unknown and uncouth becomes
known and familiar. True, the understanding in this case was illumined
by previous experience, while you are after new knowledge. You want to
know how enlightenment arises in order to acquire new insight. Now, all
novelty has the dialectic quality of being at the same time something
antiquated. New understanding can be acquired only by the help of old
understanding. In other words, old and new understanding, which I define
here as the faculty of classification, have their existence only in the
total interdependence of the universal existence.
You must discard the old prejudice that knowledge can be collected like
cents. Although this is well enough, it does not suffice for the purpose
of logical thinking. One science belongs to another, and all of them
together belong to one class with the entire universe. It will be
apparent to you, then, that at the beginning of your young days your
knowledge has not sprouted all at once, but has come out of the unknown.
And what is true of you, is true of the whole human race. In its cradle
it was without intellect. It had, indeed, the germ. But do not beasts,
worms, and sensitive plants have that also? In short, the light of
perception and understanding is nothing new in the radical sense of the
word, but connected with the old and with the world in general, and of
the same kind. All our knowledge must be connected and combined into one
understanding, one system, one realm, and this is the realm of reality,
of truth, of life.
Systematic classification is the task of logic. The first requirement
for this purpose is the awakened consciousness of the indivisibility of
the universe, of its universal unity. This consciousness is, in other
words, at the same time the recognition of the merely formal
significance of all scientific classification.
The unity of the universe is true, and is the sole and innate truth.
That this sole world truth is full of differences, is just as absolutely
different as absolutely the same, does no more contradict a reasonable
unity and equality than there is any contradiction in the fact that the
various owls have different faces and still the same owl face.
Aristotle divided the sense into five parts, anthropologists the race of
man into five races, natural philosophers the space into three
dimensions. It is now a question of showing to you that such a division,
however true and just, is nevertheless far from being truth and justice,
but is merely classification. The fundamental requirement of logic is to
designate scientific classifications as that which they are, viz.,
mental operations. It is the business of the intellect to make
classifications. That is its characteristic quality and does not
contradict the indivisible truth in the least.
Old wiseacres teach that a reasonable man must not contradict himself,
and this is a wise, though very narrow, lesson. Hegel maintains that
everything in the world is reasonable, hence the contradictions are
also. Under this conservative exterior there is hidden a very
revolutionary perception of which the "destructive" minds take advantage
in order to flatly contradict the wiseacres and their stable, dead,
disordered order which cannot stand any contradiction.
Reason dissolves all contradictions and opposition into harmony by
logical classification. "Everything in its own time and place." If it
does not wish to be called unreason, reason must rise to the
understanding that its opposite is only a formal antagonism. It must
know that God and the world, body and soul, life and death, motion and
rest, and whatever else the dualists may distinguish, are two and yet
one. Then it becomes clear that the conservatives are the real
revolutionaries, because by their senseless adherence to the "good old
order" they drive the proletariat to desperation, until it upsets that
order. On the other hand, the maligned revolutionaries are conservative,
because they subordinate themselves to the world's evolutionary process
which was, is, and will be eternal.
The red thread winding through all these letters deals with the
following points: The instrument of thought is a thing like all other
common things, a part or attribute of the universe. It belongs
particularly to the general category of being and is an apparatus which
produces a detailed picture of human experience by categorical
classification or distinction. In order to use this apparatus
correctly, one must fully grasp the fact that the world unit is
multiform and that all multiformity is a unit.
It is the solution of the riddle of the ancient Eleatic philosophy: How
can the one be contained in the many, and the many in one?
FOURTEENTH LETTER
Shoemaking and beet culture are as much sciences as physics, chemistry,
and astronomy. Reading, writing, and reckoning are called elementary
knowledge, and though I do not deny that they have an elementary value
for the culture of the mind, yet I can truly say that I have met
well-informed people who could neither read nor write. I wish to
indicate by this that there are indeed high and low degrees of knowledge
and science, but that such graduations have only a temporary, local,
relative, subjective significance, while in the absolute all things are
the same.
The scorn with which you may hear some people speak of the night of the
absolute in which all cats are grey and all women beautiful Helenas
shall not prevent us from repeatedly studying the absolute which I have
again and again praised as the main topic of logic. Only remember,
please, that you must not have any mystic idea of it. The absolute is
the sum total of all that was, is, and will be.
The subjects as well as the objects of all science belong to the
absolute, which is commonly called "world."
All other sciences have for their object limited parts, relative
matters, while the science of the mind treats of all things, of the
infinite. This is a point to which I refer frequently because it tends
to make my lessons obscure. I am lecturing on the science of the
intellect, but I speak of all things, of the universe, because I am
obliged to demonstrate, not the relation of the mind to shoemaking or
astronomy, but its general interrelations. I have to make plain its
general conduct, and this leads necessarily to the all-embracing
generality, to the absolute. We wish to learn the art of thinking, not
on this or that subject, but the art of general world thought.
The intellect is a special part, the same as every other scientific or
practical object. But it is that part which is not satisfied with piece
work, which knows that it itself and all special things are attributes
or predicates of the absolute subject, that it itself and all things are
universally interrelated.
The human mind is sometimes called self-consciousness. But this name is
too limited for such an unlimited thing, for the pathfinder of the
infinite, for your, my, and every other consciousness of the world and
of existence in general.
For centuries the question has been discussed whether there are innate
ideas hidden in the intellect or whether it may be likened to a blank
paper which experience impregnates with knowledge. This is the question
after the origin and source of understanding. Whence comes reason, where
do we get our ideas, judgments, conclusions? By the help of brown-study
from the interior of our brain, from revelation, or from experience? It
seems to me that you will quickly decide this matter when I ask you to
consider that everything we experience, together with the intellect
going through experiences, is a revelation of the absolute. Everything
we know is experience. We may consider the mind as a sheet of blank
paper, but in order that it may receive writing on its surface this
internal paper is as necessary as the external world which produces the
hand, the pen and the ink for this process of writing. In other words,
all experience originates from the world organism. Not knowledge, but
consciousness, world consciousness, is innate in the intellect. It has
not the consciousness of this or that in itself, but it knows of itself
the general, the existence as such, the absolute.
The science of the intellect has ever wrestled with one peculiar fact.
It found knowledge which the mind had received from the outside,
so-called empirical knowledge. But it also found knowledge which was
innate, so-called _a priori_ knowledge. That there is always a valley
between two mountains, that gold is not sheet iron, that the part is
smaller than the whole, that the angles of a triangle are together equal
to two right angles, that circles are round, that water is wet, that
fire is hot, etc., these are things of which we know that they are true
in heaven and in hell, and in all time to come, although we have never
been there with our experience. This plainly shows that we harbor a
secret in our brains which the lovers of the mystical seek to exploit by
making believe that their self-interested wisdom of God and high
authority likewise belongs to the eternally innate truths. For this
reason it is especially important for the proletariat to bring the
controversy of the origin and source of understanding to a close.
Our logic asks: Does wisdom descend mysteriously from the interior of
the human brain, or does it come from the outer world like all
experience? We shall leave its descent from heaven out of the question.
The answer is: Science, perception, understanding, thought, require
internal and external things, subject and object, brain and world.
Truth is here and truth is there. Truth is so divine that it is
everywhere and absolute.
But how to explain that wonderful _a priori_ knowledge which exceeds all
experience? For it is a fact that the intellect has not alone the
faculty of knowing things in general, but also that of separating them
into their parts and from one another and to name them. It cuts off
slices, so to say. But not like the butcher who sees everything merely
from the standpoint of his trade. You will remember from your own
experience as well as from my repeated statements that the world is not
a monotonous, but a multiform unit. This confused knot is dissolved and
explained by intellectual separation, by classification. In the absolute
everything is alike and unlike. But the intellect makes abstractions
from the unlike. For instance, in conceiving of the term minerals, we
pass over the distinction between gold and sheet iron. Then, when we
continue the classification by subordinating gold and sheet iron as
separate species to the general term of minerals, we know very well that
gold and sheet iron are different kinds of the same general mineral
nature. We know what the names indicate, and so long as they retain
their meaning, we know that neither in heaven nor in hell can gold be
sheet iron or sheet iron be gold. Water and fire are specialties taken
from the universe and named. Is it a wonder, then, that these names have
a special meaning and that we have the settled conviction that wherever
sense instead of nonsense is master, fire burns, water wets, circles are
round, and the sum of the angles of every triangle is equal to two right
angles?
These illustrations are commonplace enough, indeed, but it seems to me
that they clearly show the mere formality of the distinction between
innate and experienced knowledge. You will recognize that both of these
kinds of knowledge are different and yet of the same kind, that both are
mixtures of the internal and external. Knowledge _a priori_ ceases to be
a miracle when we understand that it comes out of the same fountain of
experience as _a posteriori_ knowledge, and in either case knowledge is
acquired only by means of the intellect. Hence intellect connected with
the world is the sole source of all wisdom, and external nature as well
as our internal faculty of understanding are parts of the one general
nature, which is the truth and the absolute.
"Only a gradual, slow, gapless development," says Noiré, "can free the
thinking mind from the philosophical disease of wondering."
The art of dialectics or logic which teaches that the universe, or the
whole world, is one being, is the science of absolute evolution. "In the
whole constitution of all natural things," writes Lazare Geiger, "there
is hardly anything more miraculous than the way in which the miracle
avoids our glance and continuously withdraws into the distance to escape
observation. In the place of the abrupt and strange things produced by
imagination, reason puts uniformity and transition."
And we add that the science of reason, or logic, teaches simultaneously
with the unity of the whole world, also that all things are alike
miraculous, or that there is only one miracle, which is existence in
general, the absolute. In other words, everything and nothing is
miraculous.
In demonstrating that the most different things, such as heat and cold,
and all radical distinctions, are only relative forms of universal
nature, I prove the uninterrupted and matter of fact transition and the
absolute graduality, the fusion, of all things.
I have tried to establish this proof in regard to the two kinds of
knowledge and illustrated it with commonplace examples, because these
have a popularizing effect. In order to meet the demands of more
exacting minds, I shall presently take up the miracle of causality. The
indubitable statement that everything must have its cause is regarded as
the most miraculous innate knowledge, and is much misused for the
purpose of bringing confusion into logic.
FIFTEENTH LETTER
My Son:
If on my return from some voyage I were to tell you of all the things I
have _not_ seen, you would justly doubt the order of my senses. Sane
reason demands that the description of unfamiliar things be given in a
positive, not in a negative manner. If that is so, is it not wrong to
proceed negatively by trying to prove in explaining the nature of the
intellect that it is not a miracle and no mysterious charm of wisdom? I
answer: No. For the present, the intellect is still a sort of _ignis
fatuus_ which is magnified into a fiery man. In order to understand the
_ignis fatuus_, it is necessary to remove the fiery man. Logic must show
that human reason is not a miracle, not a mystical receptacle of wisdom.
The negative process is in such a case positively in order. Wherever a
thing is obscured by prejudices, these must first be removed, in order
that room may be made for the bare fact.
It was the famous Kant who posed the question: "How is _a priori_
knowledge possible?" How do we arrive at the knowledge of things which
are not accessible to experience? The answer is that the intellect
cannot accomplish such a miracle, and Kant substantiates this in a
long-winded way and with admirable penetration. But he left a nasty hair
in the soup.
He found that by the help of our reason we can explain only phenomena.
The confusion between truth and phenomena had been handed down to him as
an infirmity of ancient times. He worked diligently on its solution, but
left some work for those coming after him. Originally the study of
supernatural and the profane study of natural things were closely
intermingled. Not until the obvious results of natural science became
known, did thinkers accommodate themselves to the habit of leaving
supernatural things to faith and limiting science to the study of
natural phenomena. Science had so to say passed on to the practical
order of business, not paying any further attention to the contrast
between phenomena and truth. But the logic, which is innate in the human
mind, cannot content itself with the dualistic split between faith and
science. It demands a monistic system and does not desist until the
primeval forests of faith are completely put under cultivation.
The logical impulse of culture caused Kant to continue what was begun by
Socrates. Philosophy before Socrates searched for truth externally.
While our logic teaches that everything is true, and truth is the
universe, the Ionic philosophers made a sort of fetish out of the
matter. Thales idolized the water as the thing of things, another the
fire, a third numbers. This worship of the fetish was the worship of
truth. The search for understanding starts out with misunderstanding.
From religious to scientific culture, it is a step, not a leap. When
Socrates turned to introspection and started out, with his "Know
thyself," in submitting the prodigy of the human soul to critique, he
made another important step.
You know that the "wisest of men" was not interested in air and water,
in natural science of the strict order, but rather in the good, the
true, and the beautiful, in the human in the narrower sense, in the
realm of the spirit, in the soul. It was indeed unwise that he was
interested to the verge of idolization, since in consequence of this
interest in a special part, the other, the material part was being
neglected. According to Goethe's statement that one thing is not fit for
all, Socrates did right. He and all philosophical lights after him
studied the intellect. What they missed was the now dawning
understanding that the faculty of thought is not a prodigy but a
special, and at the same time common, part of universal nature. While
these philosophers looked for truth in any one special form of
excellence, you are now invited to look for it in the total
interrelation of things.
Science has ever endeavored to do away with miracles and prodigies. This
could be accomplished only gradually, and the logicians have, therefore,
remained more or less biased and confused. The great Kant was no
exception. He looked for supreme truth, and for its sake he investigated
the intellect. He is celebrated because he explained so well that this
intellect feels no mission for anything transcendental, and cannot
understand anything but phenomena. Still he permitted something
transcendental to remain.
Kant is of the opinion that we perceive things as they appear, but not
as they are "in themselves." Nevertheless we should believe that a
mysterious truth is at the bottom of those phenomena, because we should
otherwise arrive at the irreconcilable contradiction that there are
phenomena without anything which could appear. The intellect, he holds,
can operate only on the field of phenomena, and for this reason we
should give up the endless grubbing after the transcendental. But we
should leave one little room in the house of reason, one little chamber
of faith, which points beyond experience up to the point where a
mysterious truth guards God and His commands.
The subsequent philosophers, especially the Hegelian philosophy, opposed
this separation which assigned to the intellect only the study of
phenomena and to faith the absolute and infinite for veneration. But
they did not yet succeed in completely mastering the matter, they did
not fully arrive at an indubitably clear exposition of the fountain of
understanding and of the unity of truth, so that reaction nowadays can
again sound the retreat after the melody: "Back to Kant." You know that
Lessing complained about the treatment of "a dead dog" accorded to
Spinoza, and Marx added pointedly: "Hegel is more of a dead dog to-day
than Spinoza was at Lessing's time." The enemies of the working class
are the enemies of evolution. They wish to preserve the existing order
of things and the good old time in which they feel at home. For this
reason it is the mission of the proletariat to continue the work of
logic. It is our duty to show clearly that the metaphysical truth which
Kant opposed to the phenomena of nature and could not eliminate from the
intellect, is nothing but just a metaphysical, a fantastically
exaggerated, thing.
According to our logic, the universe is the truth and everything
partakes of it. That such a truth is logical and such a logic true, is
shown by the interconnection of things, so that this science is
applicable to everything which the sciences respect as reasonable and
true.
In order to help you in the understanding of the absolute and liberate
your thought from all special miracles, I refer to Kant's critique of
reason. It teaches that our intellect becomes a source of understanding
only in connection with other phenomena of nature. Only his critique
stuck fast in the mysterious fountain of causality. Thus he showed that
he was only a seeker after logic, not its master. The conclusion that
there must be _something_ that does appear where there are phenomena is
certainly correct. But that which Kant was thinking of, something of a
transcendental or metaphysical nature, led him to the radically wrong
conclusion that there must be something different, peculiar, miraculous,
mysterious, wherever there are phenomena.
The Kantian conclusion that there must be an absolute truth by itself
behind a phenomenon, an absolute truth that exists independent of and
disconnected with such phenomenon, was due to his fetish-like conception
of truth. It is the first requirement for a correct use of the faculty
of logical reasoning to know that truth is the common nature of the
universe.
That a phenomenon must be based on nature, or an effect on a cause, is a
fact identical with "causality" which I already promised to discuss in
the preceding letter. This same problem may also be expressed in the
words: Where there are predicates, there must be a subject that carries
them. In order to make quite sure that I will not be misunderstood, I
emphasize once more the fact that I am not raising any doubt as to the
correctness of this conclusion, but only to the metaphysical application
of this conclusion after the Kantian manner which consists in making
the same use of it as a clergyman who tries to prove that his theology
is innate in reason.
Our conception of logic wishes to show that all causes and effects are
matter of the same kind, and that our faculty of reasoning is a matter
of fact thing which brooks no mysteries or metaphysical dreams.
SIXTEENTH LETTER
Now let me illustrate the interconnection of all things, or the
world-unit, by discussing the question of causality. We know that
everything has its cause. We know that this is also true on the Moon or
on Uranus, although we have not acquired this knowledge by experience on
those world bodies. Thus it seemed that the intellect was a mysterious
receptacle containing innate wisdom. The same receptacle also contains,
for instance, the truth that all white horses are white and all black
horses black. We do not know anything about the color of other horses in
other countries, but the color of black and white horses we know even if
we have never seen them in other countries. It is thus apparent that our
intellect is an instrument which reaches beyond experience. For this
reason there would seem to be no telling where the supply of such
miraculous revelations would stop and into what mysterious worlds the
intellect passing beyond the limits of experience would lead us.
In order that the human intellect may not appear transcendental, in
order to give it its place in the general classification of natural
forces, we must investigate the nature of causality and so-called _a
priori_ knowledge.
Kindly observe in the first place that a thing is just as wonderful
_after_ it is explained as it was before its explanation. A scientific
explanation of a thing ought not to do away with our admiration, but
only to reduce it to reasonable bounds. The intellect may very well be
regarded as something wonderful, but its wondrous quality should be
reduced to the measure of all things which are none of them any less
wonderful. After you have explained what water is, after you have
learned that it is composed of two chemical elements, after you have
realized all its qualities thoroughly, it still remains a wonderful,
divine, fluid.
"All things have their causes." What are all things? They are
attributes, qualities of the universe. It is innate in the intellect to
know that the world is _one_ thing, that all things belong, not to any
different thing, but to one and the same subject. The intellect is by
nature the absolute feeling of unity. It knows of itself that everything
is interrelated and that the consciousness of causality is nothing else
but the consciousness of cosmic interrelation. And I maintain that the
innateness of the consciousness of cosmic interrelation in our brain is
explained when we realize that it is an actual thing like all others, a
phenomenon which has the same general nature as every other
phenomenon.[7]
The fact is undeniable that a certain knowledge is innate in our
consciousness. The only difficulty has been to explain this fact. At
this point I call your attention to the exaggerated notion entertained
in regard to explaining, and understanding, things. By explanations, a
thing is not dissolved, but only classified.
The hatching of an egg is explained when you perceive that this process
is part and parcel of a whole class of similar processes. If you modify
the exalted idea of the effect of explanations in this sense, you must
realize that the innate consciousness of the general interrelation of
things is natural and intelligible and requires no other explanation
than the humidity of the water, the gravity of bodies, or the color of
black horses.
Even after it has been explained and understood, the intellect with its
logic remains a wonderful thing. Just as clay is by its nature
untransparent and pliable, or glass transparent and brittle, so
consciousness has its peculiar innate qualities. In this way knowledge
comes to the intellect not only by experience, but it is also a sort of
receptacle full of wisdom. Still this receptacle would no more contain
wisdom without experience than the eye would have impressions without
light.
In order to straighten out the intricate windings of our subject, I
recapitulate them. We wish to learn the proper use of our intellect, the
conscious application of consciousness. To this end we analyze its
hitherto hidden mystical nature. So long as we exalt this nature
transcendentally to the clouds, we do not acquire its proper use.
Therefore the first paragraph of our lesson reads: The intellect belongs
in the same category with all things of the universe. And the second
paragraph says: If we distinguish two classes of thought radiated by the
human intellect, viz., innate thoughts, such as causality, and on the
other hand thoughts which come through experience, we must remember that
such a distinction is correct only when we realize that in spite of this
classification in two kinds they really belong to the same kind. Innate
and acquired wisdom, though served on two different plates, still are
taken from the same general world dish.
From this it follows that the science of causality, though applicable
to all the phenomena of the world, does not apply to the universe. If it
is a fact that all wisdom is worldly, then one must not fly outside of
the world with the concept of causality.
This is the salient point at issue.
All things are one thing, are interdependent, stand in the relation of
cause and effect toward one another, or of genus and species. To say
that all things have a cause means that they have a mother. The fact
that every mother has a mother finds its final ending in the world
mother or mother world, which is absolute and motherless and contains
all mothers in its womb.
Causes are mothers, effects are daughters. Every daughter has not only a
mother, grand-mother, and great-grand-mother, but also a father,
grand-father, and great-grand-father. The origin, or the family
relationship, of a daughter is not one-sided, but all-sided. In the same
way all things have not one, but many causes which flow together in the
general cause.
The intellect which has the innate knowledge that everything has its
cause will accept the teaching that all causes in the world are founded
in the absolute world cause and must return to it. It is the
quintessence of logic not only to ascertain the true nature of the
intellect, but also to elucidate the nature of the universe by the help
of the intellect.
All things have a mother, but to expect that the world mother should
logically have a mother is to carry logic to extremities and to
misunderstand the intellect and its art of reasoning.
If you have recognized the faculty of understanding as a part of
existence, you will not wonder at its miraculousness. Existence is
wonderful. Its parts arise one out of the other, out of the universal
interrelations of the one world. They all have their predecessors and
causes. But what is true of the relative parts, is not true of the
absolute whole.
I am the son of my father and the father of my son. I am at the same
time father and son. In the same way all things are simultaneously cause
and effect. Although father and son are two different persons, still the
capacity of being father and son rest in the same person, and although
cause and effect are to be distinguished as two things, still they are
two relations of the same thing. Persons and things, causes and effects,
are not independent entities, but relative entities, are
interconnections or relations of the absolute.
The intellect is innate in us, and with it and through it also the
consciousness of being, although it is innate in us only as the teeth of
the child which grow after birth. Everything that we become aware of is
known only as a part of the universe. In so far as this is wonderful,
the consciousness of causality is miraculous. But, in fact, the
knowledge of the causality of all things is innate wisdom the same as
that of the color of all white and black horses. At the same time it
must be observed that every innate knowledge is in part acquired, and
every acquired knowledge in part innate, so that both kinds intermingle
and form one category.
My whole argument aims to convince you that all things are worldly
things, and their causality is only another name for the same thing,
just as the German _brot_ is called _pain_ in French and _bread_ in
English. Thus we derive the firm conviction that if there is _pain_ in
heaven there will be bread, and if there are things, there will be
causes and effects, or interrelation with the unit of existence.
The mystery of causality is sometimes expressed by the statement that we
possess the indubitable knowledge which extends beyond all experience
that wherever a change takes place there must have preceded another
change. Indeed, we have the faculty of recognizing the unity in the
infinite multiplicity, and infinite multiplicity in the unity.
Multiplicity, change, motion--who is to split hairs about them, who will
make fine distinctions? The intellect is the photographic organ of the
infinite motion and transformations called the "world." It is and
possesses the consciousness of cosmic changes. Is it a wonder that it
knows that there is interrelation in its things, that no part of the
world, not a particle of its motion and transformations, stands alone by
itself, that everything is connected and mutually dependent in and with
the universe? Because this understanding is in a way innate in the
intellect, therefore it understands that there is nothing but change,
infinitely proceeding transformations. And if it detaches any single
thing from this process, it knows that changes preceded it and changes
will follow.
In short, we must not marvel at any single part of nature, not even at
the intellect, but admire the whole universe. Then fetishism will at
last end and a true cult, the cult of world truth, can begin.
The art of thinking, my dear Eugene, is not so easy. For this reason I
keep on warning you against misunderstanding. I do not mean to advise
you with the foregoing against admiring any single part of nature, or of
art, a landscape or a statue. My teaching merely tends to moderate
admiration by the reflection that the whole world is wonderful, that
everything is beautiful, so that nothing ugly remains. The distinction
between beautiful and ugly is only relative. Even when I say that the
true worship of God, the cult of truth, cannot begin until idol worship
ceases, you will appreciate the phrase and will not insinuate that I do
not value the cultivation of science in the past, or that I hate idol
worship to the extent of forgetting what I have emphasized repeatedly,
viz., that idol worship is also worship of God, and error a paving stone
on the way toward truth. The most minute thing is a magnitude.
Everything is true, good, and beautiful, for the universe is absolute
truth, beauty and goodness. I conclude with the words of Fr. von Sallet:
A sunny view of world and life
Is balm for brain and heart,
It is with health and beauty rife,
With noblest works of art.
But do not for a moment think
That it is captured in a wink.
The golden harvest does not grow,
Unless the early tempests blow.
And only bitter woe and strain
Will bright and lofty wisdom gain.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] E. g. That of natural existence.--EDITOR.
SEVENTEENTH LETTER.
My subject, dear Eugene, is the simplest in the world, but it requires
thorough treatment for all its full understanding. So every letter is in
a way but a repetition of the same argument. "It is remarkable," says
Schopenhauer, "that we find the few main theses of pre-socratic
philosophy repeated innumerable times. Also in the works of modern
thinkers, such as Cartesius, Spinoza, Leibniz, and even Kant, we find
that their few main theses are repeated over and over."
Now I ask you to consider what I said in my first letters, viz., that
the titles of the principal philosophical works reveal that philosophy
is engaged in the study of logic, in the analysis of the intellect and
the art of its use. You will then recognize that in the very nature of
the subject my presentation of the matter lacks systematization. It has
no real beginning and end, because its object, the intellect, is
interconnected with the whole universe, which is without beginning and
end, which has neither before nor after, neither above nor below.
You may venture that the relation of the intellect to the universe does
not concern the intellect especially, but is a universal matter. That
would be true.
But it is easy to show that the art of thinking and wisdom of the world
are identical. And although the universal interrelation of things is
germain to all things and subjects, yet its consideration is a special
task of logic which treats all objects of thought summarily.
My subject therefore begins everywhere, even though it is a specialty.
Hence I take the liberty to take my departure from any literature which
I happen to study. In the present letter, I deal with "logical
investigations" of the prominent Professor Trendelenburg. His is a bulky
volume, but you need not fear that I shall weary you with its
subtleties. As a rule I read only the preface of philosophical works of
the second and third order, their introduction and perhaps the first few
chapters. Then I am approximately informed as to what I may expect from
them further on. One frequently finds statements which, if they do not
throw new light on the subject, still bring out in bolder relief some of
the accomplishments of historical research in our field. And in order
that the son may not trust to the father alone, which might lead to
distrust, I connect my argument with some statements of Trendelenburg.
In the preface to the second edition the author complains of the "dull
headache" which the Hegelian intoxication has left in Germany and says:
"Philosophy will not resume its old power until it becomes consistent,
and it will not become consistent until it grows in the same way that
all other sciences do. In other words, it must not take a new departure
in every brain and then quit, but it must approach its problems
historically and develop them. The German prejudice must be abandoned,
according to which the philosophy of the future is supposed to look for
a new principle. This principle has already been found. It consists in
the organic world conception, the fundaments of which are resting in
Plato and Aristotle."
The Professor is right, but he overlooks that the philosophers, even of
modern times, do not begin "each on his own account," do not have "each
his own principle," or if they have, such a "false originality" is but
the indifferent attribute of historical development which has handed the
object of logic, the true art of thought, from generation to generation
in an ever brighter condition.
I repeat this emphatically for pedagogic reasons, because I consider it
essential to convince you and the reader that the apparent paradoxes
which I state are the objects of discussion since time immemorial. I
also wish to stimulate you to a study of the master works of philosophy
which show the cheering spectacle, in the persons of the most brilliant
specimens of the human mind, of the onward march of this mind from
darkness to light.
In order that the wheat contained in this human treasure box may not be
concealed by the tares, I am endeavoring to throw light on the outcome
of the historical development of philosophy, and for this purpose I
continue to discuss the question by taking my departure in this instance
from some further statements of Trendelenburg.
"It is a peculiarity of philosophical methods of reasoning to recognize
a part in the whole, and it is tacitly assumed that the whole is
descended from a thought which determines the parts. On the other hand,
it is peculiar to empirical methods of analysis to study the parts
without regard to their interrelation, or at best to collect them and
put them together, and it is tacitly assumed that every point is
something peculiar in itself which must be studied apart from all the
rest."
"The aim of all human understanding is always to solve the miracle of
divine creation by further creative thought. When this task is
undertaken in detail, the detail study forces one on to other things:
for things must go backwards toward their dissolution by the same force
through which they arose out of the depths."
These sentences state the problem before us. Shall we use the intellect
philosophically, or shall we use it empirically? We are striving to
understand the parts and the whole, and this is identical with the
research after a systematical world philosophy, or with the art of
dialectics. Now we must state in the first place that thinking of any
kind, whether it be philosophical or empirical, is of the same species,
that the same kernel is contained in both forms. Roses are different
flowers from carnations, but the flower nature is in both of them. Thus
the nature of thought is contained in both philosophical and empirical
thinking. The distinction is well enough, but their unity must not be
lost sight of.
The philosophers, he says, seek to understand the detail by the whole;
the empirical thinkers analyze the details without regard to
interrelations. But both methods of research are different specimens of
the same genus, and both of them are one-sided when their
interconnection is overlooked. The empirical thinker who seeks to
understand the details in their isolation, thinks philosophically, when
he regards his special research as a contribution to the whole, and the
philosopher, who seeks to understand the detail by the whole, thinks
empirically when he rightly regards all details as attributes of the
whole.
Trendelenburg, then, has expressed his case very obscurely. Both methods
of study, if employed one-sidedly, entirely misconceive the art of
thinking. The philosophers err when they regard the intellect as the
only source of understanding and truth; it is only a part of truth and
must be supplemented by all the rest of the world. On the other hand,
the empirical thinkers err when they look for understanding and truth
exclusively in the outer world, without taking into account the
intellectual instrument by the help of which they lift their treasures.
In fact, such one-sided philosophers exist only in theory; I mean there
are some who imagine that truth could be one-sided. But in practice they
all testify, much against their will, to the inevitable interconnection
of matter and mind, of inside and outside. In the practical use of the
intellect everybody shows that the part operates in the whole, and that
the whole is active in its parts.
We know _a priori_ that the universe is a whole. The universal existence
can be conceived only as of one kind or nature. The mere thought that
there might be something which does not partake of the nature of the
universe is no thought, because it is a thought without sense or reason.
The whole world is the supreme being, though I grant that we have but a
vague conception of it. We have as yet no detailed, true, conception of
the universe, but it is gradually acquired in the course of science.
Still, our conception will never be perfect because details are
infinitesimal and the absolute being is infinite growth.
As to details, we know them more or less accurately and yet not
accurately, because even the most minute part of the infinite is
infinite. All science has searched in vain for atoms. What our
understanding knows, has always been nothing but predicates or
attributes of truth, although they are true attributes and are truly
understood by us.
I emphasize the inadequacy of all modes of thought and of all
understanding in opposition to those who make an idol of science. I
emphasize the truth of all perceptions in opposition to those
knownothings who claim that truth cannot be understood, but can only be
admired and worshipped. Hence it follows for our theory of understanding
that intellect and reason and the art of thought are no independent
treasure boxes which make any revelations to us. They are theoretical
classifications which in practice are operative only in the universal
interconnection of things. Understanding, perceiving, judging,
distinguishing and concluding, etc., are unable to produce any truths.
They can only enlighten and clarify experience by logical classification
and distinction. Because man produces works which are preceded by
planning, therefore the philosophical mode of research has "assumed that
the whole is descended from a thought." But this is an assumption of
human origin, which is shown to be without foundation on closer
analysis. The plans of our works are copies of natural originals and are
"free creations of the mind" only in a limited sense. The artists are
well aware of the natural descent of their thoughts and fictions. To
regard the world as the outcome of thought is a perverse logic. It is
the first condition of rational, proletarian, thought to recognize the
intellect and its products as attributes of the world subject.
EIGHTEENTH LETTER
Just as in political history action and reaction follow one another,
just as periods of economic prosperity are alternated by periods of
depression, so we find in literature a periodical fluctuation between
philosophical and anti-philosophical tendencies.
After Hegel had for a time thoroughly aroused the spirits, a time of
apathy followed, so that this hero of thought who shortly before had
been almost idolized could be attacked and reviled. For about a decade,
a philosophical breeze has now once more been blowing. The subject of
logic, the theory of understanding, is again the object of universal
attention. This movement is stimulated by important discoveries in
science, such as the heat equivalent of Robert Mayer, the origin of
species by Darwin, etc., and natural science and philosophy may be
compared to two miners who are digging a tunnel, so that sharp ears on
both sides can hear the blows of the hammers and the clanging of the
tools.
There is much truth in this picture, but it may also lead to
misunderstandings. By the vivisection of frogs and rabbits, by boring
into the brain, physiology will not discover the mind. No microscope, no
telescope, will reveal the nature of reason and truth or the art of
logical discernment.
Neither will Lazarre Geiger, Max Müller, Steinthal, and Noiré succeed in
philology in solving the "last questions of all knowledge" by the help
of any primitive arch-language.
At the same time, the value of the co-operation of these gentlemen is
not denied, only I desire to point out that the comparison with the
tunnel is not quite accurate. What Marx said of economic formulas, is
true of logical formulas: "In their analysis neither the microscope nor
chemical reagents are of any service. The power of abstraction must
replace them both."
The two sciences will finally meet, not because each one of them digs
away in its own one-sided fashion, but because the miners meet after
working hours and exchange their experiences. And the philosophers may
be the dominant party, because they are specialists in logic and
therefore prepared to utilize anything which may serve their purpose, no
matter from what side it comes. The other party, on the other hand, has
its own specialties and promotes the cause of logic in a secondary and
involuntary fashion.
Natural science has its own monism which is distinguished from
philosophical proletarian monism in that it does not appreciate the
historical outcome of philosophical research. One of the most prominent
representatives of the former is Noiré. He entitles one of his little
works "Monistic Thought," but shows himself on its pages as a very
unclear dualist. He speaks of the "dual nature of causality" and relates
that the mind operates with a different causality than the mere
mechanical one. He calls this other "sensory causality."
According to him the world has only two attributes: "Motion and
sensation are the only true and objective qualities of the world....
Motion is the truly objective ... though it is admitted that it gives us
only the phenomenon.... Sensation makes up the internal nature of
things. Every subject, whether man or atom, is endowed with the two
qualities of all beings, viz., motion and sensation."
Thereupon I have carefully looked for an explanation in Noiré's works,
why he regards the nature of things as composed of an external and an
internal quality, and why sensation should not be regarded as a sort of
motion, but the only reason I could find was the dualistic nature of his
"monistic" reasoning.
As Schopenhauer provided the whole world with a "will," so Noiré
provides it with "sensation."
Kant and his "Critical Philosophy" held in their time that our intellect
perceives only the phenomena of nature, while the mystic law of
causality, according to him, points to a hidden being, which cannot be
perceived but must be believed, which we may venerate but must leave
undisturbed by science. Schopenhauer, his brilliant successor, who in
spite of his brilliancy did not materially advance the cause of
philosophy, mystified the problem of causality by his discovery that the
nature of the world is will power. These teachings of Kant and
Schopenhauer are dressed up anew and mixed with the recent discoveries
of science by Noiré. But he entirely ignores the work of Schelling and
Hegel, who by their criticisms have made evident the lack of logic in
the Kantian separation of phenomenon (apparition) from noumenon
(essence), of cause from effect.
You are familiar with the silly question whether Goethe or Schiller,
Shakespeare or Byron, is the greater poet, and you will not think that I
am trying to elevate Hegel above Kant or Kant above Hegel. They are just
two cogs on the spinning wheel of history. If the second crushes what
the first has cracked, such is the result of their succession.
Natural science is also a valuable co-operator in the solution of the
world problem, not so much by digging in the logical tunnel itself, or
making amateur excursions into the fields of philosophy or metaphysics,
but because it elucidates and renders tangible the special object of
logic in such far-embracing objects as the unity of natural forces or of
animal species. The scientific presentation of this special object,
however, requires a brain armed with the full equipment of the
historical outcome of philosophy.
Now you must not believe that I am conceited enough to place my own
little personality on the pedestal as the only true philosopher. I am
too well aware of my shortcomings as a self-educated man. But seeing
that I have striven earnestly and without prejudice since my young days
to understand the high object of my studies, I feel in my heart a
certain confidence in my qualification to deal with it. On the other
hand, I know my lack of that sort of learning which is required in order
to be able to present the scientifically much-courted nature of the
human mind in such a form and with such emphasis as its sublime
character deserves. And if I, nevertheless, come before the public on
various occasions with my tentative works, I offer as an excuse that
hitherto the Messiah has not appeared who will come after me and whose
John the Baptist I should like to be.
You, my dear Eugene, will take me soberly and reduce my resounding words
to their proper measure, when I, in the intoxication of enthusiasm, flow
over like that now and then. You know that I am no hero worshipper.
Though all research is but the product of individual minds, the mind of
each man is a part of the universal mind which produces science. Now
follows the point which forms the conclusion of all my letters: The
intellect which produces science is indeed a part of man, but still more
a part of the world, it is the universal world intellect, the reason of
the absolute, the absolute reason.
The study of this intellect at work, not merely in shoemaking, in
anatomy, or in astronomy, but in all fields, in the infinite, of its
life in the absolute, is the means by which the art of logic is
acquired. It is true that the infinite exists only in finite parts, and
you cannot conceive of the infinite directly, you can perceive it only
in its parts. And in perceiving them you must always remember that every
part is an infinite piece of the infinite universe.
In his "Introduction and Proofs of a Monistic Theory of Understanding,"
Noiré, after enumerating the new points contained in his work, adds
sneeringly that he is "not in a position to give any new clews as to the
nature of the absolute." For this very reason I want to denounce his
"Monism" as a shallow piece of work, which offers only the name instead
of the essence.
The well-known Ernst Hæckel knows a great deal more about this subject.
In a lecture given at the twenty-fifth convention of natural scientists
in Eisenach, he calls the monistic view of nature "a grand pantheistic
one." The essence of all religion, according to him, consists in the
"conviction of a final and unmistakably common cause of all things." And
he continues: "In the admission that with the present day organization
of our brain, we are unable to penetrate to the final cause of all
things, the critical natural philosophy and dogmatic religion agree."
Whether the professor is one of those natural philosophers who regard
the human mind as too narrow for the understanding of the "unmistakably
(hence somewhat understood) common cause of all things," is not quite
clear to me, nor probably to the famous scientist himself. For he adds:
"The more we progress in the understanding of nature, the more we
approach that unattainable final cause." And further on: "The purest
form of monistic faith culminates in the conviction of the unity of God
and nature."
Now I ask: If nature, God, and absolute truth are one and the same
thing, have we not learned something about the "final cause of all
things?" What necessity is there in that case for speaking in such an
abjectedly humble tone of human understanding, or to assign nothing but
straw and husks to it, in the language of Hegel?
You see, then, that Hæckel has a higher estimate of absolute nature than
Noiré who does not care to have anything to do with the nature of the
absolute. But my object at this moment is to convince you that neither
the one nor the other of these two, nor natural science, so-called, is
directly digging in the tunnel which will give us light on the question
of the limits of our understanding and the final cause of things. Our
logic, on the other hand, which treats the intellect as a part of
nature, cultivates a natural science that includes the mere empirical
natural science in the same way in which the day of twenty-four hours
includes the day of twelve hours and the night.
Natural science proper deals mainly with tangible things. Light and
sound, the objects of eye and ear, are still included in its studies.
The objects of smell and taste stand on the dividing line. But the
socalled sciences of the mind, such as grammar and politics, political
economy and history, morals and law, and most decidedly logic, are
entirely excluded.
Such a limitation is well enough, if we remember that it is purely
formal. However, it must not overlook the bridge which leads from
limited nature to universal, infinite, nature.
The monism of natural science has a far too narrow view of the universe.
When it says that "all is motion," it says just as little or as much as
Solomon with his "all is vain." Everything is crooked and straight,
everything great and small, everything temporal and eternal, everything
truth and life. But nothing is thus said to show the meaning of
distinction in this world, to explain how rest exists in motion, and
sense in nonsense.
In order to differentiate logically we must know that everything is
everything, that the universe or absolute is its own cause and the final
cause of all things, which embraces all distinctions, even that of
causality and that between matter and mind.
NINETEENTH LETTER
"Philosophy should not try to be edifying," said Hegel. This means that
religious feeling is far below scientific thought. But there is a
reverse side to this sentence, viz., that thoughts which do not rise to
the edifying interconnection of all things, no matter whether they
remain stuck in some specialty on account of frivolousness or of
narrowmindedness, are far below a wise world philosophy.
In a former letter I have already emphasized, and I hope to prove it
more convincingly, that the conception of "God," or of the absolute, is
indispensable for a logical world philosophy.
You know that in my dictionary the gods and divinities of all religions
and denominations are "idols," and justly so, since they are all
manufactured images. Instead of the entire universe, they worship a more
or less unessential part of it.
The religions show by their idolatry, the sciences frequently by their
little creditable indifference, that they have no conception of the
intellect and its art of reasoning.
The universe is a familiar conception. Everybody uses it, and there is
apparently little to say about it. But in fact it is the conception of
all conceptions, the being of all beings, the cause of itself which has
no other cause and no other being beside itself. That the whole world is
contained in the universe is so obvious that you may wonder at my waste
of words over such a matter-of-fact thing. But when you consider that
the people have always searched for a world cause outside of the world,
together with a beginning of the world and a transcendental truth, then
you will see that they have not grasped the conception of the world as a
whole, as a universe. And if that is admitted, then the proof that it is
the cause of all causes, the beginning of all beginnings, and the truth
of all truths, is not such a superfluous undertaking.
Now you may say that it is presumptuous to try to understand the whole
universe at once. This objection is justified in a way, according to the
interpretation of the words. Still I hope that it will be my
justification to declare that it is not a question of understanding the
universe in detail, but only in general, not each and everything in its
differentiation, but only in a summary way. And it is only the edifying
conception of the universe as a whole which will open for you the door
to the understanding of the human mind, of thought, and the art of using
it. We wish to understand _the_ conception; not this or that conception,
but the whole conception, the conception of the whole. You will no
longer indulge in the superstition that the faculty of thought or
understanding is a thing apart from the world's interconnection. I
presume that you have now learned enough about the art of thought to be
sure not to think of anything without its worldwide interrelation. For
so long as one imagines that a piece of wood or a stone is a thing in
itself, without connection with light and air, with Earth, Moon, and
Sun, he has a very barbarian conception of the things of this world.
I maintain that the understanding of the human faculty of reason and the
art of its use are inseparable from the world concept. And I want this
understood in the sense, that it is not a mistake to distinguish between
the internal mind and the outside world, but that these are merely
formal distinctions of the essentially indivisible and absolute
universe.
The concept of this true God or divine, because universal, Truth shows
on close analysis that it includes the special truth of the art of
thought as well as all other sciences, and pre-eminently the science of
thought, because this science must not limit itself to any special
thing, but must be world wisdom by its very will and nature.
To understand the universe, then, means to become aware that this being
of all beings has no beginning, no cause, no truth nor reason outside
and beside itself, but has everything in and by itself. To understand
the universe means to recognize that one is rushing beyond the worldly
infinity into the realm of fantastic transcendentalism and abusing the
intellect, when illogically applying such terms as beginning and end,
cause and effect, being and not being, to the absolute universe. Such an
illogical use of the faculty of thought is well illustrated and rebuked
by the poet who questions and answers:
"And when my life has passed away,
What will become of me?
The world has one eternal day,
'Thereafter' cannot be."
In order to acquire the universal sense, you will strive to understand
that the universe includes all relative things, while as a whole it
embodies the absolute or the edifying deity.
If you would become world-wise, you must learn that the things called
opposites and contradictions have a different meaning than is ordinarily
applied to them by the logic of the idolators. They say that God and the
world, body and soul, truth and error, life and death, etc., are
irreconcilable antipodes; that they exclude one another; that they
cannot be brought under the same roof, but must be kept wide apart by
the laws of eternal reason. But this doctrine of contradiction is merely
narrow dogmatism, which confuses the minds instead of enlightening them.
Certainly, death differs from life, the perishable from the
imperishable, black from white, crooked from straight, large from small.
Who would be silly enough to deny that? But even the apparently most
contradictory and opposite things may be classified under the same
genus, family, or species, as twins in a mother's womb. The same thing
that does not prevent male and female from sitting in the same nest,
does not prevent the most widely different things, in spite of their
separate characters, from being one and the same, from being two pieces
of the same caliber. You are certainly still the same Eugene that you
were as a little baby, and yet you are at the same time another. The
experts in physiology even claim that they can compute how often a man
of sixty has changed his flesh, bones, skin, and hair. Although the old
man is the same individual that he was when first born, yet he never
remained the same.
You will see by this illustration that all difference is of the same
nature, a general, supreme, universal being, absolute and divine, and
this absolute world being is highly edifying, because it comprises all
other beings and is the Alpha and Omega of all things.
Is this world-god a mere idea? No, it is the truth and life itself. And
it is very interesting to note that the so-called "ontological proof of
the existence of God" agrees very well with the world truth which I
proclaim in the tabernacle of logic. This proof is originally attributed
to the learned Anselmo of Canterbury. However that may be, it is certain
that Descartes and Spinoza support him with their famous names. They
hold that the "most perfect being" must necessarily have existence,
because otherwise it would not be the most perfect.
"I understood very well," writes Descartes in the fourth section of his
"Method of Correct Thought," "that in accepting the hypothesis of a
triangle I would have to accept the fact that the sum of its three
angles is equal to two right angles. But nothing convinced me of the
presence of such a triangle, while I found that my conception of the
most perfect being was as inseparably linked to existence as my
conception of a triangle is to the identity of the sum of its angles
with two right angles.... Hence it is certainly as undeniable as any
geometrical proof can be that God exists as this most perfect being."
This argument appears to me as clear as daylight and ought to convince
you, not of the existence of a transcendental idol, but of the truth of
the absolute and most perfect world being. If you were to remark that
this perfectness is not so very great, considering its many obvious
imperfections, I should ask you not to split hairs and to recognize with
sane senses that these imperfections of the world belong as logically to
the perfect world as the evil desires belong to virtue which becomes
virtue only by the test of overcoming them. The conception of a
perfection which has no imperfections to overcome would be a silly idea.
Now in conclusion let me say a few words of apology for continually
interchanging the universe and the concept of the universe. I frequently
speak of the idea of a thing as if it were the thing itself. But see
here! Do you not ask on seeing the portrait of some person unknown to
you: Who is this? And do you not interchange the portrait for the person
itself, without difficulty and misunderstanding? The idea stands in the
same relation to the thing, as the portrait to the person it represents.
This remark is directed against that unsound logic which knows only the
separation of the idea from the thing, of reason from its objects, but
does not grasp the mere formality of such a distinction, does not
appreciate the unity of the world, the edifying and supreme truth, the
truth of the supreme being.
This letter, my dear Eugene, pleads for edification, but only for that
kind of edification which includes the unedifying, whereby edification
is sobered down. If you would give the name of pantheism to this world
philosophy, you should remember that it is not a sentimental and
exalted, but a common sense pantheism, a deification which has the taste
of the godless.
TWENTIETH LETTER
Dear Eugene:
Today I am going to present my case with the precision of a
schoolmaster.
The concept of white cabbage embraces all white cabbage heads that ever
were and ever will be.
The concept of cabbage embraces red, white, and many other kinds of
cabbage. The concept of vegetable embraces a still wider range. The
organic field is still more comprehensive. And finally the world concept
embraces everything which we know and don't know, the end of which we
cannot conceive, and which therefore is called infinite.
When we trace our steps backward over the same reasoning, we find at
once that the universal concept is divided into two parts, viz., the
universe and the conception of it. We thus find the world in the concept
and the concept in the world, so that both of these parts are
interconnected, each is the predicate of the other, and whether we turn
the thing to the right or to the left, the concept is in the world and
the world in the concept.
Now it is true that the concept, or the faculty of understanding, is the
object of our study rather than the world outside of it. The faculty of
understanding, by the way, is nothing but a collective noun for all
concepts, hence simply another name for concept in general. But what I
eternally repeat is this: We cannot make a concept separated from all
the rest of the world the object of our study, because that would be an
empty abstraction which does not take on any meaning until we connect it
with the world, for instance the special concept of cabbage with
sense-perceived cabbage and so forth.
The concepts of white cabbage, cabbage in general, vegetables, or
plants, etc., are all of them special concepts and at the same time
general concepts. The one and the other is relative. Compared to the
various species it includes, the general concept of cabbage is abstract,
while compared to the general concept of vegetables it is concrete. And
so it is with all concepts. They are abstract and concrete at the same
time. Only the final concept, the world concept, is neither concrete nor
abstract, but absolute. It is the concept of the absolute, which is
indispensable for an understanding of logic.
We found a while ago that the absolute world concept consisted of two
parts, viz., the concept and the world. In the same way, the chemists
teach us that water consists of two elements, each of which by itself
does not make any water, while their compound makes pure water. But we
do not need such distant illustrations. My table in its present
composition is something different from what it would be if the same
pieces were put together in some other way and without a plan.
Therefore the world concept is a far more sublime concept than all the
parts of which it consists. And in order to make this quite clear, I may
honor this compound of the world and its concept by a special name, say
"universe," so as to distinguish it from its component parts.
Now I declare, without fear of having the word turned in my mouth by any
sophist, that the world embracing the thought, or the universe, is the
absolute which includes everything, while the world and the thought of
it, each by itself, are but classifications or relative things.
We wish to understand thought, not empty abstract thought, but the
universal world-embracing thought, the thought in a philosophical sense.
This is not mere thought, but living truth, the universe, the absolute,
the supreme being.
It is with the universe and its parts as it is with a telescope and its
concentric rings. Our intellect is a special ring which gives us a
picture of the whole concentric thing. This photographer, as I have
called it in a former letter, is not the object of our study for its own
sake, nor for the sake of its pictures, but rather for the sake of the
original, of the universe. It is as if somebody were to buy a portrait
of some historically renowned person. No matter how much concerned the
buyer would be with the picture, in the last analysis he is concerned
with that person itself. So it is with the art of understanding the
absolute, with world wisdom, which we study not for the sake of the
wisdom, but of the world itself.
This lengthy discussion might have been cut short by simply speaking of
the world instead of going to so much trouble on account of the world
concept. But I should then miss my point, which is that the human
intellect is a part of the world, and that the ideological distinction
which separates this intellect from the rest of the world, requires for
the whole an embracing term.
The absolute concept is the concept of the absolute, of the supreme
being. To it applies all the true, good, and beautiful ever attributed
to God, and it is also that being which lends logic, consistency, and
form to all thought.
Plato is a philosopher who has thrown a wonderful light on the faculty
of understanding, though he has not fully explained it. In his dialogue
entitled "Gorgias," he makes Socrates say the following: "Does it seem
to you that men want that with which they occupy themselves at any time,
or that for the sake of which they undertake whatever they may be
engaged in? Do those, for instance, who take some medicine prescribed by
the physicians seem to want that which they do ... or to want that for
the sake of which they take medicine, viz., health?... In the same way
those who go on board of ships and trade do not want that which they are
doing; for who would care to go to sea and face danger or conquer
obstacles? That for which they go to sea is that which they want, viz.,
to become rich; they are going to sea for the sake of acquiring wealth."
Plato thus says that the immediate purposes of men are not their real
purposes, but means to an end, means to welfare or for "good." He
therefore continues: "It is in pursuit of good, then, that we go when we
go, because we are after something better, and we stand still for the
sake of the same good."
Now let us go a step farther than Socrates and Plato. Just as men's
actions are truly done, not for the sake of some immediate purpose, but
of the ulterior, of welfare, and just as their socalled ethical actions
are justified only by the general wellbeing, so all things of the world
are not substantiated by their immediate environment, but by the
infinite universe. It is not the seed planted in the soil which is the
cause of the growing plant, as the farmer thinks, but the Earth, the
Sun, the winds, and the weather, in short, the whole of nature, and that
includes the seed germ.
If we apply this reasoning to our special object, the faculty of
understanding, we find that it is not a narrowly human, nor a
transcendental, but a universal cosmic faculty. According to Homer, the
immortal gods call things by other names than mortal men. But once you
have grasped the concept of the absolute, you understand the language of
the gods, you understand that the intellect by itself is but a minute
particle, while in the interrelation with the universe it is an absolute
and integral part of the universal absolute.
All things have a dual nature, all of them are limited parts of the
unlimited, the inexhaustible, the unknowable. Just as all things are
small and great, temporal and eternal, so all of them including the
human mind are knowable and unknowable at the same time. We must not
idolize the faculty of thought nor forget its divine nature. Man should
be humble, but without bowing in doglike submission to a transcendental
spirit, and he should be sustained by the sublime consciousness that his
spirit is the true one, the spirit of universal truth.
Everything can be seen by eyes, including those of a hawk. Just as the
eye is the instrument of vision, so the intellect is the instrument of
thought. And just as spectacles and glasses are means of assisting the
eye in seeing, so senses, experience, and experiments are means of
assisting the intellect in understanding. With this equipment the
intellect can assimilate everything in its conceptions. It understands
"all," but "all" only in a relative sense. We understand all, just as we
buy everything for money. We can buy only what is for sale. Reason and
sunshine cannot be valued in money. We can see everything with eyes, and
yet not everything. Sounds and smells cannot be seen. Just as everything
is great and small, so everything is knowable and unknowable, according
to the meaning given to "everything" in the language of men or gods.
That word has the dual meaning of applying to any particle and to the
whole universe. So is the human mind universal, but only a universal
specialty.
Look at that magnificently colored carnation. You see the whole flower,
and yet you do not see all of it. You do not see its scent nor its
weight. In the human language "whole" means a relative whole, which is
at the same time a part. Every particle of the universe is such a dual
thing. But in the language of the gods, which is spoken by philosophy,
only the absolute universe is whole.
When the subject under discussion is not the intellect, but some other
part of the world, for instance the eyes, the universal concept of the
absolute is not so important, because the faculty of seeing, like the
faculty of wealth, is in little danger of being metaphysically abused.
One knows that eyes which can see around a corner, or through a block of
iron, or which can perceive the scent of a carnation, are as meaningless
as a white sorrel. Even though our eyes cannot see the invisible, that
does not prevent them from being a universal instrument which can see
everything, that is everything visible.
If you understand this, you will also see through the miserable wisdom
of the professors which wallows on its belly in the dust and cries with
the faithful: O Lord, O Lord! similarly to Du Bois-Reymond, who cries
out: _Ignorabimus_! It is true that the human mind is an ignoramus in
the sense that it is ever learning, because there is inexhaustible
material in nature. There is also something unknowable in every particle
of nature, just as there is something invisible in every carnation. But
the unknowable in the sense used by those ignorant people who cannot
understand the human mind because they have a transcendental monster in
their mind, such a monstrous unknowable exists only in the imagination
of the idolators to whom the true spirit reveals itself as little as the
spirit of truth.
Just as surely as we know that there cannot be in heaven any knife
without a blade and a handle, nor any black horses that are white, just
so surely do we know that the faculty of understanding can never and
nowhere be the absolute, but must always be a special faculty. The
concept of understanding, like the concept of a knife, is limited to a
definite instrument. There may be all kinds of knives and intellects,
but nothing exists that has escaped from its own skin or from the
limitation of its own particular concept.
By this standard you may measure the silly thought of those who speak
transcendentally of an unlimited faculty of understanding. They haven't
any right idea of the mind nor of the universe, of the conceivable nor
of the inconceivable, otherwise they would not speak in such a
nonsensical sense of the "Limits of Understanding." In short, you see
that the relative limitation or absoluteness of reason can only be
understood by means of the concept of the absolute.
TWENTY-FIRST LETTER
The proletarian logic of the working class searches after the supreme
being. The working class knows that it must serve but it wants to know
whom to serve. Shall it be an idol or a king? Where, who, what, is the
supreme being to which everything else is subordinate, which brings
system, consistency, logic, into our thought and actions? The next
question is then: By what road do we arrive at its understanding? Any
transcendental revelation being of no use to us, there are only two ways
open: Reason and experience.
Now it is a mistake of common logic to regard these two roads as
separate, while, in fact, they are one and the same common road, which
by the help of empirical reason or reasonable experience leads us to the
point where we recognize that the supreme being to which everything is
subordinate, is nothing special, not a part or a particle, but the
universe itself with all its parts.
We take medicine for the sake of health, we make efforts for the sake of
wealth. But neither health nor wealth are an end in themselves. What
good is health to us, when we have nothing to bite? What good are all
the treasures of Croesus, if health is lacking? Therefore health and
wealth must be combined. Nor is that enough. There is a spirit in us
that drives us farther ahead. There are still other treasures and
requirements, for instance contentment is surely one of them. But the
motive power of the world spirit is so infinite, that it is not
satisfied until it has everything. Everything, then, in other words the
whole world, that is the true end.
Socrates and his school, to whom I alluded in the preceding letter,
wandered the way of separate reason for the purpose of finding the
supreme being, the true, the good, the beautiful. The platonic dialogues
paint a very magnificent picture of the truth that neither health nor
wealth, neither bravery nor devotion, are "the greatest good," but that
it is mainly a question of the understanding and use to which mankind
put these things. Accordingly they are good or bad, they are but
relative "goods." Love and faith, honesty and veracity, are good enough,
but not _the_ good; they only partake of the good. What is sought is
that which is under all circumstances absolutely good, true, and
beautiful.
When Socrates asked his disciples to define the good or reasonable, they
enumerated as a rule a series of good and reasonable specialties, while
the master was continually compelled to instruct them, that his research
was not aimed at those objects. They name important virtues, and he
wants to know what absolute virtue is. They name good things, and he is
looking for _the_ good, for pure goodness, while the good things have
the bad quality of being good only under certain circumstances.
The Socratic school then finds out that only the understanding or the
intellect can find the circumstances under which we may arrive at the
absolute. Understanding, the human mind, philosophy, is to them the
divine. Thus they arrive at their famous "Know thyself," which in their
language means: Hold introspection and rack your brain. But they did not
succeed in thus using the intellect as an oracle. Nor did the Christian
philosophers of later times fare any better with that method, when they
changed the title of the object of their studies and substituted God,
Liberty, and Immortality, for the good, the true, and the beautiful.
In order to get out of the confusion resulting from the many names given
to the object of logic in the course of history, it must be remembered
that pagan as well as Christian research founded their quest for the
absolute on the innate need of understanding the supreme being which was
to be the pivot of all thought and action. Polytheism had to have a
supreme god, no matter whether his name was Zeus or Jupiter. In
consequence of this longing for unity it was very natural that the place
of the many immortals was finally taken by one eternal father of all.
The philosophers are distinguished from the theologians only in so far
as the former seek for the fulcrum of the world more on real than on
imaginary ground.
After more than two thousand years of mediation by intermediary links,
ancient philosophy has at last been transformed into modern
democratic-proletarian logic which recognizes that the intellect is an
instrument which leads to the supreme being on condition that it does
not rack the brain but goes outside of itself and consciously connects
itself with the world outside. This connection constitutes the supreme
being, the imperishable, eternal, truth, goodness, beauty, and reason.
All other things only "partake of it," to use Platonic language.
Although the Socratic school were handicapped by many fantastical
attributes, still they were on the road towards true logic, as neither
health nor wealth, nor any other treasure or virtue satisfied them. They
did not care for true phenomena, but for truth itself. But truth is the
universe, and man must understand that this is the only truth, in order
to be able to use his intellect logically, to be reasonable in the
highest and classical sense of this word.
All the world speaks of logic and logical thought. But when you, my son,
as a thinking man feel the need of getting out of phraseology and
knowing exactly what words should mean, you will hardly find one book
that will give you sufficient light on the subject of logic. The best
book would be the Bible, perhaps. I mean that, when you inquire after
beginning and end, purpose and destination, in short, after that which
would give you and all things a definite support, when you search for
the vortex around which everything revolves, then the Bible does not
tell you about the beginning of this or that part of history, but speaks
of the absolute beginning and end of all history, of the general purpose
and general destination of all existence. That is what I call logic.
The free thinkers were not satisfied with religious mythology, they
wanted to bring consistency and logic into their brains by their own
studies. Plato and Aristotle have done good work along this line. So
have the subsequent philosophers, Cartesius, Spinoza, Kant. The main
impediment for all of them was the obstinate prejudice that man could
have reason in his own brain. Of course, that is where he has it, but it
is not reasonable reason. The intellect shut up in the skull has not
wisdom in its keeping, as the ancients thought. Wisdom cannot be
acquired by racking your brain. Hegel is right: Reason is in the brain,
it is in all things, "everything is reasonable." I merely repeat, then,
that the universe is the true reason.
You will not misunderstand the term "racking your brain." I am not an
opponent of introspective thought, but only desire to call your
attention to the fact that it has led to the wrong habit of separating
thought from sight, hearing, feeling, of divesting the mind of the body.
Just as the Christian looked for salvation outside of the flesh, so the
philosophers looked for reason or understanding outside of the
connection with the rest of the world, outside of experience. It was
especially the research after the nature of the intellect which imagined
it had to creep inside of itself.
When studying the stars, we look at the heavens; when endeavoring to
enrich our knowledge of plants, we gather flowers. But if we attempt to
understand the mind, we must not rack our brain, nor dissect it with an
anatomical knife. We shall indeed find the brain, but not the mind, not
reason.
And even the brain is not so easily cut out, as many an overzealous
materialist may think. The student of anatomy who pries into the nature
of the brain substance knows very well that this substance is not
contained in the head of this or that fellow, but must be sought in many
heads before the average brain is found, which differs materially from
that of Peter or Paul. This will show that your brain is not only your
own, but also "partakes" of the universal brain, and you will easily
conclude from this how much less your reason is yours alone. Hegel is
right: Not only men, but everything is reasonable.
True, the most rotten conditions may be defended by such maxims. Hence
the great logician Hegel has the bad name of having been, not a
philosopher of the people, but a royal state philosopher of Prussia. I
will neither blacken nor whitewash him, nor will I overlook that he left
the great cause in a state of mystical obscurity. But I recognize that
even the worst prejudices, the most perverted morals, laws and
institutions, have their reasonable justification in the times and
conditions of their origin. Such an understanding is immediately
followed by the further insight, that the most reasonable things,
crushed by the wheel of time, will become rotten and unreasonable. In
short, the "good" is not any special institutions, but is found in the
interrelations of the universe. Only the absolute is absolutely good.
And for this reason not only some conservative editors of capitalist
papers, but also the revolutionary authors of the "Communist Manifesto,"
are genuine Hegelians.
TWENTY-SECOND LETTER
Dear Eugene:
Socrates teaches: When we walk, it is not walking, when we stand still,
it is not standing which is our purpose. We always have something
ulterior in view, until finally the general welfare is the true end of
our actions, in other words, the "good." And on closer analysis you will
find that your individual welfare, the socalled egoistic good, is not
enough in itself.
You are not only related to your father, mother, brothers, sisters,
relatives and friends, but also to your community, state, and finally to
the entire population of the globe. Your welfare is dependent on their
welfare, on the welfare of the whole.
I know very well that the horizon of the everyday capitalist minds does
not reach farther than they can see from the steeple of their church.
They think according to the bad maxim: The shirt is closer to the skin
than the coat. If I had to choose between the shirt and the coat, I
should prefer to wear the coat without a shirt rather than to run
around in shirt sleeves as the object of universal ridicule. The old man
who plants a tree the fruits of which he will perhaps never see is not
such a capitalist mind, otherwise he would sow seeds that would ripen
during this year's summer.
At this juncture we must remember that the disciples of Socrates who
looked for the absolute under the name of the "good," were in so far
narrow as they conceived of it only from the moral, specifically human,
standpoint, instead of at the same time considering its cosmic side.
Just as health and wealth belong together, and even these are not
sufficient for human welfare which further requires all social and
political virtues, so the good is not comprised in the interrelations of
all mankind, but passes beyond them and connects itself with the entire
universe. Without the universe man is nothing. He has no eyes without
light, no ears without sound, no morals without physics. Man is not so
much the measure of all things; his more or less intimate connection
with all things is rather the measure of all humanity. Not narrow
morality, but the universe, the supreme being, is the good in the very
highest meaning of the word, is absolute good, right, truth, beauty, and
reason.
In my preceding letter I spoke of universal reason and said that not
alone men, but also mountains, valleys, forests and fields, and even
fools and knaves were reasonable. Now you are familiar with that
student's song: "What's Coming from the Heights?" and you know that it
makes everything leathern. It speaks of a leathern hill, a leathern
coach-driver, a leathern letter, even father, mother, and sister are of
leather. And I mention this simply for the purpose of showing that I
understand that we cannot call leather reasonable and reasonable
leathern without brewing a mixture of language which is lacking the mark
by which all reasonable language is distinguished from chattering,
howling, and roaring. Language is only reasonable when it classifies the
world and distinguishes things by different names.
This is easily understood. But it is more difficult to see that those
who use their intellect without logical training exaggerate distinctions
to such an extent that they ignore the connection between them. All
things are not only distinct, but also connected. But logic so far must
be blamed for not rising to the recognition of the interrelation of all
things. The science of understanding frequently treats reason and
experience as if they were two different things without a common nature.
Therefore, I make it a point to insist that there is no experience
without reason and no reason without experience.
The linguists who dispute about the question whether reason has
developed after language or language after reason agree that both belong
together. One cannot speak without the use of reason, or talk without
sense, because chattering, or babbling, or whatever one may wish to call
it, are everything else but language. On the other hand, there can be no
reason without naming the things of this world, so as to distinguish
between leather and lady, between reason and experience.
Of course, the idea of a leathern lady is only a youthful prank. Still
it is calculated to illustrate the dialectic transfusion of all names
and things, of all subjects and predicates. It shows indirectly that
according to common sense thought, reason has its home only in the brain
of man, and that this reason is nevertheless unsound when it does not
know and remember that the individual human brain is connected with all
brains, and reasons with the whole world, so that only all existence and
the entire universe is reasonable in the highest meaning of the word.
In order to be able to use your reason in all research and on all
objects in a reasonable manner, you must know that the whole world has
one nature, even leather and your sister. Apparently there is a wide
gulf between these two, and yet in both of them the same forces are
active, just as a black horse has the same horse nature as a white
horse, so that from this point of view your sister is indeed leathern
and leather sisterly. Such statements sound paradoxical enough, yet I
insist on making them in this extreme manner in order to fully reveal
the absolute oneness of all existence, since it is the indispensable
basis of a reasonable understanding of logic.
Take one of the questions of the day now agitating the public mind, for
a further illustration. Two tendencies are now observed in the most
radical political movement of the nations. One of them is called
propaganda of the deed. It works in Russia and Ireland with dynamite,
powder, and lead. The other recommends the propaganda of the word, of
the vote, and of lawful agitation. And the difference between these two
is not discussed reasonably with a view to ascertaining for whom, when,
where, and why, this or that propaganda is fitting, but every one tries
to present his relative truth with the fanatical sectarianism of those
who claim absolute truth. But if you have grasped the method of getting
at truth, the true method of using your reasoning faculty, you will take
sides for one thing today and for another thing tomorrow, because you
will understand that all roads are leading toward Rome. And if some of
the comrades outvote you occasionally, you will still value these
antagonists as friends, and if you combat them, even in a war to the
knife, this will still be a relative war, a use of the knife with
reason.
Our proletarian logic is tolerant, not fanatical. This logic does not
want to be reasonable without passion, nor passionate without reason. It
does not abolish the difference between friend and foe, between truth
and falsehood, between reason and nonsense, but calms the fanaticism
which exaggerates those distinctions. Its fundamental maxim is: There is
only one absolute, the universe.
Remember well that the conception of a universe which has anything
outside or beside itself is still more senseless, if possible, than the
idea of wooden iron. You thus see that all differences have one common
nature which does not permit a transcendentally wide difference between
things or opinions. Because the universe is the supreme being, therefore
all differences, even those of opinion, are unessential.
For the purpose of studying logic, I entreat you to pay special
attention to the question of essential differences and to test it by
your own experience which will come to you from day to day.
By means of our logic we learn the language of the gods. In the
dictionary of this language, there is only one essential being, the
universal or supreme being. On the other hand, the language of the
mortals calls every particle a "being," but such being can be relative
beings only.
Every ear of a cornfield, every hair of an ox skin, and even every one
of their particles, is such a being. But these relative beings are at
the same time unessential attributes. Thus all differences between the
particles of the world are simultaneously essential and unessential; in
other words, they have a relative existence, they merely partake of the
supreme being, compared to whom they are absolutely unessential. Whether
you are a good or a bad man, whether your country is happy or unhappy,
free or oppressed, is very essential to you or me, but compared with the
great absolute whole it is very unessential. In the universal history
the fate of any single nation has no more significance than one hair on
my head, although none of my hairs is there by mere chance and all of
them have been counted. Hence everything is in its particular and
isolated self an unessential thing, but in the general interrelation
everything is a necessary, reasonable, essential and divine particle.
And now we come to the moral of it all. The human reason, the special
object of logical research, partakes of the nature of the universe. It
is nothing in itself. As an isolated being, it is wholly void and
incapable of producing any understanding or knowledge. Only in
connection, not merely with the material brain, but with the entire
universe, is the intellect capable of existing and acting. It is not the
mere brain which thinks, but the whole man is required for that purpose;
and not man alone, but the total interrelation with the universe is
necessary for the purpose of thinking. Reason itself reveals no truths.
The truths which are revealed to us by means of reason, are revelations
of the general nature of the absolute universe.
If you think of reason in this way, then, my son, you are thinking
reasonably, are world-wise, logical, and true.
TWENTY-THIRD LETTER
(A)
Although we know that there is no actual beginning, because we are
living in the universe without beginning and end, still we mortals must
always begin at a certain point. So I have begun one of my retrospects
over the history of my subject with Plato, and at another time I have
ended with Hegel, although before and after them there has been much
philosophical thought. These two names are luminant points which throw
their light over everything which is situated between them.
The errors of our predecessors are just as useful for the purpose of
illustration as their positive achievements. More even: the errors form
the steps of a ladder which leads toward a universal world philosophy.
We clamber up and down on it, perhaps a little irregularly, but nowadays
the crooked roads of an English park are preferred to the straight
French avenues.
It was an achievement on the part of the Socratic and Platonic schools
to seek the good not in good specialties, but in general good, as a
"pure" or absolute thing, to search for virtue in general instead of
virtues. But it was a mistake which prevented their success, to
exaggerate the distinction between the special and the general.
According to Plato, the black and white horses canter over terrestrial
pavements, but the horse in general, which is neither brown, black, nor
white, neither as slender as a race horse nor as clumsy as a draft
horse, cantered along in the Platonic "idea," in the ideal mists.
Platonic logic lacked what is taught by our present, or if you prefer,
future proletarian logic, viz., the general understanding of the
interrelation of all things, the truth that in spite of their
individual differences all things belong together as individuals of the
same genus. The logical relation between individual and genus stuck
upside down in the brain of the noble Plato.
He lived in a time which is similar to our own time in that the world of
the gods of the ancients was in the same state of dissolution in which
the Christian religions are today. Plato was as little satisfied with
Grecian mythology as a basis for a reasonable explanation of the world,
as we are with Christian mythology. He wanted to ascend to the universal
truth, not by way of little traditional stories, but by scientific
philosophy. His intention was good, but his weak flesh wrestled with a
task which required thousands of years for its solution.
A while ago I said that it was that topsy-turvy view of religion as to
the relation between the special and the general which thwarted Plato.
Let me illustrate a little more in detail in what this religious
topsy-turvydom consisted.
Here we have wind, the waters of the seas, the rays of the sun, chemical
and physical forces, forces of nature. These are specimens of the
universal force of nature. These specimens were regarded with sober
enough eyes by the Greeks, but the general nature sat high upon Olympus
in the form of Zeus. In the same way, the Greeks were familiar with
beautiful things, but beauty was an unapproachable goddess, Aphrodite.
True, the philosopher no longer believed in the gods, but he was
nevertheless still under the influence of transcendental concepts and
thus he mystified the general under the name of the "idea." The Platonic
ideas, like the gods of the heathen, are mystifications of the general.
Plato furthermore shows himself as a descendant of polytheism in this:
Although he clearly distinguished between virtue and virtuous things,
between beauty and beautiful things, between truth and true things, yet
he did not rise to the understanding that all generalities are
amalgamated and unified in the absolute generality, that, in so far, the
good, the true, and the beautiful are identical. The research for the
absolute did not become monistic until Christian monotheism lent a hand.
You will see from this that religion and philosophy form a common
chapter which has the genus of all genera for its object. Faith is
distinguished from science in that the latter no longer bows to the
dictates of imagination and of its organs, the priests, but seeks to
fathom the object of its studies by the exact use of the intellect. A
partial amalgamation of the two is, therefore, quite natural.
"When a woman is strong, isn't she strong after the same conception and
the same strength? By the term _same_," says the Platonic Socrates, "I
mean that it makes no difference whether the strength is in the man or
in the woman."
This quotation, taken from Plato's "Menon," shows that Platonic research
deals with the general, in this case the general concept of strength
which is the _same_ in man or woman, ox or mule, Tom and Jerry. It is
the genus by means of which black and white horses are known as horses,
dogs and monkeys as animals, animals and plants as organisms, and
finally the variations of the whole world as the universe, as the
_same_. Plato has grasped this _same-ness_ in a limited way, for
instance in regard to strength, reason, virtue, etc. But that in an
infinite sense everything is the _same_, that things as well as ideas,
bodies, and souls, are the same, remained for radical proletarian logic
to discover.
Hand in hand with the narrow Platonic conception of the general went a
narrow theory of understanding or science, a wrong conception of the
intellect and its functions. The Socratic Plato and the Platonic
Socrates both call understanding by the name of "remembering." By
praising understanding, they teach us that we must not believe the
priests, but study by the help of our senses. But, nevertheless, they
still teach a wrong method, a narrow art of thought.
In "Menon," the object of study is virtue. Socrates does not exactly
pose as a schoolmaster. He knows that he is called the wisest of men,
but explains that this is so, because others have a conceited opinion of
their wisdom, while his wisdom consists in humbly knowing that he knows
nothing. He does not so much try to teach what virtue is, as to
stimulate his disciples to search for it. But his idea of research is
distorted.
Among the immortal things which he transcendentally separates from
mortal things, he also classifies the soul, "the immortal soul" which
dies and lives again, and has always lived, knows everything, but must
"remember." Thus his research becomes a cudgeling of the brain, an
introspective speculation. He is not looking for understanding by way of
natural science, through the interrelations of the world, but
speculatively through the inside of the human skull.
In order to make his theory of memory plain, Socrates in "Menon" calls
an ignorant slave and instructs him in the fundamentals of geometry. He
quickly succeeds in getting from the ignorant fellow, who at first gives
wrong answers, the correct statements by recalling the connections of
thought by clever questioning. He thus demonstrates to his satisfaction
that man has wisdom _a priori_ in his head. But the Socratic-Platonic
art of logic has overlooked that such wisdom requires concepts which are
fixed in memory by internal _and_ external interrelations. The socalled
immortal soul with its innate wisdom has troubled the world a good while
thereafter.
You must not think that I have a poor opinion of Plato, because I
criticize him in this way. On the contrary, I am highly delighted with
his divine and immortal writings. "Honor to Socrates, honor to Plato,
but still more honor to truth." I also assure you that I am a great
admirer of natural science, but nevertheless I should like to show you
that it indulges in narrow reasoning.
Robert Mayer, the talented discoverer of the equivalent of heat, has
proven that the force of gravitation, of electricity, of steam, of heat,
etc., represents different modes of expression of the same force, of the
force of nature in general. But no, not quite so! He has ascertained the
numerical relation by which the transformations of one force into
another is accomplished. Thus a logical understanding sees that the
various forces and force in general are distinguished in detail but
identical in general. Darwin in his "Origin of Species" has accomplished
a similar demonstration. But neither Mayer nor Darwin have given that
general expression to world unity which is required by the art of logic.
In order to become an adept at this art, you must rise to the
understanding that all forces are various modes of expression of the one
force, all animals and species transformations of animaldom, that on the
moon a part is smaller than the whole, the same as on earth, that there
as well as here fire burns, and that as surely as you have no doubt of
your being, just as surely is there only one being, the infinite,
divine universe which has no other gods beside it, but contains all
forces, materials, and transformations.
This is an innate science which is the cause of all other science, an
innate science which, indeed, must first be awakened in you by "memory."
Hence our proletarian logic instructs you not to rack your brain by mere
introspection, as the ancient philosophers used to do, not to call the
senses impostors nor to search for truth without eyes, nose, and ears,
nor on the other hand to start out with the idea of certain natural
scientists who try to see, hear, and smell understanding without the
help of the intellect.
The mistake committed in making a wrong use of the intellect is a "sin
against the holy ghost." The Socratic-Platonic doctrine of memory is one
extreme side of this sin; the other extreme side is represented by that
modern science which tries to find truth by mere external means and
rejects everything as untrue which is not ponderable or tangible.
As this letter is more intimately connected with the following one than
is ordinarily the case, I take the liberty to unite them under the same
number and mark them with the letters A and B.
(B)
We are still the guests of Plato today, my son, and I should like to
show you that this philosopher, in whose time natural science had barely
developed its first downy feathers, already suspected its stubborn
narrowness, although in a certain sense the Platonic logic was no less
narrow than that of the so-called exact sciences still is to-day, at
least in part. Still Platonic logic had at least the advantage of its
outlook toward the Supreme Being, the absolute, while modern naturalism
is still stuck in the narrow land of specialties. Therefore, I hope that
you will find it interesting to note with me the way in which universal
truth is peeping forth beneath the wings of Platonic speculation.
"Listen, then, to what I am going to say," remarks Socrates in "Phaedo,"
paragraph 45. "In my youth, O Cebes, I had a great interest in natural
science, for it seemed to me a magnificent thing to know the cause of
everything, to learn how everything begins, exists, and passes. A
hundred times I turned to one thing and then to another, reflecting
about these matters by myself. Do animals arise when the hot and the
cold begin to disintegrate, as some claim? Is it the blood, which
enables us to think, or the air or the fire? Or is it none of these, but
rather the brain which produces all perceptions, such as seeing,
hearing, smelling, and does memory and thought then arise by these, and
from thought and memory, when they become adjusted, understanding? And
again, when I considered that all this passes away, and the changes in
heaven and on earth, I finally felt myself poorly qualified for this
whole investigation. Let this be sufficient proof to you: In the things
which formerly were familiar and known to me, I became so doubtful by
this investigation, that I forgot even that which I thought I knew of
many other things, as for instance the question as to how man grows. I
thought that everybody knew that this was caused by eating and drinking.
For when through the food flesh comes to flesh and bone to bone, and in
the same way that which is akin to all the rest of the things which
constitute man, it seemed natural that a small mass would become larger,
and thus a small man grow tall. Does not this appear reasonable to
you?... Consider furthermore this. It seemed enough to me that a man
appeared large when standing by the side of something small, that he
looked taller by one head, and in the same way one horse by the side of
another; or what is still plainer, ten seemed to me more than eight,
because it is more by two, and a thing of two feet longer than that
which measures only one foot, because it exceeds it by one."
Thereupon Cebes asks: "Well, and what do you think of this now?"
"I think, by Zeus," says Socrates, "that I am far removed from knowing
the cause of any of these things. I do not even admit that by adding one
to one I obtain two, by such an addition. For I wonder how it is that
each was supposed to be one when by itself, while now, that they have
been added to one another, they have become two. Neither can I convince
myself that if one thing divides a thing in two, that this division is
the cause of it becoming two. For this would be the opposite way of
making two. But when I heard somebody reading something from a book,
written by Anaxagoras as he said, to the effect that it is reason which
had arranged everything and was the cause of everything, I rejoiced at
this cause.... Now if one were to search for the cause of all things, of
their origin, existence and passing, he should only find out what is the
best way to maintain their existence.... Hence it is not meet that man
should care for anything else in regard to himself as well as to all
other things, but for that which is best and most excellent, and then he
would also know the worst about things, for the understanding of both
is the same. Considering this, I was glad to have found a teacher who
knows about the cause of all things, who suited me, I mean Anaxagoras,
and who would now tell me, first whether the earth is round or flat, and
after telling me that, would also explain to me the necessity for it and
the cause, by pointing to the fact that it was better that it should be
so. And when he claimed that the earth was the center of things, I hoped
he would explain why it was better that it should be the center, and
when he had explained that, I was resolved that I would not ask for any
other cause. In the same way I was going to inquire after the cause of
the sun, the moon, and the other stars, etc.... For I did not believe
that after claiming all this to have been arranged by reason, he would
be dragging in any other cause than that of being best to have it just
so. And this wonderful hope I had to abandon, my friends, when I
continued to read and saw that the man accomplished nothing by reason
and adduces no other reasons relating to the arrangement of things, but
quotes air, and water, and ether, and many other astonishing things.
"And it seemed that it was as if some one said Socrates accomplishes all
things by reason, and then, when he began to enumerate the cause of
everything I do, were to say first that I am sitting here because my
body consists of bones and sinews, and that the bones are hard and are
differentiated by joints, and the sinews so constructed that they can be
extended and shortened, etc. And further, if he tried to name the causes
of our discussion, he would refer to other similar things, such as
sound, and air and hearing, and a thousand and one other things, quite
neglecting the true cause, viz., that it suited the Athenians better to
condemn me, and that it suited me for this reason to stay here and
seemed more just to me to bear patiently the punishment which they have
ordered. For I believe that my bones and sinews would have gone long ago
to the dogs or been carried to the Boeotians, had I not considered it
more just and beautiful to atone to the state than to flee.
"It is very illogical, then, to name such causes. But if any one were to
say that I should not be able to do what I please without these things
(sinews and bones, and whatever else I may have), he would be right. But
it would be a very thoughtless contention to say that these things are
the cause of my actions, instead of my free choice to do the best. That
would show an inability to distinguish the fact that in all things the
cause is one thing, and another thing that without which the cause could
not be cause. And it seems to me that it is precisely this which some
call by a wrong name in considering it as the cause. For this reason
some put a whirlwind from heaven round the earth and others rest it on
air as they would a wide trough on a footstool."
So far Socrates, whose words I ask you to read repeatedly and carefully,
though they may look a little old-fashioned. This quotation is somewhat
lengthy, but I thought best not to cut it too short and to present it in
its main outlines.
This quotation says on the whole the same thing which I have said in my
proceeding letters. According to Socrates, all our thoughts and actions
have a wider and more general purpose, which he calls the "good," so
that we even do evil for the sake of good. A crime always aims at some
particular good. Evil is misunderstood good. Applied to natural science,
this means that it misunderstands the interrelation of all its fine
discoveries. And this charge is true even to-day. Although the natural
interrelations are more and more recognized from day to day, still the
understanding of the absolute inter-connection continues to be
overlooked, especially that of the intellect with material things, or of
the ideal with the real. Natural science teaches after the manner of the
gospel of John: Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob. But it forgets
to teach that all these genitors were not genitors in the last analysis,
but begotten by old Jehovah himself. The uncultivated condition of
Grecian natural sciences may have been ground enough for Socrates to
think little of it. We, on the other hand, have to-day good reasons for
thinking highly of natural science, and for this very reason I take
pains to illustrate by its prominent example in what respect the neglect
of the universal world thought results in a narrow conception of the
world.
We may well rejoice more lastingly than Socrates when natural science
teaches us how it happens that everything has its origin, life, and end,
because the knowledge of natural science has been far more enriched by
modern experiences than it was at the time of Anaxagoras. Nevertheless
you must not stop learning furthermore from logic that all growing,
coming into existence, living, and passing away is but a change of form.
The causes of natural science are indeed not causes, but effects of the
universe. They are reasonable effects of reason in so far as the latter
is not an isolated part, but interconnected with the universe. To
repeat: Our intellect is not ours, it does not belong to man, but it
together with man belongs to the universe. Reason and the world, the
true, the good, and the beautiful, together with Godhood which you
shall not idolize but understand in the spirit and in the world, in
truth and in reality, are all one thing, one being, and everywhere
eternal and the _same_.
Socrates shows that he has as yet only a narrow anthropomorphic, not a
cosmic conception of the "best and good" and of reason. He was dominated
by the prejudice which still holds sway over the uncultured believers in
God, that reason is older than all the rest of the world, that it is the
ruling and antecedent creator. Our conception of logic, on the other
hand, teaches that the spirit which we have in our brain is but the
emanation of the world spirit. And this latter must not be conceived as
a nebulous world monster, not as an enormous spirit, but as the actual
universe, which in spite of all change and all variation is eternally
one, true, good, reasonable, real, and supreme.
TWENTY-FOURTH LETTER
The art of thought, my son, for which we are striving, is not pure and
abstract, but connected with practice, a practical theory, a theoretical
practice. It is not a separate and isolated thing, not a "thing in
itself," but is connected with all things; it has a universal
interrelation. Hence our logic, as we have repeatedly stated, is a
philosophy, world wisdom, and metaphysics. I include the latter, because
our logic excludes nothing, not even the transcendental. It teaches that
everything, even transcendentalism, if practiced with consciousness and
the necessary moderation, and at the right time and place, for instance
at the carnival, is a reasonable and sublime pleasure.
All prominent philosophers were explorers and users of the same art of
thought, of living, of viewing the world, although many of them retired
to the solitude and were ascetics. Can the world be understood in a
hermitage? Yes and no. After you have been traveling and seeing many
lands, it is well to retire and classify the impressions received, and
thus to reflect about a true philosophy of life. In this way, secluded
thought, in the relative meaning of the word, that is, in connection
with observation and experience, with enjoyment and life, is a veritable
savior. Body and soul belong together, and if they are separated, it
must be remembered that such a separation is a mere matter of form, that
they are in fact one thing, attributes of the same being which is
infinitely great, so great that all other beings are but its fringes.
The art of distinction distinguishes the infinite infinitely with the
consciousness that in reality everything is interrelated without
distinction and is one.
This truth, and thus absolute truth, is ignored by laymen and
professional authorities alike. The thousand year dualism between body
and soul has been especially instrumental in preventing the
understanding of the universal interrelation. The whole history of
philosophy is but a wrestling with the dualism between matter and mind.
It was only by degrees that it moved towards its monistic goal.
After the brilliant triple star Socrates-Plato-Aristotle was
extinguished, the philosophical sky was covered with dark clouds. The
heathens stepped from the stage, and Christianity and the dogmas of its
church predominated the logic of men, until at last a new scientific
light arose in the beginning of modern times. It was especially
Cartesius and Spinoza who were most brilliant among the early thinkers
that emancipated their minds slowly and under great difficulties.
Spinoza, of Jewish descent, is especially interesting in his fight
against narrowmindedness and for a universal philosophy. He wrote an
"Essay on the Improvement of the Intellect and on the Way by which it is
best led to a true Understanding of Things." He, as well as we, was
looking for the best way, the true way, the way of truth. He, as well as
we, seeks to study and practice the fundamentals of the art of thought.
He begins: "After experience has taught me that everything which the
ordinary life offers is vain, and I have seen that everything which I
feared is only good or bad in so far as the mind is moved by it, I
finally resolved to investigate whether there is any true good--whether
there is anything the discovery of which will forever secure continuous
and supreme joy. What is most generally found in life, and what mankind
regards as the highest good, may be reduced to three things, viz.,
wealth, honor, and sensual pleasure."
After Spinoza has then uncovered the shadowy side and the vanity of
these popular ideals, he calls them "unsafe by their very nature," while
he is looking for "permanent good," which is "insecure only as regards
its possession, but not in its nature."
But how is that to be found?
"Here I shall say shortly what I mean by true good, and what is at the
same time the highest good. In order to grasp this fully, we must
remember that good or bad are only relative terms, and thus the same
thing may be called good or bad according to its relations, or on the
other hand perfect or imperfect."
Spinoza, forestalling the object of his research, discovers that the
true, supreme and permanent good is the "understanding of the unity" of
the soul with the entire nature. "This then," he says, "is the goal
which I am coveting."
"To this end, we must study morals, philosophy, and the education of
boys, and combine with this study the entire science of medicine,
because health materially assists us in reaching our ideal. Neither must
mechanics be neglected, because many difficult things are made easy by
art. Above all we must strive to find a way for the improvement of the
intellect."
Here we have once more arrived at the pivotal point of our subject, my
dear disciple. Who or what is the intellect, whence does it come from,
whither does it lead? Answer: It is a light which does not shine within
itself, but throws rays outside of itself for the illumination of the
world. For this reason the science which has the faculty of
understanding for its object, though a limited, is at the same time a
universal science, a universal world wisdom.
But isn't it a contradiction that a special science wants to be general
world wisdom? Is not general wisdom that which comprises all knowledge,
all special science? Must I not know everything in order to be world
wise? And how can any single brain assume to acquire all knowledge, to
know everything? Answer: It is impossible for you to know everything;
but you can rise to the understanding that your special wisdom and that
of all others is a part of universal wisdom and form together a relative
whole which in connection with all the rest of the world constitute the
absolute being. This understanding represents pure logic and is
universal understanding, understanding of the universal being.
Do not be troubled by the fact that Socrates was looking for virtue and
the "best," or Spinoza for permanent and supreme joy, and that their
wisdom aimed only at the narrow circle of human life, without rising to
the cosmic interrelation. The means and the instrument by the help of
which they strive for their ideal is the intellect. It is quite natural
that intellectual research led to the study of the intellect, to the
"improvement of the intellect," to the "critique of reason," to "logic,"
and finally to the understanding that the faculty of thought is an
inseparable part of the monistic whole, of the absolute which lends
support, consistency, reason and sense to all thought.
On his exploring tour for the improvement of the intellect, Spinoza
picks up a remark which seems to me worthy of closer attention. He says
in so many words: If we are looking for a way to improve the intellect,
is it not necessary for the purpose of finding such a way to first
improve the intellect, in order to be at all able to discern the way
which leads to an improvement of the intellect, and so on without end?
"We must have a hammer to forge the iron, and in order to have a hammer,
it must be made; but for this purpose we need another hammer and other
instruments, and so forth without end. In this way it must not be proven
that men have no power to forge iron. Men have rather accomplished only
the easiest tasks with difficulty and imperfectly by the help of the
natural tools of their bodies. Gradually they accomplished more
difficult things with less labor and better. And thus they slowly
proceeded from the simplest tasks to the instruments."
I admire in this process of reasoning the brilliant understanding that
the hammer is not such a limited instrument as the untrained human brain
thinks. It thinks that a hammer is not a pair of tongs. But Spinoza says
that the bare fist is a hammer when used for striking, much more a stone
or a club. A pair of tongs used to drive a nail becomes a hammer; a
hammer which I use to draw a nail becomes a pair of tongs. Fist or club,
sense or nonsense, all is one. In other words, things are separated, but
never so far as the fantastical dreamers think. Just as hammer and
tongs, saw and file, are parts of the class of tools, so all things are
parts of the one and absolute universe. Recognize, then, dear Eugene,
that the relative and the absolute are not separated by such a
bridgeless chasm, that the one should be praised to the skies and the
other damned to the lowest pit. Understand that everything is
dialectically interrelated, that the infinite, eternal, divine, can live
only in the finite, special things, and that on the other hand the parts
of the world can exist only in the absolute. In short, raise your
conception to the universal conception, and at the same time, understand
the supreme being in all its parts instead of idolizing it.
The Positive Outcome of Philosophy
BY JOSEPH DIETZGEN
Translated by Ernest Untermann
THE POSITIVE OUTCOME OF PHILOSOPHY
PREFACE
As a father cares for his child, so an author cares for his product. I
may be able to give a little additional zest to the contents of this
work by adding an explanation how I came to write it.
Although born by my mother in 1828, I did not enter my own world until
"the mad year," 1848. I was learning the trade of my father in my
paternal shop, when I saw in the "Kölnische Zeitung," how the people of
Berlin had overcome the King of Prussia and conquered "liberty." This
"liberty" now became the first object of my musings. The parties of that
period, the disturbers and howlers, made a great deal of fuss about it.
But the more I heard about it, and hence became enthusiastic over it,
the duller, hazier and more indistinct became the meaning of it, so that
it turned things upside down in my head. The psychologists have long
known that enthusiasm for a cause and understanding of that cause are
two different things. Mark, for instance, the zeal displayed by Catholic
peasants in singing their mass, although they do not understand a word
of Latin.
What is meant by political freedom? What is its beginning, what its end?
Where and how are we to find a positive and definite knowledge of it? In
the parties of the middle, the so-called "constitutionals," as well as
among the bourgeois democrats, there was no end of dissension. Nothing
could be learned there. Among them, as among the Protestants, every one
was a chosen interpreter of the gospel.
However, the papers of the extremes, that is, the "Neue Preussische"
with its "For God, King and Fatherland," and the "Neue Rheinische," the
organ of "Democracy," gave me a hint that liberty had some sort of a
material basis. During the following years, my life in rural
surroundings gave me leisure to follow this scent. On one side, it was
the work of men like Gerlach, Stahl, and Leo, on the other of Marx and
Engels, that gave me a foothold.
Though the communists and the ultra-conservatives came to widely
different conclusions, still I felt and read between the lines that both
of these extreme parties based their demands on one fundamental premise.
They knew what they wanted; they both had a definite beginning and end.
And that permitted the assumption that both had a common philosophy. The
Prussian landholding aristocracy based the cross, which they wore as an
emblem on their hats, on the historically acquired royal military power
and on the positive divine revelation of the Bible printed in black and
supported by the ecclesiastical police force dressed in black. And the
Communist point of departure was quite as positive, unquestionable and
material, viz., the growing supremacy of the mass of the people with
their proletarian interests based on the historically acquired
productive power of the working class. The spirit of both of these
hostile camps was descending from the results of philosophy, primarily
from the Hegelian school. Both of them were armed with the
philosophical achievements of the century, which they had not only
mechanically assimilated, but rather continually provided with fresh
food like a living being.
In the beginning of the fifties, a pamphlet was published by one of the
cross bearers, Stahl, entitled "Against Bunsen." This Bunsen was at the
time the Prussian Embassador at London, a crony of the ruling Prussian
King Frederic William IV., and, apart from this, nothing but a liberal
muddle head who was interested in political and religious tolerance.
The pamphlet of the cross bearer Stahl attacked this tolerance and
demonstrated valiantly that tolerance could be preached only by a
muddled free lance to whom religion and fatherland were indifferent
conceptions. Religious faith, so far as it is truth, so he said, has a
true power and can transpose mountains. Such a faith could not be
tolerant and indifferent, but must push its propaganda with fire and
sword.
In the same way in which Stahl defended the interests of the landed
aristocracy, the philosopher Feuerbach spoke in the interest of the
infidel revolutionaries. Both of them were to that extent in accord with
the "Communist Manifesto" that they no longer regarded Liberty as a
phantasmagoria, but as a being of flesh and blood.
When I had realized this, it dawned upon me that any conception
elucidated by philosophy, in this case the idea of liberty, had this
peculiarity: Liberty is as yet an abstract idea. In order to become
real, it must assume a concrete, special form.
Political freedom as a glittering generality is a thing of no reality.
Under such fantastic ideal the constitutionalists or the liberals
conceal the liberty of the money bag. Under these circumstances, they
are quite right in demanding German unity with Prussia as a head, or a
republic with a grand duke at the top. The landed aristocracy also are
right in demanding the liberty of that aristocracy. And the Communists
are still more right, for they demand the liberty that will guarantee
bread and butter for the mass of the people and will fully set free all
the forces of production.
From this experience and conclusion it follows that true liberty and the
highest right are composed of individual liberties and rights, that are
opposed to one another without being inconceivable. It is easy to
proceed from this premise to the rule of thought laid down in this work,
that the brain need not make any excursions into the transcendental in
order to find his way through the contradictions of the real world.
In this way I passed from politics to philosophy, and from philosophy to
the theory of positive knowledge which I presented to the public in 1869
in my little work "The Nature of Human Brain Work." Further studies on
the general powers of understanding have added to my special knowledge
of this subject, so that I am now enabled to fill the old wine into a
new bottle instead of publishing a new edition of my old work.
The science which I present in the following pages is very limited in
its circumference, but all the better founded and important in its
consequences. This, I trust, will be accepted as a sufficient excuse for
the recurring repetition of the same statements in a different form. My
remaining confined to a single point requires no apology. What is left
undone by one, is bequeathed as a problem to others.
There might be some dispute over the question, how much of this positive
achievement of philosophy is due to the author and to his predecessors.
But that is an interminable task of small concern. No matter who hoisted
the calf out of the well, so long as it is out. Anyway, this whole work
treats of the concatenation and interdependence of things, and this also
throws a bright light on the question of mine and thine.
J. DIETZGEN.
CHICAGO, March 30, 1887.
THE POSITIVE OUTCOME OF PHILOSOPHY
I
POSITIVE KNOWLEDGE AS A SPECIAL OBJECT
That which we call science nowadays was known to our ancestors by a name
which then sounded very respectable and distinguished, but which has in
the meantime acquired a somewhat ludicrous taste, the name of wisdom.
This gradual transition of wisdom into science is a positive achievement
of philosophy which well deserves our attention.
The term "ancestors" is very indefinite. It comprises people who lived
more than three thousand years ago as well as those who died less than a
hundred years ago. And a wise man was still respected a hundred years
ago, while to-day that title always implies a little ridicule and
disrespect.
The wisdom of our ancestors is so old that it has not even a date. It
reaches back, the same as the origin of language, to the period when man
developed from the animal world. But if we call a wise man, in the
language of our day, a philosopher, then it is at once plain that wisdom
is descended from the ancient Greeks. This wonderful nation produced the
first philosophers.
Whether this term indicates a man who loves wisdom or one who loves
science, is of little moment to-day, and there was no such distinction
in ancient times. We remember that it was entirely undecided among the
Greeks whether a mathematician, an astronomer, a physician, an orator,
or a student of the art of living deserved the title of a philosopher.
These professions were not clearly distinguished. They were wrapped up
one in another like the embryo in a mother's womb. While humanity had
still little knowledge, a man might well be wise. But to-day it is
necessary to specialize, to devote one's self to a special science,
because the field of exploration has grown so extended. The philosopher
of to-day is no longer a wise man, but a specialist.
The stars are the objects of astronomy, the animals of zoology, the
plants of botany. Who and what are now the objects of philosophy? This
may be explained in one word to an expert. But if we try to give
information to the general public, the matter becomes difficult.
What do I know about the shoe industry, if I know that it produces
shoes? I know something general about it, but I have no knowledge of its
details. It is impossible to give sufficient information on the details
of shoemaking to any one in a few words, not even to an educated person.
Neither is it possible to explain the object of philosophy in such a
way. The object may be stated, but not explained, for it cannot be made
plain and brought home to the understanding in a few words.
That is the word, understanding. The understanding is the object of
philosophy.
We must at once call the reader's attention to the ambiguity of this
term. Understanding, knowledge, is the object of all science. That is
nothing special. Every study seeks to enlighten the brain. But
philosophy wishes to be a science and does not desire to relapse into
antiquity by becoming universal wisdom. To say that understanding is the
object of philosophy is to give merely the same reply which Thales,
Pythagoras, or Plato would have given. Has proud philosophy gained
nothing since? What is its positive achievement? That is the question.
Philosophy to-day still has understanding for its object. But it is no
longer indefinite understanding which tries to embrace everything, but
rather the understanding of the method by which knowledge may be gained.
Philosophy now wishes to learn _how it comes to pass_ that other objects
may be illumined by the mind. To speak plainly, it is no longer the
understanding which seeks to know everything as it did at the time of
Socrates that is now the special study of philosophy, but rather the
mind itself, its method and the perceptive powers of thought and
understanding.
If this were all, if the world's wise men had done nothing but to at
last find the object of philosophy, it would be a very scanty
achievement. No, the harvest is much richer. The present day theory of
human understanding is a real science, which well deserves to be
popularized. Our ancestors sought understanding after the manner of
Socrates and Plato in the entrails of the human brain, while at the same
time despising the experience outside of it. They hoped to find truth by
cudgeling their brain. "Honor to Socrates, honor to Plato; but still
more honor to Truth!"
Aristotle showed a little more interest in the outer world. With the
downfall of the old social stage the old philosophy naturally succumbed
also. It did not revive until a few hundred years ago, at the beginning
of modern times.
A short while ago, Shakespeare attracted much attention, when some one
claimed to have discovered that it was not he who wrote those famous
dramas and tragedies, but his contemporary Bacon of Verulam, Lord
Chancellor of England. Whether Shakespeare keeps his laurels or not,
Bacon's name is still great enough, for it is generally accepted as the
mile stone of modern philosophy.
One might say that philosophy was asleep from the time of Aristotle to
that of Bacon. At least it produced no remarkable results during that
period, and it cannot be denied that philosophy from ancient Greek days
to the present times moved in a mystic fog which detracted much from its
study in the eyes of educated and honest men. But the philosophers
themselves are less to blame for this than the concealment of the
object. Only after the entire social development has furthered the human
understanding to the point where it can benefit from the light spread by
the various branches of science, does philosophy become conscious of its
special object and able to separate its positive achievements from the
rubbish of the past.
If we compare the old Grecian wisdom with modern science, the outcome of
philosophy looks insignificant by the side of the achievements of
science. Nevertheless, great as the value of the aggregate product of
science may be, it is composed of individual values, and every one of
its parts is worthy of consideration. The method, the way, the form, in
which the mind arrives at its practical creations is one of these parts.
The mind, on its march from ignorance to its present wealth has not only
gathered a treasury of knowledge, but also improved its methods, so that
the further constructive work of science proceeds faster now. Who will
fail to recognize that material production has accumulated a treasure in
the methods by which it produces to-day, which is by no means of less
value than the accumulated national wealth itself? The positive outcome
of philosophy bears the same relation to the wealth of science.
II
THE POWER OF COGNITION IS KIN TO THE UNIVERSE
The way of Truth, or the true way, is not musing, but the conscious
connection of our thoughts with the actual life--that is the
quintessence of the teachings of philosophy produced by evolution. But
this is not everything. If I know that a tanner makes leather, I do not
by any means know everything he does, because there still remains the
manner and method of his manipulations. In the same way, the doctrine of
the interrelation of mind and matter, which is the product of the entire
social development, requires a better and more specific substantiation,
so that its true quality as a positive achievement of philosophy, or of
the theory of knowledge may be better understood. If the matter is
represented in this bare manner--it does, indeed, resemble the egg of
Columbus--one does not see why so much should be made of it. But if we
enter into the details that have produced the result, we do not only
learn to better respect the prominent philosophers, but their works also
reveal a rich mine of special and comprehensive knowledge.
All sciences are closely related, for advances in one branch are
preparations for advances in others. Astronomy is unthinkable without
mathematics and optics. Every science has begun unscientifically, and in
the course of the accumulation of individual knowledge a more or less
exact systematic organization of this knowledge has resulted. No science
has as yet arrived at completeness and perfectness. We have as yet more
the results of experimental effort than accomplished perfection.
Philosophy is no better off in this respect. We rather believe we are
doing something to overcome a deeply rooted prejudice when we state that
philosophy is no worse off than other sciences, so long as we succeed in
ascertaining that it has accomplished positive results and in pointing
them out.
It is a positive accomplishment of philosophy that mankind to-day has a
clear and unequivocal conception of the necessity of the division of
labor as a means of being successful. Our present day philosophers no
longer make excursions into dreamland in the quest of the True, the
Beautiful, and the Good, as did the ancients. The True, the Beautiful,
and the Good, are nevertheless the objects of all modern science, only,
thanks to evolution, these objects are now sought by special means. And
the clear consciousness of this condition of things is a philosophical
consciousness.
It is a part of the theory of understanding to know that in order to
accomplish something one must limit oneself to a specialty. That is a
fundamental demand for the use of common sense, which the primitive
musing brain did not realize. Thinking must be done with wide open and
active eyes, with alert senses, not with closed eyes or fixed gaze. This
is a part of logic. We do not deny that men have always done their
thinking by means of the senses. We only claim that they did not do so
from principle, otherwise the old complaint about the unreliability of
the senses as a means of knowledge would not have lived so long. Neither
would the inner man have been so excessively overestimated, nor abstract
thought so much celebrated, just as if it alone were the child of nobler
birth. I do not wish to detract from the merits of the power of
abstraction, but I simply claim that the clay of which Adam was made was
no less divine than the spiritual breath that gave him his life. Nor do
I mean that it is due to philosophy alone that mankind learned not to
strain "understanding" in abstract vaporings, but instead to introduce
the division of labor and to take up the various specialties with open
senses. The technique of understanding is the product of the entire
movement of civilization, and as such a positive accomplishment of
philosophy. The total process of evolution has placed the philosophers
on their feet.
There is no doubt that up to the present time, philosophy partook more
of the character of a desire and love of science than of world wisdom.
This wisdom does not amount to much, even to-day. This is plainly
demonstrated by the dissensions of the educated and uneducated on all
questions pertaining to wisdom of life. Socrates in the market of
Athens, and Plato in his dialogues, have probably said better things
about the questions: "What is virtue? What is justice? What is moral and
reasonable?" than the professors of philosophy would know how to say
to-day. Kant has well said that the unanimity of the experts is the test
by which one may decide what is a scientific fact and what is mere
dispute. From this it is easy to judge that wisdom of life is still in
a bad way and will have to wait for its scientific transformation.
We declared understanding itself to be the special object of philosophy
and shall now attempt to outline the results so far obtained by it.
One of the first requirements for the education of the object of
philosophy is to recall its various names. The understanding, or the
power of knowledge, is also called intelligence, intellect, mind,
spirit, reason, power of cognition, of conception, of distinction, of
imagination, of judgment, and of drawing conclusions. The attempt has
frequently been made to analyze understanding or to dissect it into its
various parts and to specialize them by the help of those names.
Especially logic knows how to give particular explanations of what is
imagination, a conception, a judgment, and a conclusion. It has even
divided these sections into subsections, so that a trained logician
might reproach me with being ignorant for applying various names to
intelligence, because only the common people confound those names and
use them as synonyms, while science has long used them in their proper
order for designating special parts of intelligence.
To such a reproach, I answer that Aristotle and the subsequent formal
logicians have made some pretty pointed observations and excellent
arrangements in this field. But these proved to be premature or
inadequate, because the observations on which the ancient intellectual
explorers relied were too scanty. This scantiness of the observations
made in regard to intelligence, and by intelligence, has kept the human
race in the mazes of intellectual bondage and by this mysticism has even
prevented the most advanced minds from penetrating deeper into this
obscure question. The history of philosophy is not the history of a
useless struggle, but yet a history of a hard struggle with the
question: What is, what does, of what parts consists, and of what nature
is understanding, intelligence, reason, intellect, etc.? So long as this
question is unsettled, the questioner is entitled to dispense with any
and all sections and subsections of the intellectual object and to
regard the various names as synonymous.
The main accomplishment in the solution of this question is the ever
clearer and preciser knowledge of our days that the nature of the human
intellect is of the same kind, genus or quality as the whole of nature.
In order that the theory of understanding may be able to elucidate this
point, it must divest itself, more or less, of the character of a
speciality and occupy itself with all of nature, assume the character of
cosmogony.
It is principally an achievement of philosophy that we now know
definitely and down to the minutest detail that the human mind is a
definite and limited part of the unlimited universe.
Just as a piece of oak wood has the twofold quality of partaking not
alone, with its oaken nature, of the general nature of wood, but also of
the unlimited generality of all nature, so is the intellect a limited
specialty, which has the quality of being universal as a part of the
universe and of being conscious of its own and of all universality. The
boundless universal cosmic nature is embodied in the intellect, in the
animal as well as in man, the same as it is embodied in the oak wood, in
all other wood, in all matter and force. The worldly monistic nature
which is mortal and immortal, limited and unlimited, special and
general, all in one, is found in everything, and everything is found in
nature--understanding or the power of knowledge is no exception.
It is this twofold nature of the universe, this being at the same time
limited and unlimited, this reflection of its eternal essence and
eternal truth in changing phenomena, which has rendered its
understanding very difficult for the human mind. This intricate quality
has been represented by religion in the fantastic picture of two worlds,
separating the temporal from the eternal, the limited from the
unlimited, too unreasonably far. But nowadays the indestructibility of
matter and the eternity of material forces is a matter of fact accepted
by natural science.
The positive outcome of philosophy, then, is the knowledge of the
monistic way in which the seeming duality of the universe is active in
the human understanding.
III
AS TO HOW THE INTELLECT IS LIMITED AND UNLIMITED
Understanding taught by experience no longer muses about universal
nature, but acquires a knowledge of it by special studies. By degrees
philosophy, first unconsciously and lately clearly and plainly, has
taken up the problem of ascertaining the limits of understanding.
This philosophical problem first assumed the form of polemics. It became
opposed to the religious dogma which represented the human mind as a
small, subservient, limited and restricted emanation of the unlimited
divine spirit. This terrestrial emanation was regarded as too limited
to understand and find its divine source. The study of the limits of the
understanding has now emancipated itself from this dogma, but not to
such an extent that there is no longer any mysterious obscurity floating
around the understanding and intelligence, and especially around the
question whether the human mind can penetrate only into some things
while others will remain in the unscrutable darkness of faith and
intuition, or whether it may penetrate boldly and without hindrance into
the infinity of the physical and chemical universe.
We here desire to claim as a positive outcome of philosophy that it has
at last acquired the clear and exact knowledge that a socalled infinite
spirit, in the religious sense, is a fantastic, unscientific conception.
In the natural sense of the word, the human powers of understanding are
universal and yet in spite of their universality they are, quite
naturally, limited. The human understanding has its limits, why should
it not? Only drop the illusion that a dark mystery is concealed beyond
these limits.
The understanding is a force among others, and everything that is
located alongside of other things is limited and restricted by them. We
can understand everything, but we can also touch, see, hear, feel, and
taste everything. We also have the power of moving about, and other
qualities. One art limits another, and yet each is unlimited in its own
field. The various human powers belong together and constitute together
the human wealth. Be careful not to separate the power of understanding
from other natural powers. In a certain sense it must be separated,
because it is the special object of our study, but it must always be
remembered that such a separation has only a theoretical value.
Just as our power of vision can see everything, so our understanding can
grasp everything.
Let us look a little closer at this statement.
How can we see everything? Not from any single standpoint. In that sense
our powers of vision are limited. But what is not visible in the
distance, becomes so on approaching nearer to it. What one eye cannot
see, that of others can, and what is invisible to the naked eye, is
revealed by the telescope and microscope. Nevertheless the vision
remains limited, even though it may be the sharpest, and armed with the
best artificial means. Even if we regard all the eyes of the past and
future generations of humanity as organs of the universal human vision,
this vision still remains limited. Nevertheless, no one will complain
about the limits of human power, because we cannot see sounds with our
eyes or hear the light with our ears.
The understanding of man is limited, just as his vision is. The eye can
look through a glass pane, but not through a plate of iron. Yet no one
will call any eye limited, because it cannot see through a block of
metal. These drastic examples are very opportune, because there are
certain wise men who reflectively lay their finger on their nose and
call attention to the limits of our intellect in that sense, just as if
the knowledge gained on earth by scientific means were only a nominal,
not a real, understanding and knowing. The human intellect is thus
degraded to the position of a substitute of some "higher" intellect
which is not discovered, but must be "believed" to exist in the small
head of a fairy or in the large head of an almighty being above the
clouds. Would any one try to make us believe that there is a great and
almighty eye that can look through blocks of metal the same as through
glass? The idea of a spiritual organ with an infinite understanding is
just as senseless. An unlimited single thing, an unlimited single being,
is impossible, unless we regard the whole world, the world without
beginning and without end, the infinite world, as a unit. Within this
world everything is subject to change, but nothing can go beyond its
genus without losing its name and character. There are various kinds of
fire, but none that does not burn, none which has not the general nature
of fire. Neither is there any water without the general nature of water,
nor a spirit that is elevated above the general nature of spirits. In
our days of clear conceptions the tendency toward the transcendental is
mere fantastic vaporing.
It is not alone unscientific, it is fantastic, to think even afar of a
higher power of thought or understanding than the human one. One might
as well think of a higher horse which runs with eight, sixteen, or
sixteen hundred legs and carries away his rider in a higher air at a
higher speed than that of the wind or the light.
It is a part of the achievements of philosophy, of correct methods of
thought, of the art of thought or dialectics, to know that we must use
all conceptions, without exception, in a limited, rational, commonplace
way, unless we wish to stray into that region where there are mountains
without valleys and where every theory of understanding loses its mind.
It is true that all things, including our understanding, may be
improved. Everything develops, why should not our intellects do so? At
the same time we may know _a priori_ that our intellect must remain
limited, of course not limited in the sense of the dunce, just as our
eyes will never become so sharp that they can see through metal blocks.
Every individual has its limited brain, but humanity, so the positive
achievements of philosophy have shown, has an intellect of as universal
a power as any that can be imagined, required, or found, in heaven or on
earth.
We maintain that philosophy so far has acquired something positive, has
left us a legacy, and that this consists in a clear revelation of the
method of using our intellect in order to produce excellent pictures of
nature and its phenomena.
For the purpose of making the reader familiar with this method, with
this legacy of philosophy, we must enter more closely into the essence
of the instrument which lifts all the treasures of science. We are
especially interested in the question, whether it is a finite or
infinite and universal instrument with which we go fishing for truth. It
is the custom to belittle the faculties of the human understanding, in
order to keep it under the supremacy of the divine metaphysical augurs.
It is quite easy to see, therefore, that the question of the essence of
our powers of understanding is intimately related to, or even identical
with, the question of how we may be permitted to use them, whether they
should be used only for the investigation of the limited, finite, or
also for the study of the eternal, infinite, and immeasurable.
We object here to the tendency of belittling the human mind. About a
hundred years ago, the philosopher Kant found it appropriate to draw the
sword against those who played fast and loose with the human mind,
against the socalled metaphysicians. They had made a miraculous thing of
the instrument of thought, a matter for effusions. In order to be able
clearly to state the outcome of philosophy, we must acquaint the reader
with the fact that this instrument of thought, in its way, is one of the
best and most magnificent things in existence, but that, at the same
time, it is bound to its general kind or genus. The human understanding
perceives quite perfectly, but we must not have an exaggerated idea of
its perfection, any more than we would of a perfect eye or ear, that, be
they ever so perfect, cannot see the grass grow or hear the fleas cough.
God is a spirit, says the bible, and God is infinite. If he is a spirit,
an intellect, such as man, then it would be fair to assume that man's
intellect is also infinite, or even is the divine spirit itself which
has taken up its abode in the human brains. People cudgeled their brains
with such confused conceptions, so long as the object of modern
philosophy, the intellect, was a mystery. Now it is recognized as a
finite, natural phenomenon, an energy or a force which is not the
infinite, though it is, like all other matter and force, a part of the
infinite, eternal, immeasurable.
Leaving all religious notions aside, the infinite, immeasurable,
eternal, is not personal, but objective; it is no longer referred to as
a masculine, but as a neuter. It may be called by many names, such as
the universe, the cosmos, or the world. In order to understand clearly
that the spirit which we have in our minds, is a finite part of the
world, we must get a little better acquainted with this infinite,
eternal world. Our physical world cannot have any other world beside it,
because it is the universe. Within the universe there are many worlds,
which all of them make out the cosmos, which has neither a beginning nor
an end in time and space. The cosmos reaches across all time and space,
"in heaven and on earth, and everywhere."
But how do I know what I state in such an offhand manner? Well, the
knowledge of the universe, of the infinite, is given to us partly by
birth and partly by experience. This knowledge is inherent in man just
as language is, viz., in the germ, and experience gives us a proof of
the infinite in a negative way, for we never learn the beginning or the
end of anything. On the contrary, experience has shown us positively
that all socalled beginnings and ends are only interconnections of the
infinite, immeasurable, inexhaustible, and unfathomable universe.
Compared to the wealth of the cosmos the intellect is only a poor
fellow. However, this does not prevent it from being the most perfect
instrument for clearly and plainly reflecting the finite phenomena of
the infinite universe.
IV
THE UNIVERSALITY OF NATURE
The positive outcome of philosophy concerns itself with specifying the
nature of the human mind. It shows that this special nature of mind does
not occupy an exceptional position, but belongs with the whole of nature
in the same organization. In order to show this, philosophy must not
discuss the human mind as if it were something separate from nature, but
must rather deal with its general nature. And since this general nature
of our intellect is the same of which every other thing partakes, it
follows that nature in general, or the universe, or the cosmos, all of
which is the same thing, are an indispensable object in the special
study of the nature of the human mind.
We have already said that the experienced understanding of the present
day no longer muses over nature in general in the fantastic and mere
introspective manner as of old, but rather seeks to obtain a knowledge
of it by special study. In so doing we do not forget that the study of
specialties at the same time throws a light on the general relation of
things, of which every species is but a part.
Since the human mind is a part of the whole of nature, viz., that part
which has the desire and longing to obtain a conception of all the other
parts, and more than that, to understand the interconnection between the
parts and the undivided and infinite whole, it is easy to comprehend the
fact that the philosophers have occupied themselves so much with the
most real and most perfect being. Whether this being was called God, or
substance, or idea, or the absolute, or nature, or matter, all of these
terms cannot prevent us today from approaching infinite nature with
sober senses, in order to gain, by its help, a lifelike picture of the
human intellect, which is not a mystical being, but a reasonable part of
the same nature that lives reasonably and intelligibly in all other
parts of nature.
The inexperienced powers of distinction which did not understand their
function, magnified the difference between the infinite and its finite
phenomena out of all proportion. Now that we have made the philosophical
experience that the general as well as the special nature of the human
intellect admits only of moderate and bounded distinctions, we arrive at
the conclusion that the immeasurable, all-perfect, and eternal being is
composed of finite, commensurable, imperfect, and transient things in
such a way that the universal being combines in itself all perfections
as well as all imperfections. This contradictory universal being, this
nature to which all contradictory attributes may be simultaneously
assigned, in a certain sense puts the old rule to shame that you cannot
at the same time affirm and deny the predicate of any subject.
Nature comprises all and is all. Reason and unreason, being and not
being, all these contradictions are contained in it. Outside of it there
are no affirmations and no contradictions. Since the human mind
eternally moves in affirmations and negations, in order to obtain a
clear picture of things, it has an interminable task in understanding
the interminable object.
Our brain is supposed to solve the contradictions of nature. If it knows
enough about itself to realize that it is not an exception from general
nature, but a natural part of the same whole--although it calls itself
"spirit"--then it also knows and must know that its clearness can differ
but moderately from the general confusion, that the solution of the
problem cannot differ materially from the problem itself. The
contradictions are solved only by reasonable differentiation, only by
the science of understanding which shows that extravagant differences
are nothing but extravagant speculations. The human understanding
inclines to exaggerations in its untrained state, and it is a relic of
untrained habits to differentiate in an absolute manner the spiritual
from the rest of nature, to make a too extravagant distinction between
it and the physical body. It is the merit of philosophy to have given us
a clear doctrine of the use of the intellect, and this doctrine
culminates in the rule not to make exaggerated, but only graduated
distinctions. For this purpose it is necessary to realize that there is
only one being and that all other socalled beings are but minor
expressions of the same general being, which we designate by the name of
nature or universe.
In consequence of the human bent to exaggeration, the human
understanding has been regarded as a being of a different nature from
that of natural beings which exist outside of the intellect. But it must
be remembered that every part of nature is "another" individual piece of
it, and, furthermore, that every other and different part is really
nothing different but a uniform piece of the same general nature. The
thing is mutual: The general nature exists only in its many individual
parts, and these in their turn exist only in, with and by the general
cosmic being.
Nature which is divided by the human understanding into East and West,
South and North, and into a hundred thousand other named parts, is yet
an undivided whole of which we may say with certainty that it has as
many innumerable beginnings and ends as it is without beginning and end,
as it is the infinite itself. It is well known that there is nothing new
under the sun. Nothing is created, nothing disappears, and yet there is
a continuous change.
The brain of man has a right and a left side, a top and a bottom, a
front and a back part, an interior and an exterior. And the innermost of
the brain again has two sides or qualities, a physical and a spiritual.
They are so little divided that the term brain has two meanings,
designating now the physical brain, now its mental functions. In
speaking here exclusively of the mind, we tacitly assume its inseparable
connection with the physical body.
The material brain and the mental brain are two brains that together
make one. Thus two, three, four, or innumerable things are yet one
thing. The human understanding was endowed by nature with the faculty of
embracing the infinite variety of the universe as a unit, as a single
conception. The unity of nature is as true and real as its multiplicity.
To say that many are one and one many is not nonsense, but simply a
truism which becomes clear when understanding the positive outcome of
philosophy.
A reader unfamiliar with this our product of philosophy still follows
the habit of regarding the physical body as something different from the
mind. A distinction between these two is quite justified, but this
manner of classification must not be overdone. The reader should
remember that he also is in the habit of regarding such heterogeneous
things as axes, scissors, and knives as children of the same family by
referring to them collectively as cutting tools. The outcome of
philosophy now demands that we apply the same method to the object of
our special study, the human brain. We must henceforth eschew all
effervescent flights of imagination and regard the powers of the human
mind as children of the same family as all other physical powers, whose
immortal mother is the universe.
The universe is infinite not alone in the matter of time and space, but
also in that of the variety of its products. The human brains which it
produces are likewise internally and externally of an infinite
differentiation, although this does not prevent them from forming a
common group uniform in its way.
To group the phenomena of nature, the children of the universe, in such
a way by classes, families, and species that they may be easily grasped,
that is the task of the science of understanding, the work and
constitution of the perceiving human brain. To understand simply means
to obtain a general and at the same time a detailed view of the
processes and products of the universe by grouping them in a fashion
similar to that used for the vegetable kingdom by botany and for the
animal kingdom by zoology. It goes without argument that we, the limited
children of the unlimited universe, are able to solve this problem only
in a limited way.
However, this natural physical limitation of the human understanding
must not be confounded with the abject misery which slavish and
sentimental metaphysics attribute to it. The infinite universe is by no
means niggardly in its gifts to the human understanding. It opens its
whole depths to our intellectual understanding and perception. Our
intellect is a part of the inexhaustible universe and therefore partakes
of its inexhaustible nature. That part of nature which is known by the
name of intellect is limited only to the extent that the part is smaller
than the whole.
V
THE UNDERSTANDING AS A PART OF THE HUMAN SOUL
The human intellect or understanding, the special object of all
philosophy, is a part, and in our case the most prominent part, of the
human soul. Gustav Theodore Fechner, a forgotten star on the literary
firmament, posed the question of the soul in his time and attempted to
answer it. In so doing he clothed the result of past philosophies in a
peculiar garb which looked fantastic enough at first sight. He regards
the outcome of philosophy merely as an individual product and he is so
full of veneration for the ancient terms, such as _immortal souls_,
_God_, _Christianity_, that he does not care to dismiss them, no matter
how roughly he handles their essence.
Fechner extends the possession of a soul to human beings, animals,
plants, stones, planets; in short, to the whole world.
This is simply saying that the human soul is of the same nature as all
the rest of the world, or vice versa, that all natural things have the
same nature as the human soul. Not only animals, but also stones and
planets have something analogous to our human soul.
Fechner is not fantastic at bottom, and yet how fantastical it sounds to
hear him say: "I went out walking on a spring morning. The fields were
green, the birds were singing, the dew sparkled, the smoke rose toward
the clouds. Here and there a human being stirred. A glory of light was
diffused over it all. It was only a small piece of the Earth. It was
only a short moment of its existence. And yet, as I took all this in
with an ever-widening understanding, I felt not alone the beauty, but
also the truth that it is an angel who is thus passing through the sky
with his rich, fresh and blooming nature, his living face upturned to
the heavens. And I asked myself how it is that man can ever become so
stunted that he sees nothing but a dry clod in the Earth and looks for
angels above and beyond it, never finding them anywhere. But people call
this sentimental dreaming."
"The Earth is a globe, and what it is besides may be found in the
museums of natural history." Thus writes Fechner.
Now there can be no objection to comparing the beautiful Earth and the
stars around it with angels, any more than there can be to the lover
calling his sweetheart an angel of God. The Earth, the Moon, and the
stars are according to Fechner's terminology angelic beings with souls;
mediators between man and God. He knows very well that this is nothing
but a matter of analogy and terminology, he is as atheistic as the most
atheistic, but his fondness and reverence for the traditional terms lead
him to attribute a soul to the material world and to give to this great
and infinite soul a divine name.
If we waive this religious hobby of Fechner's, there still remains his
peculiarity of using words and names in a symbolical sense. It is
nothing but the old poetic way of calling a sweetheart's eyes heavenly
stars and the stars of the blue heavens lovely eyes, which makes a snowy
hill of a woman's breast, a zephyr of the wind, a nymph of a spring of
water, and an erlking of an old willow tree. This poetic license has
filled the whole world with good and evil spirits, mermaids, fairies,
elfs, and goblins.
This is not a bad way of speaking, so long as we keep in mind, like a
poet, what we are doing and that we are consciously using symbolical
terms. Fechner does this only to a certain extent. A little spleen
remains in his brain. It is this spleen which I intend to deal with in
the proper light, in order to thus demonstrate the outcome of
philosophy.
Fechner is not aware that his universal soul reflects only one half of
our present outcome of philosophical study. The other half, which
renders an understanding of the whole possible, consists in the
perception that not only are all material things endowed with a soul,
but that all souls, including the human ones, are ordinary things.
Philosophy has not only deified the world and inspired it with a soul,
but has also secularized God and the souls. This is the whole truth, and
each by itself is only a part.
Apart from psychology, which treats of the individual human soul, there
has lately arisen a "psychology of nations" which regards the individual
souls as parts of the universal human soul, as individual pieces
constituting an aggregate soul which, decidedly, is more than a simple
aggregation of numbers. The soul of the psychology of nations has the
same relation to the individual souls that modern political economy has
to private economy. Prosperity in general is a different question and
deals with different matters than the amassing of wealth for your
individual pocket. Granted that the national soul is essentially
different from the individual soul, what would be the nature of the
universal animal soul, including the souls of lions, tigers, flies,
elephants, mice, etc.? If we now extend the generalization farther and
include in our psychology the vegetable and the mineral kingdom, the
various world bodies, our solar system, and finally the whole universe,
what else could that signify than a mere rhetorical climax?
Mere generalization is one-sided and leads to fantastical dreams. By
this method one can transform anything into everything. It is necessary
to supplement generalization by specialization. We wish to have the
elephants separated from the fleas, the mice from the lice, at the same
time never forgetting the unity of the special and the general. This sin
of omission has often been committed by the zoologists in the museums
and the botanists in their plant collections, and philosophical
investigators of the soul like Fechner have drifted into the other
extreme of generalization without specialization.
The positive outcome of philosophy, then, in its abstract outline, is at
present the doctrine that the general must be conceived in its relation
to its special forms, and these forms in their universal
interconnection, in their qualities as parts of nature in general. True,
such an abstract outline reveals very little. In order to grasp its
concrete significance, we must penetrate into its details, into the
special aspects of this doctrine.
The title of "Critique of Reason," which Kant gave to his special study,
is at the same time a fitting term for all philosophical research.
Reason, the essential part of the human soul, raises the critique of
reason, the science of philosophy, to the position of the most
essential part of psychology.
But why do we call this the most essential part? Is not the material
world and its understanding as essential as reason, as intellect, which
bends to the task of exploring this world? Surely, it is, and I do not
use the word essential in this sense. I call the intellect the most
essential part of the soul, and the soul the most essential part of the
world, only in so far as these parts are the special condition of all
scientific study and because the investigation of the general nature of
scientific study is my special object and purpose. Whether I endeavor to
explain the general nature of scientific study, whether I investigate
the intellect or the theory of understanding, it all amounts to the same
thing.
Let us approach our task once more from the side of Fechner's universal
soul. With his extravagant animation of all things, with his plant,
stone, and star souls, he can help us to prove that the general nature
of that particle of soul which is called reason, intellect, spirit, or
understanding, is not so extraordinarily different from the general
nature of stones or trees as the old time idealists and materialists
were wont to think.
As I said before, Fechner is a poet, and a poet sees similarities which
a matter-of-fact brain cannot perceive. But at the same time we must
admit that the matter of fact brain which cannot see anything but mere
distinctions is a very poor brain. The philosophers before me have
taught me that a good brain sees the similarities and the differences at
the same time and knows how to discriminate between them. A sober poetry
and the combination of poetic qualities with a comprehensive and
universal levelheadedness and discrimination, these are the marks of a
good head. Still the poorest as well as the most talented brains partake
of the general brain nature, which consists in the understanding that
like and unlike, general and special, are interrelated. The one is never
without the other, but both are always together.
If the distinction between men and stones is so trifling that a talented
brain like Fechner's can justly speak of them both as being animated,
surely the difference between the body and soul cannot be so great that
there is not the least similarity and community between them. However,
this escaped Fechner's notice. Is not the air or the scent of flowers an
ethereal body?
Reason is also called understanding, and it is a positive achievement of
philosophy to have arrived at the knowledge that this understanding does
not admit of any exaggerated distinctions. In other words, all things
are so closely related that a good poet may transform anything into
everything. Can natural science do as much? Ah, the gentlemen of that
science are also progressing well. They transform dry substance into
liquid, and liquid into gas; they change gravity into heat and heat into
mechanical power. And they are doing this without forgetting to
discriminate, as happened to our Fechner.
It is not enough to know that the body has a soul and the soul a body,
not enough to know that everything has a soul. It is also necessary to
discriminate between the peculiarities and details of the human, animal,
plant, and other souls, taking care not to exaggerate their differences
to the extreme of making them senseless.
We do not intend to follow this theory of a universal soul any further.
Fechner declares himself that "it must be admitted at the outset that
the whole question of a soul is a question of faith."... "Analogy is
not a convincing proof."... "We can no more prove the existence of a
soul than we can disprove it."
However, from the time of Cartesius it has been an accepted fact in the
world of philosophers that the consciousness of the human soul is the
best proof of its existence. The most positive science in the world is
the empirical self-observation of the thinking soul. This subject is the
most conspicuous object imaginable, and it is the positive outcome of
philosophy to have given an excellent description of the life and
actions of this soul particle called consciousness or understanding.
If the understanding is a part of the human soul and this soul an
evident and positive part of the universal life, then, clearly,
everything partaking of this life, such as pieces of wood and stones
scattered around, is related to this soul. Individual human souls,
national souls, animal souls, pieces of wood, lumps of stone, world
bodies, are all children of the same common universal nature. But there
are so many children that they must be classified into orders, classes,
families, etc., in order to know them apart. On account of their
likeness, the souls belong together in one class and the bodies in
another, and each requires more detailed classification. Thus we finally
arrive at the class of human souls forming a department by themselves,
because they all have a common general character.
The manufacturers know that the work of ten laborers produces more and
is of a different quality than the work of a single laborer multiplied
by ten. Likewise the general human soul, or any national soul, expresses
itself differently from the sum of the various individual souls
composing it. More even, the very individual soul differs at various
times and places, so that the individual soul is as manifold as any
national soul.
"Has the plant a soul? Has the earth a soul? Have they a soul analogous
to that of man? That is the question." Thus asks Fechner.
Just as my soul of today has something analogous to my soul of
yesterday, so it has also with the soul of my brother, and finally with
the souls of animals, plants, stones, etc., proving that everything is
more or less analogous. A herd of sheep is analogous to yonder flock of
small, white clouds in the sky, and a poet has the license to call those
small clouds little sheep. In the same way Fechner is justified in
propounding his theory of a universal soul.
Is it not necessary, however, to make a distinction between poetry and
truth? My brother's soul and my own are souls in the true sense of the
word, but the souls of stones--they are only so figuratively speaking.
At this point I want to call the reader's attention to the fact that we
must not pass lightly over the valuation of the difference between the
true and the figurative sense of a word.
Words are names which do not, and cannot, have any other function than
that of symbolic illustration. My soul, yours, or any other, are only
in conception the same souls.
When I say that John Flathead has the same soul as you and I, my
intention is simply to indicate that he has something which is common to
you and me and to all men. His soul is made in the image of our souls.
But where shall we draw the line in this comparison of images? What is
not an image in the abstract, and what is more than an image in the
concrete?
Truth and fiction are not totally different. The poet speaks the truth
and true understanding partakes largely of the nature of poetry.
Philosophy has truly perceived the nature of the soul, and especially
that part of it with which we are dealing, that is, reason or
understanding. This instrument has the function of furnishing to our
head a picture of the processes of the world outside of it, to describe
everything that is around us and to analyze the universe, itself a
phenomenon, with all its phenomena as a process of infinite variety in
time and space.
If this could be accomplished with the theory of a universal soul, then
Fechner would be the greatest philosopher that ever was. But he lacks
the understanding that the intellect which has to combine all things
within a general wrapper, must also consider the other side of the
question, that of specification. That, of course, cannot be achieved by
any philosopher. It must be the work of all science, and philosophy as a
doctrine of science must acknowledge that.
VI
CONSCIOUSNESS IS ENDOWED WITH THE FACULTY OF KNOWING AS WELL AS WITH THE
FEELING OF THE UNIVERSALITY OF ALL NATURE
In the historical course of philosophy, there has been much discussion
as to where our knowledge comes from, whether any of it, or how much of
it, is innate, and how much acquired by experience. Without any innate
faculties no knowledge could have been gathered with any amount of
experience, and without any experience even the best faculties would
remain barren. The results of science in all departments are due to the
interaction of subject and object.
There could be no subjective faculty of vision unless there were
something objective to be seen. The possession of a faculty of vision
carries with it the practical performance of seeing. One cannot have the
faculty of vision without seeing things. Of course, the two may be
separated, but only in theory, not in practice, and this theoretical
separation must be accompanied by the recollection that the separated
faculty is only a conception derived from the practical function.
Faculty and function are combined and belong together.
Man does not acquire consciousness, the faculty of understanding, until
he knows something, and his power grows with the performance of this
function.
The reader will remember that we have mentioned as an achievement of
philosophy the understanding of the fact that we must not make any
exaggerated distinctions. Hence we must not make any such distinction
between the innate faculty of understanding and the acquired knowledge.
It is an established universal rule that the human intellect knows of no
absolute separation of any two things, although it is free to separate
the universe into its parts for the purpose of understanding.
Now, if I claim that the conception of the universe is innate in us, the
reader must not conclude that I believe in the old prejudice of the
human intellect being like a receptacle filled with ideas of the true,
the beautiful, the good, and so forth. No, the intellect can create its
ideas and concepts only by self-production and the world around it must
furnish the materials for this purpose. But such a production
presupposes an innate faculty. Consciousness, the knowledge of being,
must be present, before any special knowledge can be acquired.
Consciousness signifies the knowledge of being. It means having at least
a faint inkling of the fact that being is _The_ universal idea. Being is
everything; it is the essence of everything. Without it there cannot be
anything, because it is the universe, the infinite.
Consciousness is in itself the consciousness of the infinite. The innate
consciousness of man is the knowledge of infinite existence. When I know
that I exist, then I know myself as a part of existence. That this
existence, this world, of which I am but a particle with all others,
must be an infinite world, does indeed not dawn on me until I begin to
analyze the conception of being with an experienced instrument of
thought. The reader, in undertaking this work with such an instrument,
will at once discover that the conception of the infinite is innate to
his consciousness,[8] and that no faculty of conception is possible
without this conception. The faculty of conception, understanding,
thought, means above all the faculty of grasping the universal concept.
The intellect cannot have any conception which is not more or less
clearly or faintly based on the concept of the universe. _Cogito, ergo
sum._ I think, therefore, I am. Whatever I imagine is there, at least in
imagination. Of course, the imagined and the real thing are different,
yet this difference does not exceed the limits of the universal
existence. Creatures of fiction and real creatures are not so radically
different that they would not all of them fit into the general gender of
being. The manner, the form of being, are different. Goblins exist in
fiction and Polish Jews exist in a tangible form, but they both exist.
The general existence comprises the body and the soul, fiction and
truth, goblins and Polish Jews.
It is no more inconceivable that the faculty of universal understanding
should be innate in us than that circles come into this world round, two
mountains have a valley between them, water is liquid and fire burns.
All things have a certain composition in themselves, they are born with
it. Does that require any explanation? The flowers which gradually grow
on plants, the powers and wisdom that grow in men in the course of
years, are no more easily explained than such innate faculties, and the
latter are no more wonderful than those acquired later. The best
explanation cannot deprive the wonders of nature of their natural
marvelousness. It is a mistake to assume that the faculty of
explanation which is located in the human brain, is a destroyer of the
belief in natural marvels. Philosophy which makes this faculty of
explanation and the nature of its explanations the object of its special
study gives us a new and much better understanding of this old miracle
maker. It destroys the belief in metaphysical miracles by showing that
physical nature is so universal that it absolutely excludes every other
form of existence than the natural one from this world of wonders.
I and many of my readers find in our brains the actual consciousness
that this general nature of which the intellect is a part is an infinite
nature. I call this consciousness innate, although it is acquired. The
point that I wish to impress on the reader is that the difference
generally made between innate and acquired qualities is not so
extraordinary that the innate need not to be acquired and the acquired
does not presuppose something innate. The one contradicts the other only
in those brains who do not understand the positive outcome of
philosophy. Such thinkers do not know how to make reasonable
distinctions and exaggerate in consequence. They have not grasped the
conciliation of all differences and contradictions in universal nature
by which all contradictions are solved.
Philosophy has endeavored to understand the intellect. In demonstrating
the positive outcome of philosophy, we must explain that philosophical
understanding as well as any other does not rise out of the isolated
faculty of understanding, but out of the universal nature. The womb of
our knowledge and understanding must not be sought in the human brain,
but in all nature which is not only called the universe, but is
actually universal. In order to prove this latter assertion, I refer to
the fact that this conception, this consciousness of the infinite in the
developed intellect, is in a manner innate. If the reader wishes to
object to my indiscriminately mixing the innate faculty with the
acquired understanding, I beg him to consider that I am endeavoring to
prove that any and all distinction made by the intellect refers in
reality to the inseparable parts of the one undivided universe. From
this it follows that the admired and mysterious intellect is not a
miracle, or at least no greater marvel than any other part of the
general marvel which is identical with the infinitely wonderful general
nature.
Some people love to represent consciousness as something supernatural,
to draw an unduly sharp line of separation between thinking and being,
thought and reality. But philosophy, which occupies itself particularly
with consciousness, has ascertained that such a sharp contrast is
unwarranted, not in harmony with the reality, and not a faithful
likeness of reality and truth.
In order to understand what philosophy has accomplished in the way of
insight into the function of the discriminating intellect, we must never
lose sight of the fact that there is only a moderate distinction of
degree between purely imaginary things and socalled real things.
Neither the natural condition of our faculty of thought, nor the
universality of general nature, permit of an exaggerated distinction
between the reality of creations of imagination and of really tangible
things. At the same time the exigencies of science demand clear
illustrations and so we must distinguish between these two kinds of
reality. It is true that in common usage the mere thought and the purely
imaginary things are set apart from nature and reality as something
different and antagonistic. Yet the rules of language heretofore in
vogue cannot prevent the spread of the additional knowledge that the
universe, or general nature, is so unlimited that it can establish a
conciliation between these limited antagonisms. The cat and the dog, for
instance, are pronounced enemies, but nevertheless zoology recognizes
them as being legitimate domestic companions.
Human consciousness is, in the first place, individual. Every human
individual has its own. But the peculiarity of my consciousness, of
yours, and that of others, is that of being not alone the consciousness
of the individual in question, but also the general consciousness of the
universe, at least that is its possibility and mission. Not every
individual is conscious of the universality of general nature, otherwise
there would be none of that distracting dualism. Nor would there be any
necessity for volumes and volumes of philosophy to teach us that a
limit, a thing, or a world outside of the universal, is a nonsensical
idea, an idea which is contrary to sense and reason. We may well say,
for this reason, that our consciousness, our intellect, is only in a
manner of speaking our own, while it is in fact a consciousness, an
intellect belonging to universal nature.
It can no more be denied that our consciousness is an attribute of the
infinite universe than it can be denied that the sun, the moon and the
stars are. Since this intellectual faculty belongs to the infinite and
is its child, we must not wonder that this universal faculty of thought
is born with the capability of grasping the conception of a universe.
And whoever does no longer wonder at this, must find it explicable, must
realize that the fact of universal consciousness is thus explained.
To explain the mysterious may be regarded as the whole function of
understanding, of intellect. If we succeed in divesting of its mysteries
the fact that the concept of an infinite universe is found in the
limited human mind, we have then explained this fact itself and
substantiated our contention that the things around us are explained by
their accurate reflection in our brain.
We summarize the nature of consciousness, its actions, life, and aims in
these words: It is the science of infinite being; it seeks to obtain an
accurate conception of this being and to explain its marvelousness. But
we have by no means exhausted its life and aims in these words. With all
the power of language, we can convey but a vague idea of the immensity
of the object under discussion. Whoever desires to know more about it,
must work for his own progress by observation and study. This much may
be safely said: This question is no more mysterious than any other part
of the general mystery.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] E. g., given with his consciousness.--EDITOR.
VII
THE RELATIONSHIP OR IDENTITY OF SPIRIT AND NATURE
"There is a natural law of analogy which explains that all things
belonging to the universe are members of the same family, that they are
related to one another by bonds which permit of the greatest variety in
individual differences and are not nullified even by the distance
between extremes." If we grasp the meaning of these words in their full
bearing, we recognize the outcome of philosophy up to date. They teach
us how to use our intellect in order to obtain an accurate picture of
the universe.
The intellect is also called by the name of faculty of discrimination.
If in the science of the powers of this faculty we place ourselves on
the standpoint of present-day natural knowledge, we possess the clear
and plain insight that there are no exaggerated distinctions, no
unrelated extremes, in the universe. The infinite is related to the
finite. For all developed and perishable things are the direct offspring
of the imperishable, of the eternal universe. General nature and its
special parts are inseparably interlaced. There is nothing among all
that has a name which is fundamentally different from other things known
by name.
There will hardly be any objection against these sentences, until we
proceed to draw their last consequences. If all things are related and
without exception children of the universe, it follows that mind and
matter must also be two yards of cloth from the same piece. Hence the
difference between human understanding and other natural human faculties
must not be magnified into that of irreconcilable extremes.
In order to become accustomed to scientific distinctions, the reader
should consider that a man can remain under the sway of a belief in
ghosts only so long as he ignores the relationship of all existing
things. He believes in real ghosts whose reality is supposed to be
radically different from his own. Such a distinction is exaggerated and
illogical, and whoever believes in it does not know how to discriminate
scientifically and has not the full use of his critical faculties.
Just as common parlance opposes art to nature and then forgets that art
is a part of nature, similarly as night is a part of day, so the
language of the believer in ghosts does not know that reason and wood,
mind and matter, in spite of all their differences, are two parts of the
same whole, two expressions of the same universal reality. Everything is
real and true, because in the last instance the universe is all, is the
only truth and reality. So I call it a slip of the tongue to speak of
natural nature as opposed to natural art or artificial nature, of
imaginary reality as distinct from real reality. There ought to be a
different name for the day of twelve hours than for the day of
twenty-four hours, so that it might be better understood that day and
night are not fundamentally different, but two prongs of the same fork.
Just as the faculty of thinking is innate in the child, and grows with
its development, so mankind's faculty of thought grows and has hitherto
expressed itself in a language which gave only instinctive conceptions
of the composition of the human brain and of its functions. The
construction of languages explains in a way the condition of the human
mind which had only inadequate knowledge of itself so far. Those
shortcomings of speech which I called slips of the tongue were not
understood until sufficient progress had been made in the explanation of
the process of thinking, and now these same shortcomings offer an
excellent means of representing and demonstrating the results of
enlightenment.
The mind is to give to man a picture of the world, the language is the
brush of the mind. It paints by its construction the universal
relationship of all things referred to in the beginning of this chapter,
and it does so in the following manner: It gives to each thing not only
its own name, but also adds to it another indicating its family, and
another indicating its race, another for the species, the genus, and
finally a general name which proclaims that all things are parts of the
one indivisible unit which is called world, existence, universe, cosmos.
This diagrammatic construction of language furnishes us with an
illustration of the graduated relationship of things and of the way in
which the human race arrives at its knowledge, its perceptions or
pictures.
We said that philosophy is that endeavor which seeks to throw light on
the process of human thought. This work has been rendered very difficult
by the unavoidable misunderstanding of the universal relationship just
mentioned. The transcendentalists insist above all that the process of
thinking and its product, thought, should not be classed among ordinary
physics, not as a part of physical nature, but as the creature of
another nature which carries the mysterious name of metaphysics. That
such a nature and such a science is neither possible nor real is proven
by the construction of language which normally describes everything as
being closely related and corroborates this by its abnormal shortcomings
which we called slips of the tongue.
The shortcomings of language which demonstrate the positive outcome of
philosophy consist in occasionally giving insufficiently significant
names to things belonging to a group in which the distinction between
individuals, species, genera, and families is not clearly defined. It is
not discernible, for instance, whether the term "cat" applies to a
domestic cat or to a tiger, because that term is used for a large class
of animals of which the domestic cat is the arch-type.
But it may be that this illustration is not well chosen for the purpose
of demonstrating that slip of the tongue which is supposed to give us an
exact appreciation of the positive outcome of philosophy. Let us find
another and better illustration which will be a transition from the
inadequate to the adequate and thus throw so much more light on the
obscurities of language.
Another and better example of the inadequacies of language is the
distinction between fish and meat. In this case, we entirely lack a
general term for meat, one kind of which is furnished by aquatic animals
and the other by terrestrial animals.
Now let the reader apply this shortcoming of language to the distinction
between physics and metaphysics, or between thought and reality. We lack
a term which will fully indicate the relation between these two.
Thoughts are indeed real things. True, there is a difference whether I
have one hundred dollars in imagination or in reality in my pocket.
Still we must not exaggerate this difference into something
transcendental. Painted money or imagined money are in a way also real,
that is in imagination. In other words, language lacks a term which will
clearly express the different realities within the compass of the unit.
The understanding of these peculiarities of language is calculated to
promote the insight and enlightenment in regard to that secret lamp
which man is carrying in his brain and with which he lights up the
things of this world. The cultivation of the theory of understanding,
the critique of reason, has an elementary significance for the
elucidation of all things. This is not saying that philosophy, that
special science with which we are here dealing, is a universal science
in the sense in which antiquity conceived of it. But it is universal
nevertheless in the sense in which the alphabet and other primary topics
are universal. Every one must use his brains and should therefore take
pains to understand its processes. Though the knowledge of these does
not make other efforts unnecessary, still it explains many ideas, it
elucidates the nature of thinking which every one is doing and which is
frequently used in a more ruthless manner than a dog would treat a rag.
The inertia which has prevented the one-sided idealists on the one hand
and the one-sided materialists on the other from coming to a peaceful
understanding may be traced to one of those slips of the tongue. We lack
the right terms for designating the relationship between spiritual
phenomena, such as our ideas, conceptions, judgments and conclusions and
many other things on one side and the tangible, ponderable,
commensurable things on the other. True, the reason for this lack of
terms is the absence of understanding, and for this reason the dispute
is not one of mere words, although it can be allayed only by an
improvement of our terminology.
Büchner, in his well-known work on "_Force and Matter_," likewise
overlooks this point, the same as all prior materialists, because they
are as onesidedly insistent on their _matter_ as the idealists are on
their _idea_. Quarrel and strife mean confusion, only peace will bring
light. The contrast between matter and mind finds its conciliation in
the positive outcome of philosophy which teaches that all distinctions
must be reasonable, because neither our instrument of thought nor the
rest of nature justify any exaggerated distinctions. In order to
elucidate the moot question, nothing is required but the insight that
ideas which nature develops in the human brain are materials for the
work of our understanding, though not materials for the work of our
hands. Philosophy has made material efforts to grasp the understanding
and its conceptions and is still making them in the same way in which
chemistry is working for the understanding of substances and physics for
the understanding of forces.
Substances, forces, ideas, conceptions, judgments, conclusions,
knowledge and perceptions, according to the positive outcome of
philosophy, must be regarded as differences or varieties of the same
monistic genus. The differentiation of things no more contradicts their
unity than their unity contradicts their differentiation. Darwin
expanded the conception of "species" and thus contributed to a better
understanding of zoology. Philosophy expands the conception of species
still far beyond the Darwinian definition in teaching us to consider the
species as little generalities and the largest genus, the absolute or
the cosmos as the all in one, the all-embracing species.
In order to closely connect the worm and the elephant, the lowest and
the highest animal, the vegetable and the animal kingdom, the inorganic
and the organic, as members of the same species or genus in a reasonable
way, we must keep account of the gradations in nature, the transitions,
the connecting links and connecting ideas. Embryology, which shows that
the life of the highest animal develops through the stages of the animal
genus, has greatly promoted the understanding of the common nature of
all animals.
"The continuity in the natural gradation of things is perfect, because
there are no gradations which are not represented, because there are no
differences between the various grades which nature does not fill by an
intermediary form.... There is no abrupt difference in nature, no
metaphysical jump, no vacuum, no gap in the order of the world," says a
well-known author of our times whose name I shall not mention, because I
wish to base my argument on the acknowledged facts rather than on names
of authorities.
What Darwin taught us in relation to animal life, viz., that there are
no fundamental differences between species, that is taught by philosophy
in regard to the universe. The understanding of the latter is rendered
difficult by the habit of making a transcendental distinction between
matter and mind.
VIII
UNDERSTANDING IS MATERIAL
Whether we say that philosophy has the understanding for the object of
its study, or whether we say that philosophy investigates the method of
utilizing subjective understanding in order to arrive at genuine,
correct, excellent, objective knowledge, that is only a matter of using
different terms for the same process. It makes no difference whether we
designate the object of our special science as a thing or as a process.
It is much more essential to understand that the distinction between the
thing and its action is in this instance of little consequence.
According to modern natural science all existence is resolved into
motion. It is well known now that even rocks do not stand still, but are
continuously active, growing and decaying.
The understanding, the intellect, is an active object, or an objective
action, the same as sunshine, the flow of waters, growing of trees,
disintegration of rocks, or any other natural phenomenon. Also the
understanding, the thinking which takes place consciously or
unconsciously in the human brain, is a phenomenon of as indubitable
actuality as the most material of them. It cannot in the least shake our
contention of the materially perceptible nature of intellectual activity
that we become aware of this activity by an internal, not by an
external, sense. Whether a stone is externally perceptible or thought
internally, what difference does this slight distinction make in the
incontestable fact that both perceptions are of equal material, natural
and sense-perceptible kind? Why should not the action of the brain
belong in the same category as the action of the heart? And though the
movement of the heart be internal and that of the tongue of the
nightingale external, what is to prevent us from considering these two
movements from the higher viewpoint of natural or material processes?
If the function of the heart may be referred to as material, why not the
function of the brain? True, the present usages of language are in
conflict with this mode of thought. But it must be remembered that every
science comes into conflict with usages of language by progressive
development. The discovery of every new thing in plant and animal life
compels the discoverer to invent a new term or change the meaning of an
old one. The term material has not had a well defined, but rather an
indefinite meaning so far. Now, since it is necessary, in order to
understand the function of the brain to remove it from the class of
transcendental or metaphysical conceptions and assign to it a place
among the material things, the question arises: What will be the most
appropriate term for it? The material and the spiritual are both two
species of the same genus. How are we to designate the species, how the
genus? For the sake of complete clearness, we require three different
names, one for each species and a common general name. But since we are
much less concerned about the name than about the understanding of these
facts which cannot be well explained without terms, we do not insist
dogmatically on calling the understanding material. It is sufficient to
point out that the function of the heart and of the brain both belong to
the same class, no matter whether this class be called material, real,
physical, or what not. So long as language has not established a
definite meaning for these terms, all of them serve equally well and are
equally deceptive.
The positive outcome of philosophy which culminates in placing the
theory of understanding in the same class with all other theories,
cannot be easily demonstrated on account of a natural confusion of
thought which arises from an equally natural confusion of language. In
the special department of handicraft as well as in that of scientific
brain work the terminology is well systematized, while in the general
affairs of life and science there is a confusion which is as great in
the matter of conceptions as in that of applying the terms by which
those awkward conceptions are expressed.
Wherever understanding is clear, there the language is also clear. The
man who does not understand shoemaking does not understand its
terminology. This is not saying that the understanding of a trade and
the understanding of its terminology are identical, but only indicating
their actual connection.
If the reader has had a glimpse of the enormity of the work of more than
two thousand years of philosophy in order to state what little we know
today of its achievement in the science of understanding, he will not be
very much surprised at the difficulties we here meet with in finding
terms for its demonstration.
The function of the brain is as material as that of the heart. The heart
and its function are two things, but they are dependent one upon the
other so that one cannot exist without the other. The function may
partly be felt. We feel the heart beating, the brain working. The
working of the heart may even be felt by touch, which is not the case
with the working of the brain. But it would be a mistake to imagine that
our knowledge of the function of the heart is exhausted by our
perception of it through the touch. Once we have overcome the habit of
making exaggerated distinctions between things, and have learned to
consider the differences of things as well as their interconnection, we
can easily understand that the science of the function of the heart is
an infinite science which is connected with all others. The heart cannot
work without the blood, the blood cannot exist without food, and this is
connected with the air, the plants, the animals, the sun, and the moon.
The function of the brain and its product, the understanding, is
likewise inseparable from the universal interdependence of things. The
health of the blood which is produced by the action of the heart is no
more and no less a material phenomenon than the total knowledge of
science which appears as a product of brain life.
Although we represent the doctrine of the material nature of
understanding as the positive outcome of philosophy, this is not
proclaiming the victory of that narrow materialism which has been
spreading itself particularly since the eighteenth century. On the
contrary, this mechanical materialism wholly misunderstands the nature
of the problem. It teaches that the faculty of thought is a function of
the brain, the brain is the object of study and its function, the
faculty of thought, is fully explained as a brain quality or function.
This materialism is enamored of mechanics, idolizes it, does not regard
it as a part of the world, but as the sole substance which comprises the
whole universe. Because it misunderstands the relation of thing and
function, of subject and predicate, it has no inkling of the fact that
this relation which it handles in such a matter-of-fact way, but not at
all scientifically, may be an object worthy of study. The materialist
of the old school is too horny-handed to consider the function or
quality of understanding as an object worthy of a separate scientific
department. We, on the other hand, follow the suggestion of Spinoza, who
required of the philosophers that they should consider everything in the
light of eternity. In so doing we find that the tangible things, such as
the brain, are qualities of nature, and that in the same way the
socalled functions are natural things, substantial parts of the
universe.
Not only tangible objects are "things," but also the rays of the sun and
the scent of flowers belong to this category, and perceptions are no
exception to the rule. But all these "things" are only relative things,
since they are qualities of the one and absolute which is the only
thing, the "thing itself," well known to every one by the name of the
universe, or cosmos.
IX
THE FOUR PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC
Since this work wishes to demonstrate the positive outcome of
philosophy, the reader may ask the author what are his proofs that
instead of the quintessence of thousands of years of philosophical work
he is not offered the elaboration of any individual philosopher, or even
that of the author himself.
In reply I wish to say that my work would be rendered uselessly
voluminous by quotations from the works of the most prominent
philosophical writers, without proving anything, since the words of one
often contradict those of another.
What is said by Kant, Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel, in one place of any
of their works, is at least considerably modified, if not contradicted,
in another place of the same work. It is of little consequence, how and
by whose help I have arrived at the positive outcome of philosophy as
here rendered. Whether it is the actual outcome or not can be judged
only by the expert, and every opinion is necessarily very subjective.
Under the circumstances I, as author, claim that my opinion is worth as
much as any other, and the reader may therefore accept my assurance. As
to the further value of that which I offer, it is a peculiarity of the
subject under discussion that every reader carries it and its
experiences within himself and may, without consulting any other author,
at once draw his own conclusions about my views, provided he has
acquired the necessary training in thought. What a traveler tells us
about the interior of Africa must either be believed to the letter or
verified by the accounts of other travelers. But what I say about logic
will, I hope, find its corroboration in the logic of every reading
brain.
The theory of understanding which has become the special object of
philosophy, is nothing else, and cannot be anything else, but expanded
logic. Many practical rules and laws of this department are known and
recognized since the time of Aristotle. But the question whether there
is one world or two, a natural and unnatural, or supernatural as it is
called with preference, that is the point which has given much trouble
to philosophy and which will influence the health of logic so long as
it is undecided.
Dr. Friedrich Dittes, director of the institute of pedagogy in Vienna,
has published a _School of Pedagogy_, several editions of which have
appeared, in which he gives much attention to logic. Dittes is a
prominent pedagogue, well known through his writings. He confines
himself in his _School_ to teaching only that which is well established
and accepted without a doubt. As a practical man who addresses himself
mainly to teachers of primary grades, he would not place himself on the
pinnacle of the outcome of philosophy, even if he could. He must confine
himself to that which is well established, which is far removed from the
disputes of the day. But it may here serve as a whetstone by the help of
which we may give to the positive product of philosophy its latest and
greatest sharpness.
He writes right in the beginning of the first part: "Our ideas are as
manifold as the objects to which they refer. Several things may have
many or few, or at least one quality, in common. Still they may also be
totally different."
This last point, viz., that there may be things which are "totally"
different from one another, is the one which is decidedly rejected by
that science which has risen to the eminence of the positive acquisition
of philosophy. There can be no natural things which are "totally"
different from one another, because they must all of them have in common
the quality of being natural.
It sounds very commonplace to say that there are no unnatural things in
nature. Since the last witch was burnt, everybody is sufficiently
enlightened to know that. But the logical conclusions of natural monism
have not yet been drawn. True, natural science, properly socalled, is
busily engaged in arriving at them. But so much more strife is there in
the "science of mind" and there is no other remedy but a well founded
theory of understanding which teaches that nature is not alone absolute
nature, but also the nature of the absolute. From this doctrine it
necessarily follows that all things are not individually independent,
but related by sex, dependent children, "predicates" of the monistic
unity of the world.
"The arch fountain of the human spirit," says Dittes, "is perception....
Whether perception as such discloses to us the true nature of things, or
whether it makes us familiar only with their phenomena, this is not to
be discussed by logic." The practical pedagogue who confines himself to
the education of children's brains or who wishes at most to influence
such teachers as educate children's brains, is quite right in being
satisfied with the old traditional Aristotlean logic. But in the school
of the human race, this logic has not been sufficient. For this reason
the philosophers have broached the question whether perception, "the
arch fountain of the human spirit," is a true or a deceptive fountain.
The product of the philosophical investigation which we here offer
amounts to the declaration that the logicians are greatly mistaken about
the "arch fountain." It is a cardinal error of ancient logic to regard
perception as the ultimate source from which the human mind dips its
knowledge. It is nature which is the ultimate source, and our perception
is but the mediator of understanding. And its product, recognized
truth, is not truth itself, but merely a formal picture of it. Universal
nature is the arch fountain, is the eternal and imperishable truth
itself, and our perception, like every other part of universal
existence, is only an attribute, a particle of absolute nature. The
human mind, with whose nature logic is dealing, is no more an
independent thing than any other, but simply a phenomenon, a reflex or
predicate of nature.
To confound true perceptions or perceived truths with general truth,
with the _non plus ultra_ of all truths, is equivalent to regarding a
sparrow as _the_ bird in general, or a period of civilization as
civilization itself, which would mean the closing of the door to all
further development.
Modern philosophy, beginning with Bacon of Verulam and closing with
Hegel, carries on a constant struggle with the Aristotlean logic. The
product of this struggle, the outcome of philosophy, does not deny the
old rules of traditional logic, but adds a new and decidedly higher
circle of logical perception to the former ones. For the sake of better
understanding it may be well to give to this circle a special title, the
special name of "theory of understanding," which is sometimes called
"dialectics."
In order to demonstrate the essential contents of this philosophical
product by an investigation of the fundamental laws of traditional logic
and to explain it thereby, I refer once more to the teacher of
elementary logic, Dittes.
Under the caption of "Principles of Judgment" he teaches: "Since
judging, like all thinking, aims at the perception of truth, the rules
have been sought after by which this purpose might be accomplished. As
universally applicable rules, as principles or laws of thought, the
following four have been named:
(1) The law of uniformity (identity).
(2) The law of contradiction.
(3) The law of the excluded third.
(4) The law of adequate cause."
So much scholastic talk has been indulged in over these four
"principles," that I can hardly bring myself to discuss them further.
But since my purpose, the demonstration of the positive outcome of
philosophy, consists in throwing a new light on the logic contained in
these four so-called principles or laws, I am compelled to lay bare
their inmost kernel.
The first principle, then, declares that A is A, or to speak
mathematically, every quantity is equal to itself. In plain English: a
thing is what it is; no thing is what it is not. "Characters which are
excluded by any conception must not be attributed to it." The square is
excluded from the conception of a circle, therefore the predicate
"square" must not be given to a circle. For the same reason a straight
line must not be crooked, and a lie must not be true.
Now this so-called law of thought may be well enough for household use,
where nothing but known quantities are under consideration. A thing is
what it is. Right is not left and one hundred is not one thousand.
Whoever is named Peter or Paul remains Peter or Paul all his life. This,
I say, is all right for household use.
But when we consider matters from the wider point of view of cosmic
universal life, then this famous law of thought proves to be nothing but
an expedient in logic which is not adequate to the nature of things, but
merely a means of mutual understanding for us human beings. Hence the
left bank of the Rhine is not the right, because we have agreed that in
naming the banks of a river we will turn our backs to the source and our
faces to the mouth of the river and then designate the banks as right
and left. Such a way of distinguishing, thinking, and judging is good
and practical, so long as this narrow standpoint is accompanied by the
consciousness of its narrowness. Hitherto this has not been the case.
This determined logic has overlooked that the perception which is
produced by its rules is not truth, not the real world, but only gives
an ideal, more or less accurate, reflection of it. Peter and Paul, who
according to the law of identity are the same all their lives, are in
fact different fellows every minute and every day of their lives, and
all things of this world are, like those two, not constant, but very
variable quantities. The mathematical points, the straight lines, the
round circles, are ideals. In reality every point has a certain
dimension, every straight line, when seen through a magnifying glass, is
full of many crooked turns, and even the roundest circle, according to
the mathematicians, consists of an infinite number of straight lines.
The traditional logic, then, declares with its law of identity, or in
the words of Dittes "law of uniformity," that Peter and Paul are the
same fellows from beginning to end, or that the western mountains remain
the same western mountains so long as they exist. The product of modern
philosophy, on the other hand, declares that the identity of people,
woods, and rocks is inseparably linked to their opposite, their
incessant transformation. The old school logic treats things, the
objects of perception, like stereotyped moulds, while the
philosophically expanded logic considers such treatment adequate for
household use only. The logical household use of stereotyped
conceptions extends, and should extend, to all of science. The
consideration of things as remaining "the same" is indispensable, and
yet it is very salubrious to know and remember that the things are not
only the same permanent and stereotyped, but at the same time variable
and in flow. That is a contradiction, but not a senseless one. This
contradiction has confused the minds and given much trouble to the
philosophers. The solution of this problem, the elucidation of this
simple fact, is the positive product of philosophy.
I have just declared that logic so far did not know that the perception
produced by its principles does not offer us truth itself, but only a
more or less accurate picture of it. I have furthermore contended that
the positive outcome of philosophy has materially added to the clearness
of the portrait of the human mind. Logic claims to be "the doctrine of
the forms and laws of thought." Dialectics, the product of philosophy,
aims to be the same, and its first paragraph declares: Not thought
produces truth, but being, of which thought is only that part which is
engaged in securing a picture of truth. The fact resulting from this
statement may easily confuse the reader, viz., that the philosophy which
has been bequeathed to us by logical dialectics, or dialectic logic,
must explain not alone thought, but also the original of which thought
is a reflex.
While, therefore, traditional logic teaches in its first law that all
things are equal to themselves, the new dialectics teaches not only that
things are equal to themselves and identical from start to finish, but
also that these same things have the contradictory quality of being the
same and yet widely variable. If it is a law of thought that we gain as
accurate as possible a conception of things by the help of thought, it
is at the same time a law of thought that all things, processes, and
proceedings are not things but resemble the color of that silk which,
although equal to itself and identical throughout, still plays from one
color into another. The things of which the thinking thing or human
intellect is one are so far from being one and the same from beginning
to end that they are in truth and fact without beginning and end. And as
phenomena of nature, as parts of infinite nature, they only seem to have
a beginning and end, while they are in reality but natural
transformations arising temporarily from the infinite and returning into
it after a while.
Natural truth or true nature, without beginning and end, is so
contradictory that it only expresses itself by shifting phenomena which
are nevertheless quite true. To old line logic this contradiction
appears senseless. It insists on its first, second, and third law, on
its identity, its law of contradiction and excluded third, which must be
either straight or crooked, cold or warm, and excludes all intermediary
conceptions. And in a way it is right. For every-day use it is all right
to deal in this summary fashion with thoughts and words. But it is at
the same time judicious to learn from the positive outcome of philosophy
that in reality and truth things do not come to pass so ideally. The
logical laws think quite correctly of thoughts and their forms and
applications. But they do not exhaust thinking and its thoughts. They
overlook the consciousness of the inexhaustibleness of all natural
creations, of which the object of logic, human understanding, is a part.
This object did not fall from heaven, but is a finite part of the
infinite which actually has the contradictory quality of possessing in
and with its logical nature that universal nature which is superior to
all logic.
From this critique of the three first "fundamental laws of logic" it is
apparent that the human understanding is not only everywhere identical,
but also different in each individual and has a historical development.
We are, of course, logically entitled to consider this faculty like all
others by itself and give it a birthday. Wherever man begins, there
understanding, the faculty of thought, begins. But we are
philosophically and dialectically no less entitled, and it is even our
duty, to know that the faculty of understanding, the same as its human
bearer, has no beginning, in spite of the fact that we ascribe a
beginning to them. When we trace the historical development of these
two, of man and understanding, backward to their origin, we arrive at a
transition to the animal and see their special nature merging into
general nature. The same is found in tracing the development of the
individual mind. Where does consciousness begin in the child? Before,
at, or after birth? Consciousness arises from its opposite,
unconsciousness, and returns to it. In consequence we regard the
unconscious as the substance and the conscious as its predicate or
attribute. And the fixed conceptions which we make for ourselves of the
units or phenomena of the natural substance are recognized by us as
necessary means in explaining nature, but at the same time it is
necessary to learn from dialectics that all fixed conceptions are
floating in a liquid element. The infinite substance of nature is a very
mobile element, in which all fixed things appear and sink, thus being
temporarily fixed and yet not fixed.
Now let us briefly review the fourth fundamental law of logic, according
to which everything must have an adequate cause. This law is likewise
very well worthy of attention, yet it is very inadequate, because the
question what should be our conception of the world and what is the
constitution of the most highly developed thinking faculty of the world
requires the answer: the world, in which everything has its adequate
cause, is nevertheless, including consciousness and the faculty of
thought, without beginning, end, and cause, that is, a thing justified
in itself and by itself. The law of the adequate cause applies only to
pictures made by the human mind. In our logical pictures of the world
everything must have its adequate cause. But the original, the universal
cosmos, has no cause, it is its own cause and effect. To understand that
all causes rest on the causeless is an important dialectic knowledge
which first throws the requisite light on the law of the necessity of an
adequate cause.
Formally everything must have its cause. But really everything has not
only one cause, but innumerable causes. Not alone father and mother are
the cause of my existence, but also the grand parents and great grand
parents, together with the air they breathed, the food they ate, the
earth on which they walked, the sun which warmed the earth, etc. Not a
thing, not a process, not a change is the adequate cause of another, but
everything is rather caused by the universe which is absolute.
When philosophy began its career with the intention of understanding the
world, it soon discovered that this purpose could be accomplished only
by special study. When it chose understanding, or the faculty of
thought, as the special object of its study, it separated its specific
object too far from the general existence. Its logic, in opposing
thought to the rest of existence, forgot the interconnection of the
opposites, forgot that thought is a form, a species, an individuality
which belongs to the genus of existence, the same as fish to the genus
of meat, night to the genus of day, art to nature, word to action, and
death to life. It does not attempt to explore the essence of thought for
its own sake, but for the purpose of discovering the rules of exploring
and thinking correctly. It could not very well arrive at those coveted
rules, so long as it idealized truth transcendentally and elevated it
far above the phenomena. All phenomena of nature are true parts of
truth. Even error and lies are not opposed to truth in that exaggerated
sense in which the old style logic represents them, which teaches that
two contradictory predicates must not be simultaneously applied to the
same subject, that any one subject is either true or false, and that any
third alternative is out of the question. Such statements are due to an
entire misconception of truth. Truth is the absolute, universal sum of
all existing things, of all phenomena of the past, present, and future.
Truth is the real universe from which errors and lies are not excluded.
In so far as stray thoughts, giants and brownies, lies and errors are
really existing, though only in the imagination of men, to that extent
they are true. They belong to the sum of all phenomena, but they are not
the whole truth, not the infinite sum. And even the most positive
knowledge is nothing but an excellent picture of a certain part. The
pictures in our minds have this in common with their originals that they
are true. All errors and lies are true errors and true lies, hence are
not so far removed from truth that one should belong to heaven and the
other to eternal damnation. Let us remain human.
Since old line logic with its four principles was too narrowminded, its
development had to produce that dialectics which is the positive
outcome of philosophy. This science of thought so expanded regards the
universe as the truly universal or infinite, in which all contradictions
slumber as in the womb of conciliation. Whether the new logic shall have
the same name as the old, or assume the separate title of theory of
understanding or dialectics, is simply a question of terms which must be
decided by considerations of expediency.
X
THE FUNCTION OF UNDERSTANDING ON THE RELIGIOUS FIELD
We took our departure from the fact that philosophy is searching for
"understanding." The first and principal acquisition of philosophy was
the perception that its object is not to be found in a transcendental
generality. Whoever wishes to obtain understanding, must confine himself
to something special, without, however, through this limitation losing
sight of all measure and aim to such an extent that he forgets the
infinite generality.
A modern psychologist who occupies himself with "Thoughts on
Enlightenment," which topic is evidently related to ours, says: "Real
and genuine enlightenment can proceed only from religious motives."
Expressed in our language, this would mean: Every genuine understanding,
every true conception or knowledge, must be based on the clear
consciousness that the infinite universe is the arch fundament of all
things.
Understanding and true enlightenment are identical. "It is true," say
the "Thoughts on Enlightenment," "that all enlightenment takes the form
of struggles on account of the nature of him who is to be enlightened
and of the object about which he is to be informed. But it is a struggle
for religion, not against it." The author, Professor Lazarus, says in
his preface that he does not wish the reader to base his opinion on any
single detached sentence. "Every single sentence," he says, "may be
tested as to its value, but the whole of my views on religion and
enlightenment cannot be recognized from any single one of them."
As this wish is entirely justified and as our position is somewhat
supported by his psychological treatment of enlightenment, we shall
comply with his wish and seek to grasp the meaning of his statements on
the religious nature of enlightenment in their entirety, not as isolated
sentences.
We even go a step farther than Professor Lazarus, by extending to
understanding what he says about enlightenment, viz., that genuine
knowledge and enlightenment must, so to say, take their departure from
religious motives. But we differ a little as to what motives are
religious. Lazarus refers, so far as I can see, to ideas and the ideal,
while we, thanks to the positive outcome of philosophy, understand the
terms _religion_ and _religious_ to refer to the universal
interdependence of things.
Obviously the dividing line between heat and cold is drawn by the human
mind. The point selected for this purpose is the freezing point of
water. One might just as well have selected any other point. Evidently
the dividing line between that which is religious and that which is
irreligious is as indeterminate as that between hot and cold. Neither
any university nor any usage of language can decide that, nor is the
pope a scientific authority in the matter.
It is mainly due to the socalled historical school that a thing is
considered not alone by its present condition, but by its origin and
decline. What, then, is religion and religious? The fetish cult, the
animal cult, the cult of the ideal and spiritual creator, or the cult of
the real human mind? Where are we to begin and where to end? If the
ancient Germans regarded the great oak as sacred and religious, why
should not art and science become religious among the modern Germans? In
this sense, Lazarus is correct. The "enlightenment" which was headed in
France by Voltaire and the encyclopedists, in Germany by Lessing and
Kant, the "enlightenment" which came as a struggle for reason and
against religion, was then in fact a struggle for religion, not against
it. By this means one may make everything out of anything. But this has
to be learned first in order to recognize how our mind ought to be
adjusted, so that it may perceive that not only everything is
everything, but that each thing also has its own place.
We wish to become clear in our minds how it is possible, and
reconcilable with sound conception, that such an anti-religious struggle
as that carried on during that period of "enlightenment" can
nevertheless be a struggle for and in the interest of religion. We wish
to find out how one may abolish religion and at the same time maintain
it.
This is easily understood, if we remember the repeatedly quoted
dialectic rule according to which our understanding must never
exaggerate the distinctions between two things. We must not too widely
separate the religious from the secular field. Of course, the religious
field is in heaven, while the secular is naturally in the profane
universe. Having become aware that even religious imagination, together
with its heaven and spirit creator, are profane conceptions in spite of
their alleged transcendentalism, we find religion in the secular field,
and thus this field has in a way become religious. The religious and the
profane infinite have something in common, at least this that the
indefinite religious name may also be applied to the secular or profane
infinity.
"All culture, every condition of humanity or of a nation, has its roots
as well as its bounds in history," says our Professor of psychology.
Should not religion, which according to the words of a German emperor
"must be preserved for the people," also have its bounds in history? Or
does it belong to the infinite and must it exist forever? In order to
free history of its bounds, it is necessary to avail ourselves of the
positive outcome of philosophy and to demonstrate that nothing is
infinite but the infinite itself, which has the double nature of being
infinite and inseparable from the finite phenomena of nature. The whole
of nature is eternal, but none of its individual phenomena is, although
even the imperishable whole is composed of perishable parts.
The relation of the constant whole of nature to its variable parts, the
relation of the general to the specialties composing it, includes, if we
fully grasp it, a perfect conception of the human mind as well as of the
understanding and enlightenment which it acquires. This mind cannot
enlighten itself as to its special nature without observing how it came
to enlighten itself as to the nature of other specialties. We then find
that it has likewise enlightened itself on religious phenomena by
recognizing them as a part, as a variation, of the general phenomenon of
the constant, eternal, natural universe. Hence secular nature, which is
at the same time eternal and temporal, is the mother of religious
nature. Of course, the child partakes of the nature of the mother.
Religion, historically considered, arises from nature, but the
determination of the date of the beginning of this specialty is left as
much to the choice of man as that of the point where the cold and the
warm meet. The general movement of nature, from which arise its
specialties, proceeds in infinite time. Its transformations are so
gradual that every determined point constitutes an arbitrary act which
is at the same time arbitrary and necessary; necessary for the human
being who wishes to gain a conception of it. A perfect conception of
religion, therefore, goes right to the center of the question, to the
point where the religious specialty reaches a characteristic stage, to
its freezing point, so to say. From this standpoint, heat and cold may
be sharply defined; likewise religion. If we say, for instance, that
religion is the conception of a supernatural spirit who rules nature,
and the reader thinks this definition somewhat appropriate, the simple
demonstration of the achievements of philosophy in the field of
understanding or dialectics proves that this religious conception is
untenable in this world of the human mind which knows how to obtain a
logical picture of its experiences.
To desire to preserve religion for the people as a sharply defined and
finite thing is contrary to all logic and equivalent to swimming against
the tide. On the other hand, it is equally illogical to identify
religion after the manner of Lazarus with the conception of natural
infinity or infinite nature, because that promotes mental haziness.
The laws of thought obtained by philosophical research give us
considerable enlightenment about the infinite material process, the
nature of which is sublime enough to be worthy of religious devotion,
and yet special and matter-of-fact enough to wash the dim eyes with
natural clearness.
We have already seen in preceding chapters that we must first define our
standpoint before we can decide which is the right or left bank of a
river. So it is also in the matter of abolishing and maintaining
religion for the people. It can be done the moment we extend the
discussion to the realm of infinity. The conception of infinity, called
substance by Spinoza, monad by Leibniz, thing itself by Kant, the
absolute by Hegel, is indeed necessary in order to explain anything, not
only by the fourth root, but by the infinite root of the adequate
reason. To that extent we are agreed that enlightenment, or
understanding as we say, is not alone a struggle against religion, but
also for it. In the theory of understanding acquired by philosophy,
there is contained a decisive repeal of religion. Nevertheless we say
with Lazarus: "The power of enlightenment and its aim are not expressed
in negation, not in that which is not believed, but in that which is
believed, venerated, and preserved." And yet every enlightening
perception, every understanding resulting from enlightenment, is a
negation. In seeking enlightenment, for instance, on understanding, it
is necessary, in order to prove that it is a natural phenomenon, to deny
the religious element in so far as it assumes the existence of a divine
chief spirit whose secondary copy the human spirit is supposed to be.
Or, in order to gain enlightenment on the nature of the universe, in
order to realize that it is a truly universal universe, we are compelled
to deny the existence of every "higher" world, including the religious.
But if we desire to become enlightened as to how it is that religion
may not alone be denied, but also preserved, we must transfer its origin
from an illogical other world into the natural and logical universe.
Thus religion becomes natural and nature religious.
If worship is confined to the idolization of the sun or the cat, every
one realizes the temporality of the matter. And if we restrict worship
to the adoration of the great omnipotent spirit, every one realizes the
temporality of this adoration who has acquired an accurate conception of
the small human spirit. If, on the other hand, we extend religious
worship to everything which has ever been venerated, or will ever be
venerated, by human beings, in other words, if we extend the conception
of religion to the entire universe, then it assumes a very far-reaching
significance.
This is the essence of enlightenment on religion: That we may at will
expand or contract our conceptions, that all things are alike to the
extent of representing only one nature, that all fantastical ideas, all
good and evil spirits and ghosts, no matter how "supernaturally"
conceived, are all natural.
The essential thing in the enlightenment acquired by philosophical study
is the appreciation of the fact that understanding, enlightenment,
science, etc., are not cultivated for their own sake, but must serve the
purpose of human development, the material interests of which demand a
correct mental picture of the natural processes.
We have chosen the religious idea for discussion in this chapter so that
it may serve as a means of illustrating the nature of thought in
general. We regard it as the merit of philosophy to have unveiled this
nature.
Professor Lazarus is quite a pleasing companion. He is a fine thinker,
saturated with the teachings of the philosophers, not overfond of any
particular school, and only about two hands' breadth removed from our
position. But this is just enough to demonstrate by his shortcomings the
advantages of our position which proves that the part of the human soul
performing the work of thinking is understood by us at least two hands'
breadth better than by this prominent psychologist.
"The function of enlightenment is to recognize that no phenomenon can be
an effect which has not another phenomenon as its cause, and to search
for the sole cause of every effect, noting all its parts and their
consecutive divisions."
These words describe the mental work performed by the human brain fairly
well, but still they require a little addition, to the effect that the
mental work is no exception from any other phenomena, all of which have
not alone their special, but also one general cause. The cause of all
causes, of which religion is making an idol, must be profaned, so to
speak, by the cult of science, so that the above definition of Lazarus
regarding enlightenment would read as follows: The sole and true cause
of all effects is the universe, or the general interdependence of all
things. But this is not by far the full scope of enlightenment. It is
further necessary, as Lazarus well says, to note "all its parts and
their consecutive divisions." We further add: The universal cause must
be understood not alone in its consecutive parts, but also in its
co-ordinate parts. It is only then that understanding, enlightenment,
become perfect. We then find that after all the relation between cause
and effect, or the relation between the universal truth and its natural
phenomena, is not a very trenchant one, but a relative one.
"Enlightenment advances in various, in all, fields of mental life.
Religious enlightenment has long been recognized as the most essential,
justly so, and for many reasons, the chief of them being that religious
enlightenment is the most important and hence the most bitterly
contested."
Thus religious enlightenment is a part of universal, cosmic,
enlightenment. It is a confusing expression to say that it is confined
to "all fields of mental life." We believe to be shedding more light on
the question by saying that there is enlightenment in all fields, not
alone in the mental, but also in the cosmic, which unites both the
material and mental. To classify this field, that is the exhaustive task
of our understanding, that its exhaustive definition.
XI
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN CAUSE AND EFFECT IS ONE OF THE MEANS OF
UNDERSTANDING
The processes of the human mind and their subjective composition cannot
be analyzed in a _pure_ state and without regard to their objective
effects any more than handiwork can be explained without the raw
material to be handled and the products derived therefrom, any more than
any work can be described in a _pure_ state without regard to the
product.
That is the sad defect of old time logic which is an obstacle to its
further advance: it literally tears things out of their connections and
forgets the necessity of interdependence over the need of special study.
The instrument which produces thought and knowledge in the human brain
is not an isolated thing, nor an isolated quality. It is connected not
only with the brain and the nervous system, but also with all qualities
of the soul. True, thinking is different from feeling, but it is
nevertheless a feeling the same as gladness and sorrow. Thought is
called incomprehensible and the heart unfathomable. It is the function
of science, of thinking and thought, to fathom and comprehend what as
yet is not fathomed and not comprehended.
Just as thinking and understanding are parts of the human soul, so the
latter is a part of physical and intellectual man. Together with the
physical development of man, of the species as well as of the
individual, the soul also develops and with it that part which is the
special object of the theory of understanding, viz., thought and
thinking. Not alone does physical development produce intellectual
development, but, vice versa, the understanding reacts on the physical
world. The one is not merely a cause, nor the other merely an effect.
This obsolete distinction does not suffice for the full understanding of
their interrelations. We pay a tribute to the "thoughts on
enlightenment" of Professor Lazarus quoted in the previous chapter by
acknowledging that they throw so much light on a certain point that
little more than the dot over the "i" is required in order to clear up a
bad misunderstanding about the relation of cause and effect.
Since the time of Aristotle this relation has been called a category. We
have already noted the statement which characterizes the age of
enlightenment as one in which the causal category, or let us say the
distinction between cause and effect, became the dominant issue. Other
periods live with their understanding, with their thoughts, in other
categories. Though the ancient Greeks knew the distinction between
cause and effect, yet it was far from being the dominant point of view
in their search after scientific understanding. Instead of regarding, as
we do today, everything as effects which were produced by preceding
causes, they saw in every process, in every phenomenon, a means which
had a purpose. The category of means and purpose dominated the Greeks.
Socrates admired the knowledge of nature displayed by Anaxagoras, the
stories he could tell of sun, moon, and stars. But as Anaxagoras had
omitted to disclose the _reasonable purpose_ of the processes of nature,
Socrates did not think much of such a natural science. At that period
the means and the purpose were the measure of reason, the handle of the
mind, the category of understanding; today causes and effects have taken
their places.
Between the golden age of Greece and the era of modern science, the
socalled night of the Middle Ages, the epoch of superstition, extends.
If then you started out on a voyage and first met an old woman, it meant
misfortune for you. Wallenstein cast the horoscope before he directed
his troops. "Understanding" was gathered from the flight of a bird, the
cry of an animal, the constellations of stars, the meeting with an old
woman. The category of that period was the _sign_ and its
_consequences_.
And according to Lazarus, these things were believed by brains which
were by no means dull. "I refer to a name which fills us all with
veneration: Kepler believed in astrology, in the _category of the sign
and its consequence_, together with the thinkers of the thousand years
before him and of his own century. Astrology was a science for many
centuries, promoted together with astronomy ... and by the same people."
The peculiar thing in this statement is the reference to the category
of sign and consequence as a _science_. This category has no longer a
place in modern science.
May not our modern viewpoint, the category in which our present day
science thinks, the category of cause and effect, be equally transitory?
The ancients have accomplished lasting scientific results in spite of
their "purposes." Mediæval superstition with its "signs," its astrology
and alchemy, has likewise bequeathed to us a few valuable scientific
products. And, on the other hand, even the greatest partisans of modern
science do not deny that it is marred by various adventurous vagaries.
The categories of means and purposes, of signs and consequences, are
still in vogue today and will be preserved together with that of causes
and effects. The knowledge that this latter category is likewise but a
historical one and exerts but temporarily a dominating influence on
science belongs to the positive outcome of philosophy, and Professor
Lazarus, with all his advanced standpoint, has remained behind this
result by about a yard.
Kindly note that it is not the extinction of the relation between cause
and effect which we predict, but merely that of its dominance.
Whoever skips lightly over the current of life, will be greatly shocked
when reading that we place the fundamental pillar of all perception, the
category of cause and effect, in the same passing boat in which the
prophets and astrologers rode. One is very prone to belittle the faith
of others by the name of "superstition" and honor one's own superstition
by the title of "science."
Once we have grasped the fact that our intellect has no other purpose
than that of tracing a human picture of cosmic processes, and that its
penetration of the interior of nature, its understanding, explaining,
perceiving, knowing, etc., is nothing else, and cannot be anything else,
that moment it loses its mysterious, transcendental metaphysical
character. We also understand then, that the great spirit above the
clouds who is supposed to create the world out of nothing, could very
well serve the mind as a means of explaining things. And it is the same
with the category of cause and effect, which is a splendid means of
assisting explanation, but still will not suffice for the requirements
of all time to come.
The perception that the great spirit above the clouds is a free
invention of the small human mind has become so widely spread that we
may well pass on over it to other things.
Among the questions now on the order of business is the one whether the
"causes" with which modern science operates so widely are not in a way
creators in miniature which produce their effects in a sleight-of-hand
way. And this erroneous notion is, indeed, the current conception.
If a stone falls into the water, it is the cause of the undulations, but
not their creator. It is only a co-operator, for the liquid and elastic
qualities of the water also act as a cause. If the stone falls into
butter, it creates at best but one undulation, and if this stony creator
falls on the hard ground, it is all up with the creation of undulations.
This shows that causes are not creators, but rather effects which are
not effected, but effect themselves.
The category of cause and effect is a good help in explanation, so long
as it is accompanied by the philosophical consciousness that the whole
of nature is an infinite sea of transformations, which are not created
by one great or many small creators, but which create themselves.
A well-known philosophical author expresses himself in the following
manner: "During the first weeks of its existence, the child has no
perception either of the world without, or of its own body, or of its
soul. Hence its feeling is not accompanied by the consciousness of an
interaction between these three factors. It does not suspect its
causes." We see that soul, body, and outer world are called the three
factors of feeling. Now note how each one of these three causes or
factors is, so to say, the store house of innumerable factors or causes,
all of which cause the feeling of the child. The soul consists of many
soul parts, the body of many bodily parts, and the outer world consists
of so many parts that it would consist of ten times more parts, if there
were any more than innumerable.
There is no doubt that the child's feeling, or any other, does not exist
independently, but is dependent on the soul, the body, and the outer
world. This constitutes the indubitable interrelation of all things. In
the winding processes of the self-agitated universe, the category of
cause and effect serves as a means of enlightenment, by giving our mind
its help in the systematization of processes. If the drop of a stone
precedes, the undulations of the water follow; if soul, body, and outer
world are present, feeling follows.
The positive outcome of philosophy does not reject the services of the
category of cause and effect. It only rejects the mystical element in
that category in which many people, even among those with a "scientific
education," still believe. There is no witchcraft in this matter, but
simply a mechanical systematization and classification of natural
phenomena in the order of their appearance. So long as water remains
water and retains its liquid and elastic properties, and so long as a
stone is a stone, a ponderous fellow striking the water heavily, just
so long will the splash of the stone be surely and inevitably followed
by undulations of the water. So long as soul, body, and outer world
retain their known properties, they will with unfailing precision
produce feeling. It is no more surprising that we can affirm this on the
strength of our experience than that we have a category of cause and
effect. There exists nothing extraordinary but the condition of things,
and in this respect all things are alike, so that human understanding,
cause and effect, or any other category, are no more extraordinary than
any other condition. The only wonder is the universe, but this, being a
universal wonder, is at the same time trivial, for nothing is so
familiar as that which is common to all.
By the help of the viewpoint of cause and effect, man throws light on
the phenomena of nature. Cause and effect serve to enlighten us about
the world.
The way, the method, by which this enlightenment is produced, is the
special object of our study. We do not deny that cause and effect serve
us as a means, but only as one of many. We honor the category of cause
and effect far too much when we regard it as _the_ panacea. We have seen
that formerly other viewpoints served the same purpose and still others
exist today, some of which have a prospect of being valued more highly
in the future than cause and effect. This category serves very well for
the explanation of processes which follow one another. But there are
other phenomena which occur side by side, and these must also be
elucidated. For such a purpose, the category of genus and species is
quite as serviceable. Haeckel speaks somewhat slightingly of "museum
zoologists and herbarium botanists," because they merely classify
animals and plants according to genera and species. The modern
zoologists and botanists do not simply consider the multiplicity of
animals and plants which exist simultaneously, but also the
chronological order of the changes and transformations, and in this way
they have gained much more of a life-picture of the zoological and
botanical world, a picture not alone of its being, but also of its
growing, of arising and declining. Undoubtedly the knowledge of the
museum zoologists and herbarium botanists was meager, narrow,
mechanical, and modern science offers a far better portrait of truth and
life. Still this is no reason for overestimating the value of analysis
by cause and effect. This method supplements the category of genus and
species. It assists in enlightening, it helps in the process of thought,
but it does not render other forms of thought superfluous.
It is essential for the theory of understanding, to recognize the
special forms of thought of old and new times as peculiarities which
have a common nature. This common nature of the process of thought,
understanding, enlightenment, is a part of the universal world process,
and not greatly different from it.
The conception of a cause partly explains the phenomena of the universe;
but so does the conception of a purpose and of a species, in fact, so do
all conceptions.
In the universe all parts are causes, all of them caused, produced,
created, and yet there is no creator, no producer, no cause. The general
produces the special, and the latter in turn produces by reaction the
general.
The category of the general and the special, of the universe and its
parts, contains all other categories in the germ. In order to explain
the process of thought, we must explain it as a part of the universal
process. It has not caused the creation of the world, neither in a
theological nor in an idealist sense, nor is it a mere effect of the
brain substance, as the materialists of the eighteenth century
represented it. The process of thought and its understanding is a
peculiarity of the universal cosmos. The relation of the general to the
special is the clear and typical category underlying all other
categories.
One might also apply other names to this category, for instance, the one
and the many; the essence and the form; the substance and its
attributes; truth and its phenomena, etc. However, a name is but a
breath and a sound; understanding and comprehension are what we want in
the first place.
XII
MIND AND MATTER: WHICH IS PRIMARY, WHICH SECONDARY?
It is the merit of the philosophical outcome to have delivered the
process of understanding from its mystic elements. So long as cause and
effect are not recognized as a form of thought belonging to the same
species with many other forms of thought, all of which serve the common
purpose of illuminating the cosmic processes for the human mind by a
symbolized picture composed of various conceptions, just so long will
something mysterious adhere to the category of cause and effect.
Philosophy is particularly engaged in illuminating the understanding. It
has learned enough of its specialty to know that it is a part of the
universe performing the special function of arranging the world of
phenomena and its smaller circles according to relations of
consanguinity and chronology. Such an arrangement presents a scientific
picture of the world. The well-known diagram of conceptions used by
logicians, consisting of a large circle symbolizing the general, inside
of which smaller circles crossing and encircling one another represent
the specialties, is a fitting aid in explaining the method by which the
faculty of understanding arrives at its scientific results. Science in
general is the sum of all special kinds of knowledge, differing from
them in no greater degree than the human body from the various organs of
which it is composed. A bodily organ can no more exist outside of the
body than any particular knowledge can exist outside of the generality
of all sciences. No metaphysics is possible under this condition.
As surely as we know that two mountains cannot be without a valley
between them, just so surely do we know that nothing in heaven, on
earth, or in any other place can lie outside of the general circle of
things. Outside of the worldly world there can be no other little world.
A logically constituted human mind cannot think differently. And it is
likewise impossible to discover such an outside world by the help of and
within the limits of experience, because thought is inseparable from
experience and there can be no experience without thought. A man who has
a head upon his shoulders--and there can be no man without a
head--cannot experience any unworldly metaphysical world. The faculty of
experience, which includes the faculty of understanding or perception,
is merely empirical. Our settled conviction of the unity of the universe
is an inborn logic. The unity of the world is the supreme and most
universal category. A closer look at it at once reveals the fact that it
carries its opposite, the infinite multiplicity, under its heart or in
its womb. The general is pregnant with specialties.
This is a comparison, and comparisons limp. A mother has other qualities
beside that of motherhood, while the universe, or the absolute
generality, is nothing but the bearer, the cause, of all special and
separate things. It is "pure" motherhood which can no more be without
children than the children without a mother. In this way, no cause can
be without effects. A cause without an effect--let us dismiss it. The
child is as much a cause in motherhood as it is its effect and product.
In the same way the universe has never been, and could not be conceived,
without the many special children which it carries in its womb.
If thought wishes to make for itself a picture, a conception of the
cause of all causes, it must necessarily take cognizance of the effects.
Thought may very well separate one from the other, but cannot think
correctly without the consciousness that its separating and
distinguishing is only a formality. Imagining, conceiving, knowing,
perceiving, are so many formalities.[9]
But philosophy took its departure from the opposite, the wrong, view. It
regarded perceiving, understanding, as the main thing. It did not use
science as a formality, as something secondary, as something serving a
nature, a cause, a purpose, a higher reason, but it started with the
illogical and irrelevant assumption that the specialty of mind,
understanding, conceiving, judging, distinguishing, is the primary,
supreme, self-constituted cause and purpose, instead of being an element
in logic. Even in Hegel's logic, which, by the way, has given us much
light on the process of thought, this confounding of the original with
the copy is the cause of an almost impenetrable mysticism.
Not nature, but science is to those idealist philosophers the source of
truth. The "true idea" surpassed everything with them. This "idea" is
forced by Hegel to roll about, and wind, and twist as if it were not a
natural child, but a metaphysical dragon. But we cannot deny that in
these twistings and windings of the Hegelian dragon the condition of the
mind is exposed in all its peculiarities and nakedness.
According to Hegel's theosophical opinion I do not become aware of my
friend in material intercourse and bodily touch. Hegel's mark of a true
friend is not that he proves true in life, but that he corresponds "to
his idea." The "idea" of true friendship is for the idealist the measure
of friendly truth, just as Plato measures the ideal or true condition of
states and cooking pots of this valley of sorrows by the standard of an
"idea" of the state, or an "idea" of the cooking pot, supposed to be
derived from some other world.
It is surely a valuable gift of nature that the human mind can form its
ideals. But it is a gift that has also caused much trouble and which
requires for its higher development the clear understanding that ideals
are constructed out of real materials. Without this understanding the
human race will never succeed in making a reasonable use of its ideal
faculty. The beautiful ideal of true friendship may stimulate us to
emulation. But the knowledge that it is nothing but an ideal which in
reality is always mixed with a little falseness serves as no mean
antidote against sentimental transcendentalism. And the same holds true
of truth, liberty, justice, equality, brotherhood, etc.
The striving after an ideal is very good, but it does no harm to be
conscious of the fact and clearly see that any ideal can never be
realized without some admixture of its opposite. What is it that Lessing
says? "If God were to offer me the search for truth in his left hand,
and truth in his right, I should grasp his left hand and say: Father,
keep truth, it is for you alone."
It has not been the task of philosophy to give us a true mind picture of
the world. This it cannot do, this cannot be done by any scientific
specialty. It may be done by the totality of sciences, and even by them
only approximately. Even with them striving is a higher truth and of
higher value than knowing. I repeat, then: It is not the particular task
of philosophy to furnish a true picture of the world, but rather to
investigate the method by which the human mind arrives at its world
pictures. That is its work, and it is the object of this book to sketch
its outline.
A sketch is in itself an inexact piece of work. I may be blamed for
jumbling together such terms as world, cosmos, universe, nature, or such
others as ideas, judgment, conclusion, thought, mind, intellect, etc.,
and for using them as synonyms when many of them have already been
assigned their fixed meaning in the classification of science. But this
is the point which I emphasize, that the method of science, of thought,
has the twofold nature of making fixed terms and still remaining
pliable.
Science not only defines what this or that is, but also how it moves,
how it originates, passes away, and still remains; how it is fixed and
yet at the same time moving. The real being of which science treats,
viz., the universe, is not alone present, but also past and future, and
it is not alone this or that, but it is everything. Even nothing is
something belonging to the aggregate life.
This dialectic statement is rather incomprehensible to the
unphilosophical brain. Nothing and something are conceptions so widely
diverging from one another in the unphilosophical mind that they seem
far more apart than heavenly bliss is supposed to be separated from
earthly misery, according to the declarations of clergymen. Clergymen
are transcendental logicians, and it is likewise transcendental to
regard nothing as an absolute nothing. It cannot be denied that it is at
least a conception or a term. Therefore, whether little or much, it is
something. We cannot get out of existence, out of the universe, any more
than Münchhausen can pull himself out of a swamp by his pigtail.
There can be no absolute nothing, because the absolute is synonymous
with the universe, and everything else is relative. So it is also with
nothing. It simply has the significance of not being the main thing. To
say: This is nothing means it is not that which is essential at this
time and place. This man is nothing simply means that he is not a man
out of the ordinary, and it does not at all signify that he is nothing
at all.
The category of being and not being, like all categories,[10] which
appear as something fixed to the sound but ill-informed mind, is really
something shifting. Its poles fuse and flow into one another, its
differences are not perfectly radical. These categories give us an
illustration of the mobile universe, which is a unit composed of its
opposite, multiplicity.
The positive outcome of philosophy has for its climax the understanding
that the world is multifarious, and that this multiplicity is uniform in
possessing the universal nature in common. The sciences must represent
these objects in such a contradictory way, because all things live in
reality in this contradiction. What the museum zoologists and the
herbarium botanists have accomplished on the field of zoology and botany
in the category of space, has been accepted by the Darwinians with the
addition of the variety of those subjects in the category of time.
Either class of scientists categorizes, classifies, systematizes. The
chemists do the same with substances and forces, and so does Hegel with
his categories of being and not being, quantity and quality, substance
and attribute, thing and quality, cause and effect, etc. He makes all
things flow into one another, rise, pass, move, and he is right in doing
so. Everything moves and belongs together.
But that which Hegel missed and which is added by us consists in the
further perception that the flow and the variability of the categories
just quoted is only an illustration of the necessary variability and
interaction of all thoughts and conceptions, which are, and must be,
nothing but illustrations and reflexes of the universal life.
However, the idealist philosophers who have all of them contributed
materially toward this ultimate special knowledge, are still more or
less under the mistaken impression that the process of thinking is the
true process and the true original, and that the true original, nature
or the material universe, is only a secondary phenomenon. We now insist
on having it understood that the cosmic interaction of phenomena, the
universal living world, is the truth and life.
Is the world a concept? Is it an idea? It may be conceived and grasped
by the mind, but it does and is more than that. It surpasses our
understanding in the past, the present, and the future. It is infinite
in quantity and quality. How do we know that? We say in the same breath
that we do not know everything which is passing, has passed, and will
pass in the world; we do not understand the whole, and yet we claim to
have fully understood that this whole universe is not a mere idea, but
something absolute, something more than a conception or an intuitive
knowledge, something real and true, something infinite. How do we solve
this contradiction?
The science of the limitation of the individual and of the collective
human intellect is identical with the universal concept; in other words,
it is innate in the human intellect to know that it is a limited part of
the absolute universe. This intellectual faculty of ours is no less
natural and aboriginal than the faculty of trees to become green in
summer and that of the spiders to spread their nets. Although the
intellect is a limited part of the unlimited and aware of this fact, yet
its faculty of knowing, understanding, judging, is a universal one. No
intellect is possible or conceivable which can do more than the
instrument of thought given by nature to the human race. We may indeed
conceive of a mental giant. But when we take a closer look, every one
will perceive that this mental giant cannot get outside of the
traditional race of thinkers, unless he is supposed to be the creature
of imagination.
Thinking, knowing, understanding, are universal. I can perceive all
things in about the same way that I can see all cobble stones. I can see
them all, but I cannot see everything that they are composed of, I
cannot see, for instance, that they are heavy and ponderable. In the
same way all things may be perceived, but not everything that belongs
to them. They do not dissolve in understanding, in other words,
understanding is only a part of the universe, all of which may be
perceived, but the understanding of which is not the whole, since our
intellect is but a part of the universe.
Everything may be understood, but understanding is not everything. Every
pug-dog is a dog, but every dog is not a pug-dog. The conflict of
idealism and materialism rests on this same conflict between genus and
subordinate species. The idealist incarnate contends that all things are
ideas, while we strive to make him see that ideal things and material
things are two species of the same genus, and that they should be given
a common family or general name beside their special name, on account of
their common nature and for the purpose of a sound logic. Wherever this
understanding has been acquired, the quarrel between idealists and
materialists appears in the light of a mere bandying of words.
Everything is large, everything is small, everything extended through
space and time, everything cause and everything effect, everything a
whole and a part, because everything is the essence of everything,
because everything is contained in the all, everything related,
everything connected, everything interdependent. The conception of all
as the absolute, the content of which consists of innumerable
relativities, the concept of the all as the universal truth which
reflects many phenomena, that is the basis of the science of
understanding.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] A By means of which we picture and explain the monistic
interrelation of all things, called universe, nature and
cosmos.--EDITOR.
[10] That is, like all categories that are subdivisions of the absolute
being, of general existence, pertaining only to the phenomena or
specialties which, however, in their entirety constitute the absolute
being or monistic nature.--EDITOR.
XIII
THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE DOUBTS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF CLEAR AND ACCURATE
UNDERSTANDING HAVE BEEN OVERCOME
A contemporaneous professor of philosophy, Kuno Fischer, of Jena, says:
"The problem of modern philosophy is the understanding of things." But
this problem does not occupy modern philosophy alone; it was also
considered by ancient philosophy. Even more, it belongs to the whole
world. All the world, I mean the whole human world, and especially the
sciences, search after understanding. I do not say this for the purpose
of setting the Professor right, for I acknowledge that he is a fairly
deserving philosopher. If I cared to go through his works, I should
surely find other passages which state the problem of philosophy more
accurately and concretely, to the effect that philosophy does not strive
merely for the indefinite "understanding of things," but rather for the
special understanding of that particular thing which bears the name of
"understanding." Philosophy at the climax of its development seeks to
understand "understanding." It has seriously attempted the solution of
this problem so long as men think, so far as our historical records go.
After that which we have already said about the beginning and the end of
things and about their immortality, it will be easily understood that
the thing called understanding has no more historical beginning than all
the rest. The known grows out of the unknown, the conscious out of the
unconscious. Our modern consciousness, though agreeably cultivated, is
still an undeveloped, unconscious consciousness. Nevertheless,
development has gone far enough to make it plain that understanding is
anti-religious. Especially the understanding of understanding, the
outcome of positive philosophy, has a pronounced anti-religious, and to
that extent "destructive," tendency. But one should not have an
exaggerated idea of this destruction. Here, under this sun, nothing is
destroyed without leaving the basis for the growth of new life from the
ruins. It belongs to the conception of the universe to understand that
it is the main conception required for the conception of conception, for
the understanding of understanding.
The history of philosophy begins with the decay of heathen religion, and
the history of modern philosophy with the decay of Christian religion.
Since religion must be preserved for the people according to the
official declarations of the rulers, the official professors are not
clear and accurate expounders of the positive outcome of philosophy. No
matter how great the work of Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel may be,
yet the followers of Kant and Hegel have no freedom of research, and
Kuno Fischer, although very close to the root of the subject, is
nevertheless doomed to remain in the mystification of the function of
conceiving and of understanding. His profession clouds his judgment.
"Nature," says this professor, "is regarded as the first object of
understanding, as the principle from which everything else follows. In
this respect modern philosophy is naturalistic. It is taken for granted
that nature can be understood, or that the possibility of understanding
things is given. Modern philosophy makes this assumption
dogmatically.... The Kantian philosophy, on the other hand, assumes a
critical, not a dogmatic, attitude toward the possibility of
understanding." (System of Logic and Metaphysics, by Kuno Fischer,
second edition, pages 104 and 109.) In this latter, critical, stage,
the subject is kept rather hot by the professors of philosophy. The
critics are still engaged in exclaiming: Be amazed, oh world! How is
understanding possible?
In the first place, there is nothing to be amazed at. Why is not the
"naturalistic" philosopher consistent by recognizing his special object,
understanding, as a natural object?
The "supposition" that an understanding of things is possible, is
neither a supposition nor anything "dogmatic."
The philosophers should abandon their old hobby of trying to prove
anything by syllogisms. Nowadays, a case is not substantiated by words,
but by facts, by deeds. The sciences are sufficiently equipped, and thus
the "possibility of understanding" is demonstrated beyond a doubt.
"But," say the critics who are so wise that they hear the grass growing,
"are those perceptions which are produced by the exact sciences really
perceptions? Are they not simply substitutes? Those sciences recognize
only the phenomena of things; but where is the understanding which
perceives the truth?"
We shall offer it to them. You are naturalists. Well, then, nature is
the truth. Or are you spiritualists who make a metaphysical distinction
between the truth and the phenomenon? To understand means to distinguish
and judge. The semblance must be distinguished from the truth, but not
in an excessive manner. It must be remembered that even the most evil
semblance is a natural phenomenon, and the sublimest truth is only
revealed by phenomena, just because it is natural.
But the old logic cannot stand any contradictions. Semblance and truth
are contradictions for it and they cannot be reconciled by it. But the
irreconcilable simply consists in entertaining, in this monistic world,
thoughts which are supposed to be totally different. Hence old style
logic lacks entirely the mediating manner of thought which does not
elevate understanding and its faculty of thought to the skies, but is
satisfied to regard it as a very valuable, but still natural, quality.
The old logic could not construct any valid rules of thought, because it
thought too transcendentally of thinking itself. It was not satisfied
that thought is only a faculty, a mode of doing, a part of true nature,
but the nature of truth was spiritualized by it into a transcendental
being. Instead of grasping the conception of spirit with blood and
flesh, it tries to dissolve blood and flesh into ideas. That would be
well enough, if such a solution of the riddles were meant to have no
other significance than that of symbols.
The old logic contains long chapters about the proofs of truth. It is
supposed to be "identical" with the idea and to be proven by ideas. This
would be all right, if we remained conscious of the secondary relation
in which the idea and understanding stand to truth. But old line logic
is not conscious of this relation. On the contrary. Its consciousness
distorts that relation. It elevates the mind to the first place and
relegates blood and flesh to the last.
"The necessity of a conception is proven by the impossibility of its
opposite. An idea is contradicted by proving its impossibility. This
impossibility is demonstrated when it can be proven that a thing is at
the same time A and not-A, or when it can be shown that a thing is
neither A nor not-A. The first mode of proof is called _antinomy_, the
second, _dilemma_."
In this representation of the logical proof much is said of the "thing,"
for instance this: A thing cannot be at the same time straight and
crooked, true and untrue, light and dark. The excellence of this
doctrine is easily apparent, because it is overlooked that the concept
"thing" is not a fixed, but a variable one. If a straight line is a
thing, and a crooked line another thing, and if these two things are
held to be opposed to one another, then the above logic is the most
justified in the world. But who claims that there are not many straight
lines which are crooked at one end, which run straight on for a certain
distance and then turn? Who will define to us what a line is? A line may
be composed of 10, 20, 30, etc., parts, and each part is a line.
Before anything to the point can be said about the logical laws, it is
necessary to say above all how it stands with the relation of the whole
to its parts, of the universe to its subdivisions. The old theological
question of God and his creatures, the old metaphysical question of the
unity and the multiplicity, of truth and its phenomena, reason and
consequence, etc., in one word, the question of metaphysical categories
must be solved and settled before the definition of the minor factors of
understanding, the questions of formal logic, can be attempted.
What is a "thing?" A clergyman would answer: Only God is something,
everything else is nothing! And we say: Only the universe is something,
and everything in it consists of vacillating, changing, precarious,
varicolored, fluid, variable phenomena or relativities.
In our times, up to which the theologians have speculated so much and
contributed so little to understanding, one can hardly touch on the God
concept without annoying the reader. Yet it is very essential for a
thorough understanding of the human mind to point out that the God
concept and the universe concept are analogous concepts. Not in vain
have the first minds of modern philosophy, such as Cartesius, Spinoza,
Leibniz, occupied themselves so closely with the God concept. They
invented the socalled ontological proof of the existence of God. This
proof if applied to the universe, testifies to its divinity. A
metaphysical cloud pusher as well as the physical cosmos are
fundamentally concepts of the most perfect being. It makes little
difference whether we say that the concept of the universe, or of the
cosmos, or of the most perfect being is innate in man. If this concept
were not existing, it would lack the main thing required for its
perfection. Hence the most perfect being must exist. And it does. It is
the universe, and everything belongs to its existence. Nothing is
excluded from it, least of all understanding. The latter is, therefore,
not only possible, but a fact, which is proven by the very concept of
the most perfect being.
This ought to be sufficient to help us over the doubts of the critics,
especially over Kantian criticism, or rather dualism. Kant did not care
to accept the dogma of the possibility of understanding without
examination; he wished to investigate first. He then discovered that we
may understand correctly, provided we remain with our understanding on
the field of common experience; in other words, in the physical
universe, and refrain from digressing into the metaphysical heaven. But
he did not understand that the metaphysical heaven against which he
warns us would be an obsolete standpoint in our days.
He still permits that transcendental possibility to remain and while he
warns us not to stray into it with our understanding he omits to tell us
to also keep away from it with our intuition. Kant struggles about
between the "thing as phenomenon" and the "thing itself." The former is
material and may be understood, the latter is supernatural and may be
believed or divined. With this doctrine, he again made understanding,
the object of modern philosophy, problematical, thus inviting us to
investigate further.
This we have done, and it is now the positive outcome of philosophy to
know clearly and definitely and understand that understanding is not
only a part of this world of phenomena, but a true part of the general
truth, beside which there is no other truth, and which is the most
perfect being.
Philosophy took its departure from confused wrangling about that which
is and that which is not, especially from the religious disappointments
met by the Greek nation when its world of deities dissolved into
phantasms. Humanity demands a positive, strong, unequivocal, reliable
understanding. Now, in this world of ours, the solid is so mixed with
the fluid, the imperishable with the perishable, that a total separation
is impossible. Nevertheless our intellect catches itself continually
making separations and distinctions. Should not that appear mysterious
to it? The necessary and natural result was the problem of the theory of
understanding, the special question of philosophy: Which is the way to
an indubitably clear and positive understanding?
The summit of Grecian philosophy bears the name of Aristotle. He was a
practical man who did not like to stray into the distance when he could
find good things near by, and he did not concern himself about the
descent of understanding. Its platonic origin from an ideal world went
instinctively against his grain. He, therefore, took hold of the
question at the nearest end and analyzed the positive knowledge
available at that time. But since Grecian science and the knowledge of
Aristotlean times were rather slim, his attempt to demonstrate logic
did not produce any decisive results. But it had been discovered that it
was possible to make positive deductions from fixed premises.
Aristotle clung to this. He showed clearly and definitely, excellently
and substantially, how logical deductions should be made in order to
arrive at positive understanding. All dogs are watchful. My pug-dog is a
dog, therefore it is watchful. What can be more evident? Why, then,
speculate about God, freedom, and immortality, when indubitable
knowledge may be obtained by the formal method of exact deductions?
But Aristotle had overlooked something, or, being a practical man,
perhaps overlooked it intentionally. The premise from which he deducted
the watchfulness of dogs in general, was handed down by tradition and
had been accepted on faith. But was it founded on fact? Could there not
be some dogs who lacked the quality of watchfulness, and might not our
pug-dog be very unreliable, in spite of all exact deductions? In the
case of the pug-dog this would not be of very great moment. But what
about the question of the beginning and end of the world, or the
question of the existence of God? The Grecian gods had been outgrown by
Aristotle.
The history of logic, and of philosophy in general, is interrupted by
Christianity and by the decline of the antique world, until the
reformation opens a new era. The Catholic church had, in its own way,
thoroughly settled the great questions of the true nature of things, of
beginning and end, reason and consequence. But when it, and with it
Christianity, began to disintegrate, disbelief once more posed in the
brains of the philosophers the old question: How do we obtain reliable
and true understanding? Reliability and truth were at that time still
identical.
Bacon and Descartes are the men who started the investigation. Both of
them were disgusted with Aristotle and with his formal logic,
particularly with the subtleties of scholasticism. It did not satisfy
this new epoch to found positive understanding on traditional
contentions and exact deductions therefrom. It is a radical epoch and,
therefore, epoch-making. The new philosophers have the aim of
unequivocal understanding in common with the ancient philosophers. Bacon
still connects himself with the stock in trade of the past. His
historian says of him that one should not reiterate that Bacon took his
departure from experience, for this means nothing or nothing more than
that Columbus was a mariner while the main thing is that he discovered
America.... He wanted to find a new logic corresponding to the new
life.... The inventive human mind has created the new time, the compass,
the powder, the art of typography.... He wanted a new logic which
corresponded to the spirit of invention. He, the philosopher of
invention, was Lord Chancellor of England, was a man of the world. Not
only himself, but also his science, was too ambitious, too full of
energy, too world-embracing, for him to bury himself in solitude. That
is a glory for a philosopher, but at the same time an obstacle for his
special task, for the new logic. He recognized the import of his task
only in its general outlines. But his contemporary and successor
Descartes approached the matter more radically and pointedly.
Although in recent times the human mind had demonstrated its positive
faculty of understanding in natural sciences, especially by inventions,
still it was prejudiced by religious improbabilities in its great
premises dealing with the essence of things and men, with the "good,
true, and beautiful," as the ancients called it. In order to end his
doubts, Descartes elevates radical doubt to the position of a principle
and of a starting point for all understanding. Then he cannot doubt that
he is at least searching for truth. He who does not believe in any
understanding, any science, any inventions, cannot doubt at all events
that the impulse for understanding is there. It, at least, is
undeniable. _Cogito, ergo sum_--I think, therefore I am--that is a
premise which cannot be shaken. The rest, thinks Descartes, may be
deducted by Aristotlean methods.
With this thought, the philosopher of modern times relapsed into the old
error that anything positively true could be ascertained with logical
formulas. His consciousness of the thoughts stirring in his brain, I
might say his flesh and blood, convinced him by matter-of-fact evidence
of the reality of their existence.
This fact had hitherto been misunderstood. It is claimed that Descartes
could convince himself only of the existence of his soul, of his
thought, by evidence. No, my feeling, my sight, my hearing, etc., are
just as evident to me as my thinking, and simultaneously with sight and
hearing that which is heard and seen. The separation of subject and
object can and must be merely a formality.
The Descartian thesis has been distorted into the statement that nothing
is evident to man but his own subjective conception. And the ideology
has been carried to the extreme of calling the whole world an idea, a
phantasmagoria. True, Descartes needed God in order to be sure that his
conceptions did not cheat him.
In order to prove that we no longer need such extravagant means in our
times, I shall devote another chapter to this subject.
XIV
CONTINUATION OF THE DISCUSSION ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DOUBTFUL AND
EVIDENT UNDERSTANDING
Let us divide the history of civilization into two periods. In the
first, the less civilized period, the doubtful perceptions predominate,
in the second period the evident ones. Our special investigation of the
correct way of evident understanding began in the first period in which
the doubtful perceptions, commonly called errors, predominated. In this
period, the gods rule in heaven and imagination on earth.
To get rid of errors meant originally to lose gods and heaven. The ideal
world was the cause of metaphysics. Metaphysics which drew the
investigation of the supernatural into the circle of its activity, did
so for the purpose of enlightening the human mind. Thus its problem was
from the outset of a twofold nature. It desires to throw light on the
natural process of thought, which was temporarily unbalanced by a bent
for the supernatural, and for this reason it first loses itself in the
clouds.
While human reason has now become soberer, the meaning of the term
"metaphysics" has also been sobered down. Our contemporaneous
metaphysicians speak no longer of such transcendental things as the
ancients did. Present day metaphysics occupies itself with such abstract
ideas as the thing and nothing, being and coming into being, matter and
force, truth and error.
Particularly the investigation of doubtful, erroneous, and evident or
true understanding, which we here discuss, is a part of metaphysics.
The term metaphysics, then, has a double meaning, one of them
transcendental and extravagant, the other natural and within sober
limits. Our sober task of demonstrating the positive outcome of
philosophy that acquired sober methods in dealing with understanding
also compels us to face transcendental metaphysics, which sobers down in
the course of time and develops into its opposite, into pure, bare,
naked physics.
The divine has become human, the transcendental sober, and so
understanding grows ever more unequivocal and evident in the progress of
history.
In order to become clear on the problem of understanding, we must cease
to turn our eyes to any one individual opinion, thought, knowledge, or
perception. We must rather consider the process of understanding in its
entirety. We then notice the development from doubt to evidence, from
errors to true understanding. At the same time we become aware how
unwise it was to entertain such an exaggerated idea of the contrast
between truth and error.
Whoever searches for true and evident understanding will not find it in
Jerusalem, nor in Jericho, nor in the spirit; not in any single thing,
but in the universe. There the known emerges from the unknown so
gradually that no beginning can be traced. Understanding comes into
being and grows, is partly erroneous and partly accurate, becomes more
and more evident. But there is never an absolutely true understanding
any more than there can be an absolutely faulty one. Only the universe,
but not any single thing, is absolute, imperishable, and impregnable.
In order to accurately define understanding, we must separate it from
misunderstanding, but not too far, not excessively, otherwise the thing
becomes extravagant. The limited formal logic teaches, indeed, that the
same thing cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time, affirmation
and denial being contradictions. But such a logic is very narrow. Herbs
are not weeds. Weeds are the negation of herbs, and still weeds are
herbs. An erroneous understanding is a negation of a true understanding,
error is not truth, and still it exists in truth. There is no absolute
error any more than perceptions are the truth itself. All perceptions
are and remain nothing but symbols or reflections of truth.
We do not wish to confound error with truth and make a stew of them, but
rather understand them both. The mixing is done by the man who opposes
them as irreconcilable contradictions. Let us first note the mistake
committed in so doing. By so opposing error and truth something is done
which is not intended, not known. The intention is to confront the
erroneous understanding with truth. For this purpose, error is assumed
to be the same as erroneous understanding, which may be admitted; but
true understanding and truth are two different things and must be kept
separate, if we wish to arrive at clear and unmistakable results. If we
formulate the question in this way: How do erroneous and true
understanding differ, we are nearer to the desired clarity by two solar
distances. We then find that error and understanding do not exclude one
another, but are two species of the same genus, two individuals of the
same family.
Two times two is not alone four; this is only a part of the truth; it is
also four times one, or eight times one-half, or one plus three, or
sixteen times one-quarter, etc. The man who first observed that the sun
circled around the earth once a day, committed a mistake, yet he made a
true perception. The apparent circulation of the sun in twenty-four
hours around the earth is a substantial part of the understanding which
illumines the relation of the motion of the sun and of the earth. No
truth is merely simple, but it is at the same time composed of an
infinite number of partial truths. The semblance must not be
contradictorily separated from truth, in an extravagant sense, but is
part of truth, just as all errors contribute toward true understanding.
In so far as all perceptions are limited, they are errors, partial
truths. True understanding requires above all the backing of the
conscious recognition that it is a limited part of the unlimited
universe.
The cosmic relation of the whole to its parts, of the general to the
special, must be considered in order to get a clear conception of the
nature of the human understanding.
Understanding or knowledge, thinking, perceiving, reasoning, must, for
the purpose of investigation, not be excessively separated from other
phenomena. In a way, every object which is chosen for special study is
isolated. In saying, "in a way," I mean that the separation of the
objects of study from other world objects must be consciously moderate,
not exaggerated. The separation of the intellect from other objects or
subjects when investigating them, must be accompanied by the recognition
that such a separation is not excessive, but only formal. In separating
a board, for the purpose of studying its condition, from other boards or
things and finding that it is black, I must still remember that this
board is black only on account of its interdependence with the whole
world process; that the blackness which it possesses is not of its own
making, but that light, and eyes, and the whole cosmic connection belong
to it. In this way every special perception becomes a proportionate part
in the chain of universal perceptions, and this again a proportionate
part of the universal life.
That this evident universal life is not a mere semblance, not a ghost,
not a baseless imagination, but the truth, is made evident to the
thinking man by his consciousness, reason, common sense. True, he has
been deceived by them, sometimes. But it requires no logic, no
syllogistic proof, to know that they are telling the truth in this
respect.
It is nevertheless important to give this proof, because by it the
peculiar nature of our intellect is revealed, of the object the study of
which is the special concern of philosophy.
This proof, that the universe is the universal truth, was first
attempted by philosophy in an indirect way, by casting about in vain for
a metaphysical truth.
The philosopher Kant was no doubt the thinker who confined the use of
understanding most strictly to the domain of experience. Now, if we
recognize that this field is universal, we become aware that the assumed
Kantian limitation is not a limitation at all. The human mind is a
universal instrument, the special productions of which all belong to
general truth. Though we make a distinction between the doubtful and the
positive, the outcome of philosophy teaches us that it must be no
excessive distinction, but must be backed up by the consciousness that
all evidence is composed of probabilities, of phenomena of truth, of
parts of truth.
The thinking understanding--this is the result of philosophy--is no more
evident than anything else and derives its existence not from itself,
but from the universal life. This universal life from which thought
derives its perceptions, from which understanding derives its
enlightenment, does not only exist as a general thing, but also in the
form of infinitely varied individualities. And generalization, the
relation of things, their number and extension, are no more, and no
less, infinite than individualization and specialization. Every tree in
the forest, every grain of a pile of sand, are individual, separate,
distinct. Every particle of every grain of sand is distinctly
individual. And the infinite individualization of nature goes so far
that, just as the human individual is different every day, every hour,
every moment, so is the individual grain of sand, even though its
transformations were not to become noticeable until after thousands of
years, by accumulated changes. By classifying this contradictory,
infinitely general and infinitely individual nature in groups according
to time and space, in classes, genera, families, species, orders, and
other subdivisions, we are discerning and understanding.
In the universe, every group is an individual and every individual is a
group. The uniformity of nature is not greater than its variety. Both of
them are infinite. We distinguish between time and space. Every moment
is composed of little moments. The smallest division of time cannot be
denominated any more than the largest, just because there is no smallest
and no largest in the universe, neither in time nor in space. Atoms are
groups. As smallest parts they exist only in our thoughts and thus give
excellent service in chemistry. The consciousness that they are not
tangible, but only mental things, does not detract from their
usefulness, but heightens it still more.
It is the nature of human intelligence to divide, classify, group. We
divide the world into four cardinal points; we also divide it into two
kingdoms, the kingdom of the mind and the kingdom of nature; the latter
we again subdivide into the organic and the inorganic, or perhaps into
the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. In short, science seeks to
illumine the universe by division. The question then arises: Which is
the genuine and true division? Where does the variety of science, its
undecided vacillation end, and when does understanding become stable?
The reader should remember that the things, the objects of
understanding, are not fixed, but also variable objects, and that the
whole universe is moving, progressing; that especially the human mind
becomes more and more affluent from century to century, from year to
year, and that for this reason science is not alone compelled to fix
things, but also to remain in flow. The fixed and the fluid are not so
widely separated in science any more, that the evidence could not be
evident and yet at the same time a little doubtful.
Man and his understanding are progressive, and for this reason he must
progress by experience in his classifications, conceptions, and
sciences.
The fixed, impregnable, socalled apodictical facts are nothing but
tautologies, if seen at close range. After it has become common usage to
call only heavy and tangible things bodies, it is an apodictical fact
that all bodies are heavy and tangible. If the conceptions of vapor,
water and ice are restricted by common usage and by science to the three
stages of aggregation of the same substance, then we need not wonder at
our firm assurance that the water will always remain fluid in all time
to come, also above the stars. This signifies nothing more than that we
conceive of the things as solid which we call solid, and of those as
fluid which we call fluid, but it does not change the fact that our
faculty of understanding or perceiving gives us only an approximate
picture of natural processes, in which the solid and the fluid are
neither wholly opposed nor different, but where the positive and the
negative gradually flow into one another.
The philosophers produced a very good conception of understanding by
developing the concept of truth step by step and finally coming to quite
exact results. But this "quite exact" must only be accepted in a
reasonable sense, not in an extravagant one. Truth as the infinite, as
the sum total of all things and qualities, is "in itself" quite right,
but it cannot be accurately reproduced, not even by means of the mind,
of reason, or understanding. The means is smaller than the purpose, is
subordinate to purpose. So is our faculty of understanding only a
subordinate servant of truth, of the universe. The latter is absolutely
evident, true, indubitable, and positive. It does not vitiate the
sublimity of this world in the least that it is veiled by appearances,
by error, by untruth. On the contrary. Without sin there is no virtue,
and without error there is no understanding, no truth. The negative, the
weakness, the sin and error, are overcome, and thereby truth shines in
full splendor. The universe, the general truth, is a progressive thing.
It is absolute, but not at any fixed time or place, but only in the
combined unity of all time and space.
It is sometimes said that this is too much for our intellect, that we
cannot understand this. It is true that we cannot squeeze this into any
of our categories, of our fundamental conceptions, unless we place the
category of illimited and indeterminable and infinite truth at the
beginning of them. If that is not quite clear and plain, it should
serve to teach us that the category of clear and plain human
understanding is destined to recognize its function as a subordinate
factor of nature.
Such an understanding of understanding, such a higher consciousness
standing ever behind us, promotes a meek pride or a proud meekness which
is well distinguished from the mental poverty of theologians, from the
transcendental distinction between God and the world, between creator
and creature. To us the perishable soul is not a narrow-minded servant
for whom the plans of the imperishable monster soul are
incomprehensible. A philosophically educated and self-understanding mind
is a part of absolute nature. This mind is not only a limited human
mind, but the mind of the infinite eternal, omnipotent universe from
which it derived the faculty of knowing everything knowable. But when
this mind demands the ability to absolutely know everything, it demands
that knowledge should be everything, it becomes transcendental and
insolent, it misconceives the relation of science to infinity. The
latter is more than science, it is the object of science.
XV
CONCLUSION
The philosopher Herbart declares: "If the meaning of a word were
determined by the use to which it is put by this or that person, then
the term _metaphysics_ would be ambiguous and scarcely comprehensible.
If one wishes to know what meaning of this term has been handed down to
us by tradition, he should read the ancient metaphysicians and their
followers, from Aristotle to Wolff and his school. It will then be found
that the concepts of being, of its quality, of cause and effect, of
space and time, have been the objects of this science everywhere ...
that it has been attempted to analyze them logically and that this has
led to all sorts of disputes. These disputes ... determined the concept
of metaphysics."
Such a declaration is right enough to furnish, by the help of a little
criticism on our part, a sketch of the positive outcome of philosophy.
Metaphysics has always been the principal part of philosophy. In the
first sentence of his "Handbook for the Elements of Philosophy," Herbart
defines philosophy as the "analysis of ideas." According to this,
metaphysics would have to analyze the special ideas of being, etc. Now
it must be remembered that the idea of being is not so much a special
concept as the general idea which comprises all ideas and all things.
Everything belongs to being, and to understand that is too much for
metaphysics. Hence it came into difficulties. Now our authority has just
explained to us that the concept of metaphysics was not so much
determined by the work it accomplished as by disputes. It did not work,
but only made the logical attempt to analyze the concept of being. In so
doing it led to disputes and did not distinguish itself very much as a
science. The latter, Kant has told us in his preface to his "Critique of
Pure Reason," is recognized by its agreements, not by its disputes.
The metaphysical disputes were overcome by philosophic science, which is
the study of ideas or understanding, by arriving at a clear and plain
theory of understanding, the demonstration of which I have here
attempted.
The faculty of understanding had been transmitted to us by our
superstitious ancestors as a thing of another world. But the illusion of
another world is a metaphysical one and led to disputes about the idea
of being.
The positive outcome of philosophy assures us and demonstrates that
there is only one world, that this world is the essence of all being,
that there are many modes of being, but that they all belong to the same
common nature. Thus philosophy has unified the concept of being and
overcome metaphysics and its disputes.
Universal being has only one quality, the natural one of general
existence. At the same time this quality is the essence of all special
qualities. Just as the concept of herbs includes all herbs, even weeds,
so the concept of being comprises not only that which is, but also that
which is not, which was once upon a time and which will be in the
future.
To free the concept of being from its metaphysical disputes, is a very
difficult thing for those who attribute an extravagant meaning to the
first principle of logic which says: "Any subject can have only one of
two radically different predicates, because it cannot be at the same
time A and not-A."
All previous science of understanding has really revolved around this
statement. It is based on something plausible, but still more on
misunderstanding. Only when we have become aware of what has finally
been the outcome of the science of understanding, only when this
statement is backed up by the positive product of philosophy, does this
stubbornly maintained and much contested statement receive a lasting
value by its just modification.
In the first place, a "subject" is not a fixed, but a variable concept.
In the last analysis, as we have sufficiently explained in this work,
there is only one sole universal subject which is nowhere radically
different.
The first principle of the old and tried Aristotlean logic tells us that
a man, a subject, who is lame cannot move about with alacrity. But I
have a friend who was totally lame and who today jumps about briskly;
there is no contradiction in this. But if I tell another man about my
lame friend and in the course of my story have this lame subject all of
a sudden jumping over chairs and tables, then such a thing is
_inconceivable_ and I contradict myself. Such a contradiction is a
violation of all logic, but not because agility and lameness are totally
different predicates which cannot be attributed to the same subject, nor
because the contradiction cannot exist. Being is full of contradictions,
but they are not simultaneous or without mediation. A logical speech or
story must not forget to mediate. By mediation, all contradictions are
solved. And this is the outcome of philosophy.
In discordant metaphysics, being and not being are irreconcilable and
mutually exclusive contradictions. Metaphysics is in doubt whether this
common existence is real or only apparent, or whether there is not
somewhere in a heaven above the clouds an entirely different life. But
philosophy is now fully aware that even the most fictitious being is so
positively real that any negation which appearances may attribute to it
is outclassed by affirmation to the utter discomfiture of the former.
Being and its affirmation is absolute, negation and not being are only
relative. Being is everywhere and always dominant, so that there is no
non-existence. Though we may say that this or that is nothing, yet we
must remain conscious that anything we may call nothing is still
something very positive. There cannot be any ignorance which does not at
least know a little. There is no evil which cannot be transformed into
good. The things that have been, will be, and are, all of them are.
There is no non-existence. It is at least a word, though it does not
convey any meaning. The world and our language are of so positive a
character that even a meaningless word still means something. Nothing
cannot be expressed.
The superstition of another "true" world which floats above this world
of phenomena or is secretly hidden behind it has so vitiated logic that
it is now difficult to remove the discordant metaphysical "concept of
being" from the human mind. The belief in something absolutely different
will not easily disappear. It is especially difficult to demonstrate
that conceived things are of the same nature as real things, that both
of them really belong to true nature.
Conceived things are pictures, real pictures, pictures of reality. All
the limbs of an imaginary dragon are copied from nature. Such creations
of imagination are distinguished from truths only by their fanciful
composition. To connect nature and human life according to the given
order, that is the whole function of understanding. Knowing, thinking,
understanding, explaining, has not, and cannot have, any other function
but that of describing the processes of experience by division or
classification. The famous scientist Haeckel may call this
contemptuously "museum zoology" and "herbarium botany," but he simply
shows that he has not grasped the secret of the intellect, but still
wonders at it in a metaphysical way, the same as his predecessors.
What Darwin ascertained about the "origin of species" and about the
transitions and evolutions in organic life is a very valuable expansion
of museum zoology. Whoever expects anything else from the nature of
intellectual faculties, shows that he is not familiar with the outcome
of philosophy, that he has not emancipated himself from the vain
wondering and its accompanying edification, which the wonder of human
intelligence caused to primitive ignorance.
Understanding has hitherto been in error about itself and was,
therefore, inadequately equipped for the task of giving a true account
of its relatives, of the phenomena of nature and life. Nevertheless it
has acquired training in the course of culture and has progressively
accomplished better things. Its errors have never been valueless, and
its truths will never be sufficient. That this is so, is not due to the
defective condition of our intelligence, but to the inexhaustibleness of
being, the indescribable wealth of nature.
The self-conscious, philosophically trained understanding and
intelligence has now the means of knowing that the accuracy of all
investigation is limited, that for this reason all its future results
will be affected by error. But a science which is backed up by such an
enlightened understanding, is reconciled to its limitations and
transforms them into a hall of glory. Self-conscious limitation is aware
of its partnership in the absolute perfection of the universe.
The self-conscious intellect improved by the positive product of
philosophy knows that it can understand, describe, the whole world in a
natural, sensible way. There is nothing that can resist it. But in the
sense of a transcendental metaphysics, our understanding is not worthy
of that name. In return, this metaphysics is pure vagary in the eyes of
critical reason.
Taking its departure from fantastical ideals, from contradictions,
especially between being and not being, metaphysics has gradually
transformed itself in the course of civilization and become philosophy,
which in its turn has progressed step by step the same as all other
science.
Philosophy was at first impelled by the nebulous desire for universal
world wisdom and has finally assumed the form of a lucid special
investigation of the theory of understanding.
This theory is part, and the most essential part at that, of psychology
or the science of the soul. Modern psychologists have at least divined,
if not recognized, that the human soul is not a metaphysical thing, but
a phenomenon. Like Professor Haeckel, they also complain about the dead
classification in their specialty. The human soul is presented to them
as a multitude of _faculties_. There is the faculty of understanding, of
feeling, of perceiving, etc., without number and end. But how is life
infused into them? Where is the consistent connection?
There is, for instance, the conception and feeling of beauty in the
human soul. The beautiful again is divided into the artistically
beautiful and the ethically beautiful, and each of these into other
subdivisions. There is beside the beautiful also the pretty, the
charming, the graceful, the dignified, the noble, the solemn, the
splendid, the pathetic, the touching. Psychology also treats of the
ridiculous, of the joke, the wit, the satire, the irony, the humor, of a
thousand subtleties and distinctions, the ideological separation of
which it attempts just as do botany, zoology, and every other science in
their field.
To all of them, being is the object of study. What is the use of
metaphysics under these circumstances? Only because it had in mind a
different being, a transcendental one, could it induce Kant to sum up
all his studies in the question: How is metaphysics possible as a
science?
It is the merit of philosophy to have demonstrated that metaphysics is
possible only as fantastical speculation.
It is the business of metaphysics to treat being transcendentally. It is
the business of special sciences to classify being after the manner of
herbarium botany. Classical order is already present in the vegetable
kingdom, otherwise no specialist in botany could classify it.
But the objective arrangement of the vegetable kingdom in infinitely
more multiform than the subjective arrangement of botany. The latter is
always excellent, if it corresponds to the scientific progress of its
period. Whoever is looking for absolute botany or psychology, or for any
other absolute science, misunderstands the universally natural character
of the absolute as well as the relative special character of the human
faculty of understanding.
Philosophy familiar with its historical achievement understands being as
the infinite material of life and science which is taken up by the
special sciences and classified by them. It teaches the specialists to
remember throughout all their classifications according to departments
and concepts that all specialties are connected by life and not so
separated in life as they are in science, but that they are flowing and
passing into one another.
Thus our science of understanding finally culminates in the rule: Thou
shalt sharply divide and subdivide and farther subdivide to the utmost
the universal concept, the concept of the universe, but thou shalt be
backed up by the consciousness that this mental classification is a
formality by which man seeks for the sake of his information to register
and to place his experience; thou shalt furthermore remain aware of thy
liberty to progressively improve the experience acquired by thyself in
the course of time, by modifying thy classification.
Things are ideas, ideas are names, and things, ideas, and names are
subject to continuous perfection.
Stable motion and mobile stability constitute the reconciling
contradiction which enables us to reconcile all contradictions.
THE END
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