{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34198/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34198","id":"gutenberg_34198","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34198","summary":null,"tags":["Belief and doubt","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy -- Introductions"],"text":"THE WILL TO DOUBT\n\nAN ESSAY IN PHILOSOPHY FOR THE\n\nGENERAL THINKER\n\nBY\n\nALFRED H. LLOYD\n\nTruth hath neither visible form nor body; it is without habitation or name;\nlike the Son of Man it hath not where to lay its head.\n\n\nLONDON\n\nSWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., Lim.\n\n25 HIGH STREET, BLOOMSBURY, W.C.\n\n\n1907\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe chapters that follow comprise what might be called an introduction\nto philosophy, but such a description of them would probably be\nmisleading, for they are addressed quite as much to the general reader,\nor rather to the general thinker, as to the prospective student of\ntechnical philosophy. They are the attempt of a University teacher of\nphilosophy to meet what is a real emergency of the day, namely, the\ndoubt that is appearing in so many departments of life, that is\naffecting so many people, and that is fraught with so many dangers, and\nin attempting this they would also at least help to bridge the chasm\nbetween academic sophistication and practical life, self-consciousness\nand positive activity. With peculiar truth at the present time the\nUniversity can justify itself only by serving real life, and it can\nserve real life, not merely by bringing its pure science down to, or up\nto, the health and the industrial pursuits of the people, but also by\nexplaining, which is even to say by applying, as science is \"applied,\"\nor by animating the general scepticism of the time.\n\nThat this scepticism is often charged to the peculiar training of the\nUniversity hardly needs to be said, but except for its making such an\nundertaking as the present essay only the more appropriate the charge\nitself is strangely humorous. One might also accuse the University of\nmaking atoms and germs, or, by its magic theories, of generating\nelectricity or disease. Scepticism is a world-wide, life-wide fact; even\nlike heat or electricity, it is a natural force or agent--unless\nforsooth one must exclude all the attitudes of mind from what in the\nfullest and deepest sense is natural; scepticism, in short, is a real\nphase of whatever is real, and its explanation is an academic\nresponsibility. Its explanation, however, like the explanation of\neverything real or natural, can be complete only when, as already\nsuggested here, its application and animation have been achieved, or\nwhen it has been shown to be properly and effectively an object of will.\nSo, just as we have the various applied sciences, in this essay there is\noffered an applied philosophy of doubt, a philosophy that would show\ndoubt to have a real part in effective action, and that with the showing\nwould make both the doubting and the acting so much the more effective.\n\nBut it may be said that effective acting depends, not on doubt, but\nrather on belief, on confidence or \"credit.\" This will prove to be true,\nexcepting in what it denies. To be commonplace, to write down here and\nnow what is at once the truism and the paradox of this book, a vital,\npractical belief must always live by doubting. Was it Schopenhauer who\ndeclared that man walks only by saving himself at every step from a\nfall? The meaning of this book is much the same, although no pessimism\nis either intended or necessarily implied in such a declaration. Doubt\nis no mere negative of belief; rather it is a very vital part of belief,\nit has a place in the believer's experience and volition; the doubters\nin society, be they trained at the University or not, and those\npractical creatures in society who have kept the faith, who believe and\nwho do, are naturally and deeply in sympathy. And this essay seeks to\ndeepen their natural sympathy.\n\nHere, then, is my simple thesis. Doubt is essential to real belief.\nPerhaps this means that all vital problems are bound in a real life to\nbe perennial, and certainly it cannot mean that in its support I may be\nexpected by my readers to give a solution of every special problem that\nmight be raised, an answer to every question about knowledge or\nmorality, about religion or politics or industry, that might be asked.\nProblems and questions, of course the natural children, not of doubt,\nbut of doubt and belief, may be as worthy and as practical as solutions.\nSome of them may be even better put than answered. But be this as it\nmay, the present essay must be taken for what it is, not for something\nelse. It is, then, for reasons not less practical than theoretical, an\nattempt to face and, so far as may be, to solve the very general problem\nof doubt itself, or say simply--if this be simple--the problem of\nwhatever in general is problematic; and, this done, to suggest what may\nbe the right attitude for doubters and believers towards each other and\ntowards life and the world which is life's natural sphere; emphatically\nit is not the announcement of a programme for life in any of its\ndepartments.\n\nThe substance of chapters I., II., III., IV., and V. in small parts, and\nVI. and VIII. was given during the summer of 1903 in lectures before the\nGlenmore School of the Culture Sciences at Hurricane in the Adirondacks,\nand except for some revision chapters V. and VII. have already been\npublished--Science, July 5, 1902, and the journal of Philosophy,\nPsychology and Scientific Methods, June, 1905.\n\nTo Professor Muirhead, the Editor of the Ethical Library, I wish here to\nexpress my hearty appreciation of his interest and assistance in the\nfinal preparation of this volume for publication.\n\n                                              A. H. L.\n\n  THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN,\n      ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  I. Introduction\n  II. The Confession of Doubt\n  III. Difficulties in the Ordinary View of Things\n  IV. The View of Science: its Rise and Consequent Character\n  V. The View of Science: its Peculiar Limitations\n  i. Science would be Objective\n  ii. Science would be Specialistic\n  iii. Science would be Agnostic\n  VI. Possible Value in these Essential Defects of Experience\n  VII. The Personal and the Social, the Vital and the Formal in Experience\n  VIII. An Early Modern Doubter\n  IX. The Doubter's World\n  i. Reality, without Finality, in all Things\n  ii. Perfect Sympathy between the Spiritual and the Material\n  iii. A Genuine Individuality\n  iv. Immortality\n  X. Doubt and Belief\n  Index\n\n\n\nTHE WILL TO DOUBT.\n\n\n[p.001]\n\nI.\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nWithout undue sensationalism it may be said that this is an age of\ndoubt. Wherever one looks in journeying through the different\ndepartments of life one sees doubt. And one sees, too, some of the\nblight which doubt produces, although the blight is by no means all that\none sees. There is heat everywhere in the physical world, but not\nnecessarily only arson or even destructive fire. Morals, however, social\nlife, industry, politics, religion, have suffered somewhat--and many\nwould insist very seriously--from the prevailing doubt. Moreover, if the\noutward view shows doubt everywhere, the inward view is at least not\nmore reassuring. Who can examine his own consciousness without finding\ndoubt at work there? We would often hide it from others, not to say from\nourselves, but it is there, and we all know it to be there. Other times\nmay also have been times of doubt, but our day, as the time to which we\ncertainly owe our first and chief [p.002] duty, is very conspicuously\nand very seriously a time of doubt.\n\nNow there are some, and they are many, who would decry the discussion of\nsuch a thing as doubt, for they see only danger ahead. Doubt they\ncompare with death or disease, and to dwell upon any of these is idle,\nunnatural, morbid. Why not let such things alone, and look only to what\nis pleasant, to what is good and true and beautiful? Then, too, doubt,\nthe confession of doubt, is the royal entrance to philosophy and the\nrisk of an entanglement with philosophy, which seems to them the source\nof much that is harmful, the essence of all that is impractical, is\naltogether too great. Doubt for them is even less to be played with than\nfire, with which already it has been compared here. Again, as others in\nmatters political and industrial, so they in matters intellectual and\nspiritual resent anything that appears likely in any way to disturb the\nstanding credit of the country. To doubt is just to join the opposition,\nand the opposition is made up of heretics and agents generally of mere\ndestruction. To treat doubt as real and positively significant, as\nhaving any true worth in human experience, as being even a proper object\nof will, is to stop permanently, not the wheels of commerce and\nindustry, but the wheels of the present life in all its phases. In a\nword, perhaps one of the words of the hour, Christian Science has not\nwished to be more inhospitable to the reality of disease than have these\nbelievers to the reality and usefulness of doubt.\n\nYet all who feel in this way are short-sighted. Their contentions, like\nthose of their cousins, perhaps [p.003] their country cousins, the\nChristian Scientists, may have worth for being corrective, but at very\nbest they are only one-sided. In a fable, never in real life, a man\nmight get the smell of burning wood in his house and refuse to recognize\nthe danger because of the inevitable delay to his business which the\nalarm of fire would involve; but doubt is not less real nor less\ndangerous, nor even less capable, when under control, of useful\napplications. Any danger, too, squarely faced is at least half met. Why,\nthen, be so impracticable, so like characters in fables, as to overlook\nor turn one's back upon the doubt of the day, refusing it a place and a\npart in real life? The negative things of life can be so only\nrelatively. Death itself cannot possibly be absolute, and doubt, not\nunlike death, indeed perhaps only one of death's messengers, must be\neven a gift, or an agent, of the gods. Some things, dangerous when\nhidden, are wonderfully serviceable, when recognized and controlled.\nSometimes men really have entertained angels unawares.\n\nAnd so throughout these chapters, although some may think me and those\nwho follow me morbid, and although we may have to enter the dangerous\nparlour of philosophy, the doubt of our time is to be squarely and\nfairly faced. In all candour, we are from the start to be confessed\nparties to it, hiding nothing intentionally, and at the same time trying\nalways to give nothing undue emphasis. The doubt that all seem to know,\nthat many really feel without perhaps clearly confessing, and that some\nconfess or even actually boast, we shall face and examine closely,\n[p.004] trying as we can to find its true meaning and real worth. In\nshort, the confession of doubt, of our doubt, and the fruits of\nconfession are the burden of these chapters.\n\n\n\n[p.005]\n\nII.\n\nTHE CONFESSION OF DOUBT.\n\n\nOur confession must, of course, be thorough-going, and can be made so\nonly through a complete statement of every possible reason that\nexperience affords for the attitude of doubt. To the end, therefore, of\nsuch a statement we shall consider in this chapter certain general and\neasily recognized facts about doubt itself, while in chapters that\nfollow we shall continue the confession by examining, first, our\ncustomary or \"common-sense\" view of things, and then the view of\nscience, and having brought together in each case numerous\nincongruities, or contradictions, which ordinarily are at best only\ncasually noticed or timorously overlooked, we shall find ourselves\nfacing in a peculiarly telling way, not only certain strong reasons for\ndoubt, but also some of the real issues that doubt raises. As no issue,\nmoreover, can be more central or crucial than the meaning of the\ncontradictions found to pervade our views of things, before completing\nour confession we shall allow ourselves some reflections, that should\nprove useful to us in the end, upon the possible worth of contradiction\nin human experience; for even to casual thinking contradiction, although\ngood ground for scepticism, suggests some positive advantage and\nopportunity; the advantage of breadth, [p.006] for example, of freedom\nfrom special form, or the opportunity of personal spontaneity and\ninitiative as against the restraints of formal consistency, of class,\nand of institution; and if these things, among others, can be associated\nwith our case for doubt, our reflections will certainly not have been in\nvain. Then we shall close our confession by seeking the companionhip of\na great doubter of modern times, and by learning what we can from him of\ndoubt itself and of the doubter's natural world. And finally, as a\nresult of all our own efforts, supplemented by his help, we shall be\nable to reap some of the fruits for life and thought that a confession\nso fully made may fairly claim.\n\nFrom start to finish, moreover, of this study of doubt we have to\nremember that there can be no important difference between what is\npossible and what is real. Thus anything whatsoever that can possibly be\ndoubted is really doubtful. Also, if anybody is amazed to hear mention\nof facts about doubt, as if doubt should not somehow submit to its own\nnostrum, let him merely reflect that, strangely enough, nothing is quite\nso indubitable as doubt, nothing so convincing as the reasons for doubt.\nLet me not be too subtle, but to doubt doubt is only to affirm it, and\nsomehow--whether for good or ill need not now be said--all the negative\nthings of life possess a peculiar certainty, and are all most easily\nproved. A great Frenchman once put the case quite plainly when he said,\nafter canvassing very carefully the whole field of his consciousness,\nthat his doubts were the only things there, the only things he could be\nquite certain about, and these were so very real that they left him\nabsolutely [p.007] nothing but belief in himself, in his all-doubting\nand ever-doubting self, to rest upon. His was surely a sweeping\nconfession, and his residuum of belief may not at first sight seem very\npromising or very substantial, but quickly, I think, we shall find\nourselves in agreement with him, at least as to the reality and the wide\nscope of our doubting, and it is also a possibility well worth\nforeseeing that we may even find his belief in the reality of an\never-doubting and all-doubting self a rock for our own saving.\n\nSo, to turn now to those general and easily recognized facts, which were\nto be the special interest of the present chapter, in the first place:\n_We are all universal doubters_. We are all universal doubters in the\nsense that every one of us doubts something, and there is nothing which\nsome of us have not doubted. Who would be so rash as to say that what a\nfellow-being had questioned might not be questionable to himself also,\nor that, if anything in his own experience had ever been subject to\nquestion, all the other things might not also be subject to question?\nBut the merely dubitable is the already doubtful. In this sense,\ntherefore, not so abstruse and formally logical as it may appear, we are\nall universal doubters.\n\nOur life is ever cherishing what we are pleased to call its verities,\nsome in religion and morals, some in politics, some in mathematics and\nscience, some in the more general relations to nature, but what elusive\nthings these verities are! How shallow, or how hollow all of them are,\nor at one time or another may become. To take a rather minute case, such\nas it is [p.008] always the philosopher's license to make use of, a case\nthat is, however, quite typical in experience; here is a word--any word\nyou like--that has been spoken and written by you for years. Always\nbefore it has been spelt correctly and clearly understood, but to-day\nhow unreal it seems. Are those the right letters, and are they correctly\nplaced? Is that the true meaning? What has happened, too, to give rise\nto these unusual questions? Well, who can say? And who has not\nsubstantially asked every one of them, not merely with reference to some\nlong-familiar word, but also with reference to much larger things in\nlife? Self and society, love and friendship, mind and matter, nature and\nGod have again and again been subjected to essentially the same\nquestioning. The verities of life, all the way from simple words used\nevery day to the great things of our moral and spiritual being, have\nlost, sometimes slowly, sometimes very suddenly, the reality with which\nwe have supposed them endowed, and although we may still bravely believe\nwe find ourselves crying out passionately for help in our unbelief.\nThere certainly are the verities; not one of them can possibly fall to\nthe ground; yet these very verities are never quite in our experience.\n\nStill the world has its thoroughly confident people. Every one of us has\nmet some of those estimable beings to whom doubt seems wholly foreign,\npeople who assert with trembling voice and sacred vow that their\nconvictions, political perhaps or religious, are unassailable, and that\nthey must hold them to the grave. But, whatever may be said of political\nconvictions, religious convictions have often been [p.009] regarded as a\ncontradiction of terms. How can one be sure and religious at the same\ntime? Moreover, positive people under any standard are notoriously as\nfearful as they are dogmatic. Fear is often, if not always, the chief\nmotive of dogmatism, and fear is hardly the most natural companion of\ngenuine confidence. The part which the emotion of fear has had, both in\nthe personal life and in the doctrine of the dogmatic among men, would\nmake a most instructive study.\n\nIf, then, dogmatic people are slaves to their fears, while more\nthoughtful people, as has not needed to be said, seem to get no reward\nfrom their self-consciousness but the uncertain reward of their doubts,\nthen only such as live quietly, asserting nothing, depending on nothing,\nand even assuming nothing, but simply taking what comes, are left to\nrepresent genuine belief. Yet how many such are there? A few may seem to\napproach the ideal, if ideal it be, but the class itself in realization\nmust be said to be a hypothetical one, and few, if any, of us could ever\nreally envy or strive to imitate its supposed manner of living; for, in\nspite of all the dangers and all the doubts and fears, only the\nconstantly examined life can ever really lure us. Doubt, besides being a\ngeneral condition of life, seems to be also incident to what gives life\nworth.\n\nBut, furthermore, not only are we all universal doubters; the case for\ndoubt in the world is, if possible, even stronger; for also--and this is\nthe second general fact: _Doubt is a phase, nay, a vital condition of\nall consciousness_. To be a conscious creature is to be a doubting\ncreature.\n\n[p.010] In so many ways psychology is teaching us to-day with renewed\nemphasis that we are conscious of nothing as it is, and that more or\nless clearly we all know our shortcoming in this regard; or again, with\nstill more directness and emphasis, that for us there is no such thing\nas a state of consciousness which does not indicate tension, or unstable\nequilibrium, that is to say uncertainty, in our activity. Nor have we\nneed of the testimony of science to these facts, since common personal\nexperience is well aware of them. In small things and in great\nconsciousness transforms or refracts. In small things and in great\nconsciousness marks a moment of poise between an impulse to do\nsomething, and more or less distinctly recognized conditions or\nrelations that would put restraint upon the doing of it. Even the law of\nrelativity, a psychological law only in its definite formulation, in its\nidea a simple fact of everyday experience, true for all conscious states\nfrom the crudest perceptions of the organs of sense to the most highly\ndeveloped ideas of critical reflection, by binding as it does all the\ndetails of actual or possible experience into a whole, every part of\nwhich acts upon the other parts, points very directly to this fact of\npoise and instability, besides indicating also that knowledge never can\nbe literally or objectively exact, and that at least with some clearness\nevery knower must know it cannot. How can there ever be even a single\nstable or a single finally accurate element in the consciousness of a\ncreature whose experience, in the first place, can comprise only\nrelated, interdependent parts, and whose nature, in the second place, is\nan essentially mobile and active [p.011] one? Moreover, as just one\nother way of suggesting the inexactness and uncertainty of consciousness\nand the balancing, tentative nature of all conscious life, we always\nthink, and think properly, of conscious creatures as having will, as\ndoing what they do purposely or from design. The new psychology,\nhowever, to which we naturally turn, and which again has only formulated\nwhat we can recognize from everyday experience, declares that the\npurpose in conscious activity is not a developed, but an always\ndeveloping one. Purposive action is action that never finally knows, but\nis ever finding out its real intent, purpose being identical with the\nprogressively discovered meaning of action. A volitionally, purposively\nactive being is always a seeker as well as a doer. Indeed, any doing\nwould itself be empty, or idle, if it were not a seeking, and so if it\nwere not subject to conditions of some uncertainty. In so many ways,\nthen, through the necessary inexactness of consciousness, through the\nunstable equilibrium of all conscious activity, through the law and fact\nof relativity, and through the tentative and provisional nature which\nmust always belong to purpose, we see how doubt must be a phase or\ncondition of all consciousness.\n\nIllustrations are abundant. Thus, once more to take a somewhat minute\ncase, which is really more significant for being minute, with regard to\nconscious activity being in a state of tension, visual sensations always\ninvolve muscular sensations, and these are incident not only to\nexpressed, but also to possible, yet restrained, movements. The eyes may\nhave been [p.012] moved and the head turned, but in spite of the\nimpulses present in them the legs have not been used to bring the\nobserver nearer to the object seen, nor have the arms and hands been\nraised to secure a contact with it, and perhaps a tracing of its lines,\nalthough some stimulus for such contact and tracing must be always\npresent as a part of the actual or possible value of the experience. Or,\nagain, to adopt an illustration used for a different purpose by\nProfessor William James, so simple a process as the spelling of a word\nis complicated with all sorts of diverting and unsettling impulses as\neach letter is expressed. Let the word be _onomatopoetic_. Can I really\nspell it correctly? And what a gauntlet of dangers I have to run. The\ninitial letter _o_ tempts, perhaps with childhood memories of the\nalphabet, to _p-q-r-s-t_, etc., or to indefinite words or syllables,\nactual from my past or possible to my future experience, such as _of,\noff, opine, October, -ology, -ovy_, and so on, or, to suggest mere\npossibilities, such as _ontic, oreate, ot_, or _ow_; and every\nsucceeding letter is equally a scene of combat, a place of dangers\nmet--safely met, let us hope, and triumphantly passed. Worthy the boy,\nor the man, who reaches the end unhurt. And what a voyage of\nuncertainties, what a course between hope and fear, confidence and\ndoubt, the spelling of words or the spelling of life as a whole always\nis. One's whole vocabulary, real or possible, or one's whole repertory\nof acts is more or less directly involved, whatever one does. As to the\ntentative nature of purpose, which seems the only other point here that\ncan possibly require illustration, the right we all [p.013] reserve to\nchange our minds in the different affairs of life tells its own story.\nWe never do do, or can do, exactly what we consciously would do; and\nrecognizing this, men, as well as women, insist on the right of a change\nof mind, and sometimes even of conscious misrepresentation or of\ndisparity between their seeming and their being in thought or in deed.\nThat such a claim has its dangers does not now concern us; it has also\nits opportunities; but the fact of it and the ground for it are quite\nevident. Even jurisprudence, for which loyalty to established and\nvisible forms is peculiarly sacred, has its ways, direct and indirect,\nof recognizing that purposes develop, that the returns are never all in,\nthat any purpose or meaning must sooner or later assume a new form, and\nso may even now be other than it seems. Bequests for institutions, for\nexample, are allowed to continue in force, although, with the demands of\na more enlightened day, the formal conditions under which they were made\nhave been openly violated. In short--for it all comes to this--\"Not the\nletter, but the spirit,\" is an inevitable comment, or at least an\ninevitable feeling about everything that is done. A man vaults a fence,\nand then, even if he get over fairly well, vaulting is not what it was\nfor him. He may continue to use the old word, or the same arms and legs,\nbut with a changed meaning and a changed feeling of limb and muscle, and\nso with a new purpose and a new body to control and modify his next\nperformance. And what is true for vaulting is true also for making boxes\nor tables, for writing essays, for talking, for thinking, for founding\ncolleges or theological seminaries, or finally, for [p.014] what we so\nindefinitely call living. An activity such as throughout its length and\nbreadth ours is, conscious activity that must for ever heed the call:\n\"Not the letter, but the spirit,\" an activity that never is, therefore,\nand never can be without the elements of the game, since it must ever\nwait on its own revealed consequences in order to grow into an\nunderstanding of its real meaning; such an activity, among other things,\ncannot but fasten doubt upon us as a most natural heritage. As man is\nconscious, to doubt is human. Other things may be human, too, but doubt\nis so certainly and conspicuously.\n\nThirdly, in this presentation of general facts: _Doubt is inseparable\nfrom habit_. Habit is usually associated with what is permanent and\nestablished, but just here lies its undoing. As we usually understand\nit, habit really deadens what it touches by leading to abstraction or\nseparation from actual conditions. Conservative as it surely is in\nthings important and in things unimportant, in things personal and in\nthings social, it sets him who is party to it behind the times, for no\nact in its second expression, no simply repeated act, no mere habit\ncould ever be up to date in the sense of really meeting all the\nemergencies of its own time. Personal habits make fixed characters;\nsocial habits make customs and laws; religious habits make churches and\ncreeds; intellectual habits make schools; and of all these products,\nwhich for the sake of the single term we will call institutions, it must\nbe said, however paradoxically, that in being made they are also\noutgrown, for the habitual turns formal and unreal and so unsatisfying.\nA growing nature has [p.015] her ways of making even conservatives keep\npace with her. An institution in the sense of an acquired manner of\naction, personal or social, can never really be an end in itself,\nalthough to a narrow view it may often seem to be; it is at best only\nthe manifested means to a newly developed or developing end which must\neventually transform it. In so large a thing, for example, as political\nlife, the institutes of monarchy have become the instruments of\ndemocracy, and this conspicuously ever since the French Revolution; in\nthe history of thought, of man's intellectual life, the objective dogmas\nof one time have been only the subjective standpoints of the next, the\nmetaphysics of one time has made the scientific method, the working\nhypothesis, of the succeeding time; and in so small a thing as a child's\nvocabulary, the oft-repeated and finally mastered syllable _ba_, or some\nother equally intellectual, has become in time only one of the means to\na whole word, say _baby_ or _bath_, or even _basilica_ or\n_barometrograph_. In all life the thing we get the habit of is only a\ntool with which we strive towards something else. Some one thinking no\ndoubt of Hercules has called the institutions of life a great club which\nthe irresistible arm of society, always a hero when looked back upon,\nswings fatally against the present.\n\nSo intimately is change seen nowadays to be related to habit, or\nindirectly involved in it, that in technical science a new account of\nhabit has been formulated. To cite but one case, Professor Baldwin,\nsays:[1] \"Habit expresses the tendency of the organism [p.016] to secure\nand retain its vital stimulations,\" and such an account, placing the\ninterest of habit in so general and so changeable a thing as \"vital\nstimulations,\" is designed to make habit fundamentally, not merely a\ntendency to repetition or imitation, but instead a demand for constant\nadaptation or differentiation. In the doctrines of inheritance, also,\nalways moving necessarily in close sympathy with those of habit, a\nsimilar departure has been made. Both habit and inheritance are in fact\nseen to belong to life in a world of change, or variation, and they have\nassumed what I will style a protective colouring accordingly. The habit\nof always being adapted is at least as radical as it is conservative.\n\nWith this reform in the account of habit we have not only analogous\nreforms, as was said, in the account of inheritance, but also in the\nscientific view of character, custom, law, creed, and the institution\ngenerally. Moreover, if in scientific theory we find these new views, in\npractical life there are at least signs of the same standpoint. What may\nbe called a new conservatism--the most truly conservative thing being\ntaken to be the most thoroughly pertinent or adaptive thing--has for\nmany years been getting possession of us, and is now quite manifest. Our\npolitical constitutions are amendable constitutions; our religious rites\nand doctrines are recognized as only symbols; our theories are only\nstandpoints.\n\nSo, once more, because change is at least an ever-present companion, if\nnot actually an integral part of habit, doubt must be as real and\ngeneral as habit. [p.017] Change must make doubt. Sociologically,\ninstitutionalism must always imply a contemporary scepticism; the\nconservative must have an unbeliever for his neighbour. Indeed, to add\nan important point, some go so far as to say in general that change,\nthat is, something new and different, is not only a necessary incident\nbut also an actual motive in all activity, and when all is said they\nseem quite right. Perhaps habit, as always an interest in adaptation,\nwould imply as much. Certainly novelty is a universal motive, and as for\nsociety there can be no question that it has a very strong predilection\nfor lawlessness in all its forms. True, it may be objected that at times\nmen, individually or collectively, seek not something else, but simply\n_more_ of something already secured; more money, it may be, or more\nlearning, or more territory, or more pleasure. There is, however, in\nspite of man's many conceits to the contrary, no change that is purely\nquantitative. _More_ is also _different_ or _other_. Accordingly, we\nboth always find, and, what is even more to the point, always seek a\nreal change whenever we do anything. To speak again in most general\nterms, the motion in the outer world, which is the fundamental stimulus\nof all 'consciousness, both physically, that is, literally, and\nfiguratively, is more than merely an outer stimulus; something there is\nwithin the nature of the subject which answers to it with perfect\nsympathy and makes it equally an inner motive. Forsooth, could any\nstimulus ever produce a response without its being in accord with an\nexisting motive? Life, then, is a game, and the game of life, doubts and\nall, is a real interest as well as a necessity. We are [p.018] creatures\nof habit, but we have, and we cherish, no habit stronger or more\nessential than the habit at once of adaptation and variation.[2]\n\nA fourth general fact, very closely related to the foregoing, is this:\n_Doubt is necessary to life, to real life, to deep experience_. Doubt is\nbut one of the phases of the resistance which a real life demands. Real\nlife implies a constant challenge, and doubt is a form under which the\nchallenge finds expression. The doubter is a questioner, a seeker; he\nhas, then, something to overcome; he fears, too, as well as hopes.\n\nWere all things settled once for all, were all things clearly known and\nfreely executed, or were the consequences of the things to be done\nalways capable of being accurately foretold, there would be no real\n[p.019] living, there would be nothing really to do. In such case life\nin general, or in any of its different expressions, religion, or\npolitics, or art, or science, or industry, or morals, if one may suppose\nfor a moment that any of these differences could ever develop, would\nconsist in a purely passive condition, a mere fixed status; it would be\na wholly static thing falsely called life; its movement, if movement\nthere were, could be only the rest or routine of strictly mechanical\nmotion.\n\nTo a real life, then, doubt, as an evidence of challenge and resistance,\nis absolutely necessary, and appreciation of just this necessity is\ncertainly an important part of our present confession, and the\nconfession is important, because it is sure somewhat to brighten what\nheretofore may have seemed a dark horizon. Confession often changes\nnight to dawn, and here the association of doubt with real living, with\na world in which there is always something to do, awakens emotions that\nsuch words as relativity, and instability, and change, and even game,\nhave discouraged, or even wholly suppressed. Leasing, perhaps better\nthan any one else, has given expression to these emotions, and has at\nthe same time reflected what in his day had certainly begun to be, and\nwhat in our own time very widely and very deeply is, the ideal spirit.\nThus, as he wrote:--\n\n\"Not the truth that any one may have or may think he has, but the honest\neffort which has been exerted to compass it, makes what is really worthy\nin human life. For not in having, but in seeking truth, are those powers\ndeveloped, in which alone man's ever-increasing [p.020] perfection\nconsists. Possession makes us inert, lazy, proud. If God held in his\nright hand the perfect truth, and in his left the ever-restless struggle\nafter truth, and bade me choose, although I were bound to be ever and\nalways in the wrong, I should humbly select the left, saying: 'Father,\ngive; surely the pure truth is for Thee alone.'\"\n\nThis is a splendid utterance, and it has touched a responsive chord in\nhuman nature the civilized world over, not so much, however, for the\nhumility of the choice as for the zeal in a life of seeking and\nstriving, or for the idea that knowledge is itself a dynamic thing, a\nliving, moving function, not a passive possession. The knower is made\nalso a doubter, and the doubter appears as having, in a sense,\nforgotten, without for a moment betraying, the constant doubting within\nhim. If I may so speak, he has, even while he lacks; such is the\ncondition of his seeking; such is the way in which doubting is necessary\nto real living. Doubt saves from the possession that makes \"inert, lazy,\nproud,\" yet does not take away. Doubt makes experience always deep, even\nputting consciousness in touch with reality, and it makes life for ever\nliving.\n\nStill others may be quoted in the same vein. Socrates made life,\nparticularly mental life, if this may be supposed distinct, essentially\nactive or dynamic when he identified true wisdom with self-conscious\nignorance, with a power in one of always finding oneself in error, and\nin modern times Hegel has done the same thing as effectually, though\nperhaps not in general so intelligibly, by finding a principle of\nnegativity or contradiction the very mainspring of all [p.021]\nconsciousness, of all thinking. Known truth is at once imperfect or even\nfalse, being necessarily partial, relative, and at best only tentative,\nvery much, let us say, recalling something already remarked, as an\nestablished form of life is no longer the real life, but merely the\ndeveloped means to a revolution, a life that is passing even as soon as\nit has come.\n\nFor the rest, the positive value of doubt to real life can hardly need\nfurther emphasis. In one form or another the idea, as important as many\nmay find it commonplace, must constantly recur in these pages. We turn,\ntherefore, to our fifth, and for the present, last general fact, with\nwhich we shall find ourselves still in sight, perhaps even in clearer\nsight of the brighter horizon. We are all universal doubters; doubt\nunderlies all consciousness; even habit has gloomy doubt, as Horace\nwould say, sitting up behind; like pain or want, like ignorance or\ncontradiction, doubt is a dynamic principle, making experience deeper\nand ever deepening, and life real and alive; and fifthly: _As man is\ndependent and feels dependent, he is a doubter. His widespread, or\nrather his universal, sense of dependence begets doubt_. Witness the\nfact that doubt shows man a seeker after company; the company of nature,\nthe company of his fellows, the company of God.\n\nOf course the social impulse, thus to be associated with doubt, is only\none of the phases of its dynamic and life-giving character, for a social\nlife, a life of dependence on what is without, of real relations beyond\nself, must be a life of real and constant movement. Nothing so much as\nsuch relations gives [p.022] vitality. This special phase, however, of\nthe place of doubt in real life is a very interesting one, and it\nsuggests, besides, so much that is of positive value as almost to\ntransform what so far has been in large part a sceptic's confession into\na sceptic's boast.\n\nThus, in the first place, doubt seeks the company of nature. \"Return to\nnature!\" has time and again in human history been the cry of the human\nheart. Has civilization lost its hold, seeming unreal, artificial,\nformal? Has morality become hollow? Has a lover suffered the shattering\nof his dearest hopes? Has a creed lost its credibility? Have you and I\nwearied of our study or our labour, whatever it be, and come to wonder\nif it, or anything, is worth while after all? Have friends, ideals, and\nGod Himself deserted us? We turn, and all people turn to nature. Exactly\nso the homesick traveller takes himself homeward, or the prodigal arises\nand goes to his father. And your experience and mine, and the poetry of\nall literatures, which tells so deeply the experiences of all men of all\ntimes, are a constant witness to the comfort, and forgiveness, and\nrenewed confidence in self that nature imparts. Nature is our infancy,\nin which all things are possible; she is our untrammelled will; she is\ninfinitely hopeful for us and infinitely kind; her necessity is so wide\nand so open that its very law, so different from any human law, is our\ngreatest opportunity. True, our resort to nature is sometimes, perhaps\nin greater or less degree always, by the way of moral dissipation, or\npolitical anarchy, or intellectual suicide, or religious profanity; but\neven these dark ways to the home and the great mother-heart of [p.023]\nus all have never been hopelessly misleading. If history and literature\nand personal experience can be trusted, even they have led to a kind\nnature. Have you never failed in anything and become reckless, and then\nprofited from the very knowledge of yourself which the recklessness\nuncovered? Personally and socially recklessness, return to nature that\nit is, is always a helpful assistant to nature's great teacher,\nexperience. Great is the pathos, but also, as it is understood, great is\nthe inspiration of Rousseau's passionate outcry that his will was\nperfectly good. He was incapable of a single wholesome relation in life,\nyet, so he said, no man was better than he! Rousseau, philosopher of\nrevolution, spoke for nature. Out of her great love, nature always takes\nthe will for the deed--and perhaps she alone should have the privilege\nof doing that; for she knows that the deed, however violent, however\nbad, is sure to leave at least the will good.\n\nBut intellectually, as well as morally or politically, or as well as in\nany of the departments of the practical, emotional life, when trouble\ncomes we turn to nature. Nature has a mind as well as a heart, and when\nstate, and church, and social tradition have lost their validity and\ninfallibility, their various formul\u00e6 being no longer reasonable to us,\nwhen we have to depose them from their position as our accepted\nteachers, then we become scientists, which is to say, intellectual\nprodigals. Science, the open-minded study of nature, is only a\nhomesickness for truth seeking relief. Does the scientist doubt? He is\none of the princes of doubters. He doubts, as in due time we [p.024]\nshall more fully appreciate, even to the extreme position of\nagnosticism. He doubts all things human that always he may be learning\nof nature.\n\nSo the companionship of nature for the comfort and pardon which she is\nsure to give, and for the deeper knowledge which she is certain to\nimpart, is a passion of the doubter. True, no passion is free from\ndangers; yet this passion, at least this passion, has somewhat of hope\nin it.\n\nBut, secondly, the companionship of one's fellows is not less strongly\ndesired. Huddling together in time of distress is by no means peculiar\nto the animal world; in human life it has more than once made distress\nseem richly worth while. \"We have each other\" in word or thought has\nbeen the comforting reflection of many a family, or many a community,\nwhen the money has gone, or when in other ways, possibly through a great\nfire, or a great earthquake, or the ravages of a disease, afflictions\nhave come, and \"Now we know how others have suffered\" has been not less\ncommon. Indeed, it is my own conviction that these two reflections\nalways rise together. The distress or affliction of doubt, however, is\ncertainly no exception to the rule. Doubt often separates an individual\nfrom the customary corporate life with which he has long identified\nhimself, throwing him out of his church, or his party, or his society,\nor even his immediate family, but the doubter at once feels his\nloneliness, and gets a yearning, never realized before, for social\nrelations. Benedict Spinoza may have been better than most of us, but he\nwas not in any other way different, and though maligned and insulted, as\nearlier in history [p.025] another of his race had been, for his doubts\nand heresies, and though exposed to the dangers of the assassin's knife,\nand finally, when other measures failed, with special cruelties\nexcommunicated by his synagogue, he loved his people, and all men\nbesides, as few have loved them. Doubt makes one dependent; isolation\ngives a sense of loss; and, if ever a solution of the doubt comes, in\nthe life and consciousness which it enjoins the lost companions, whether\nthey will or not, are included with oneself. In many ways this is an\nimportant fact; yet it must suffice that we see the affinity of the\ndoubter for society. Man ever confidently seeks what man has lost.\nDependent man and doubting man must have society.\n\nThat doubt, furthermore, not only creates a motive to social life, even\nto the restoration of lost companions, but also by weakening the\nbarriers which have divided some class, a sect perhaps, or a party, or a\nnation, or a race, from some other class, puts social life on a broader\nand deeper basis, is also an important fact, and full of significance\nbeyond our immediate interest. Thus, to suggest indeed how those two\nreflections mentioned in the preceding paragraph are inseparable,\nbesides his wish to retain or recover his wonted companions, the doubter\nwould also associate them and himself with new companions, I venture to\nsay, as if in a figure, with Gentiles as well as with Jews, and this\ngives to doubt, or to those who experience it and adequately use it, a\nmost significant r\u00f4le in the evolution of society, the r\u00f4le of mediation\nbetween old friends and new, between the past and the future, the narrow\nlife and the broader [p.026] and deeper life, what is conservative and\nwhat is progressive; but at least for the present it is again enough if\nwe see that doubt, not only by its personal losses gives the motive, but\nalso by its removal of barriers gives the larger possibility of society.\n\nAnd, in addition to the company of nature and the company of man, doubt,\nspringing as it does from man's sense of insufficiency, seeks also the\ncompany of God; yet not of the God of any theology. As here conceived,\nGod is that which lies at the back of nature, and at the back of man in\nthe sense of being in character broader and deeper than either of these,\nand quite superior to any difference between them; he is the single,\nall-inclusive, wholly indeterminate reality upon which the doubter\ndepends, and must depend; he is as nameless and unspeakable as he is\nindeterminate and all-inclusive, and he is real and perfect only as so\nnameless. To theology, God is determinate; to doubt, imperfect if\ndeterminate. At times, perhaps only half in earnest, or at least not\nclearly knowing if he is in earnest or if he wishes others to think him\nso, the doubter speaks of nature as his God, of the hills, or the\nfields, or the sea, or the sky, or the busy street as his church, or the\ngreat book of the universe as his Bible. At times, with the deepest\nemotion and with open avowal, nature and God are fully one to him, and\nthe poetry, or the science, or the philosophy, to which his doubting\nleads him, is veritably a religious revelation. But always his doubting,\nas he knows it, as he is honest with it, is an appeal, not merely to\nnature as physically a powerful agent in the life he is pursuing, nor to\nothers like himself who, by sharing, [p.027] may lighten his distress\nand enhance his final victory, but also to a full, inclusive experience;\nto a life, perhaps like his own, yet indeterminately deeper than any he\nhas known; to a mind and a heart, such as he knows must be present in\nthat which surrounds him and moves within him, in knowledge more\nenlightened and in emotion more inspired, than his doubting mind and\nfaltering heart have ever been; and such a life or such a mind or heart,\nwhatever name it be called by, is God. Can mind appeal to anything but\nmind, or heart to anything but heart? And doubt--can it be doubt without\nthe appeal?\n\nThe doubter who refuses or hesitates to speak the name of God may thus\nbe a protestant, but plainly he is no atheist. A mere name, in any case,\nis quite as likely to obscure as to illumine the reality; the\nchiaroscuro effect must ever belong to it. Doubt is no road to atheism.\nAs a way to theism it may be beset with hardship, and its goal may be\nquite beyond the horizon; but the doubter is not by nature an atheist;\nquite the contrary. As no other, feeling dependent, he is a seeker, and\neven a confident seeker after what is perfect. He truly and confidently\nseeketh, for he seeketh after what hath neither visible form nor body,\nwhat is without habitation or name, what, like the Son of Man, hath not\nwhere to lay its head. He seeketh, what his very seeking itself is, not\na God, but the life of the God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe general facts about doubt are now before us, and although much needs\nyet to be said in explanation, and a further fact is reserved for a\n[p.028] concluding chapter, still not so darkly as it began this first\nchapter in our confession of doubt has come, perhaps somewhat abruptly,\nto an end. We have next, entering more fully and critically into the\nconditions of our human experience, to scrutinize closely our ordinary\nhabits of mind, those common-sense views of things that on the whole\nprevail among men. In these ideas, impulsive, unreasoning, above all\noften flatly contradictory, we shall find some of the strongest reasons\nfor our doubting nature.\n\n\n[1] _Mental Development of the Child and the Race. Methods and\nProcesses_. By James M. Baldwin. Macmillan, 1895.\n\n[2] Let me add, that if certain people, struggling in the present maze\nof educational theory, and objecting, with a zest and a combativeness\nthat fairly belie their contentions, to the use of interest as the\nprimal educational motive, if these people would only recognize change\nas always a part of interest, their greatest trouble would be removed.\nThey refuse to have education easy or pleasant; interest, they insist,\nmust make it so; and doubtless the advocates of interest are in part to\nblame for this view; but change, which to my mind is involved in all\ninterest, includes resistance and struggle; change is ever a challenge\nto effort; and, such being the case, an education led by interest is not\nnecessarily easy or idly pleasant. The real meaning of the interest\ntheory, at least as I have to understand it, is simply (1) that the\nnatural child or the natural man always has something to do, and (2)\nthat education should promote that something. It is far from meaning\nthat there should be no compulsion or discipline, no pain or\nself-denial. Whoever honestly over expected to do, or ever did any thing\nwithout these? The interest theory, then, would not eliminate hardship\nor discipline, but, to my understanding, by making education serve\nactual life, would substitute a natural for an artificial and externally\nimposed hardship. Not hardship, but real achievement makes the educated\nman.\n\n\n\n[p.029]\n\nIII.\n\nDIFFICULTIES IN OUR ORDINARY VIEWS OF THINGS.\n\n\nIf the doubter were brought into court under indictment for his offences\nagainst common sense, against ordinary experience and belief, and the\njury of his peers sitting upon the case were composed, as of course it\nwould be likely to be, of faithful believers chosen at random from the\ndifferent walks of practical life, no better defence could possibly be\noffered than a simple statement of the incongruities which the\nconsciousness of ordinary life is constantly addicted to. True, for some\nreason lying deep in human nature, a defence that ends by convicting the\njury of error, is hardly likely to lead to the immediate discharge of\nthe prisoner; judges or jurymen are not in the habit of taking a rebuff\nin that way; but in course of time the prisoner will be justified, and\nhis justification, however tardy, is all that now concerns us. To his\ndefence, therefore, and the discomfiture of his judges, but to the\nlatter without any malice, we turn at once.\n\nAnd where shall we begin? Our predicament in this defence is something\nlike that of the small boy, bewildered over the task of \"picking up\" his\nnursery. [p.030] \"I can't do it,\" he says. \"There are so many things; I\ncan't tell which to take first.\" Poor little fellow! If he halts now,\nwhat will he do when the littered room--I had almost said the littered\nplayroom--of his later life confronts him? Contradictions under foot\neverywhere are certainly not less confusing than blocks, horses, papers,\ntrains, marbles, picture-books, and the like--or unlike--scattered over\na nursery floor.\n\nHere, for example, in practical life is the natural, physical world. How\nreal, brutally real, it is; its very law is fate; its forces are no\nrespecters of persons, inexorably ruling and compelling all alike,\ngiving life and taking it, full of the grimmest humour, raising hopes\nonly to cast them down. Is some one rash enough to suggest that things\nphysical are only so many ideas, real only as states of mind, of God's\nmind possibly, in some way coming to consciousness in the senses of men?\nThe practical man knows a thing or two about that. He kicks a stone, or\nstrikes his fist loudly upon a table, and so ends the matter, laughing\nthe mad idealist away. And yet, prestissimo change! What do we hear him\nsaying now? This brutally real world of physical things and powers is\nbut a fleeting show; a thing only of space and time. What is really real\nand abiding is the spiritual that is everywhere and always. Another\nworld there is, not to be spoken of in the same breath with this present\nworld, a world compared with which this is but a mist before the eyes.\n\nIn so many familiar ways this duplicity towards what is real is\nmanifest. People go to church to do such a wonderfully strange thing;\nnothing more [p.031] nor less than to save their real souls from an\nunreal world, or sometimes to hide a real worldliness under unreal rites\nor symbols. \"You may think me worldly, selfish, sensuous,\" says some\none, \"and I can not deny that often I do seem so, but this life of mine\nis ever only a yearning after the things that are spiritual, for which,\nas you see, I pray so earnestly, and which have nothing at all to do\nwith one's worldly life.\" Yes, we do see, and particularly we see that\nthings spiritual are often an impertinence in worldly affairs. The \"real\nself\" never does the things that are really done. Only this, just this\nis where the duplicity lies. Again, from some one else, a practical man\npresumably and an accuser of the doubter, we hear the following: \"Only\nthe spiritual life is real; look to it that you fear, as I fear, deeply\nand constantly the material world hanging like a sword over us all.\" Can\nit be, as would certainly appear, that superstition is still among us,\nthat so readily we can give reality to unreality, that belief in ghosts\nstill holds our human minds? Once upon a time--at least once--the\nChristian Church rose in bitter resentment because a certain man, by\nmerely questioning the separate reality of the physical world,\nthreatened to deprive the holy priesthood, with all its time-honoured\nprerogatives, of its heaven-appointed labour. Yet what is to be said of\na church that prefers to think of an independent physical world, by\nwhich man is bound and damned, in order to save for itself the task,\neither hopeless or useless, of rescuing him? Labelling a man \"rescued\"\nor \"Christian\" does not make another-world creature of him. In political\nhistory, too, what [p.032] a paradox it is that kingship by divine right\nhas always been also kingship by physical might. The practices of an\navowed supernaturalism have always been strangely materialistic.\n\nSo, in high places and in low, in the affairs of men now and in the\npast, the physical and the spiritual have ever been in a most remarkable\nrelation; each real in and by itself, but with a most unusual courtesy\nalso unreal at the slightest motion from the other; each now supreme,\nand now wholly subject; each now the whole life of man, and now the very\nopposite, the antipodes of all that is human; and each self-existent and\nindependent, yet never without its real need of the other. Here surely\nis contradiction, or vacillation, in experience that is, to say the\nleast, very confusing to him who reflects.[1]\n\nBut, to take up something else certainly not less confusing to the\nordinary mind, \"practical,\" and unaccustomed to reflection, this is a\nworld of separate, individual things, of chairs, hands, atoms, eyes,\nstars, men, stones, books, leaves, rivers, lives, mountains, relations,\nnotions, distances, days or years, and so on, [p.033] indefinitely and\nabove all indiscriminately; a world, moreover, into which in part God,\nin part man, defying an equally powerful agent of chaos or dissipation,\nhas put at least for a time a certain kind of order, an order that might\nbe said to be good enough for all practical purposes. Yet with all its\nindiscriminate manifoldness, and with the irregular, uncertain conflict\nbetween chaos and order, it is nevertheless a single world, in short,\njust one more individual thing, one more example, perhaps outdoing all\nothers, of the marvellous license with which human beings are wont to\nspeak and think of a \"thing.\" Chairs, hands, mountains, men, stars, and\nthe whole universe, are all \"things,\" and in this world of things, that\nis itself another thing, or, should I rather say, _apart from_ this\nworld of things, that is another thing, there are two, at least two,\ndiscordant powers taking turns at making order and disorder.\n\nConfusion indeed! Nor have I exaggerated it. The loose association of\nchairs, distances, and days; the easy assumption of two supreme agents\nworking against each other; the certain uncertainty about these agents\nbeing in the world or out of it, of it or not of it; and the readiness\nwith which the whole universe, the all-inclusive thing, is treated as\nonly one more thing to be included: these habits of the ordinary mind\nshow a confusion that seems like insanity. Can we even face them safely\nand soberly?\n\nFor special regard I select just one, perhaps the central one; the habit\nof treating the universe, the unity of all things, as but one additional\nthing, the whole, as if it were only another part, the complete [p.034]\nand infinite as if distinct from or outside of what is finite or\nincomplete; or again, in good old philosophical terms, the One as if it\nwere another and so in effect, but one of the Many. Now some there are,\nand their number may be large, who never have thought of the\ncontradiction and consequent confusion in the notion of a single world\nmade up of many single things, yet itself another thing, or of the\nInfinite as external to the Finite, or of the One as not in and of the\nMany, but the contradiction is there, and can scarcely need more than\nmention to be seen.\n\nEven in theory, scientific or philosophical, the wholeness or unity of\nthe many things of the world has sometimes been taken for just one more\nthing, as when Anaximander taught that it was \"that thing which is no\none of the world's things,\" or for one of the many things supposed by it\nto be unified, as when Thales so na\u00efvely declared all things to be\nwater. Anaximander and Thales were only ancient Greeks, albeit very wise\nand enlightened Greeks, living as early as 600 B.C., but in very recent\ntimes they have had followers. Electricity has been taken as the one\nforce of all other forces. Our chemists, some of them, have been hunting\ndown the one element among the rest. Statesmen and churchmen have often\ndreamt of one man as somehow in his single person expressing the unity\nof all human life, and more than once they have even imagined him\npresent in the flesh. God, although the Being in whom we, as ourselves\npersons, live and move and have our being, has Himself been another\nperson. Society and its supposed component individuals have made two\norders [p.035] of existence. Life and living creatures; history and its\nmany events; the solar system and its planets: nature and all her\nvarious kingdoms: these have also been held apart, making amazing\ndualisms. But, simply to repeat from above, taking the whole or the\nunity of all things as itself an independent thing, as itself one more\nthing, is a contradiction that needs only to be stated clearly to be\nappreciated. Let me hope that I have stated it clearly.\n\nNor is this particular conflict in our ordinary ideas yet before us in\nall its fatefulness, for--as if to defy the principle of consistency to\nthe very last degree of its forbearance--we are often, if not usually,\ngiven not only to unifying our world of things in terms of just one more\nthing, or of persons in terms of just one more person, but also to\nthinking of this one more thing, or person as _sui generis_, as\naltogether different in nature and substance. So do we mingle our\nduplicity about reality with that about the unity of things. The many,\nfor example, are physical or of the substance of matter; the one is\nideal or of the substance of mind or spirit. The many persons are merely\nhuman, the One is divine. Strange, indeed, that men should ever take one\nmore as the unity of all the rest, but if possible it is at least, at\nfirst sight, stranger that this one more should be relegated to a sphere\nwholly apart and peculiar. In the madness of such compounded\ncontradiction there may lurk real method, but of the contradiction and\nof the compounding there can be no question.\n\nEven the soul, a something, an entity, that each one of us has been in\nthe habit of claiming for himself [p.036] and of holding very sacred and\ninviolate too, has been subjected to the same way of thinking.\nDoubtless, since God has not been spared, we should hardly expect the\nsoul to escape. We view the soul so materialistically, even while we\ninsist that it is not material. We say, we think, that it is something\nin the body; yet, of course, we are at our wit's end to tell just what\nparticular place it occupies there. Similarly, God is supposed to be\nsomewhere in the Universe, yet in no assignable place, and the chemist's\nuniversal atom is somewhere also, though surely not in the same place,\nand, wherever it be, waiting with its own, yet certainly a divine\npatience that ought to be inspiring, for experimental discovery. But\nwith regard to the soul, although the life and unity of the body,\nalthough one of the things in the body, the soul itself is not bodily at\nall; it can enter the body and is important--who dares say how\nimportant?--to the body, and it can, as at death, leave the body, but\nthough for a time in, it never is of the body. A strange standpoint\ncertainly, but men insist that it is quite as true as it is strange. It\nseems very much like saying that when you build a house, in order to\nensure it real solidarity, to give it real permanence and integrity, you\nshould make a special point of putting your bricks or your lumber\ntogether, not with clinging, well-set mortar, or strong pins and\nstraight-driven nails, but so much more sensibly, because so much\nfurther from what would be like the material bricks or lumber, or like\nthe equally material mortar or nails, with those real and really compact\nthings, absolutely continuous or indivisible, or at least indestructible\n[p.037] even when disintegrated, empty space and pure uneventful time.\nWith such space and time there would be union indeed I But, again,\nstrange as such a procedure in building a house would be, men insist or\nat least I can readily imagine their insistence, that houses are built\nin that way, and built successfully. The method may seem absurd, but\nthey insist that it is not madness. Are not abstract plans and such\nseemingly unsubstantial things as mathematical formul\u00e6, which are very\nnear to being made of empty space and time, the real strength and\nintegrity of all our great modern structures? And the soul, whatever be\nsaid of its being an immaterial thing, is nevertheless, even for being\nboth immaterial and thing, the very sinew of the body.\n\nHere may be method, then, and sanity, but there is always contradiction,\nobstinate contradiction, compounded contradiction! The soul, unity of\nthe body, is only another thing or part in the body, and at the same\ntime, though in the body, it is after all not really of the body.\nPossibly, perhaps necessarily, such patent contradiction, and, more than\nall, such compounding of contradiction, like doubling a negative, make\nfor what is without contradiction, but this wholesome result is not\nconsciously intended, and in the face of all, whatever our hopes or our\nbeliefs, we must feel grave doubts and confess our doubting. Those who\ndo build better than they know, if enlightened, would not again build in\nthe same way. Two contradictions may be better than one, but even two\nmake us wonder.\n\nClosely connected with the contradictions in our [p.038] customary ideas\nof reality, and ideas of wholeness or unity, there is the way in which\nwe calmly take opposite sides in our notions about space and time, and\nabout that very fundamental factor of our experience--causation. These\nare, all of them, so general and fundamental as possibly to seem too\nabstruse even for mention in this place, since throughout these chapters\nwe are courting simplicity, but of space, and time, and causation, only\nwhat is very simple needs to be said. Thus to the ordinary consciousness\nhow fatally things are separated from each other by conditions of space\nand time. Then is not now. Here is not there. Space and time are only\nphysical and as brutal as all things physical, separating this from that\nwith a finality that knows no degree. Lovers, continents apart, despair\nover the cruel distance. Time tears us ruthlessly from those dear to us.\nWhat is to be, as well as what was, though in the next moment, is\nabsolutely beyond our grasp. Could anything be freer from dispute than\nthe reality and the separating brutally of space and time? Yet, almost\nat a whisper, all distance and all duration become as nothing. Do not\nthe lovers write to each other, flatly and passionately denying that\nthey are far apart? Do we not constantly forestall the future and retain\nthe past? Indeed, when all is said, a thousand years are as one day, and\nall the places of the earth are one. So real, and so vast, and so\nphysical to us but a moment ago, space and time have now passed into\nmere phantoms of the imagination. We live, then, not only in a world\nthat is brutally spatial and temporal, but also, and at the same time,\n[p.039] in a world that is not spatial and not temporal at all; and\nliving here--or there?--we have again to wonder and to doubt even in our\nbelief. To our own constant amazement we find that we make our life a\nbridge over what would seem to be an absolutely impassable chasm.\n\nAs for causation our temerity is not less surprising. Wet and dry moons,\nunlucky Fridays, holy and unholy numbers, haunted houses, so-called\nprovidences, free in the sense of indifferently, irresponsibly free\nwills and fiat deities with their suddenly made worlds may not be\ngenerally in vogue at the present time, at least among the better\neducated, the enlightened and not infrequently conceited classes, but\neven among the wise and the consciously informed they have their natural\noffspring, and I am not so sure that many of them might not be found\nalmost intact, at least in the more retired parts of the consciousness\nof my readers. To illustrate, for some if not for all of us, this is a\nworld of many free and independent causes, yet also it is the single\neffect of one cause; it is again, our mood having changed, the single\neffect of two absolutely unlike beings or natures, each of them an\nall-powerful cause; it is a sphere here and now of causal, creative,\nproductive activity, but it was itself created once for all long ago, at\na date which the exegete hopes--in the equally distant future!--to\ndetermine for us; it contains some things that are only causes and some\nthat are only effects, or some, or all, that are both causes and\neffects; it has parts that are the accepted causes of other parts; it\nhas causes, those acting now and the one original cause, that are\ntemporally [p.040] antecedent to their effects; and, not to make the\nlist longer, it is variously a world of one last effect, of one first\nand only cause, of an infinite series of causes and effects, and in\nwhole, or in part, it constantly shows something made out of nothing or\nnothing resulting from something. A wondrous world most assuredly; and\nyet at first statement this record of our various notions of causation\nmay not appear as a very serious arraignment of the consciousness which\nit exposes. Moreover some people actually glory in such a wonder as it\npresents. But, to be plain, though also monotonous, the uncaused cause\nor the effect that is only a part of the whole, or the cause or the\neffect that refuses to share in the other's nature, or finally the\ncausation that is now so individual and so manifold and so effective,\nand that was once so single and so complete, is something that must give\nany thinker pause. Can a moving body move an immobile body? Can some\nthings in the universe be mobile; others not? Can the moving body and\nthe moved body belong to different moments of time? Can motion lead to\nrest or rest to motion? But our ordinary ideas of causation would allow,\nor even require, an affirmative answer to every one of these questions.\n\nAlas! Shall this labour proceed? Can we afford to continue it? The\ndefence of the doubter is getting almost too successful; it is becoming\ntoo personal to be pleasant. The task of picking up the room of our\nordinary life grows harder, not easier, as it moves forward. Every thing\nthat we touch tells of a spirit of violence in our nature. Even the\nsmall boy can not have been more lawless, for his toys were all [p.041]\nbattered perhaps, but not, like ours, all broken. Can we afford to go\non? Afford it or not, we simply can not help ourselves, for our\nself-confidence is already shattered; our attention to the disorder is\nalready beyond our control; each one of us is the doubter we would\ndefend.\n\nHere close at hand, where we have to see it, is another contradiction\ncommon in all human experience. It inheres in our conceits about\nknowledge. For us, on the one hand, the world we know not only really\nis, the tree out yonder or the planet miles and miles away being really\nand actually there, but also is just the world which our knowledge\nreports to us. What we have knowledge of is in our belief a real thing\nin and by itself, and we know it literally and directly, not\nfiguratively, not afar off through symbols; we know it as it is; we know\na real world, and we know it face to face. Yet, on the other hand, with\nall this simple confidence in our knowledge, what are we also given to\nsaying, or assuming when we do not say it? Even in the moment of our\nconfidence we humble ourselves with the cry of our utter foolishness,\nmaking our recognized foolishness only a counter-conceit. What but\nperfect folly is our knowledge before God's knowledge! \"Illusion! The\ndream of a few hours or a few years!\" is so often the best we can say of\nthe whole fabric, past and present, of human consciousness. Not now, but\nonly in the hereafter are we to see reality face to face; now we see\nonly very darkly, if at all.\n\nSome one here protests strenuously, raising an objection that might very\nproperly have been raised [p.042] before. Thus, I am told that only\ndifferent people, or only the same people at different times, ever hold\ntwo opposite views, whether about knowledge or any thing else; never one\nand the same person at the same time holds them both; and so the present\narraignment can not be as serious as it is made to appear. Well, with\nthis objection I can agree in part, for there is at least a half-truth\nin it, but by no means does it tell, either in general or in particular,\nthat is, with regard to the special case of the conceits about\nknowledge, the whole story of double living or double thinking among\nmen. Indeed the easy way, in which men make the distinctions of society\nor the distinctions of time bear the responsibility for what must always\nin the end be the conflicts of their personal lives, is but another\nillustration of the difficulties besetting their ordinary views of\nthings. Duplicity of view, like anything else in experience, must always\nbe more than a matter of different people or different times, for the\nsimple reason that, whether directly personal or not, it is present in\nthe environment of the individual person. So, even if those two\npositions, confidence in worldly knowledge and religious trust and\nhumility, for the sake of argument be momentarily associated only with\ndifferent persons or social classes or times, our present point will\nreally be just exactly as pointed, for there is always a third person or\nclass or time into whose direct single experience the duplicity or\ncontradiction is bound to enter. Consider, for example, the case of a\nchild. For a part of the week he is perhaps at school; on Sunday at\nchurch; and the life in which he thus takes part must [p.043] appear to\nhim, there being in all probability little or no reservation on either\nside, to be hopelessly divided against itself. Now is knowledge power;\nnow hindrance and greatest danger. Now he is to learn all he can; now,\non the other hand, to forget what he may have learned. So is the\nconflict about him made his personal conflict, and exactly as in his\ncase, so in all human experience the individual must share personally\nwhatever the environment affords.\n\nThe individual and the environing society are the closest of blood\nrelations, though we often allow ourselves, all too easily as has been\nsaid, to lose sight of the fact; they live under the same roof, and rely\nfor sustenance on the same fare; and while to some the contradictions of\nlife may be overlooked as personally impertinent and unimportant, being\nreferred wholly to the environment, they are plainly the unavoidable\nheritage and the personal responsibility of every individual that counts\nhimself a member of the human race. The objection, then, that was raised\ndoes not remove contradiction as a cause of doubt, but merely emphasizes\nwhat in a subsequent chapter must occupy us, the social aspect of\nexperience.[2] Thus, not only does experience, in ways now coming to our\nview, teem with contradictions, and is contradiction a cause of doubt,\nbut also experience so conditioned is social as well as individual, a\nmatter of personal relations between man and man as well as a matter of\nthe single person's inner responsibility. Society in its manifold\nclasses, in its conflicts and in its history, may help us to see the\nwhole of experience, the unity [p.044] of experience on all sides and in\nall parts, but it never does, and it never can, relieve the individual,\nor deprive the individual, of any side or part of what makes up an\nexperience-whole. Grown men and women may be more definitely set in\ntheir lives and their ideas to certain specific things than children,\nbut in no one, young or old, can such specialism ever be wholly\nexclusive of any of the other things.\n\nTo return to our immediate interest, if men are given to being doubters\nin their views about reality, spiritual and material; about unity or\nwholeness; about space and time, on the one hand fatally vast and\nindependently real, and on the other formal and illusory; about\ncausality, so actual and positive now, and yet so complete yesterday, or\never and ever so long ago; and about knowledge, so perfectly wise and so\nthoroughly vain and foolish; if, I say, men are double in all these\ndifferent ways, in their moral judgments they seem, if possible, even\nmore confused, and the confusion, the division against themselves, is\nthe more serious for being with regard to what so directly concerns\npersonal life and human fellowship.\n\nTo begin with, as will indeed readily appear, the offences of our moral\njudgments, which often, if not always, are largely influenced by\nreligious or rather theological conceptions, are only a peculiar\nexpression of the two-faced attitude towards causation, human persons or\nwills being the causes specially involved. In general the causes of the\nuniverse are of three sorts, those of natural force, those of\nsupernatural agency, and those of human agency, and although toward them\nall essentially the same attitude is [p.045] assumed, it is worth our\nwhile to consider particularly the causation that is commonly adjudged\nto belong to the human will and the moral ideas that spring from it.\n\nFor the purposes of the moral consciousness we translate the two\nconflicting powers of our world, or the spiritual reality and the\nmaterial, into two agents of good and evil respectively, each having a\npower of doing whatever, true to its peculiar character, it may will to\ndo, and then, as if in accord with this way of thinking, we find two\ndistinct selves, a good self and an evil self, within each one of us,\nand we also divide the body social into two exclusive classes, the class\nof those who are identified with the righteous life and the class of\nthose given to the unrighteous life, the sheep and the goats, the elect\nand the damned. But, to say nothing of the fact that these three ideas\nof the two powers, the two selves and the two classes, cannot be made\nreally to accord with each other, although they possess an outward\nagreement, is it not clear that any attempt to take the good and the\nevil as two mutually exclusive things, be they spirits or selves or\nclasses, is to destroy at once the real substance of virtue and the real\nvalue of the consciousness of evil? In practical life this means, what\neverybody knows so well, that an isolated, unduly holy righteousness, a\nsort of touch-me-not goodness, is bound to be empty, to be only\nritualistic and aristocratic or pharisaical, and in any one of these\nrespects it appears decidedly unrighteous; while an isolated\nunrighteousness, besides having at least the moral worth of a protest\nagainst its counterpart, is in itself exactly like the original [p.046]\nsinfulness of the theologian; being unavoidable, it is wholly without\nany warranted opprobrium. Indeed, it all but comes to this, that\nrighteousness as a fixed thing, fixed to a part of the universe or to a\npart of the individual self or to a part of society, is really in just\nso far evil, and the direct opposite of such righteousness is\nproportionately good. Good and evil, then, may not mix well, but certain\nit is that contradiction results from the common attempt of men to\nregard either as untainted or untempered by the other.\n\nStill, not upon this real difficulty in our moral judgments would I now\nlay greatest stress, although it is real enough and important. In yet\nanother way our moral consciousness is at war with itself. In estimating\nthe worth of human conduct, so far as this is determined by its\ninitiation, we are in an almost hopeless tangle. We are more than likely\nto think of other people as influenced by their environment in what they\ndo, of ourselves as quite original and responsible, as independent of\nany such influences; or, more fully and more exactly, we are given to\nreferring our own bad deeds to environment, our good deeds to ourselves,\nwhile for others we are prompted to do just the reverse, referring their\ngood deeds to environment, their bad deeds to themselves. Such is human\nnature--not, to be sure, at its best, but common human nature; and even\nwhen we escape the foregoing personally invidious distinctions, we\nstill--and this is the main point--treat self and environment as two\nnaturally conflicting, altogether independent sources of conduct. Two\ndifferent and independent sources of anything, [p.047] however, can only\nmake for conflict and contradiction. If only our courts of law could\njudge responsibility either wholly from the determinations of\nenvironment or wholly from those of personal will, or again, if only the\nwill and the environment could be seen as not so radically opposed, what\na simplification would ensue, and how much freer and more certain\njustice would be. To venture on a variation of an aphorism, where\nthere's another way there is always a loophole; where there's\nenvironment there is always a shifted responsibility; where there's a\n\"free will\" there is always a will taken for some unperformed or\nimperfectly performed deed.\n\nSo the double origin of conduct offers a very serious difficulty, which,\nwhen it is understood, is not unlike that of the two powers or selves or\nclasses, but even more is to be said in exposure of our moral judgments.\nThus we have the confident conceit of freedom, of our own freedom in\ngood or our neighbour's freedom in evil, or in general of man's freedom\nto act without regard to the determinations from environment, but we\nhave also a strange though possibly a fortunate way of qualifying the\nvery freedom that we claim. We claim freedom only to avow, almost in the\nsame breath, duties and responsibilities. We have the freedom, but only\nthe duties make it worth anything. A startling paradox this, so familiar\nto us all: \"I am free to do all that I ought to do,\" or, \"I am free to\ncarry out certain necessities of my true life.\" A startling paradox;\nand, above all, a strange way of escaping the necessities of\nenvironment, unless, forsooth, it really opens the door, or supplies a\nsecret door, by which the [p.048] necessities of environment and the\nnecessities of one's true life can come together? If freedom demands\nlaw, why should it hold aloof from the natural law, the law of\nenvironment so definitely present? Possibly, then, as once before\nsuggested, one contradiction in experience may be the corrective of\nanother, the paradox of freedom and duty only correcting the\ncontradiction of two sources of conduct, personal will and environment.\nIn the case, for example, of the disposition to distinguish between\none's own acts and another's, with respect to their initiation by will\nor by environment, to mingle duty and necessity with one's own supposed\nfreedom is equivalent in effect to denying one's neighbour's freedom\nbecause of the restraints of his environment. But such considerations,\nhowever promising for future reflection upon the conflicts in our moral\nconsciousness, are not of immediate interest. Our doubts may once more\nfind hope in the reflection that the faults of experience may balance\nthemselves, but we have no occasion to abandon our doubting as idle or\nmeaningless. Contradictions that balance each other, errors that are\nmutually corrective, are still contradictions, are still errors.\n\nSo, to reduce our moral judgments, confusion and all, to small compass,\nwe are free, others are not; they are free, we are not; and our freedom\nis bound by duty, by duty to the moral law, while their freedom, unless\na hopeless lawlessness, is bound by the environment and its law. Again,\ngood and evil are each unmixed, and moral acts serve two masters--that\nis to say, spring from two sources. We may, therefore, [p.049] still\nbelieve in morality--yet how can this be? And freedom--yet how is\nfreedom possible?\n\nBut finally, as last to be examined, there is the idea of law, just now\nbrought to attention. This idea is a focus for a good many conflicting\nviews. Witness the familiar argument from the knowledge of law in nature\nto fatalism, an argument as absurd as it is widespread, for the bare\nfact that we know the laws of nature really emancipates us from the\nblind fate to which the argument points. Can knowledge ever mean\nanything but freedom? Certainly no law can ever be known unless the\nsphere of its operation accords with the nature of those who have the\nknowledge. Simply to know is to share in and be at one with whatsoever\nis known, and the clearer and more cogent or rational the knowledge, the\ntruer and realer is this participation or union. The law we know, then,\nmust have all the meaning and the natural authority of a law of our own\nenactment, and so must actually have the sanction of our will. Will, I\nsay, cannot help sanctioning knowledge, for knowledge is always true to,\nbecause conditioned by, the natural action of the knower. But no such\nmessage of freedom, or say of human opportunity in natural necessity, is\ncommonly received by men at large from the evidences of law in nature.\nSuperstitiously they see only fate. Clear knowledge and blind fate!\n\nNor are we commonly satisfied with only so much superstition. We go\nstill further and make the case as bad as possible by treating the law\nwe know as if in its spirit, if not in its letter, it were final. In\nother words, we view nature, with some of whose ways we [p.050] have\nbecome conversant, not merely as a source of blind fate, or external\nnecessity, for our lives, but also as essentially and ultimately a\nsphere of strictly mechanical routine. Yet here again we are surely\nreasoning beyond our premises--the very essence of superstition--for the\nroutine we know can never answer substantially, or even formally, to\nnature as she really is. Our positive knowledge, our knowledge that\narrives at specific formul\u00e6, even though these formul\u00e6 reach the noble\ndignity of mathematics, is bound to be in terms of some particular\nexperience, personal or national or racial; it is relative and special;\nit is partial knowledge; and he is superstitious, and does, indeed,\nargue beyond his premises, who takes the whole, whose law he does not\nknow, to be literally analogous to the part, whose law he thinks he\nknows, but can in fact know only partially. No whole ever is one of its\nparts, or merely analogous to one of its parts; _a_ law never is _the_\nlaw, or even in its lawfulness literally analogous thereto; and\nmechanicalism, whether as a popular or a philosophical \"ism,\" has no\njustification save just this false analogy.\n\nAnd the prevalent confusion in the notions of law or lawfulness is of\ncourse reflected in the corresponding notions of lawlessness. Here, as\nwith other negative terms, men forget that negatives necessarily are\nquite relative to their positives. All specific, definitely manifest,\nknown and positive lawlessness simply must have some place in _the_ law\nof things; it can no more be an absolute lawlessness than any human\nroutine can be supposed final; and, on the other hand, there can be no\npositive law whose breaking has not some [p.051] sanction; there can be\nno lawfulness which does not warrant some lawlessness. This truth,\nperhaps as nothing else could, must show the error in the notion of\nmechanical routine as affording an adequate description of the ultimate\nnature of things. Where the whole always gives point to the negation of\nany of its parts, where _the_ law always sanctions some breaking of any\nlaw, to think of the whole in terms of its parts may be human, but it is\nof the human which is prone to err. Those who would still insist upon\nseeing only routine in law, and upon judging lawlessness as only\nrelative to such seeing, might do well, rising above their ordinary\nviews, to remember with some real appreciation that once upon a time the\nlaw-breakers and the reformer were very closely associated; they were\nassociated in life, and at the end they were crucified together.\nWhatever may be one's theology, there is a deal of food for thought in\nthose deaths on Calvary and in the several lives which they closed.\n\nLawlessness suggests the supernatural. So many have promptly concluded\nthat just as with the knowledge of law in nature human freedom must be\nresigned, blind fate taking its place, so anything or anybody at all\nsupernatural, Satan--for example--as well as God, must once for all\nwithdraw. If law reigns, God can will whatever he wills only because the\nlaw is so; the law is not so because he wills it; and this in common\nopinion only makes him decrepit, without real initiative, dead. Yet,\nonce more, what superstition! The knowledge of law has never robbed man\nof his freedom, nor even slain his God; or this at least: the loss of\nfreedom or the death of God, for [p.052] which any law that man has had\nknowledge of has been responsible, has always been only the forerunner\nof a larger and fuller freedom and of his God's resurrection and\nglorification. This or that law may rob and may kill, but this or that\nlaw, let me reiterate, never is _the_ law, and why common opinion has to\njudge all things in heaven and earth, as if it were, is hard to\ncomprehend. Neither nature nor God, if these two need to be thought of\nas two, is law-bound; each rather, with a meaning which I must hope now\nto have made clear, is law-free. The law in which nature is free is as\ninfinite, as transcendent of any particular human experience as the\never-developing freedom of man or as the will of God. And God, or the\nSupernatural, is not confined to the narrow sphere of what man knows, as\nman knows it; this stands only for what man calls nature. God is the\nall-inclusive sphere or source of the absolute law, for which knowledge\ncan be only a constant striving, or which is itself even a party to the\nconstant striving. Somehow _the_ law must be a living thing, not a\nroutine: the supernatural must be not nature as she is known, but\nnature's fullest and deepest life.\n\nVery emphatically what has just been said about nature or God being\nlaw-free, or about _the_ law being infinite, or not analogous in form or\nsubstance, in spirit or letter, to any thing in positive knowledge, is\nno argument for the Jonah story or even for the miracle of the wine at\nCana's wedding feast; and yet time and again people who apparently\nshould have done enough thinking to know better, to the great\nsatisfaction of thousands have used the infinity of [p.053] nature's or\nGod's lawfulness, which is to say the only partial and tentative\ncharacter of all human knowledge of law, as a clinching proof of all the\nmiracles in the Bible. Can they not see that like what is lawless in\ngeneral, the miraculous must be in the premises only relative to the\nexperience of the time? Even chance is not less so. The spiritual\nmeaning of those miracles may persist, for the miraculous we must always\nhave with us; but if even our relative, imperfect knowledge stands for\nanything, if it be even a tentative knowledge, a working standpoint, the\nliteral truth of most, or even all of them, disappeared long ago.\nMiracles, like laws, come and go; only the miraculous, like _the_ law,\ngoes on forever.\n\nAnd this leads to something else, to something also very common, perhaps\nthe reverse of the foregoing. With what an unaccountable delight many of\nus have accepted naturalistic explanations, for example, of the sun\nstanding still, or of the retreat of the waters of the Red Sea, or of\nthe Immaculate Conception, or of any of the many other marvels in either\nthe Old or the New Testament, and have thought that so our old beliefs\nare to be preserved. I have myself heard honest and earnest men, even\nmembers of an academic community, appeal to parthenogenesis as a fact in\nnature which would at least make the miracle of Christ's birth\nscientifically plausible as well as spiritually significant; but such an\nappeal, besides being, in my opinion, positively irreverent, is as blind\nreligiously as it is ignorant scientifically. Cannot such men\nappreciate, and cannot all others who do as they do also appreciate the\nfact that naturalistic explanation of [p.054] any miracle, if really a\ngenuine explanation, may prove the fact, but must in just so far\ndestroy, I do not say the miraculous, which is indestructible, but the\nparticular miracle?\n\nThe lawful miracle, then--lawful, of course, so soon as explained--is\none more contradiction in our prevalent notions about law. That it\nexemplifies, too, a habit of mind which is exercised by us in many\ndirections besides that of interpretation of the arbitrary things of the\nBible can hardly need be said. In life generally the arbitrary is\npeculiarly fond of going to law, sometimes to what is called nature's\nlaw, as when revolutionists of all sorts--strikers and radical\nreformers--raise the cry of \"natural rights,\" laying down the law as to\nwhat men are by nature, and sometimes to \"human\" law, as when the\nconservatives in government or business with their vested rights, be\nthese coal mines, oil fields, or political privileges, appeal for\n\"justice\" to the courts or to the military.\n\nBut, to say no more, with the lawful miracle, with law the strange\nsupport of what is arbitrary, with this as a very good example of the\nduplicity which in general we are all of us wont to allow in our\npractical life, the present exposure of our ordinary consciousness must\ncome to an end. With regard to the real substance of things, or to their\nunity, or to the nature of space and time and causation, with regard to\nthe worth of knowledge, with regard to our human conduct, to its freedom\nand responsibility, or finally with regard to the place of law in nature\nand in the life of man, our ordinary consciousness is manifestly\ninconsistent and vacillating--nay, is grossly contradictory; and we are\n[p.055] led at least to suspect that the disorder which we have found is\ninherent and essential, having the nature of an original human defect.\nSuch a defect, however, is cause for doubt; so that man, above all\n\"practical\" man, having inconsistency or duplicity as almost, if not\nquite, an uncontrollable habit with him, should be himself a prince of\nsceptics.\n\nAnd yet, although we have indeed found man spending at least his waking\nhours in a room that seems disorder incarnate, and although before the\ncourt of practical life the doubter seems thus to have been thoroughly\njustified, while his too hasty judges are in turn condemned,\nnevertheless the case for doubt is not of such a character as to leave\nabsolutely no hope for belief. Now and again in the evidence, as it has\nbeen disclosed, have we not felt the presence of something, not yet\ngiven its due weight, that would make man more than a mere doubter and\nunbeliever? Have we not been led to suspect that somehow, without loss\nof their reality and validity, the most cogent reasons for doubt, even\nthe contradictions in our views of things, might turn into bases of\nbelief, that an experience essentially paradoxical may not be as\nhopeless as at first sight it may appear, that in all the madness there\nis at least a chance of some method? The view of science, however, must\nbe examined before our attention can be turned definitely upon such a\npossibility. Enough if in our present doubting we are still left with a\nlittle hope.\n\n\n[1] In the rise of Christian Science, against which I have no special\ngrudge, although I have already taken exceptions to its claims, there is\na special case, special because affecting a single, relatively small\nclass, of the popular hospitality to contradiction. Thus, the Christian\nScientists would reduce all reality to mind, but at the same time they\nbusily deny reality to a large group of mind facts, namely and notably,\nthe ideas of disease. Recently, it is true, according to the newspapers,\ntheir healers have been told to \"decline to doctor infectious or\ncontagious diseases,\" yet not because such diseases have any reality,\nbut because the illusion of them is so real as to make the \"Christian\"\ntreatment of them both imprudent and impractical. Philosophies and\nreligions of illusion are certainly weird, uncanny things!\n\n[2] Chapter VII.\n\n\n\n[p.056]\n\nIV.\n\nTHE VIEW OF SCIENCE: ITS RISE AND CHARACTER.\n\n\nWith science we usually associate accuracy and consistency, and at first\nthought we are not likely to expect that the work and standpoint of\nscience can contain anything substantial enough for the doubter to base\nhis claim upon; but second thought is our first duty at this time, and\nsecond thought always changes the view, and in this particular instance\nit will show science in important respects to be quite as vulnerable as\nthe unreflective consciousness of practical life, for science also is\nhoneycombed with contradiction and paradox.\n\nMore than once scientists themselves have turned sceptical about their\nwork and its results. The cry of bankruptcy in science, not merely as a\ncharge, but also as a confession, has been heard in the land not\ninfrequently; now perhaps low and uncertain, but again clear and strong.\nAnd why not? Why should the scientist escape the questioning of other\nmen? Subtle and wonderful as science is, does it transcend humanity?\nSurely, when all is said, the scientific consciousness is not formally\ndifferent from the ordinary consciousness. The same eye is looking at\n[p.057] the same world, only through microscopes and telescopes. The\nsame mind is measuring the same environment, only with carefully devised\ninstruments of precision instead of arm's lengths or stone's throws and\nrules of thumb. In a word, science is merely the ordinary consciousness\nhighly developed, not without considerable abstraction, into critically\nconscious method and clearest possible perception. Indeed, perhaps\nwithout myself clearly knowing all my reasons, I am constrained to say\nthat science is related to ordinary perception very much as the\ninventor's consciousness of his wonderful flying-machine to the simple\nsensations of a bird. The mechanics of flying, so elaborately present to\nthe former, are nevertheless also present in the latter, while with both\nwe have the same eye or the same mind looking and the same world seen.\nThe boasted methods and ideals of the one are but the only half-waking\ninstincts of the other, and whatsoever is essential to either belongs\nalso to the other. But, to mark the great difference between them, the\ninventor has the disposition to treat flying abstractly--that is, as if\na thing by itself, as if for its own sake; and he goes even farther,\nmaking abstraction of the mere explanation and mechanical expression of\nflying; while the bird simply flies, and, if I may hope to be\nunderstood, all things else, the sun and the wind, the trees, and all\nliving things, and you and I who follow his course are flying with him.\n\nBut no poetic soaring such as this can satisfy our present needs. To\nunderstand and appraise the view of science we must trace its rise as\nclearly as we can, [p.058] and then critically examine its peculiar\nconceits, its own ideal methods and attitudes.\n\nAs for the rise of the scientific view, we may well return to the\ndefinition of science given above: the ordinary consciousness highly\ndeveloped, not without considerable abstraction, into critically\nconscious method and clearest possible perception. Perhaps development\nof anything is always at the cost of abstraction; but be this as it may,\nscience certainly arises through an abstraction, namely, through the\nabstraction of consciousness of one's world, through the treatment of\nthis mere consciousness as something to be cultivated quite for its own\nsake; and the motive and the meaning of such a treatment are not far to\nseek. Consciousness, to the exclusion or inhibition of direct, overt\naction, becomes a matter for abstract, which is to say, exclusive\ncultivation, with any serious change, with any upheaval in the familiar\nconditions of life. A man--or boy, if you prefer--is taking a\ncross-country run, and for a time all goes well; the manner of his going\nsuffers no interruption, or no serious interruption; but gradually the\nundergrowth thickens from low bushes to higher brushwood, and at last,\nperhaps quite suddenly, breaking through some wild hedge, the runner\nfinds himself at the very edge of a stream too wide and too deep for any\nordinary crossing. Thereupon his running, or at least his forward\nrunning, say the running of his \"real life,\" ceases, and looking takes\nits place. He is now, in a familiar phrase, \"looking before leaping\";\nyet with his looking there is a good deal of running too, more or less\novert, but also more or less [p.059] instrumental or merely mechanical,\nas, going from one point to another, he measures the relations of bank\nto bank, or of possible stepping-stones to each other, or hunts for\nfallen logs or for shallow places. But, finally, the measurements all\nmade, the peculiar conditions as fully as possible appreciated, in the\nway found to be most feasible he crosses the stream and runs again. And\njust in that \"looking before leaping,\" with the accompanying check put\nupon the forward running and with the change of the \"real life\" of\nrunning into merely instrumental action, we get at least a glimpse of\nwhat science is, of the sort of abstraction that its rise implies.\n\nOnly science, specifically so called, is more than such a casual, merely\npersonal study of a new situation. Science is the distinct work of a\ndistinct class abstractly studying a new situation that has confronted\nthe progress not of an individual, but of a whole people, and in this\ncharacter it gets at once all the advantages and all the conceits that\nbelong in general to the life of a class. It gets, too, all the\nlimitations. Science, once more, is not strictly a personal experience,\nalthough in personal experience, like that of the cross-country runner,\nwe can get a glimpse of just that which may develop into science.\nScience is characteristically a profession. The runner withholds his\nrunning for a time and merely looks and studies, yet his looking is only\nfor a time; sooner or later he will run again; and even while he studies\nthere is his continued moving about, his instrumental action, as we\ncalled it; but the professional scientist waives all thought of possible\nfuture activity. Although in reality [p.060] his looking is before\nleaping, it is not consciously so for him; he is one who under the\nconstraints of his class merely looks and studies, making of these\nprocesses things quite worthy in themselves.\n\nIn other words, to enlarge somewhat on what has just been said, the rise\nof the profession of science does indeed involve both the same check\nupon the \"real life\" and the same reduction of activity to a purely\nmechanical or instrumental character that we have pointed out in the\ncase of the runner at the bank of the stream, but a number of different\nsocial classes divides the labour. In general, society as a means to the\nexpression and development of human activity, be the activity running or\nliving in a broader and fuller sense, always shows the different phases\nor factors of the experience identified more or less exclusively with as\nmany different classes or groups, and, in respect to the particular case\nhere under consideration, upon the rise of science society appears to\ndelegate the work of careful observation and critical thinking to a\nseparate class, which, as already suggested, gives up any direct\nresponsibility to the real life. Another distinct class, arising\ncontemporaneously, is composed of those who do feel directly\nresponsible, or \"practical,\" continuing the life of positive, overt\naction. This second class maintains the vital processes, although in a\nmore or less consciously instrumental way, since its members have the\nlives of others as well as their own lives to support. So society gets\nits workers or labourers as well as its observers and thinkers.\n\nThe rise of science, then, involves a disrupted society. Moreover, the\ndivision is by no means so [p.061] simple as the foregoing analysis may\nseem to have implied. Observing and thinking, for example, have often\nmade, too, separate sub-classes, and also there have been many distinct\ngroups among the workers, such as clerks, soldiers, artisans,\nroad-menders, and tillers of the soil. The simple analysis, however, has\nbeen quite enough to show, what has seemed to need emphasis, that all\nthe passions of social life, or rather of social caste, are brought to\nbear upon the profession of science, giving it the peculiar conceits and\nadvantages of class or caste, and also imposing upon it the peculiar\nlimitations. The advantages, among others, are the strength that lies in\nunion, and the long continuity and the imitation that always ensure an\naccumulation of experience and a refinement of method and an attainment\nto impersonal, impartial standards; the conceits are exclusiveness,\nsense of sanctity or intrinsic worth, and consequent claims to\naristocracy; and the limitations, although possibly already quite\nobvious, are hereafter to be pointed out. But whatever the limitations\nor the opportunities, it is now our chief concern that the social\nconditions of its rise must greatly intensify the abstraction of\nscience, the treatment of the consciousness of the world, which is but\nthe sphere of action, the totality of the manifested conditions of\naction, as something to be cultivated wholly for its own sake.\n\nNor is this fact that science is an abstraction, intensified by the\nconditions of class life, the only fact to which the rise of science\nbears witness. There is something else equally significant--something,\nindeed, so intimately involved in this as perhaps not [p.062] properly\nto be referred to as another fact at all, being only a further\nmanifestation of what is already before us. _There never arises\nabstraction without duplicity._\n\nPlainly a disrupted society, such as has been seen to be incident to the\nrise of science, means also a disrupted life. In general the corporate\nlife of any single class resulting from the division can be only\npartial, I do not say in respect to \"real life,\" since this phrase has\nitself been associated with too narrow a meaning, but to human nature,\nto human life in its entirety, in its real fulness, in its true breadth\nand its true depth. All class life, I repeat, involving as it does\ndisruption and selection of some particular interest or relation, is\ninadequate to any human being, and the life of science is no exception\nto this rule. Membership in any class and conformity to its peculiar\nlife, which is partial and abstract as partial, have never satisfied\nanybody, and the life of the professional scientist, again, is no\nexception to this rule. Accordingly any abstraction in life, the\nisolation of any specific interest, when seen in just the light of its\nnecessary inadequacy, of its definite, more or less exclusive\npartiality, must imply in life a demand for reality and completeness,\nand this the more as the abstraction is assertive, as the isolation is\ninsistent. Simply, the whole life will never brook an untempered neglect\nfrom any of its always self-assertive parts. Plainly, however, as\nplainly as a disrupted society must mean a disrupted life for each\nresulting group, such a demand can be met only in one way, if the cause\nfor it continues; it can be met only by some form of duplicity, by some\nway in which, however indirectly, the life of those [p.063] concerned\nwill always really be more than it seems or will always actually imply\nwhat explicitly or formally it appears to exclude. No such narrow life,\nin short, as must always characterize any social group, can ever be\nwithout its compensating innuendoes or indirections for the life from\nwhich it is outwardly aloof, and while the peculiar manner in which the\ntrue reality and the wholeness of life are thus conserved will very\nnaturally always be determined by the particular class or the particular\nclass-character involved, being of one sort for road-menders and of\nquite a different sort for scientific observers, the organization of\nsociety seems bound at every turn to show that duplicity, compensation\nas it always is for partiality, is an indispensable condition.\nDuplicity, whatever may be its own special dangers, is always better,\nbeing nearer to reality, than narrowness.\n\nIs not the road-mender also a good Catholic, or in some other way,\nconventional or unconventional, religiously devout, piously doing, not\nhis own, but another's work? Does not the scientist give point to the\nidea of another and different life, that is to say, of his life of\nknowledge not being the whole of life, by the agnosticism which he not\nonly carefully asserts but also actually embodies as a factor in his\nmethod? The road-mender slaves at his humble task, ignorant and yet\ntrustful, believing in an infallible wisdom and an absolute power, and\nthe scientist lives with great enthusiasm to know the world as it is,\nbut tells us at the same time with no less enthusiasm and with a meaning\nthat certainly ought to temper his exclusiveness that the object which\nhe studies and describes [p.064] is nevertheless really unknowable. To\nquote Mr. Spencer: \"The man of science ... more than any other, truly\n_knows_ that in its ultimate essence nothing can be known.\" Surely there\nis meaning for Stevenson's story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in other\nfields besides that of morality. Class life must always involve its\nmembers in a protective or compensating duplicity.\n\nBut now, whatever in the life of other classes this duplicity, which\nconserves the wholeness of life even when formally life is narrow and\npartial, ought to be called, in the profession of science it often goes\nunder the name of dualism. Seen at different angles, it is now dualism,\nnow objectivism, now agnosticism. In each of these different ways the\nscientist, quite outdoing or transcending his profession, recognizes a\nsphere of reality or a sphere of activity, that is beyond that of the\nknowledge which he makes his special business, and, as is very important\nto observe, the peculiar manner of his recognition of this sphere, or\nthe peculiar character of his duplicity, is relative to just the\nabstraction which makes his science what it is. Thus his peculiar\nduplicity is one of conscious subject and unconscious, external object,\nof observing man and objective nature, of real knowledge and unknowable\nreality.\n\nYet here, before discussing further the relation of dualism to science,\nit is well to observe that the positive history of science justifies the\naccount of its rise which has now been given. The age of science among\nthe Greeks was coincident with the closing conflict between Greek\ncivilization and the general life [p.065] of the Mediterranean, and the\nage of modern science began, not to attempt a long story, with the\ndiscovery of America. All \"looking before leaping\" is transitional or\nrevolutionary, and while, of course, there had been transitions and\ndegrees of scientific inquiry before, the science of the Greeks belongs\nto that very critical transition from Greece to Rome; and modern\nscience, to the transition, certainly not less critical, from\nChristendom to--who can say to what? But not only does history show\nscience to arise when there is a stream to cross; also it shows the life\nof the time, in the first place, to be sharply disintegrated, its\ndifferent factors being separately and abstractly expressed through as\nmany different social groups, and, in the second place, in each of the\ngroups to be given to double living, to the storm and stress of being\none thing and seeming another. Always an age, conspicuously and\ncharacteristically scientific, has been an age of clearly developed\nclasses and of a general duplicity in living.\n\nThus, to give a striking, although possibly too philosophical an\nillustration of the duplicity, Democritus, the great materialist and\natomist, and Plato, the great idealist, were contemporaries and equally\nwere creatures of their day and generation, and their century was the\ncentury of great achievements in Greek science. Moreover, as regards the\ncoincident organization of society, we know at least of Plato that he\nwas keenly conscious of the divisions of society into distinct classes.\nAnd in very much the same way materialism and idealism, not to mention\nhedonism and rigorism, or naturalism and supernaturalism, [p.066] have\nbeen inseparately associated with the rise and the successes of modern\nscience. These philosophies, it must be remembered, are always more than\nso many conflicting \"isms.\" They are, too, more than the special\nconceits, in theory or in practice, of so many separate social classes\nor of the great leaders of these classes. In their very differences they\nare the definite, the \"public\" expression of a conflict, or division,\nthat inwardly affects every individual member, whatever his class or\nprofession, which the society contains. In the day and generation of\nDemocritus and Plato were there not well-defined parties, manifest in\nall the different and separately organized phases of life--moral,\nindustrial, political or religious, namely, the parties of the\nconservatives and the radicals? And were there not also, as typical\nindividual characters, each of them revealing to everybody something\npresent within his own life, the only conventional loyalist and the more\ntruly loyal reformer, as well as the idle or careless transgressor and\nthe coldly calculating traitor? A life so divided and so variously\nimpersonated was certainly teeming with duplicity.\n\nNor have we yet finished with the evidence from history. An age of\nscience has always been not merely an age with a stream to cross, nor\nyet merely an age of classes and double living, but also an age of a\nthoroughly conscious utilitarianism. Whether materialistically or\nidealistically, all things have been treated and also looked upon as\nmeans to some end, not ends in themselves. For the disrupted society all\nactivity has been more or less consciously calculating and instrumental.\nAs we know, the disruption means [p.067] actual, when not also\nintentional, division of labour, and surely there never has been\ndivision of labour without eventual development of a distinct sense of\nthe various special instruments and activities as utilities rather than\nthings of intrinsic value. For a time, it is true, the several classes\nand their activities may maintain the semblance of conservatism and\nindependence; but their inevitable duplicity is bound sooner or later to\ngive a consciously conventional or utilitarian character to the\nconservatism, and just this makes the activity of the people\ninstrumental or only mediately instead of immediately worthy. If, as\nsome are sure to contend, the division of labour always tends to end,\nand often does end, in the formation of castes, and in consequence the\ninstrumental character of the activities is forgotten, it needs only to\nbe said in reply that an invitation is then given to some outside power\nto step in and to make use of, instead of just treasuring or hoarding,\nthe developed instruments or utilities. Caste in the organization of\nsociety not only induces absolutism at home, but also, and in this way\nis fully revealed its real but suppressed utilitarianism, invites\nconquest from abroad. The days of Greek science were, almost\nnotoriously, days of conventionalism and utilitarianism: witness the\nSophists and their teaching, and the life which they waited upon for\npay; while the surviving conservatism, by which, as cannot be\nquestioned, the life of the time was blind to its own real mission or\npurpose, made possible and even historically necessary, first, the\nMacedonian, and then the Roman conquest of Greece. What the Greeks,\nbeing too conservative, though [p.068] utilitarian, failed to make full\nuse of, another people, less hampered by tradition, finally\nappropriated. And as for the days of modern science, these, so far as\nunfolded to our view, have not been unlike in kind: witness the\nMachiavellism, with which they began, and the spirit of commercialism,\nwhich has characterized them throughout.\n\nOne thing more, too, from the facts of history may have our attention,\nalthough possibly this addition is quite unnecessary--the fact, namely,\nof scepticism coupled always with a hopeful curiosity. A disrupted\nsociety, dividing the labour of human life, is as sceptical as it is\nconventional, and as given to experiment and exploration, which are\nnever without their sense of mystery, and even to conquest, never\nwithout its risks, as it is utilitarian. Was it curiosity or mere\nHellenic conceit, the sense of adventure or the mere dogmatism of a\nGreek, that took Alexander abroad with his armies, or that earlier\nturned the attention of Athens to the possibilities of the West? And\nwhich, curiosity or religious and political propagandism, a pagan greed\nor a Christian piety, inspired the Western and Southern voyages of the\nfifteenth and sixteenth centuries? Which gave rise even to the Crusades?\nIt would be interesting, if our present purposes only warranted the\nundertaking, to trace the forerunning conditions of a period of\nscientific endeavour. We could then show both how scientific curiosity\nhas developed as but one expression of a general interest in\nexperimental endeavour, in adventure and in conquests of all sorts, and\nespecially how this interest, with its mingling of doubt and [p.069]\nconfident seeking, has been preceded by a period of art. Art, appeal as\nit always is from the human as expressed in the established ways of some\ngiven social organization to the natural, shows a people sensitive to a\nmystery, a real but unseen end, in its developed activities, but not yet\nwilling to let the experimental and instrumental character of those\nactivities have free expression. It appeals to the natural, which is of\ncourse the sphere of all adventure, but, still cherishing the human, it\nnever gets, so to speak, out of sight of home. Science, the successor of\nart, shows home, that is, the human and the subjective, left far behind.\nBut to follow out the line of thought here suggested would take us too\nfar afield. Let it suffice, then, that we see these two things: how\nhistorically and socially the investigations of science, whatever their\nrelations to an antecedent art, such as that of the Greeks or of\nChristendom in the Renaissance, are but an incident within a general\nlife of appeal to nature--that is, of exploration and conquest--and then\nhow the scepticism, involved in the inquiries of science, is intrinsic\nto a life that, for reasons now clear to us, has become both\nconventional and utilitarian, both formal--or unreal in itself--and\nconsciously only instrumental. The first of these brings to mind what\nwas referred to in a previous chapter, that science is man in his doubt\nseeking the companionship of nature; and the second will aid us greatly\nin understanding the attitude and method of science, to which, having\nthe evidence of history, we have next to turn.\n\nWe have found the rise of science to imply a general abstraction of the\nvarious factors in human [p.070] life, and to be itself, in particular,\nthe abstraction of the consciousness of nature, nature being the\ntotality of the manifest conditions of life. This abstraction has been\ndeveloped and intensified by the formation of distinct social classes;\nand, in the special case of the consciousness of nature, by the\nformation of a class of scientists, so called, who cultivate their\nscience for its own sake. We have found the rise of science to imply\nalso a general duplicity, evident within the field of science in what is\nknown as dualism. Duplicity is a natural accompaniment of all\nabstraction, and it has, as we saw at least in part, a certain\nprotective and corrective function, which both the logic of experience\nand the social and historical conditions of its expression and\ndevelopment warranted us in ascribing to it. And, finally, we have found\nthat in actual life abstraction and duplicity make activity conventional\nand utilitarian, that is to say, consciously instrumental or--let me now\nsay--experimental. In just these conditions, then, the general\nabstraction and duplicity, the conscious formalism and regard for\nutility, and the sense of experimentation, we have the determinant,\nformative influences of science's attitude and method, for any given set\nof conditions always makes the method with which the conditions\nthemselves are met. Socrates, with his method of cross-questioning so\nfatal to all ideas that should give knowledge any visible form or\nresting-place, was but the spirit of his time, the spirit of radical\ninquiry become incarnate and assertive in public places. He was but a\nvisible, public exponent of the critical examination of life which the\nself-consciousness of his time made necessary. [p.071] Indeed, no\norganic form, no living creature, ever reflected the character of its\nenvironment more fully, or more successfully effected an adaptive life\nthan the method, with its searching questions, and its subtle, logical\ngymnastic, of that honestly and radically inquisitive Sophist. And the\nstandpoint and the procedure of science, in respect to the relation to\ntheir environment, are closely comparable with the method of Socrates.\n\nThus science seeks a complete abstraction of the looking consciousness,\nand then with a timely duplicity it looks to a wholly external, natural\nworld. So in the field of its peculiar abstraction does science take the\ncharacter and colour of its surroundings. But, further, it presumes upon\nthe peculiar forms and conditions of its subjective, looking\nconsciousness, the activities of the mind, being mediative or\ninstrumental to the presentation of the external objective world, and it\nuses also the activities of life at large, both the bread-and-butter\nactivities and the mechanical inventions, both the political and the\nindustrial organizations, as supplementary aids to its observations; for\njust science, the looking consciousness, is the end, and this end is\npresumed to justify every available means. So, again, does science take\nthe cue from its environment, expressing in its own way and to its own\npurposes the general experimentalism; and this the more significantly\nwhen we remember that, besides being experimental, treating the mind as\nan instrument and life's activities at large as only aids more or less\ndirectly pertinent to the mind's work, it is agnostic. Its peculiar\nagnosticism not only reflects [p.072] its duplicity, as was before\nsuggested, but in addition shows how very abstract its knowledge is,\nand--I know no better phrase--how timelily adventurous. A time of\nscience is a time when all things final are beyond; yet also, when all\nthings present, however mysteriously, are really leading yonder.\n\nFurther, science always divides the field of its operations, and so,\nbesides greatly compounding its abstractness, reflects in its own way,\nor, as it were, projects on its own plane, what I will call the\nspecialism of the contemporary social organization. There is division of\nlabour in this, but there is also a difficulty, which, among other\ndifficulties, is hereafter to be considered.\n\nAnd there is, finally, one more characterization of science which is\nsuggested by the conditions of its rise, but by something in those\nconditions not yet brought into clear view. An age of science is an age\nof a rising, although perhaps formally suppressed and disguised\nindividualism, and quite in sympathy, the method of science is\n\"inductive,\" science, though interested in classification, always having\nregard for the natural rights of particular things, of single\nindividuals, reasoning from the particular to the general, as the phrase\nruns, not in the reverse order. Individualism has been a much\nmisunderstood thing, be it a social movement or a logical condition of\ninductive thinking. The individual as person or as objective datum has\nbeen greatly abused. But at least for the present, waiving any\ndiscussion of the true character of the individual or any protest that\nthe individual and the definite or particular must not be confused, I\nwould only assert, but I venture to assert [p.073] strongly, first, that\nbehind the conventionalism and utilitarianism of the life of a society\ndivided into distinct classes, behind the abstraction and the inevitable\nduplicity, behind the sense of experiment and adventure, the individual\nperson is the real power, and secondly, that in induction science has\nonly translated this real individualism of its time into an attitude or\nmethod for the conduct of its looking consciousness. In this way, as in\nthose other ways, has science been educated to its peculiar manner.\n\nWe have thus seen how science arises, and how its rise gives it a\ncertain character. But already suspicion of limitations in the view of\nscience, and so of a case for doubt with regard to it, has come to us.\nAbstraction and duplicity both suggest limitations, though these may not\nbe unmixed. What the specific difficulties are, however, and how far\nthey really justify our doubting, must be reserved for the ensuing\nchapter.\n\n\n[p.074]\n\nV.\n\nTHE VIEW OF SCIENCE: ITS PECULIAR LIMITATIONS.\n\n\nLimitations or opportunities? Error or truth? In the familiar\nillustration the tracks which limit the locomotive to a certain course\nare essential to its successful movement, and something of the same kind\nmay be true of science. A man's vices and virtues are never really far\napart, and, again, the same may be true of science. But for the moment\nwe are to approach science from the standpoint of its limitations; we\nare to see how its own natural ideals, as suggested by our\ncharacterization of the scientific view, are evidence of its inadequacy.\nSo doing we shall take a most important step towards a thorough-going\nconfession of doubt.\n\nAmong scientific men it is a commonplace that for accuracy and\ngenuineness or purity, that is to say for complete abstraction, science\nmust be (1) independent of \"life,\" all the subjective interests, whether\npersonal or social, the interests of politics, industry, morality, or\nreligion, being science's most unsettling influences; (2) specialistic,\nthe \"Jack of all trades\" in science being anything but _persona grata_\namong scientific men; and (3) agnostic or \"positivistic,\" all conceits\n[p.075] about what is beyond positive experience, and even all dogma\nabout what seems really present to experience, being most arrant heresy;\nand every one of these ideals, besides being derived from the habits or\ninstincts, commonly unrecognized and unappreciated, of the ordinary\nconsciousness, is wholly in accord with the conclusions of the preceding\nchapter. The attitude of science, as there disclosed, involved a looking\nto an external world--the objectivism; a division of the field--the\nspecialism; and an experimental, adventurous mind--the agnosticism or\npositivism. It involved other things, too, but these three are now\nselected, so to speak, as three determining points of science's\ncircumference. Consideration of them, to whatever results it may lead,\nshould meet all the demands of the present task. As for the results,\nthese will show fundamental difficulties, very like to those of ordinary\nexperience, to lurk in each one of the three ideals. The scientific\nconsciousness is abstract and just for being in consequence\nobjectivistic, specialistic, and agnostic it is artificial and unreal,\nthough perhaps only relatively or not unmixedly unreal, and especially\nit is honeycombed with paradoxes and contradictions, with the translated\nbut not transcended contradictions of ordinary life.\n\nTo the examination, therefore, of these difficulties, or limitations, we\nmust now turn, taking the three ideals in order.\n\n\nI. SCIENCE WOULD BE OBJECTIVE.\n\nThe ideal of a purely objective science is in many ways a great\ndelusion, for it may effectually blind [p.076] science to its necessary\nsubjectivism, so far as it gets any substance or content, and to its\nnecessary formalism, so far as it acts upon a merely external world.\nWith regard, for example, to the last point, just so far as the ideal of\nobjectivism is realized, science becomes merely so much technique. By\ntechnique here is meant everything that makes scientific work purely\nmechanical. A purely mechanical procedure is the inevitable, the natural\nand necessary method of a pure objectivism. Scientists have their formal\netiquette about pre-empted problems or fields of research, their notions\nabout originality as dependent merely on working a new field--hence the\npre-emption to prevent transgression or theft of originality, their\nconceits about bibliographical information, linguistic proficiency and\ntechnical phraseology, their satisfaction over \"publication,\"\n\"contribution,\" \"production,\" and \"research,\" and an almost\nGaston-Alphonse deference of each to each among the different branches\nof scientific inquiry; and under technique all these things, as well as\nthe more familiar matters of method and apparatus and material, are here\nincluded. Physicians, we are told, and not infrequently also their\npatients, suffer from a professional ritual and etiquette, but they are\nfar from being alone in their misery. Scientists, would-be objective\nscientists, and all who appeal to them, are a close second. Technique\nmust have its real uses, but plainly it has its limitations. It is one\nof the enabling conditions, a _sine qua non_ of science, if science is\nto be objective, but it takes the life out of science. A science that\ngets no further, that is only \"objective,\" that is, \"pure\" and\n\"inductive\" [p.077] is wholly vain, being like a domestic animal which\nis only a pet, or rather like a vigorous plant that runs luxuriously to\nleaves, never bearing either flowers or fruit. Its much vaunted\nobservation and experiment may fill a good many pages and a good many\nvolumes, but material, even material in books, and experiments, even\ncarefully, minutely reported experiments, are neither roses nor apples.\n\nA fruitful science relates itself to something more than a mere\nindependent object. A fruitful science involves synthesis, not formal,\nbut real synthesis, as well as analysis, its decomposed object being\nalso only the separated details of some organizing activity. Indeed,\nhowever unconsciously, or even however against its own avowed interest\nand desire, science has that organizing activity in the real life. The\n\"real life\" has seemed aloof, but science is truly an integral part of\nthis life. Science's very genesis in social evolution, in spite of, nay,\neven because of its abstraction by a distinct class and the assumption\nof a professional garb, is witness to this relationship. Again, fruitful\nscience is practical invention, not abstract discovery, and the real\nlife of a person or a society or a race is as important to it, as much a\nwarrant of its conclusions, as any object, however mathematically\ndescribed or describable, with which science was ever concerned. As for\nthe thing invented, the tool or the machine, in general the instrument\nof adaptation to environment, this sometimes takes visible, wholly\nmaterial form; sometimes it appears as a method in the practical arts or\nin the fine arts or in education or government; sometimes it is only an\n[p.078] atmosphere or point of view, a habit of mind; but whatever it\nis, it is useful, incalculably useful, and its invention as something\nthat is widely distinguished from mere receptive observation, if this be\neven possible, or from mere accurate description, is science's primary\njustification.\n\nBut this, objects somebody, is sentiment, and sentiment of the sort that\nquite destroys science, making real science, serious and accurate\nscience, quite impossible. Well, it does of course dispense with a\npurely objective science. It suggests the idea, perhaps the\nuncomfortable idea, that, as in some other departments in life, so in\nscience, death is a condition of success. Science must die to its\nobjective self before it is saved; it must lose its whole world to gain\nits own soul. Or, to put the same idea differently, if the assertion be\nnot too much like verbal play, a subjective science is not hopelessly\nunscientific. Is a man less interested in having a proper edge on his\nrazor because eventually he must use it on himself? Nothing but a keen\nedge can ever ensure a \"velvet shave,\" and nothing but the truth, the\nmore accurate it be the better, can ever set anybody free.\n\nStill, all questions of sentiment or of sharp razors or of the accuracy\nthat liberates aside, we can get support for our scepticism about a\nscience that, if purely objective, must be also empty and mechanical\nfrom science itself. The consistent evolutionist is obliged to deny pure\nobjectivity to any scientific knowledge, just as in general he is\nobliged to think of all consciousness as never something by itself, but\none of the positive conditions of organic development. To [p.079] be an\nevolutionist, and at the same time to think of consciousness as only an\nexternal ornament of life, or in its higher development as the exclusive\nprivilege of a distinct class, to think of it as an aside in life,\nperhaps a sudden result without in any way being also a condition of\ndevelopment, to suppose science to be solely objective and for its own\nsake, is nothing more or less than simply to stultify oneself\ncompletely. Even for the historian, whether avowed evolutionist or not,\nwhose great business is to remind us that what is here or what is now is\nnot all, the devotion to science for its own sake, which also in other\ntimes has possessed the minds and hearts of certain men, can be at best\nonly a local and a passing phenomenon. Finally, apart from the\nstandpoint of evolution or history, it is to be said that human society\nat large is sure to resent what may be styled the aristocratic temper\nwhich pure, objective science is all too likely to acquire from the\nexclusiveness of its ritual or technique, or say from its abstract and\nacademic dress, and the resentment of society is important evidence\nalways. Aristocratic temper, whatever its direction, is certainly as\ndesirable in social life as it is necessary; it is incident to the\ndevelopment of all institutions--political, ecclesiastical, industrial,\nceremonial, educational, and, to add to the familiar list,\nepistemological; but the resentment which it is sure to awaken is not\none whit less serviceable to society, ensuring as it does, among other\nthings, the extension of science, the translation of science into life.\n\nSo, to gather the threads together, two difficulties [p.080] have now\nappeared as affecting the objectivism of science. The first, that of\nburial in technique, gave us our starting-point, and the second has come\nto light with discussion of the first. Thus, not merely is a would-be\nobjective science, through its bondage to technique, made formal and\nempty, but also, as perhaps only the other side of the same truth, a\nwould-be objective science materially--that is, for its scientific\ndoctrines--and formally--that is, for its motives and methods--is always\nin practice dependent upon the demands and sanctions of real life, and\nso not purely, or not dualistically, objective after all. There is, in\nbrief, no other conclusion. Either science must be empty, a matter\nmerely of dead rites and dry symbols and irrelevant ideas, or it must be\npertinent and practical; and, if the latter, its boasted independence is\ngone. A purely objective science seems to get only subjectivity for its\npains.\n\nYet this conclusion is easily misunderstood. It is far from denying any\nmeaning to such words as object or objectivity. The object is denied\nonly as an external independent existence. The object still remains to\nexperience as possibly of mediative value to its beholders, mediating\nbetween the actual in their life and the possible, between the partial\nlife and the whole life, the old and the new, the social, which is\nalways narrow, and the personal. The whole must be always \"objective\" to\nthe part, the possible to the actual, the personal to the social; or,\nconversely, the \"objective,\" natural world can be only the convincing\nwitness to the part or to the actual or to the social, not that there is\nan independent, wholly external world, but [p.081] that there is a whole\nor a possible or a personal. \"Truly, we are all one,\" writes Fiona\nMacleod. \"It is a common tongue we speak, though the wave has its own\nwhisper, the wind its own sigh, and the lip of man its word, and the\nheart of woman its silence.\" We are all one. Man and nature, which man\nbeholds, or the subject and the object, of which the subject is\nconscious, are one; but an objective science would hide this from us,\nnot tell it to us.\n\nBut besides burying science in technique, and besides involving it in an\nonly disguised, albeit a socially significant subjectivity, the ideal of\nwholly objective knowledge has also made science conservative in a way\nthat must have peculiar interest here. Reference is not now made to the\ndouble truth or the double life which an objective science sanctions so\ncordially that men can hold so-called advanced scientific ideas without\nfeeling them in any serious conflict with the traditional teachings of\nreligion and morality, but to something else perhaps not wholly\nunrelated to this, and certainly not less suggestive of contradiction.\nWhile science is commonly supposed to be advanced and radical and up to\ndate, if anything is, it is so only in a way which calls for a very\nimportant qualification, for it manages to perpetuate, not indeed the\nletter, but the spirit of old views. At its best a purely objective\nscience can give only a new material content, or a new arrangement\nperhaps of an old content, to existing and time-worn forms of thought;\nit cannot possibly do that in which real progress must always consist,\nnamely, develop, recognize, and adopt new forms of thought, new\ncategories; [p.082] it cannot do that without betraying its own ideal of\nmere objectivism. Objective science--to give a commonplace example--has\nsaid relatively to a certain doctrine of creation that spirit did not\nprecede matter, but instead matter preceded spirit, and--except for the\nexcitement of the drawn battle which such a startling declaration has\nprecipitated--this can hardly be said to have involved any great\nadvance. Cause and effect have indeed been made to change places by the\nnew deal, and perhaps in common fairness it was high time that a change\nbe made, but no new conception of causation itself has been recognized.\nThe new creationalism, the materialistic, has no essential advantage\nover the old. Again, while deposing the First Cause, an objective\nscience has made all things causes after the same plan--individual,\narbitrary, antecedent causes; and this is only to multiply indefinitely,\nperhaps infinitely, the offensive creationalism. \"Not so,\" says some\none; \"there is a splendid democracy in it, and it implies a great deal\nmore than mere multiplication. Indefiniteness, or at least infinity,\ntransforms anything or everything to which it is applied. By making all\nthings causes one forces into science the important principle of the\nequation of action and reaction, everything being seen as acted upon as\nwell as acting, and this principle, as if by turning creationalism\nfatally against itself, yields a new standpoint, that of mechanicalism.\"\nGranted, and granted cordially, but has a purely objective science any\nright to change its standpoint?\n\nPossibly this does not mean very much. Then approach the matter from\nanother side, risking a [p.083] reference to one of science's pet\nconceits, the \"question of fact.\" It has been for science a question of\nfact, of mere objective fact, whether matter made mind or mind made\nmatter; whether this or that thing is or is not a cause of some other\nthing; whether certain very low, perhaps unicellular organisms show\npurpose in their activities or do not, are gifted with a natural\ntendency to social life, a real interest in their kind, or are not so\ngifted; or--to take just one more case--whether the changes in the brain\nthat precede bodily movement are or are not directed by consciousness,\nconsciousness being in one case in causal relation with the brain, and\nin the other only an idle, external accompaniment, an \"epi-phenomenon\";\nbut in each of these questions of objective fact we see the scientist\nonly standing in his own light, obscuring the view of what above all\nelse it is important to see. Are mind and matter, cause and effect,\npurpose, society, brain-processes and consciousness such\nwell-established conceptions, are they such independent constants in the\nscientist's formul\u00e6, that wholly uncritical questions of fact are all\nthat one needs to ask about them? Why, when one really thinks about it,\nto assume, as the questions of fact of an objective science are made to\nassume, that anything either is or is not something else, is about as\nblinding and ill-advised as could well be. It has the pleasing form of\nopen-mindedness, but only the form. It is very much as if some earnest,\nyearning truth-seeker should exclaim: \"I would see clearly; therefore I\nwill not open my eyes.\" No doubt it keeps the scientist busy, eternally\nbusy, dealing and redealing his facts or data, as busy indeed as the\nplayful [p.084] cat that so hotly pursues her own tail, but it does not\ncontribute much that is positive and progressive. The very best that one\ncan say for it is that it turns the kaleidoscope of human experience,\nleading as it usually does to a new arrangement of hard, unchanging\nthings. To the question, for example, about lower organisms showing\npurpose or social feeling in their activity, the scientist, after most\ncareful experiments, may answer in the negative, and be quite emphatic\nin his answer too; but almost at once he--or some one for him--will\nappreciate that mankind, when scrutinized and experimented upon in the\nsame way, under the same instruments and through the same laboratory\nmethods, is similarly deficient; and then, somehow, the wind is taken\nout of his sails, since social feeling and purpose refuse to be so\neasily disposed of. In this case, as in all cases, the question of mere\nobjective fact simply returns, as importunate as ever, for another\nreckoning, with Shelley's cloud silently laughing at its own cenotaph.\n\nAnd what is the difficulty? Once more the difficulty is in the\nassumption, so natural to an objective science, of fixed conceptions.\nAre purpose and social feeling so fixed in their nature, and above all\nso well understood, that their presence or absence can be established by\nan experiment or two or ten thousand conducted on strictly objective\nprinciples? No conceptions are fixed, and instead of questions of fact\nwe should have, what a strictly objective science cannot have, questions\nof meaning. Thus, not: Are low organisms, or any organisms, social or\npurposive? but: What, if anything, do the processes of their [p.085]\nlives testify as to the real nature of society or purpose?\n\nThe conservative character of objective science, or the view-point in\nits question of fact which the conservatism determines, is the chief\nsource of the negative attitude of science so familiar to all and so\noften an object of complaint. To take, perhaps, the most widely\ninteresting case, for science to suppose that God either is or is\nnot--because he must either be or not be the particular thing men have\nthought him--is to beg the theological question altogether. Indeed, for\nthis question of God's existence and for any other question of objective\nfact a negative answer is almost, if not quite, a foregone conclusion,\nsince the very putting of the question is, _ipso facto_, evidence that a\nnew idea of the thing inquired about--of God, perhaps, or purpose or\nsociety--is at least just below the horizon of man's consciousness, and\nso that the old idea has already lost its validity. Nothing ever is\nwhere you seek it, or what you seek in it, for the simple reason that\nyour conscious seeking has changed it. Why, then, look--perhaps with a\ntelescope after a God in the skies--for what you should know you cannot\nfind? Why despair when a question meets a \"no\" of its own dictation? The\nreal questioner lives in a living world, in which all things change and\ndie, yet only for rebirth, while the \"objective\" questioner simply\ncannot see that the negative of his answer can be only relative to what\nis already passing.\n\nIn so many ways, then, a would-be objective science is open to\ncriticism, and affords in consequence a cause for doubt. Only\nsubjectivity can make it fruitfully [p.086] and worthily scientific.\nOnly a change in the form of its question can make it substantially as\nwell as formally progressive. Only a tempering of its negative answers\nto a merely relative meaning can make it honest. It is looking at what\nis not, and in a way which is artificial, and it sees everything only in\nthe clear light of its own shadow. Surely to be scientific is human; to\nbe objective is to rival the lover's unselfishness.\n\n\nII. SCIENCE WOULD BE SPECIALISTIC.\n\nBut, secondly, there is the scientist's ideal of specialism, which is at\nonce not less earnestly cherished and not less strikingly at constant\nwar with itself. What specialism for science means is known at least in\na general way to everybody, and that an objective science must be made\nup of numberless independent inquiries needs only mention, since the\nobjective world, if really innocent of all personal or subjective\nrelations, is necessarily manifold and discrete, being made up of a\nnumber of wholly separate details, and being approachable in every one\nof its parts from a number of wholly separate standpoints. The objective\nworld apart from a subject is like a workshop without a workman--a\ncollection of unused and so unconnected tools and materials each one of\nwhich may have an infinite number of uses; and the objective scientist\nviews it very much as a stranger, perhaps a savage--may I be forgiven\nthat mark--might view the lifeless shop, seeing now this thing, now\nthat, but never the living unity of all the things. So, to repeat, as\nsoon as the self or subject is removed and the world is turned\nobjective, all things and all views of things must fall [p.087] apart,\nand science as the observation of such a world can be only \"special.\"\nNot so clear, however, or at least not so commonly appreciated, is the\npeculiar fallacy and contradiction of specialism to which attention is\nasked here. Once more is science to be seen as in a sense standing in\nits own light, since it cannot be at once special and directly and\nliterally true and adequate.\n\nTo begin with, specialism makes vision, the mind's vision as well as the\nsensuous vision, dim or distorted. It may even be said to induce a\nspecies of blindness or, as virtually the same thing, to create in\nconsciousness curious fancies, strange perversions of reality, seen not\nwith the natural eye at all, but with the imagination, always so\ningenious and so original, and one might almost add so hypnotic, in its\npower of suggestion over the senses. In ways and for reasons neither\nunknown nor unappreciated by most men, specialism even closes one's eyes\nand makes one dream. It makes the specialist among physicians see his\nspecial ailment in every disorder, and every disorder in his special\nailment, and this so truly that merely to consult him may be to fall his\nvictim. True, he may never be, perhaps can never be, wholly wrong, and\nhis transgressions, conscious or unconscious, have often helped\ndiscovery, but nevertheless his situation, not to say that of his\npatient, is full of humour, and always among other troubles he is under\nthe error of partiality or one-sidedness. And in science generally the\nspecialist always does and always must dream. His dreams may be waking\ndreams, but he is always transgressing his own proper bounds without\never [p.088] clearly comprehending that he has transgressed. Nor, be it\nadmitted, can this necessity of dreaming be a wholly unmixed evil to\nscience. However unfavourably it may reflect on the final, literal\nvalidity of any special science, it only shows nature, or reality,\npreserving her unity against the attempted violence of specialism. It\nshows that in spite of the specialist being all eyes for his own\npeculiar object, the mind that is within him and that is above all\nelse--such, apparently, is the nature of mind--responsible not\nexclusively to the special and sensuous, but to the all-inclusive and\nessential, and is therefore bound to conserve for experience the\ninterests of an indivisible universe in every particular thing, leads\nhim, devotee that he is, patiently repeating his sacred syllable, into\nmost wonderful visions. For the sake of inclusiveness and reality his\nmind projects his would-be special consciousness into regions of strange\nsubtlety and marvellous logical construction; as Oriental priest or\nOccidental scientist he is a specialist, yet not without a mind, or a\nreal, ever-present world, which refuses to be special, and as he dreams\nhe comes to see, yet knows not that he sees, the whole universe. A\nseeing blindness, then, is this specialism; a monomania too, but, of\ncourse, conventional and respectable.\n\nMathematics and physics and chemistry and biology and psychology, not to\nsay also the social sciences, all depend upon the far-seeing mystical\nvisions of the mind, if not of the eye, upon the subtle, logical\nconstructions which their would-be scientific specialism, their desire\nto know all things narrowly, forces upon them. Each one may be special,\nbut each as it [p.089] gains precision and as it becomes truly an\naccount of the facts, under the guidance of an exacting mind that at any\ncost must present the whole to consciousness, conserves within itself\nthe common universe of them all by developing under what is called the\n\"scientific imagination\" all sorts of indirections, disguises,\nabstractions, logical constructions for the things and view-points of\nthe others. Each to be veracious has no choice but to be also voracious,\nand when, for example, a physical scientist insists on seeing his world\nonly physically, while in reality it is of course, to say no more, a\nworld of chemical process also, and even of vital and mental character,\nhe is sooner or later constrained to admit to his thinking what above\nwere called abstractions or logical constructions, but what also pass\nunder the name of \"working hypotheses.\" These are formally true to his\nphysical standpoint, but any outsider in order to explain why they are\nhypotheses that _work_ must call them compensating or conserving\nconceptions--in short, logical constructions that are, or that in part\ninvolve, substitutes for the neglected points of view, being, as it\nwere, the secret agents of a universe refusing to be divided. To\ncharacterize them in just one more way, a science's working hypotheses,\nresults as they are of science's blind but brilliant dreaming, many or\nall of them, are doors in the panelling by which the other sciences are\nquietly admitted to a room seemingly tightly closed to all comers. Every\nscience, and this the more as it becomes scientific, must entertain all\nthe others, however unwittingly. Tennyson's \"flower in the crannied\nwall,\" so often plucked, is nothing in [p.090] all-inclusiveness when\ncompared with a well-developed special science. No science, physical or\npsychical, biological or social, ever does or ever can live to itself\nalone. It may will to, but it does not and it cannot. All the others\nlive with it and for it--nay, they all live in it.\n\nYet in actual practice, what are these working hypotheses that work\nbecause they are compensating conceptions or doors in the panelling? No\nveracity without unrestrained voracity is interesting as a formula, but\nhow verify it? Verification, or illustration, is now imperative.\nIllustration, however, is very difficult for a reason which the\nscientists now on trial must allow me to mention. The scientists know\ntoo much about the sciences, or at least of them, while I know too\nlittle. Still, as too much knowledge is often the source of obscurity,\nand so only a form of ignorance, my situation is not altogether\nhopeless. Thus, while it is true that the scientists are likely to\ninsist, even in the face of a mind bound to preserve the unity of an\nindivisible universe in all the varied studies and conclusions of\nscience, that physics is only physics and chemistry only chemistry and\nbiology only biology and psychology only psychology, and while also all\nillustrations must come from the field of their special studies, and may\ntherefore only set them more firmly in the wilful blindness of their\nspecialism, still the principle of a conserving mind, or an eternally\nconserved truth or an indivisible reality, is a disturbing influence\nwhich they cannot evade. Then, too, I am forgetting and allowing them to\nforget a very important fact in scientific work to-day. In these [p.091]\ntimes the running together or merging of different sciences, as if\nthrough something of the nature of a chemical reaction, is a very\nfamiliar phenomenon. It is as familiar, although not so loudly heralded,\nas that of the railroads and industrial companies; and it has been\ntaking place with such persistence and confidence as actually to suggest\na natural affinity, each of the sciences involved having the rich\nexperience of discovering itself already in the others. This fact, then,\nmust make illustration less difficult, since, in a way that must appeal\nto the scientist as no merely theoretical considerations can, it proves\nor goes very far toward proving what is to be illustrated. Moreover,\nspecific illustration is hardly necessary in the sphere of the different\nphysical sciences, or again, in that of the social or the psychological\nsciences, for within each one of these groups the affinity but just now\nreferred to has been very clearly exemplified, as in the interesting\ncase of physics, chemistry, and mathematics, which nowadays are one\nscience, not three, and which can be held apart only on methodological\ngrounds, not metaphysically. Illustration, accordingly, appears, after\nall, to be needed only for the specialism that separates the physical\nand the psychical sciences.\n\nPhysiological psychology and physically experimental psychology, both of\nthem suggestive of nothing less incongruous than seething ice, are sure\nto come to mind at once; but also there is a mathematical psychology,\ncomparable with a developmental mechanics and biometrics in biology, and\nhardly a single field of science, however apparently distant and alien\nin nature and interest, has not contributed something [p.092] to\npsychology or to epistemology, the general science of knowledge. But now\nit is likely to be objected by some one that just because sciences,\nwhether in clearly related or in widely separated fields, are useful to\neach other, just because they can serve, as they do, in the r\u00f4le of\nmethods of each other, they are not necessarily in any real and natural\naffinity. May not their association be purely one of utility, involving\nno surrender of special individuality and requiring in any case only\ntemporary relationship? The question is absurd. Any means that really\nserves an end must have something in common with the end it serves; and,\nagain, an end that really sanctions a means, whatever the means be, must\nitself be, at least potentially, which is after all to say essentially,\nin and of the means employed. Different sciences, then, even physics and\npsychology, or natural science and theology, cannot be even temporarily\nmethods of each other without partaking in some way, under some disguise\nor other, through some peculiarity in their conceptions or in the\nrelations of their conceptions, of each other's subject-matter.\n\nIn view of this fact of mutual participation of nature and idea among\nthe sciences that use each other, I have myself conceived, and in\nanother place have given expression to, what appropriately may be called\na physical psychology or epistemology.'[1] This new hybrid science is\nespecially concerned with nothing more nor less than those substitutes,\ndisguises, or [p.093] indirections, really present in all the physical\nsciences, for the peculiar nature, for the peculiar sort of unity,\nintensive instead of extensive or qualitative instead of quantitative,\nor say also even vital and spiritual instead of physical, which is\nalways associated with mind. In conservation of matter, energy, what you\nwill, in plenitude, in motion as only relative and so as always under a\nprinciple of uniformity and constancy or even immobility, in motion too\nas inclining to vibration, which suggests poise or tension, or to\nrotation, in which we see rest as well as motion, and finally, not to\nextend what might be a long list, in the infinity of space and time or\nof quantity, the physical sciences have hidden entrances for the silent,\nusually unnoticed admission of what is psychical. But I may seem to be\njumping too far, to be presuming too much. Then put the case in this\nway--not quite so direct, but to the same goal. All of these\nconceptions, so necessary to a \"working\" physical science, need very\nlittle examination to be seen to be treacherous to the physical\nstandpoint and its peculiar categories. One might as well try to make\nwater unsupported assume definiteness of form as to conceive the\nconservation of energy or plenitude or the relativity of motion in the\ncharacter of what is physical, or at least of what is properly and\nconventionally physical. Being treacherous, then, to the physical\nscience that has conceived them, they are, as was said, doors for what\nis not physical; hidden doors, perhaps, but certainly doors to be opened\nat will; and by them mind is bound to enter the physical world and its\nsciences. To those familiar with the history of philosophy, the\nspeculation [p.094] of the early Greek thinkers, notably Anaximander,\nParmenides, and Anaxagoras, will afford illustration of the physical\nview running, in spite of itself, into treacherous conceptions, and\neventually reaching the discovery of their treachery and with it the\nidea of mind or _Nous_.[2]\n\nSo for science is the material world, what properly it is often said to\nbe, a sort of dark mirror of man's inner life, of his psychical nature.\nPhysical science as consciousness of the outer material world is not,\nand has itself shown that it cannot be, merely and exclusively physical.\nBy virtue of its working hypotheses, which are as secret doorways, it is\npsychical also. Though darkly and indirectly it is our human\nself-consciousness. Perhaps it is our self-consciousness rendered\nimpersonal or the self seen through the mirror of not-self or through\nthe disguise of what a photographer would call a \"negative\"; and, if it\nmay be so described, we are reminded of Burns:--\n\n     O wad some power the giftie gie us,\n     To see oursels as others see us!\n     It wad frae monie a blunder free us,\n                And foolish notion.\n\nOnly the bonnie Robert himself was too much of a specialist in poetry to\nsee that natural science was the very thing he prayed for.\n\nAnd just as there is thus a physical psychology, so [p.095] in like\nmanner there is a psychological or epistemological physics, which in its\nturn is concerned with the indirections, or doors in the panelling,\npresent in all the psychical sciences, for those very physical things\nquantity and matter. The devil will have his due; even an optimistic\ntheology has to recognize him. And psychology has a sensuous self, the\nself of the purely sensuous consciousness, which has always involved it\nin a curious psychical atomism, a projection, in a word, of the physical\non the plane of the psychical. Sensationalism, too, as a psychological\ntheory in the history of thought has always been associated with\nmaterialism.\n\nWith regard, then, to the separation even of the psychical and the\nphysical sciences, which obviously has at its base the distinction\nbetween mind and matter, we observe that our principle of affinity and\nmutual participation still holds. By a sort of projection or\nreproduction mind and matter both appear, the one openly, the other in\ndisguise, in each kind of science. However unawares, the physical\nentertains mind; the psychical matter; and specialism, so far as\nstanding for anything more than scientific method, has to withdraw from\nits last stronghold. The very dreaming of the scientific imagination is\nits undoing.\n\nFor other evidence against the integrity and adequacy of specialism,\nshowing how mind defies specialism and conserves its indivisible\nuniverse, there are the following simple but certainly interesting\nfacts. All the different sciences, however special and however\napparently alien in subject matter, are wont to use the same general\nmethods--as, for example, the laboratory or experimental method or the\nhistorical [p.096] method, the fatal consequences of which to the cause\nof pure specialism may easily be inferred. History is famous for\novercoming differences. The common interest in mathematics must also be\nmentioned, for mathematics, through its latest developments in danger of\nturning into a pure logic, is quite independent of all those material\ndifferences that separate the different sciences. It is formal and\nuniversal, not special; so that the special science that would also be\nmathematical appears somehow to be at least in aim as universal as it is\nspecial. Perhaps mathematics more than anything else has fed the\nvoracity which we have seen veracity to exact. Has it not been the chief\nagent in the virtual annihilation of the barriers between physics and\nchemistry? This particular mingling of the special sciences has been\nmentioned here already, but mathematics is threatening the party-walls\nof all the other sciences also. Further, what are we to infer from the\nidea that all sciences seek law? Certainly law is not special as science\nhas seemed to be. Somehow law is not many, but one. Many laws can only\nbe different phases or cases of one law. The very essence of law is to\nbe one and single and all-embracing. To put the case theologically,\ncould any one suppose that God made the laws of chemistry and sociology\nand psychology as so many separate and independent enactments? On such a\nsupposition he had been a strange God indeed, lacking the very thing,\nunity of being and character, which men have come to associate with\ndivinity, and what theology demands of God, science, even against its\nown specialism, must demand of its object. Again, [p.097] the way in\nwhich by implication, when not openly, one science is given to handing\nover its hardest problems to another is very instructive as well as\namusing. Not many years ago I was present at a joint meeting, a\ngood-natured and doubtless honestly ambitious conference of biologists,\nphysiologists, and psychologists, and the addresses then made have often\nreminded me of one of Thomas Nast's famous cartoons: A closed ring of\npolitical grafters, none other than the notorious Tweed and his\nfollowers, each pointing to his neighbour and putting on him the\nresponsibility of a very embarrassing situation. \"Find the rogue\" was\nthe artist's inscription; but with apologies for the association, we can\neasily change it to \"Find the special science.\" And, lastly, in this\nlist of the simple evidences against an adequate specialism there are\nthe conspicuous analogies other than those of common method or common\ninterest in law, which are always easily traced among the sciences, even\nthe sciences in the opposite camps of matter and mind, of any particular\ntime. Atomism in physics is contemporary with atomism in psychology and\nwith individualism in political philosophy; a monarchical politics with\nan anthropomorphic, creationalistic theology and an also monarchical\nphysically centred astronomy, whether heliocentric or geocentric; and a\nNewtonian astronomy, which really makes a law or force instead of an\nindividual body the centre and control of the solar system, with\ndemocracy or constitutionalism, and with inductive instead of deductive\nlogic and naturalistic instead of dogmatic theology; so that at no time,\nwhatever the scientist's special interest, whatever his [p.098] special\nsyllable, can he fail to have at least a formal sympathy with others.\nSuch analogies among the sciences, so often recognized and so\nabsorbingly interesting to the students of the history of thought, if\nnot exactly doors in the panelling, may be said to make the panelled\npartitions at least translucent if not unsubstantial and transparent.\n\nBut the most important fact in illustration of our case against\nspecialism is yet to be considered, and unfortunately it takes us where\nto some the waters may seem dangerously deep. Not only for reasons\nalready given and emphasized is the special science a misnomer, a\ncontradiction in terms, except in so far as specialism be taken merely\nas an incident, not without its humour, of scientific method, but also\nfor the same reasons (and chiefly because the truth and reality of the\nuniverse are bound to be conserved) every special science must sooner or\nlater develop its doctrines either into direct paradoxes or into tenets\nthat oppose and contradict each other. Thus, as has been shown,\nspecialism in science is itself a paradox, and, as now asserted, every\nspecial science assuming precise form and real validity becomes a home\nof paradoxical or contradictory doctrines. Indeed, these doctrines just\nthrough their opposition appear be the most effective agents of that\ncompensation for neglected points of view, or conservation of all points\nof view, which we are insisting is for ever forced upon the scientific\nspecialist. In the cases of physical epistemology and epistemological\nphysics we have already seen doctrines working to this end. In those\ncases the real treachery to the avowed [p.099] standpoints lay in\nvirtual when not open contradiction. And, for the general principles, is\nit not quite clear that nothing so surely as contradiction in any given\npoint of view, or in the specific doctrines developed under it, can\nserve the interests of any other points of view? I have heard it said,\nbut by whom originally I do not know, that a paradox or contradiction\nwas only the mind on tiptoe struggling to look over a very high wall.\n\nThe point is just this. The special science, because special or partial\nand because at the same time courting scientific character or validity,\nthat is, conformity with reality, must be relative, formal, abstract,\nartificial, unreal, but also for exactly the same reason it must\ncontrive to admit to its conceptions other view-points than its own. Its\nown peculiar view-point is relative, but that it may attain actual\nvalidity it is bound to overcome its relativity by admitting, secretly\nperhaps yet not less truly, other points of view; and paradox or\ncontradiction is the natural door for such admissions, the original\nview-point being tenacious to the last. Physics says: \"I will be physics\nthrough thick and thin; I will be physics though the heavens fall and\nthough dreadful paradoxes arise\"; and in like manner psychology cries\naloud: \"I will be psychology though I suffer from a splitting dualism\nfor my pains.\" Have you, gentle reader, never held and held and held to\nsome particular notion about things, modifying the details perhaps\nlittle by little, but always imagining yourself strictly loyal to the\nold, old view, and then suddenly discovered your consciousness alive\nwith contradictions? If you have, you know, possibly [p.100] too well,\nthe natural history of every special science, and also you can\nsympathize deeply with the hen and her cherished chicks that proved ugly\nducklings. The special science, I repeat, must be hospitable, however\ngrudgingly, to strangers, though at the expense of becoming thoroughly\ndivided against itself. Such hospitality is an obligation--call it\nlogical if you will, or moral or metaphysical, for the name matters not\nif it only suggests coercion--which is not less binding upon the\nscientific spirit than upon the spirit of racial unity, always urgently\npresent in you and me. You and I may be so special or exclusive as to\ndrive strangers from our doors, but an impulse to call them back and\ngive them entertainment always follows--an impulse that is only the\nnecessary reaction of the expulsion. Humanity is indivisible in spite of\nour asserted exclusiveness, and nature is indivisible, too, in spite of\nspecialism. Partiality of any sort, along any line, in any field, can\nnever long persist without, though often darkly and indirectly, though\nby the way of bold, unrecognized, or unconfessed paradox, receiving from\noutside all that it would exclude. I am not merely repeating. At first,\nwe saw only that the scientific imagination brought to the special\nscience as its working hypotheses certain conserving or compensating\nconceptions; then, that these conceptions involved treachery to the\nscience that harboured them; but now we are face to face with the fact\nthat their complete, their most effective form is the paradox.\n\nWould that I had the ability to write with the penetration and the\nclearness of statement that the [p.101] subject should certainly elicit,\nupon the strange equanimity with which mankind, in science or in\npractical life, receives and faces a direct negative or an open\ncontradiction. Perhaps the habit of easy division into positive and\nnegative, the ready resort to dichotomy, explains the mystery; perhaps\nthe fact that negation or opposition is and can only be in kind, that\nthere never is or can be any real change or need of change in a mere\nnegation, is at least an important factor in the case; perhaps, again,\nthe very hopelessness of the dualism, which a flat, unequivocal negation\nplainly involves, is also to the point; but, beyond all peradventure, we\ndo accept the direct negative with a patience, even an indifference,\nthat may greatly assist our natural conservatism, whether of thought or\nlife, but that on being recognized certainly does arouse our wonder.\nGood and its opposite evil, true and false, real and unreal, unity and\nplurality, life and death, the indivisible and the divisible, rest and\nmotion, plenum and vacuum, immaterial and material, actuality and\nillusion, lawfulness and lawlessness: these and so many other opposites\nare the common stock-in-trade of our living and thinking, and we accept\nand use them with a complacency that cannot easily be exaggerated. Yet\nthe negative in each and every one of them holds the future of the\nuniverse in the palm of its hand. And the special scientist before his\ninevitable paradoxes is as conservative and as complacent as the rest of\nus.\n\nBut it is one thing to say, or even to reason out cogently and\nsatisfactorily in every way, that the [p.102] special science, if both\npersistently special and honestly scientific, must be sooner or later\ninwardly contradictory and treacherous to itself, and it is quite\nanother thing to show the contradiction in actual cases. The actual\ncases, however, are more easily found than many are likely to suppose,\nand at mention they may even seem like forgotten memories, like things\nwhich at some time we have noticed but become callous towards. Thus the\natom is through and through a self-contradiction, being itself only a\npart of a divided reality, yet at the same time itself real only because\nindivisible; and a science harbouring such an atom can hardly be said to\nbe unmixedly physical. The vibration, too, already referred to here as\nmotion in poise or at rest; infinity as one more quantity that is\nsignificant because not quantitative; the sensation, a component element\nof consciousness that cannot possibly be composite; the plenal physical\nmedium, which can be physical only if displaceable by other material\nthings, and so plenal only if not physical, and which has served besides\nas an immobile yet infinitely elastic basis of motion or its\ntransmission; and, to give just one more instance, in moral and\npolitical science the person, a self-existent, actively free being or\nentity whose every deed as well as whose every thought is responsible to\nsomething, being adaptive and therefore social, social with other\npersons and with nature, and whose every virtue implies dependence and\nan existence shared with something else: these are all also\nself-contradictions. And in view of them who must not see how the\nspecial sciences are always more than special, ever correcting [p.103]\nin ways that may be unappreciated by themselves their partiality of\nview, ever responsible to the totality of things even while they would\nobserve things only under selected view-points. Such contradictions,\nonce more, show mind loyal to what students of logic are familiar with\nas the \"universe of discourse.\" Even in science you cannot discourse\nabout anything without at least implicitly discoursing about everything,\nalthough in order to do so you must speak in such paradoxes as the atom,\nthe person, the biologist's \"vital unit,\" the vibration, the plenum, and\nthe like indefinitely.\n\nNor is the scientist the only dreamer of paradoxes among men. Ordinary\npractical life, as we have seen, teems with paradoxes. But, for purposes\nof illustration, not to say also of giving greater breadth and depth to\nthe view, a reference to the situation in the religious consciousness\nwill have peculiar value here. A religion that supplements reverence for\na personal God, working miracles and caring for the elect, who even\nnowadays are more or less elect, with belief in a devil, even nowadays\nmore or less personal, is clearly a blood relation to science, and it is\nbesides by no means so unnatural or irrational as is often declared,\nparticularly by the scientists. Its two errors, just because opposed,\nconserve what is real, and no science can claim more than that. Indeed,\na science, notably a special science, like a theology, might well be\ndescribed as a system of mutually corrective errors, of abstractions\nthat, because abstract, distort the reality of things, but that also\nbecause being at difference with each other and eventually [p.104]\nfalling into contradictory and so counteracting pairs are at least\nparties to what is real and true. By hook or crook, by the hook of\nabstraction or the crook of contradiction, every science gets in touch\nwith the universe as a whole, and so even with its errors is a \"working\"\nscience. The errors of many a religion, by their working together, have\nnot failed to save men.\n\nSo we may return to the assertion that in its specialism, as well as in\nits demand for objective knowledge, science is self-contradictory, and\nwith this conclusion established the exposure of science already offers\na very strong case for the doubter. Yet it does this only to the extent\nand in the sense that contradiction warrants doubt. After all is said,\nhave we been only exposing science? Has attack been our only procedure?\nDo we not find, as we reflect, that in our exposure there has also been\nsomething very near to defence? Or, once more, through the science to\nwhich we have taken exception have we not seen a science in which we\ncould believe? In the examination of science's objectivism we saw that\ntechnique buried science, but--though we did not say this in so many\nwords--that there might be a resurrection. If fruitful in inventions\nserviceable to life, science was justified in spite of its cultivated\nobjectivism, and the objectivity itself, besides an aid to accuracy, has\nfurther significance as possibly an earnest of wider social\nrelationship, of broader and deeper life. The question of fact, too, if\nappreciated and so made subordinate to the question of meaning, was even\nallowed, and science, although at once formally conservative [p.105] and\nmaterially negative and destructive, seemed after all to be the promise,\nso to speak, of a new dawn for the very things denied. And now in what\nhas been said of the specialism of science, the same turning of the edge\nof attack is all but manifest. Every special science is narrow and\nrelative--it is in the form of an unreal dream; but reality somehow\ngives form to the dream, for there are always the compensating\nconceptions. The contradictions by which the compensation has been\neffected are, then, interpretable not more as causes of doubting science\nthan as reasons for confidence in it. Thus, to be tedious again, the\nspecial science is relative and formal; it is a peculiar system of\ningenious abstractions that in so far are also errors; but its formal\ncharacter includes also contradiction; its errors are so related as to\ncorrect and balance each other; so that, even in the face of our\nnecessary scepticism about it, science has been evident to us, as also\nwas the consciousness of ordinary life, as somehow always building\nbetter than it knows or than its methods or ideals and doctrines viewed\nonly from without would lead one to expect. Moving in it we have\ncertainly felt the presence of, something, not yet called by name, which\nis very like a principle or power of validity, preserving the reality of\nthings even in and through the relativity and contradiction under which\nthe things are seen. While the letter of our knowledge, even of our\nscientific knowledge, must ever have an indeterminate future; while rest\nor stability, ultimate reality or consistency is quite impossible to it,\nstill its inner, active spirit seems a source of faith that is\ninviolable, that cannot be shaken. Different [p.106] quantities, such as\nfour and two, and sixteen and eight, do not make the same sum, much less\nare they the same digits; but they are in the same ratio, and similarly\nthe truth of science would seem to lie in the ratio, the working\ntogether, of the errors of science. Outwardly and materially changing\nwith time and with people, assuming ever new forms and comprising always\nnew doctrines, science nevertheless, as an active force, as a positive\nresultant, is at least now conceivably always the same and applicable to\nthe same life. Even the Babylonians of an ancient day successfully\npredicted eclipses, the very errors of their astronomy working together\nfor truth, exactly as the heresies of pagan religion seem to have\nbalanced each other to the preservation and the development of the life\nwhich we of the present day and the Christian civilization are pleased\nto call our own.\n\nAccordingly the science we have to doubt is also manifest to us as at\nleast a possible object of faith. The very causes of our doubt before\nour very eyes have turned, or are in process of turning, into possible\nbases of belief, and our confession of doubt as it proceeds is proving\never more worth making. We are trying to be such honest doubters. We are\nindeed such penitent believers.\n\n\nIII. SCIENCE WOULD BE AGNOSTIC.\n\nStill we have, thirdly, the agnosticism of science to consider and\nappraise. Agnosticism confines knowledge to actual positive experience,\nand in its form of \"positivism\" to an only tentative acceptance of\nactual experience, and it is thus in effect an admission of [p.107] just\nthose limitations which have been found to belong to science as\nobjective and special. Objectivism and specialism have both shown\nscience to be standing in its own light, or at least to be standing in\nthe way of any direct and positive knowledge of reality. Whatever they\nmake possible to our virtual as distinct from our positive\nconsciousness, whatever indirectly or implicitly may through them belong\nto our conscious life, formally and visibly, positively and directly, we\ncannot know reality. In a word, science must and does recognize an\nunknowable, or at least an unknowability in things, and agnosticism is\naccordingly important among the three determining points of science's\ncircumference. But here is now our problem: Does science put the right\nvalue upon, does it ascribe the right meaning to, its agnosticism? Is\nthe implied scepticism of the sort that we can cordially accept?\nEspecially, does science have any due appreciation of the negative, not\nto say of the suggested dualism, in the opposition between the knowable\nand the unknowable?\n\nNow both objectivism and specialism plainly involve aloofness, which is\nperhaps only another word for what in the preceding chapter was called\nabstraction. By the first of these two \"isms\" science is held aloof from\nlife; by the second, through the many divisions, from itself, that is to\nsay, part from part. Men who would be scientists withdraw, as we hear\nthem boast, from affairs, and as they withdraw it is also as if they put\non distorting and even discolouring glasses, through which in one and\nanother \"special\" way they would behold the \"objective\" world. Their\nwithdrawal [p.108] is thus not merely physical; it is also mental. To\nlook out of the window one must turn one's head and lift one's eyes and\nadjust both head and eyes in other ways; but looking in general, whether\nfrom the needs of an objective or a special view, also demands certain\npertinent adjustments, and the demanded adjustments make the resulting\nexperience just so far aloof, just so far discoloured and distorted.\nGranted that these terms can be only relative in significance. To be\naloof from something is to have it equally aloof from you, and you\nshould be no more discredited by the separation than it. To be distorted\nand discoloured is to be so only with regard to something that in its\nown peculiar way may be equally transformed. Such relativity, however,\ncannot deprive the differences involved of real significance; it can\nonly emphasize the general instead of the narrow, local application of\nthe terms found to be relative. What is relative is not unreal; it is\nsimply shared, like cousinship. So science, the looking of science,\nmeans real aloofness and real disfiguration.\n\nThe truth of this has already been apparent to us in a general way, but\nit will be worth while here to be more specific. The space and time, for\nexample, in which scientists observe things are widely different from\nthe space and time of will and action. In ordinary life a difference is\nfelt between the world we know and the world we live, but the extreme\nprofessional attitude of science greatly widens the differences. For\nscience space and time are quantitative, divisible, formal,\nmathematically correct, and independent of what is in them, their\nreality or qualitative [p.109] value to active life being hidden or at\nleast only very indirectly presented--I suggest, in the constant\nopposition of their finiteness and infinity--while for will and action\nthey are qualitative, indivisible, inseparable from what is in them. Who\never did anything in a composite, divisible space and time? Action in\nsuch a sphere would be hopelessly jerky; with Zeno's flying arrow it\nwould just always rest _in statu quo_, though its _status in quo_ might\nhave an indefinite series of positions. Again, the scientists reduce\ncausation to mere uniformity of co-existences or sequences, which is no\nreal causation at all, being only so much passive existence or\nmechanical process, while will or action is causation, the positive\ninteraction of things, the active relation, the vital unity, of what was\nand is and is to be. It is true that here, too, the causation of real\nlife is darkly presented by science in a constant opposition between a\nsingle first cause and an eternal series of causes, for such an\nopposition makes real causation in an important way quite transcendent\nof the mere differences of time; but, setting this concession aside, who\never did anything in a world either of one cause active long ago or of\nan infinite series of causes? And, once more, science needs elements,\nwhile will or life is the eternal denial of elements or anything like\nthem. Says a well-known writer:[3] \"It is one of the greatest dangers of\nour time that the naturalistic (or scientific) point of view, which\ndecomposes the world into elements for the purpose of causal connection,\ninterferes with the volitional point of view of real life, [p.110] which\ncan deal only with values, and not with elements.\" The danger involved\nwill occupy us in a moment, but the bondage of science to elements, to a\ncomposite world, to a thoroughly \"decomposed\" reality, will hardly be\nquestioned. Through contradiction, again, as in the chemist's component\natom, itself not composite; or the biologist's \"vital unit,\" which bids\nfair to be the master paradox of the day, science may darkly and\nindirectly preserve the world of real life, the world that is neither\none element nor many, but in this case as in the others the indirection,\nafter all is said, only emphasizes the aloofness.\n\nSo science is aloof, and in being aloof it disfigures and defaces\nreality, and the argument for agnosticism is consequently unassailable.\nNo one more effectively has shown this than Immanuel Kant, although one\nmay question Kant's final appraisal of the fact. Here certainly is no\nplace for an exposition of the Kantian philosophy, but, briefly and\nsimply put, that philosophy has characterized space and time and the\nrelation of cause and effect, not to mention certain other very general\ndata of experience, as the _a priori_ forms of all valid, objective\nknowledge, and being translated this is to say that these so-called\nforms are the enabling attitudes of the merely looking consciousness or\nthe peculiar glasses which, as it were, the mind puts on whenever it\nturns just to look. The typical Boston girl, according to the\ncartoonists, is never without her glasses. In like manner the typically,\nprofessionally correct looking consciousness, the observing, scientific\nmind, is never without those enabling attitudes. Do you ask if they are\nthen only subjective attitudes? [p.111] They are subjective only as they\nare relative. They are subjective only as they express the aloofness of\nthe scientific observer. And they are subjective, lastly, only in so far\nas can be consistent with Kant's further characterization of them as in\nevery instance imbued with essential opposition or \"antinomy.\" Remember\nthat an attitude that harbours opposition is always tip-toeing to\novercome the bounds of its own natural vision. Such an attitude cannot\nbe unmixedly subjective.\n\nBut what now is the danger of science's agnosticism, of science's own\nadmission that being \"objective\" and \"special,\" or being under the\nconstraint of certain enabling attitudes, or being at best only\ntentative in all its doctrines, it is not and cannot possibly be\nformally realistic? One might imagine, or expect, that confession of its\nlimitations would be good for the soul of science, and in truth we shall\ncertainly find some advantage resulting from the confession, but even\nscience's agnosticism is faulty in a serious way. The writer quoted\nabove has told us that the great danger always threatening science is\nthat the scientific will interfere with the volitional point of view,\nand this is equivalent to fearing, in the interests of science, that the\nscientist will forget his agnosticism and try to render what he cannot\nknow in terms of what he does know, or that the man of affairs will look\nto science for his programmes of action. Such a fear, however, may play\nto the professional conceits and the professional isolation and\nabstraction of the scientific point of view, but it is very far from\ngrasping the true import of the conflict between knowledge and\nunknowable [p.112] reality. I should myself assert, in partial if not in\ncomplete opposition to Professor M\u00fcnsterberg, that science's very\nnatural danger is that the scientific and the volitional point of view\nwill be kept apart, that the professionalism and the formalism and what\nKant called the phenomenalism of science will prevent their\ninterference. At least, this danger is just as great, and just as\nseriously a danger, as the other. Most people know well enough that\nkeeping science and life or theory and practice apart has the effect of\nmaking the former lose itself in a highly morbid intellectualism, and\nthe latter in the dead monotony, of a mere existence, sometimes\npresumptuously styled \"practical life,\" but such a result seems not to\ntrouble either Professor M\u00fcnsterberg or the conventional scientist whose\ncause the vigorous professor has espoused. In other regions,\nfortunately, a formal disparity is not accepted as arguing to a natural\ndivorce, but is even considered, let it be said, a reason for\nassociation; and as for the disparity between science and will, it is\nquite true that life without science is lifeless and that science\nwithout life is meaningless.\n\nPerhaps the crowning fault of the agnostic scientist is his lack of\nhumour. He takes himself too seriously. The lover, when his fair one has\nformally disagreed with him, rejecting his suit with her outspoken \"No\"\nand promising lasting friendship and good-will even to assurances of\nassistance in his next venture, takes hope, smiles grimly within\nhimself, and feels sure still that she and he, however disparite, are\nmeant to live together for better or worse. But the rejected scientist\ntakes the unknowable's \"No\" as if it [p.113] were final, and then,\nretiring to his study or laboratory, proceeds, though in a morbid,\nabnormal way, to mingle the scientific and volitional standpoints every\ntime he writes a line or makes an experiment. We watch him as he goes,\nand find his case not without its humour. If the true lover upon being\nrejected were satisfied thereafter with caressing the lady's photograph,\nthen he and the agnostic scientist would be in the same class.\n\nBut, as is needless to say, I am not writing a novel. So, romance aside,\nunquestionably the forms and doctrines of the scientific consciousness\nare peculiar, being, as has been shown, logically subtle, imaginary and\ninnocent of direct practical realism, being, in short, the inhabitants\nof a world quite their own, and to impose them intact upon active life\ncannot fail to bring disaster, the usual disaster of a misfit. Yet, let\nus bring to mind, in the first place, that the scientific consciousness\nis not essentially different from consciousness in general, and that\nconsciousness in general deals, and always must deal with artificial\nforms, with symbols, constructions, and transformations; and in the\nsecond place, that it always knows with some measure of sophistication\nthat what it deals with is symbolic or constructed. Conscious creatures,\nfrom the moment they begin to draw breath, are trained to see one thing\nobjectively and to understand or construe quite another thing for active\nexpression. There is no visual sensation without muscular sensation, and\nmost men, if not all men, have really learned in the long years of their\nown and their race's experience to get along without _seeing_ [p.114]\nand yet also without foregoing the sensations in their muscles! Man's\nlong training, in a word, has taught him to use what he sees as not\ndirect reality, but only a symbol of reality, and so in volition always\nto allow for the \"practical\" unreality of the objects before his\nconsciousness. The mere words bread and butter, for example, or even the\nvisible things in a restaurant window, have never brought satiety to a\nhungry child, nor do I myself fear that they ever will. Moreover, the\nlong training that is the surety against danger, and that at the same\ntime has made man keenly awake to the value as well as the humour of\nsymbolism, is just what has rendered the high development of\nprofessional science possible, and is also what makes possible and\nproperly controls the application of science to practical life.\n\nIt may now be asserted that the facts are not in accord with the view to\nwhich I have just given expression, that sometimes, and very of ten too,\nthe forms and doctrines of science are imposed without modification or\ntranslation upon practical life. Thus, though the names for edibles\nthemselves as present to the eye--or to any other sense--are not normal\nsubstitutes for food, nevertheless some people, whether from poverty or\nfrom indigestion, have fed on them, just as they have taken long\njourneys with maps, time-tables, and guide books. In education, too, the\nformal conditions of science have suggested object-lessons and pure\ninduction; in political organization we have had programmes of extreme\nelemental individualism, of lawless democracy, and of abstract communism\nand Christian Socialism; in religion God [p.115] has been like a thing\nseen, perhaps a tree walking or a man working, whether with hoe or rake\nor with other implement, perhaps a trident, and belief has been\nidentified with an articulate dogma or formula; and many a realistic\nnovel, treating the details of life as a scientist might treat them, or\nmany a psychological novel, more problematic than artistic, has been put\nupon the market. But what can all this mean, undoubtedly true as it is,\nsave that science belongs to life, yet is applied to it with difficulty\nand only under conditions of conflict? In the case of the edibles,\npoverty or illness, both of them incidents of conflict, is responsible\nfor the unnatural substitution, and in cases of education, politics,\nreligion, and literature, the substitution is equally a makeshift which\nthe conditions of conflict impose upon life. An individualistic\nprogramme will not work, nor will a purely socialistic programme work.\nMere induction will not educate. No visible God ever was divine, and no\narticulate creed ever was true. Life is a game throughout; its vital\ncharacter, its very integrity is its experimental character; it is not a\nsettled, abstractly perfect thing. Life is dynamic, not static.\nAccordingly it must move forward by its mistakes, or by storm and stress\nof the incongruous and misapplied, being inspired, not by somebody's\ncomplacent optimism, but by a sacrificial, always heroic idealism; and\nits scientific practices, however truly a mixing of things formally\nincongruous or disparite, are just aids to its reality. Moreover, those\nscience-formed practices are always in some measure sophisticated. Human\nnature is rather a fine thing in its way, as [p.116] many a man has\nflattered himself and his kind by saying. Witness the homeless,\nill-clad, starving child feeding over the odorous grating and before the\nwell-stocked window of the restaurant, and feeling, if not actually\nsaying: \"As long as I cannot have and eat, it is good to smell and see.\"\nWitness, also, the educator or the statesman or the priest or the\nnovelist. Each knows his makeshift and feels some of the humour of it,\nand in his closet, when not before his public, acknowledges the violence\nto which he is lending himself.\n\nAnd another fact, besides that of the actual applications of science,\nwhich, however violent, prove the need as well as the dangers, and\nbesides the sophistication, perhaps also the sense of humour, which\nalways accompanies the applications and at least tempers their violence,\nmust also be mentioned. Those science-formed programmes always go in\npairs. Individualism and socialism, realism and mysticism, Epicureanism\nand Stoicism, orthodoxy and heresy are inseparable, socially and\nhistorically; and the effect of such pairing is plainly to correct\nwhatever of violence the sense of symbolism and the sophistication and\nthe humour of the time may be unequal to. Thus in the movements and\nprogrammes of society for any given misfit there is always a\ncounter-misfit. Possibly human life, at least as socially organized, is\nonly a competition of misfits, its programmes coming, not through the\nacquired supremacy of one side or the other, but through the constant\nmediation, the balancing and interacting of the two, and the misfits are\nperhaps exclusively the gifts of science or at least [p.117] of the\nobserver's consciousness generally, and man is at once serious and\nhumorous enough to impose what science gives on the real life of his\nfellows, as a ready-made clothier might on a stray countryman; but is a\ncity, then, to have no Hyam, and is the life of society also to dispense\nwith the gifts of science because they are imperfect? There are worse\nthings than clothes not made to measure or than the men who sell or buy\nthem. There is the life that never changes its old clothes for new.\nThere are the clothes that never get on the market at all.\n\nAccordingly the interference of the scientific with the volitional point\nof view is, to say the least, not the only danger which the scientist or\nthe practical man needs to recognize. There is also the danger that the\ndisparity between science and life, or between knowledge and the\nunknowable, will be construed to mean that the two are never to live\ntogether. Science may be innocent of any direct accord with reality,\nbeing in form quite innocent of a real realism, but after all, whether\nby itself or in its various applications or renderings in human life, it\nis so innocent only in a qualified sense, only with reference to the\nform of its specific doctrine and attitudes taken individually. As\nitself a living whole, part acting upon part, each abstraction corrected\nby some counter-abstraction or perhaps by some inner self-opposition, as\nconscious too of its own conditions and limitations, as sophisticated\nand even humorous, both for all logical purposes and for all purposes of\napplicability in the life of society it is realism itself. As harbouring\nwhat above was called, in so many words, an [p.118] inner active spirit\nof veracity or power for reality, a constant agent of validity and\napplicability, it is itself a party to the real life.\n\nBut return to the idea of the divorce of science and life, which is such\nan easy conclusion of agnosticism. If divorced, it was said, they are\nlost, the one in a morbid intellectualism, the other in the dead\nmonotony of mere existence. Now, in view of the fact that many have\nfound such a divorce to possess the highest ideal value, it seems worth\nwhile to remark that after all is said the separation can be only\napparent, not real. Even if we neglect wholly the writing and the\nexperimentation of the scientist, as volitional as they are scientific,\nand the practical consciousness, moral or prudential, of the disciple of\nthe \"real life,\" as scientific as it is volitional, we shall find such\nto be the case. We know men who have what may be styled, and what\nsometimes is abusively styled, a double life. They have their science,\nperhaps their laboratories and their books and their own pet doctrines,\nand they have also their social affiliations in business and in politics\nand in religion; and, whether it be ideal or unideal, admirable or\nreprehensible, their life certainly does seem double, because their\nsociology and their business, or their political theory and their party\nties, or their biology and their religion simply will not mix; but their\napparent duplicity has apparently little or nothing to rest upon. It may\ncount as two, numerically, but such counting never makes being. Men\nshould count less and think more. On the terms of such a numerical\nseparation, as was said, the science can be only formal, the life only\ndead; but such a [p.119] science and such a life make one existence, not\ntwo; and, however amusing the conclusion may be, it is nevertheless true\nthat the science, for just what it is, has been applied, making the life\njust what it is. Are scientific technique with its aloofness and logical\nabstractions and a life that in its own special, affairs can be only\nconventional and ritualistic, or say routine in the study or the\nlaboratory and routine in the church or market-place, are these so\ndifferent as really to be, whatever the appearances, independent and\ndistinct? They may count as two for being in just so many different\nplaces, but the man, scientist or practitioner, is always necessarily\nwith himself, and in this sense never in more than one place, so that in\ncharacter and value the two routines are one and the same. Moreover, the\nennui which together they are sure to induce must end sooner or later in\na common cry for help, in a passion for reality that will turn each\ntoward the other with an irresistible appeal.\n\nOnce more, then, there is danger for science not merely in the\ninterference, but in the obstinate independence of the scientific and\nthe volitional point of view. A protected science may have no less, but\nalso it has no more justification than a protected industry. Competition\nwith life and will may often bring science low, degrading its methods\nand impairing its professional success, but protection involves at least\nequal risks. Professor M\u00fcnsterberg--but may he forgive me my Homeric\nepithets--is a too zealous epistemologic protectionist.\n\nThe difficulty as to the agnosticism of science may be presented in\nanother way. Dismissing all thought [p.120] of either interference or\ndivorce and all thought of the scientist forgetting his agnosticism or\ntaking it too soberly, we may say that the scientific agnostic, being\nunder the spell of the scientific way of dealing with things, is\ndisposed to treat the unknowable as if it were but one more thing or\nfact among all the other things or facts with which he is wont to deal.\nThe world for him is then composed of two departments or groups, which\nlike a good scientist he classifies and labels, the knowable and the\nunknowable; and nothing could be simpler or more natural. Though the\npoint of what follows may be lost in its appearance of mere wordiness,\nso to speak, the world of his interest, of his formal knowledge,\nincludes, among the other things, that which he knows to be unknowable,\nand with the inclusion and the knowledge of unknowability he imagines\nhis responsibility to the unknowable both to begin and end. Or, again,\nthe agnostic scientist regards the unknowable as something apart from\nthe knowable, as something not for him to know and also not having any\nvital, intrinsic relations to what he does know, but something\nnevertheless objectively presentable to a creature with knowing\nfaculties altogether different from his. The unknowable is thus for him\nstill the object of a looking and thinking consciousness, yet never of\nhis looking and thinking consciousness; it is knowable, and formally\nknowable, yet not to him, not through any of the forms of knowledge, the\nenabling attitudes, at his command. And nothing, I say once more, could\nbe simpler or more natural. But, properly and professionally scientific\nas it may be to give to agnosticism this turn, it is very [p.121]\ndecidedly an excellent example of professional blindness, being a sort\nof _reductio ad absurdum_, of the scientific point of view, for plainly\nit treats the unknowable as a matter, first, of knowledge--the scientist's\nknowledge of its unknowability, and as a matter, second, for\nknowledge--the knowledge of the creature with the different faculties.\nSurely such treatment is not honestly agnostic. Science, therefore, if\nit would be honest as well as scientific, must forget its\nprofessionalism and take the negative of the unknowable in another way.\n\nIn what way? In making reply to this question I must resort to a\ndistinction, which I have frequently found useful, between the dogmatic\nand the merely instrumental. Thus agnosticism may be dogmatic, as the\nconventional scientist would hold it, flatly declaring for an\nunknowable, or it may be instrumental, esteeming the unknowability in\nthings, not merely as relative to the existing conditions of knowledge,\nbut also as a constant demand upon science that it never rest in itself,\nthat it for ever treat its results as only a means to some end. So\nviewed an instrumental agnosticism is also teleological, but not in any\nsense of a fixed and static telos. Telic character or purposiveness and\nfixity are like oil and water. Whatever the traditional theologian may\nthink or say, they simply will not mix.\n\nOf the two kinds of agnosticism, the first hardly calls for further\ntreatment, for it is plainly that which has been recently examined and\nfound to be more scientific, or at least more professionally scientific,\nthan fully and personally honest, and the second is [p.122] very nearly\nakin to positivism, but must be scrutinized closely, for it certainly\nleads beyond the usual bounds of positivism. The positivist in science,\nas has been indicated above, accepts only actual positive experience and\naccepts that only tentatively. The working hypothesis is thus the master\nof his mind. What he knows, however well established in his actual,\npositive consciousness, is at best only relative and mediative. But--and\njust here appears the defect of his position, or just here we see him\nstill only the professional scientist--the mediation which absorbs his\ninterest is merely one of formal knowledge; what he knows always leads\nhim just to more knowledge; his formulated hypotheses as they are tested\nare but aids to new formulations: whereas, besides this mediation, there\nalways is another at least equally significant, for knowledge under the\nvery conditions of its rise and formulation must for ever be a means to\nsomething besides mere knowledge. Recognition of this other mediation,\naccordingly, is all-important to any final appraisal of the meaning of\nagnosticism, to an appraisal that is justified just through being\nsuperior to the special interests of formal and professional science. Is\nit not one of the functions of the various negatives in our human life\nreally to save life from the narrowness of its various professional\nabstractions, and is not the attitude of agnosticism but one of these\nnegations?\n\nAnd now, if for a paragraph or two I may be even offensively abstruse,\nthe conditions of our positive experience, of our actual knowledge, are\nsuch, and are commonly recognized to be such, that there must always be\nan unknown. Every working hypothesis [p.123] by implication points to an\nunknown. It is equally true, however, that the conditions of positive\nexperience are such that there is no fixity to this unknown; and the\nunknown changes in consequence, both in possible content and in possible\nquality or value, with every change in knowledge. But _always_ an\nunknown which is _never_ the same unknown must mean something more than\nmerely a yet-to-be-known; yes, it must mean even more than an\ninfinitely, eternally remote yet-to-be-known, for its being always, or\nits being infinitely distant, simply makes it something besides positive\nknowledge actual or possible. It must mean something which, though not\nknowledge, is nevertheless in knowledge, now and always; something\nserved by all knowledge but itself other than any knowledge; something,\nthen, which exceeds or transcends whatever the formal enabling\nconditions of knowledge are capable of presenting, but is itself\nintimately and vitally involved in the presentation; or, once more,\nsomething which is not at all in the character of a separate unknowable\nthing or sphere of things, nor even of a separate part in the things\nknown or knowable, but is in the character rather of an unknowability,\nperhaps in a sense a relative unknowability, belonging to the very\nthings and to every part of the very things that are known or, let me\nsay, inhering in the bare possibility of all knowledge. Must there not\nbe a sense in which just that which makes knowledge possible is itself\nquite impossible to knowledge? Who makes a law must be superior to the\nlaw, or \"legally supreme,\" and what makes knowledge possible can hardly\nbe fully and directly an object [p.124] of knowledge. Given actual,\npositive knowledge, then, and there must always be not merely an\nunknown, but also an unknowable; an unknowable, however, that is in and\nof the knowledge, not in place or in character a thing by itself.\n\nI said I should be abstruse, and I have not yet finished. In fully\nappraising agnosticism we need to consider at close range another idea\nof the positivist. Thus for the positivist knowledge is not a having,\nbut a getting--on the principle that unto him that hath shall be given;\nnot a knowing, but a questioning and seeking; not a being, but a\nbecoming--that has its ground in a being so real as to be without fixity\nof form. And this is plainly equivalent to making movement and action\nessential to the very nature of the knowing mind or to making knowledge\ndynamic instead of static, and infinitely plastic--even like life\nitself, that is always greater than its cross-sections or specific\nforms. But in general to an active nature nothing can ever be quite\nexternal; to a truly active nature there can be no essential\nimpossibility. For reflect. The mere existence of anything external or\nof anything impossible would in just so far remove and deny the\nintrinsic character of the activity; in just so far it would set the\nsupposedly active being in fixity of life and definiteness of form. For\nan essentially active nature, therefore, all things--all things in\nheaven and earth--are both present and possible, and so, specifically,\nif that active nature be the knowing mind there can be no unknowable\nthat is at the same time alien and altogether impossible to the knower.\nEven the very forms of the knower's knowledge must for ever compass\n[p.125] pass more than they may visibly present. The knowing itself in\nits own right and nature must be more than formal knowing, or than the\n\"objective,\" \"special\" science, in which the formal knowing has its\nprofessional realization. And the knower, as he knows, in and through\nhis knowledge must always be compassing just that which is not\nimpossible to him, but only unknowable--that is, impossible merely to\nhis direct, formal knowledge. Is the inedible or the invisible or the\nimpenetrable or the unbearable or the illegible or even the\nunintelligible ever wholly impossible? Such negatives, and in fact all\nnegatives, besides saving life from the narrowness of its various forms,\ndo this positive thing: they open the door of life's wider, nay, of\nlife's infinite opportunity or possibility, and at the same time they\nrender those various definite forms really mediative or instrumental,\nmaking them parts in an essentially purposive existence. With just this\nmeaning, then, a meaning larger and deeper than that usual to\npositivism, the attitude of the agnostic is instrumental and\nteleological. Agnosticism simply endows the knower--must we not even put\nour conclusion so?--with a wider freedom than that of knowledge, and yet\nalso makes his knowledge both share and serve the wider freedom that is\ngiven.\n\nInstead, then, of pointing to a known \"unknowable,\" before which either\nsome non-human creature or some human vice-regent of such a creature is\nnot obliged to be so knowingly humble, instead of establishing the\nconceit that knowledge or science is wholly for its own sake and so of\ndivorcing knowledge and real life, instead of making castes out of the\nsocial [p.126] classes of those who look and those who do, the\nunknowable must be taken to point to the necessary unity of knowledge\nand life, of theory and practice, to the fact that all looking is\nincident to a running and before a leaping, that all knowledge is\nresponsible to life, and that only life, however directly unknowable,\ncan ever inform knowledge. It even suggests I think with Carlyle that\n\"the end of man is action, not thought, though it were the noblest.\"\nYet, in truth, though its own emphasis may thus exalt action, it cannot\nmean any depreciation of thought or knowledge, only their enlistment in\nthe service of life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt this point it would be interesting to show in detail how action--that\nis, volition or application to life as central to the meaning of\nagnosticism--is not only the logically appropriate nor yet only the\nsentimentally ideal, but also the inevitable, the inner and actually\nreal motive, the natural outcome of the scientific standpoint in each\none of its three attitudes. Such a showing might follow historical and\nsociological lines, or it might appeal to psychology or it might be\nabstrusely logical, but I can ask attention only to a few suggestions of\nso general a character as not to be easily classified.\n\nThe natural consequence of objectivism is something like that attributed\nby many to modern militarism, since it ends by inducing the very thing\nit claims to prevent. An objective science discloses the mechanical\nnature of man's environment, besides making man himself also a good deal\nof a machine. But a machine, whether environment or personal being, is\nalways a [p.127] tool whose fine, accurate adjustments are just so much\npresented opportunity that by a sort of hypnotism turns the scientist's\nconsciousness into that of an effective agent in the world. Somehow a\nreal machine must move, and in the case before us with the movement the\nasserted distinction between looking subject and seen object collapses\nhopelessly. Witness such a collapse, as the runner, who has been\nstudying the stream before him, takes his leap, or in history as an age\nof self-consciousness, conventionalism, and utilitarianism, is followed\nby the rise of Napoleon. So does objectivism pass over into action. As\nfor the special Science, it may be impractical, because partial, but we\nhave seen how at least formally it loses its partiality, becoming even\nall-inclusive, indirectly compensating for its narrowness of view and so\nbecoming virtually co-extensive with all its associates in science. The\ndividing partitions may still stand, but only as unsubstantial forms\nwholly transparent and ineffective, so that the undivided universe is\nreally present to consciousness. The undivided universe, however, as\npresent to consciousness, is a call for will, since it cannot be fully\nrealized in any formal consciousness. The natural decline of an asserted\nspecialism, then, or the development of specialism into a mere form\nwithout substance, into a virtual universalism, makes science\napplicable. It makes science applicable, for in the first place it gives\nfreedom from the bondage of mere special technique, just as, for\nexample, the decline of religious--or irreligious?--sectarianism, a form\nof specialism certainly, is sure to free religion from the bondage of\nritual, and in the second place, as was the [p.128] fate of objectivism,\nit makes the distinction between self and not-self, subject and object,\nman and nature, only a formal one, since the real unity of the objective\nworld is exactly that in which the self has its true realization. In\nlike manner a religion turned non-sectarian shows man truly living and\nmoving and having his being, not aloof from God, but in God. Thirdly,\nwhether because of the freedom from technique or ritual or because, as\nthe waters of science become quiet with the union of its many streams,\nthe objective world does clearly mirror the image of the self, the\ndecline of specialism, like the decline of sectarianism, brings what\nsome are pleased to call the liberation of the human spirit. The\npsychologist would call it the development of knowledge into will--in a\nword, the application of science, and the historian would record it as\nthe dawn of a new era. Psychologically and historically the human spirit\nis liberated and nature is let loose at the same time. Details can\nalways be observed objectively and specially or separately; the whole,\non the other hand, is bound to draw the observer into itself and so to\nchange the observation into motive and will. And, lastly, as for\nagnosticism, suffice it to say, in addition to what has been said, that\nthe suppressed passion for reality to which agnosticism must always\ntestify ensures in good time the assertion of the volitional as distinct\nfrom the merely scientific point of view. Whatever this may mean\npsychologically, historically and sociologically it means that a time of\nagnosticism leads to all sorts of applications of science, such as\nthose, for example, in legislation and in industry. In morals [p.129]\nand religion, too, the same wish and will to use the results of science\nshows itself, as in the social settlements, in scientific charity, in\nthe \"institutional\" church, and in the university extension movement.\nAgnosticism, marking, as it always does, dissatisfaction both with the\nuninformed and with the conventionally informed life, and also rendering\nmere formal knowledge, however logically correct and thinkable, unreal\nor artificial, calls for a larger freedom of life through the mediation\nof knowledge.\n\nBut interesting as such reflections as the foregoing are, and\ninteresting also as it would be to undertake an account of will in\ngeneral in its relation to a consciousness which in so far as scientific\nis always artificial and symbolic, and is in particular, as we have\nfound, always a poise between opposing points of view,[4] I must bring\nto an end this rather lengthy examination of the standpoint of science.\nIf I have not already tarried too long, the special task of this volume\ncertainly does not warrant further attention even to so important a\ndepartment of human experience.\n\nIn conclusion, then, it is now quite apparent that science is a fruitful\nfield for the doubter. Science lacks self-sufficiency. Socially it means\nthe rise of a caste, and logically it involves abstraction and\nconsequent division against itself. Its most cherished ideals, as shown\nin its attitudes and methods, are chimerical, or impossible. In general\nand in particular it has a [p.130] paradoxical standpoint, being not\nless given to contradictions than ordinary consciousness.\n\nBut, as must be added, the case for the doubter of science has led also\ntoward a belief in science. Not infrequently in the course of the\nforegoing discussion it must have seemed even as if belief rather than\ndoubt were the controlling motive. A little child has said that faith\nconsists in \"believing what you know to be untrue,\" and our present\nstate of mind cannot be far from such a faith. Actually the science\nwhich we may believe in is the science of which we are also confirmed\ndoubters. We doubt the formal attitude and the formal doctrines just\nbecause they are abstract, phenomenal, paradoxical, but at the same time\nwe have to believe in the spirit--there seems to be no other word\navailable--as an ever-present agent of validity, because, in spite of\nall, the very incongruities save these formal doctrines from their\napparent artificiality and abstraction, and put them in touch with what\nis whole and real. And if, as was suggested, the scientific\nconsciousness is only the specially developed consciousness of ordinary\nlife, then we have gained also a new confidence even in the unreflective\nparadoxical consciousness of everyday life. Yet, that we may more fully\ncomprehend what this means, we shall next consider at some length the\npossible value of the defects in experience which have now been\nobserved. Ideas, which have appeared heretofore as little better than\nhints or suggestions, can then be presented in clearer form.\n\n\n[1] See an article: \"Epistemology and Physical Science--A Fatal\nParallelism,\" in the _Philosophical Review_, Vol. VII, No. 4, July,\n1896.\n\n[2] See articles: \"Pluralism: Empedocles and Democritus,\" in the\n_Philosophical Review_, Vol. X, No. 3, May, 1901; \"A Study in the Logic\nof the Early Greek Philosophy--Being, not-Being, and Becoming,\" in the\n_Monist_, Vol. XII, No. 3, April, 1902; and \"The Poetry of Anaxagoras's\nMetaphysics,\" in _The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific\nMethod_, Vol. IV, No 4.\n\n[3] See M\u00fcnsterberg's _Psychology and Life_, p. 267. Houghton Mifflin\nand Co., 1899.\n\n[4] For an interesting account, mainly psychological in standpoint, of\nwill as involving such a poise, see M\u00fcnsterberg's _Grundz\u00fcge der\nPsychologie_, Vol. I, chap. xv., Leipzig, 1900.\n\n\n\n[p.131]\n\nVI.\n\nPOSSIBLE VALUE IN THESE ESSENTIAL DEFECTS OF EXPERIENCE.\n\n\nAn original sin, or an essential defect, must somehow be for some good\npurpose. At least, if a general faith in the ultimate propriety of all\nthings has any ground to stand on, such must be the case. The sin or the\ndefect cannot be unmixed; its very originality, its essentiality, must\nline it, though it be the blackest of clouds, with some silver. Theology\nhas sometimes forgotten this, but an honest doubter cannot afford such a\nlapse.\n\nYet before examining the possible worth of the original defects of\nexperience, or, as some might regard the present enterprise, before\nattempting to give the devil himself a \"character,\" we must recall the\nvarious steps of our general undertaking as it has progressed so far. We\nhave been, in the first place, occupied with a thorough-going confession\nof doubt, with the greatest possible candour hunting down all the\nreasons for the attitude of doubt which experience affords, and so far,\nin the second place, we have found doubt justified, whether for good or\nfor ill, because of its potential when not actual universality among\nmen, of its character as a condition of all conscious life, of [p.132]\nits importance to real active life and deep experience, of its intimacy\neven with habit, and of its natural sense of dependence and consequent\nimpulse to companionship with nature, man and God, but more than\nall--and this was the special interest of the last two chapters--because\nof the paradoxical and self-contradictory nature of all human\nexperience. As regards the last point, our ordinary consciousness, the\noften-boasted consciousness of common sense, was found to harbour a\nwidespread, very persistent duplicity towards such vital things as\nreality, wholeness or unity, space and time, the causal relation,\nknowledge, moral freedom and natural law; and science, to which many\nwhen dislodged from their ordinary standpoint have been accustomed to\nretreat with greatest confidence and hope, was examined with similar\nresults. Science was found in its rise to involve abstraction of\ninterest and disruption of life, and in its avowed point of view to\nbe--suppose I say at this point--impossible but contradictory. So, in a\nword, as a clinching argument for doubt, as an argument that at least on\nthe surface has less of hope in it than any of the others, we are face\nto face with the bare, hard fact that in the very nature of human\nexperience, besides the relativity and instability and subjectivity,\nthere dwells a spirit of positive violence. Contradiction is just one\nphase of the error to which all men are said to be addicted. As a\nbackground for the inconsistent theologian, the fickle woman, the\nshifting politician and other equally double-faced monsters, we see\nboth-sidedness, individually and to a certain extent socially, to be a\nbasal habit of human nature, [p.133] and if the doctrine of original sin\nis tenable at all, in just this fact it would appear to have its\nstrongest support. _Humanum est errare_ may be translated: Man is most\nhuman when hopelessly divided against himself.\n\nBut just here our confession of doubt has reached a critical stage;\nsince in experience apparently at its very worst, as if in a medley of\ndiscords we have caught a promise of real harmony, and so something from\nwhich to get genuine hope. In the very habit of duplicity or\ncontradiction we have again and again had suggestion of an agent of\nvalidity, a power for adequacy in experience, which would hold even a\nphenomenal, relative, partial experience to a real world. In short,\nreally the strongest reason for doubt is possibly a ground of belief;\nor, as was said in substance at the close of the foregoing chapter, the\nvery experience of which we are already confirmed doubters is, after\nall, just the experience which we seem to see our way to believing in.\n\nSince the time of the great Leibnitz, and probably since the time\nself-conscious man drew his first breath, all genuine optimism has\ncaught its most assuring vision of what was good, not in something quite\napart from what was evil, but in and through evil itself, as if what is\nevil must be ever building better than it seems or than it knows. Very\nmuch as mathematics has viewed the negative quantity as an integral part\nof the whole system of quantities, so in the person of\nLeibnitz--statesman, historian, scientist, mathematician, and\nphilosopher--and I imagine in the person also of you or me, though we\nmay not claim the same [p.134] authority, the human mind has been wise\nand deep enough to see evil, representing all the negative things of\nlife as an organic part of the best possible world, even of the world\ncreated by an infinite God. At least since Leibnitz's time, I say,\noptimism has generally justified itself, not by denial of evil in the\nworld, but in and through evil. Not long ago a young man who was perhaps\nmore profound and reflective in his habits of mind than wise in his\nmanner of statement, said to me that the most spiritual truth as yet\ndisclosed to him was the identity of God with the devil. A shocking\ndeclaration, of course; yet, to say the least, not very far from the\nvery spiritual idea, welcome to most, if not to all, that the conviction\nof sin is the beginning of salvation, or that the consciousness of\nignorance is the very ground of wisdom. And here, similarly, belief\nwithin doubt, not belief apart from doubt, or validity and reality only\nin a contradictory experience, not aloof from a contradictory\nexperience, is the sum and substance of what our confession has\ncertainly been leading towards.\n\nNothing, it is indeed true, so blasts a man's assurance as to have his\nideas and arguments on a certain matter, or on matters in general,\nexposed as defective, and worst of all as positively inconsistent, and\nwith his discomfiture human nature must always entertain the warmest\nkind of sympathy. In fact, upon just this sympathy I have been depending\nin the development of the argument of this book. But human nature,\nhowever sympathetic, is really superior to any momentary discomfiture,\nand most if not all men sooner or later come to value highly [p.135]\neven their once discomfiting inconsistencies. \"I am glad,\" we seem to\nhear a fellow-being say, \"that after all, in spite of myself, I did\nrecognize the other side. You abused me and called me double; yet so\ndoing you were double too. I see now that my duplicity saved me, not,\nhowever, for your view or for another's, but for the both-sided and\ntrue, which we both shared and served\"; and exactly such a reflection on\nthe inconsistencies of experiences, in their less or in their more\nfundamental manifestations, is the burden of the present chapter. Again,\nto one who complained that with every breath he took he had to\ncontradict himself, respiration being as necessary to his breathing as\ninspiration, just as in walking falling is as necessary as rising, we\nmight properly and satisfactorily reply: \"You are really alive, sir,\"\nand just this answer is also quite pertinent to any who might be\ndisposed in their doubting to despair over the essential duplicity of\nhuman experience. Is not experience more than any one idea or any one\nideal? Being really alive, is it not infinitely more than this or that\nthing, than this or that place or time, than this or that power or will,\nthan this or that point of view? And, if more, what so surely as\nuniversal duplicity and self-opposition can ensure at once its vitality\nand its integrity?\n\nI am not forgetting or wishing my readers to forget that there are other\ndefects in experience besides this of self-opposition, besides\nexperience's habit of never failing to induce its own conflicts; but no\ndefect seems to me so central or so conclusive as this, and none is at\nthe same time so clear in its testimony to the intimacy of doubt and\nbelief. [p.136] Subjectivity, relativity, phenomenality, artificiality,\npartiality, and instability--certainly an imposing and appalling list,\nthough logically I must suspect it of being at least a\ncross-division--are all noteworthy defects; but supposing the list exact\nand complete, we must recognize that all these either beget\ncontradiction or are begotten by it. Contradiction is just the life or\nthe heart of the interesting family to which they belong, and so in\napplying our thinker's stethoscope to that heart we shall have\ndetermined the hold upon life of the whole race.\n\nNow, there are five things, some of them already foreseen, that seem\nworth saying here of the essential habit of self-contradiction, and they\nseem worth saying because so effectively and so comprehensively they\nwarrant the conclusion that even upon our strongest reason for doubt we\nmay rest a genuine case for belief.\n\nThus, for the first of the five, contradiction incites and even in\nitself implies movement; it requires, or positively it is, action. As a\nmode of thinking, as a logical form, it is the way, perhaps the only\npossible way, in which the mind can, so to speak, make a cross-section\nor take a picture of activity or give the semblance of fixity, the\nformal appearance of static nature, to what is dynamic. The photographer\ntrying for a portrait of reality might ask it only to look pleasant, but\nthe logician, for whom reality was essentially dynamic, would demand\nmanifest opposition, for in no other way could his art, limited to\nconditions of rest,[1] [p.137] be equal to its subject. Where experience\nis contradictory, then, there is movement, whether for that which is\nknown or for him that has the knowledge. In your character or mine, so\nlike a lover's unselfish selfishness in its apparent inconsistencies, in\nour double views about reality or unity or law, in a\nsubjective-objective science, in an agnostic philosophy, in all these\nthe contradictions are only the marks of essential unrest, of necessary\nmovement, that make the picture possible. For a world of opposites there\ncan be no peace. The very things opposed are themselves fluent and\nunstable, and that third something, the _tertium quid_, a picture of\nwhich the opposition tries to be or to which the things opposed\nnecessarily point, belongs, as Alice in Wonderland seems to have\ndiscovered, to yesterday or to-morrow, never to to-day.\n\nBut, secondly, contradiction, at least as here understood, is an\nexpression, or in experience a means to the expression, as well as to\nthe maintenance, of real unity. In general this is because real unity\ncannot take sides, and so can never reside in anything that is, but must\nrather be served by the co-operation of all things and in particular by\ntheir mutually corrective or balancing differences. This no doubt will\nappear to some readers as just one more example of a philosopher's\nimpossible subtleties, as a mountain with its top in so rare an\natmosphere that the common man would not dare to climb it if he could.\nYet, suppose together we rise to the heights of this seeming\nimpossibility by a little unprejudiced study of the conditions,\nremembering that the summits of very wonderful mountains, plainly\nimpossible of ascent, have often been reached [p.138] from the other\nside, and that difficulties of breathing are often due to a needless\nexhaustion. To take a first step, then, contradiction is only\ndifference, or contrast, at its limit. Naturally there is some\nopposition, some mutual resistance, in all difference, in that, for\nexample, between one man and another, or one thing and another, between\nreligion and art, red and green, or warm and hot, and often the\ndifference or the opposition seems very slight; but contradiction, so\ncalled, is only this difference abstracted and unrestrained--it is\ndifference at its worst or best, difference as only opposition, or, once\nmore, difference where any possible unity of the things opposed has lost\nall material ground or all chance of actual, visible form, and has\nbecome, accordingly, at most merely an empty, abstract principle.\nContradiction, then, is difference so wide that unity seems wholly\nbetrayed rather than served or maintained. A real unity, however,\nrequires for its realization just the freedom from material form or\nground which such extreme difference would force upon it. It therefore\ngains instead of losing reality by passing into the world of the\nmaterially and visibly empty and abstract, or, say, by leaving behind\nany hope of a finite residence and entering the sphere of the infinite,\nto which difference, or at least contradiction, so cordially invites--or\nexpels--it. And, this being true, we can see how unity is served or\nmaintained, as was said, by the contradictions of experience.\n\nCommonly men have an idea that differences mean, or point to, unity, but\nthey are more likely to suppose that the unity is by mere contrast or\nantithesis than [p.139] clearly to recognize that it is a most intimate\nfact of the differences themselves. They will even see in a number of\nthings only so many varying aspects of some one thing, and will go so\nfar as to look upon the aspects as actually enriching and deepening the\nunity, but they still fail fully to appreciate how the real unity is\nimmanent and immediate in the differences. Again, in all their thinking\nthey contrast, and may consciously observe that they contrast, only\nobjects or people that really have something in common, comparing, on\nthe other hand, only such as in some way are manifestly different, and\nin their practical affairs they compete only with those who with them\nare parties to one and the same life, a fundamental sympathy, indeed,\nbeing a necessary condition of their rivalry, and actually and actively\nhate only the beings whom because of a common humanity they might love;\nbut here, too, their appreciation lags behind the fact.\n\nIn life generally, moreover, in small things and in large, extremes do\nhave the habit of meeting. A man's virtues are so near to his vices. The\nwidest variations in things are only relatively at variance. Even what\nis cold is somewhat warm. Nothing is absolutely anything. In history a\nsingle ideal, rising to influence, has always divided men into two\nopposing camps. Witness the fact of bipartisanship, not in politics\nalone, but in all of life's interests. Democrats and Republicans,\nRadicals and Conservatives alike have loved their country and honoured\ntheir country's flag and, regardless of party, their country's heroes or\npatriots. Epicureans and Stoics--in recent times or long ago--have found\nthe same life worth living. The [p.140] Roman Law and the Roman Holiday,\nworking together, like the right and the left hand, different yet in\nsympathy, made the great empire. Two men, furthermore, in active, open\nconflict are in truth at serious difference with each other; but, as\nthey might even say, if their conflict were in the form of a debate,\nwhere words instead of fists or pistols were the weapons, in the bare,\nunapplied principle involved, or say in the abstract, in the final\nsuccess of whichever is the \"best man,\" they do and they must agree.\nSimply throughout this life of ours there has been and there can be no\nidealism without conflict and no conflict, whatever the issue or the\nmanner, without common weapons, which means, too, without some common\nrelationship and some common interest. As for the idealism, too, what is\nit but a demand for real unity? And the common weapons, or for quite\ngeneral purposes, the common forms in which a conflict or an opposition\nis expressed, as if the hiding-place of unity, perhaps a sleeping unity,\nonly indicate in the very differences a basis, a potential of agreement,\neven an earnest of an underlying and sometimes awakening accord. So,\ntruly, in life at large extremes do meet. But commonly men recognize at\nmost only that they meet, without realizing that their difference is\nintrinsic to a real unity.\n\nWhere unity is real, then, there must be infinite difference, and\ninfinite difference is just what the contradictions of experience impose\nupon experience and make it responsible to. Infinite difference gives to\neverything an opposite and to all things unity; to every man a rival and\nto human society, as a whole, solidarity. Against the material it sets\nthe spiritual; against [p.141] the particular, the general; against the\nsubjective, the objective; against the living, the dead; against the\nlawful, the lawless; against the caused, the uncaused; and to all these,\nthe spiritual and the material, the subjective and the objective, the\nliving and the dead, the lawful and the lawless, the caused and the\nuncaused, it gives place in a perfect unity; not, of course, in any\nmaterial unity, since such unity could not be perfect, but nevertheless\nin a real unity.\n\nFor our first step, therefore, in the ascent of that \"impossible\nsubtlety,\" contradiction is only difference at its greatest limit; for\nthe second, difference in general, whether partial or extreme, marks an\nunderlying, or more precisely an indwelling unity; and for the last\nstep, real unity is served, not betrayed by difference. Moreover, the\nwider the difference, the nearer it be to positive contradiction or\nopposition, the more conclusive and effective is the service. Remember,\nreal unity can never take sides; in the world of things it must be\nalways both-sided. It cannot be here or there, now and then--be the then\nin the past or in the future, this or that. In the words, used of truth,\nperhaps an appropriate refrain for this book, it can have neither\nvisible form nor body, neither habitation nor name; like the Son of Man,\nit cannot have where to lay its head. The particular opposition of life\nand death affords a peculiarly serviceable illustration, for it is, of\ncourse, at the bottom of many of the most searching paradoxes of our\nhuman experience. Real life cannot be confined to any single organic\nform or to any single group of organic forms. In fact, it cannot be\nbound even to the organic as commonly distinguished from the [p.142]\ninorganic world. So for the biologist, very much as for the theologian,\nwhenever life takes a residence, death must ensue sooner or later. Life\nand death, then, as opposites, become the medium of real life. But not\nonly have we here a helpful illustration, also we have a suggestion that\nshould prevent an easy misunderstanding. In general, as so plainly in\nthis special case, the opposition, so necessary to reality in\nexperience, to a real life or to any real unity, can itself be complete\nand effective, not through any single instance of extreme difference,\nnot through the opposition of just two distinct things, but only through\nan accumulation or summation of all possible instances, so to speak,\nfrom difference at zero to difference at infinity. In fact, a real\nopposition or rather a truly infinite difference, could be only in such\na sum. Not the single climax of death, but the constant dying, to which\nit is only a climax, is what makes real the opposition of life and death\nand makes this the medium, as was said, of the real life. Death must\nconstantly condition all the movements and processes of life: it must\nhave all possible degrees. And, in like manner, extreme difference at\nlarge, just to be real itself and to make for real unity, must be in and\nthrough all possible degrees of difference. In other words, the perfect\nopposition, or contradiction, upon which reality depends, like the\nperfect death, is rather a continuum than the wide gap, or chasm, which\nso many have thought it; it is a graduate difference, not a single\ncataclysmic difference. Difference in gradation or degree, I have\nsometimes heard it said, is not real difference; but this statement,\nthough by no means without warrant or meaning, is [p.143] misleading.\nSurely a cataclysmic difference, a \"difference in kind,\" can be only one\nfinite case of difference; the negative, or opposition, in it can be\nonly relative; whereas, when in degree, difference becomes necessarily\ninfinite. Accordingly, as we must not forget, from this point on through\nthe remainder of this book, the contradiction of which we have been\nthinking and which we have found infecting experience at every turn, is\nnot, what at first and even second thought it may have seemed, just an\nopposition of two things; between its lines, as it were, it is inclusive\nof, or maintained by, all the manifold and various things in life and\nconsciousness; it is the completed, short-circuited sum of an infinite\nseries. An infinitely many-sided world is the only world that can claim\nreal unity, and a world of such real unity is the world to which the\nhabit of contradiction, which we have observed, relates our human\nexperience.\n\nSo far, then, in estimating the possible value of this central and\nessential defect of experience, we have found that it implies action and\nthat it makes for, or testifies to, real unity. Now, thirdly, perhaps\nonly to enlarge upon what has just been said, contradiction is an\nabsolutely effective correction of narrowness or partiality or\nrelativity or one-sidedness in life or consciousness, and so it makes\nexperience not abstract, but realistic. This is in truth only another\nview of the worth of contradiction to integrity and vitality, to unity\nand reality, but it would emphasize, what is very interesting at least\nto the metaphysician, and cannot fail to be of some interest to the\nmoralist and the theologian, that where there is real unity there\n[p.144] is also true reality. Only the One is. The One and Being are the\nsame. There can be but one substance, as also but one God. So men have\nsaid in effect throughout the ages, and where they have conceded reality\nor substantial character to manifoldness, the concession has simply\nconcealed a reassertion, but with fuller and deeper meaning, of the\nintimacy of unity with reality. What makes for real unity or wholeness,\nthen, must impart realistic character, giving actual contact and\nintimacy with just that of which, so to speak, the world is made. Now\nindividual things or ideas always show life suffering in some measure\nunder tangential digressions from the circle of its real wholeness, and\nonly opposition can save them or can preserve the reality to which they\nboth belong and contribute. Has not Emerson, among many others, declared\nwith a cogency and a depth of meaning which quite defy the\nsuperficiality and levity attractive to a few, that mere consistency is\nnarrow and confining? Any particular view-point or idea or ideal, any\nparticular thing or activity, simply needs an opposite to balance the\nabstraction or digression which being particular must always involve.\nParticularity, specific individuality, is certainly a necessary\ncondition of real worth in life, but with an equal necessity there could\nbe no life, no conservation and wholeness of life if the particular,\nindividual things stood unchallenged in the world, and no realistic\nexperience, if experience were not thus paradoxical and divided against\nitself. Life, therefore, gets not only movement and unity from the\ncontradictions that lie at the very heart of experience, but in getting\nunity it gets also contact [p.145] with reality, and the three together\nmay be summed up in the one word poise. Montaigne marvelled at the\nhopeless folly of mankind as compared with the wisdom of God, but man's\nfolly is divided against itself and so imbued with God's wisdom; and\nwith countless others he saw the ideas of man to be only subjective and\nunsubstantial and irresponsible, but man's ideas, though fanciful and\nillusory, though subjective and imaginative, work against each other for\nwhat is real and substantial. Man's ideas co-operate for their own\ncorrection and so for communion or intimacy with a character that is not\nless substantial or responsible than that of God himself.\n\nAnd so, fourthly, the contradictions of experience make experience\nsupremely practical. They make it practical just because they make\nrealistic, or substantial, an experience which without them would be\nabstract and only relative and \"phenomenal.\" Possibly this is the\nhardest thing of all to apprehend, or at least to express\nsatisfactorily. Yet the fact, to which I keep returning, that only the\nboth-sided in everyday matters or in science or in any form of positive\nexperience can accord with reality and its wholeness, is assuredly quite\nto the point. In practical life there always are, and emphatically there\nalways must be, two sides, to every thing, to every question. In\npractical life, too, or at any rate in all effective activity, there\nalways is, and emphatically there always must be, something very like to\nleadership; but any truly practical leadership, any leadership that is\nall along the lines of life, be it of things, ideas, persons, or social\nclasses or parties, can never be confined to a [p.146] single individual\nrepresentative, but must be instead a leadership of many. No thoroughly\npractical leadership, I say, can ever be on one side or the other, but\ninstead of being one-sided it must be both-sided, or rather, infinitely\nmany-sided; it must be between or among all the different and opposed\nindividuals; it must lie, perhaps in a sense sleep, in rivalry and\ncompetition. There can be no visible leader, whose leadership is wholly\npractical, whether of things or realities--for the metaphysician--or of\nideas or categories--for the logician--or of persons or classes--for the\nstatesman or the moralist or the theologian. Metaphysical reality, the\ntruly practical and realistic knowledge, the political supremacy which\nis complete and inclusive, or the wholly moral life or the divine life\nmust forever be secured, not through a single manifestation presiding\nover the others, but through the divided labour of them all. Yes, real\nleadership, like real unity in general, is a divided labour; it is a\nlabour that effects successful co-operation through its very differences\nand conflicts: for reality, a labour perhaps of different \"elements\" or\n\"entities\"; for knowledge, of different ideas and standpoints; for\nmorals, of different standards; for politics, of different parties and\nplatforms; for divinity, of different Gods; and for life at large, a\nlabour of infinite differences, which means also a labour of opposites,\nthat at once develop and correct each other to the glory of that which\nis real and practical.\n\nIt would be peculiarly interesting to examine further this principle of\na practical, truly realistic experience ensured to human life through\nthe inner [p.147] conflicts of experience. The history of morals and\nethics, for example, notably of the perennial conflict between hedonism\nand idealism, could not but cast a good deal of light upon it; and the\nhistory of political struggles, or the history of the great\ncontroversies in science--such as that between vitalism and\nanti-vitalism or that between atomism and energism; or in philosophy,\nbetween dualism and monism; or in theology, between naturalism and\nsupernaturalism, would also be most illuminating; while, also perhaps\nappealing only to the few, in the logic of the negative, as it has\ndeveloped from the earliest times, or in psychological theory--for\nexample, in the dispute of the advocates of the innervation theory and\nthe afferent theory, or in Hering's theory of vision, or, again, in the\nlife and movement of any one of the time-worn paradoxes of popular or\nscientific or philosophical ideas, one might expect to find suggestive\nillustration. In philosophy, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Zeno, Socrates,\nSpinoza, Kant, and Hegel have all found negation, or contradiction,\nnecessary to any adequate account of reality. Explorations, however, in\ntheir teachings or along any of the paths that were suggested, would\nlead us too far astray.\n\nFifthly, then, not only do the contradictions make experience realistic\nand so practical, but also they make it essentially social. A life or an\nexperience that is contradictory has (1) movement, (2) unity or\nintegrity, (3) reality and poise, and (4) practicality; and then it has\nbesides, as if the medium through which these four things are sustained,\n(5) social character, society being only the visible expression, the\n[p.148] outer realization, of the both-sidedness, of the infinitely\ndifferential unity or the divided labour, which an active, yet\nthoroughly self-controlled, truly realistic, practical experience\nrequires. In a former chapter, it will be readily recalled, an impulse\nto social life was found to be intimately connected with the attitude of\ndoubt, and here clearly we are confronted with only another view of the\nsame fact, since contradiction has become our most cogent reason for\ndoubt and is now seen to require the social relations. An individual\nwhose experience is ever divided against itself is, _ipso facto_, a\nsocial character, his social environment, whether in its narrowest or\nbroadest manifestation, adding nothing to his nature or to the struggles\nof that nature, but only making the division against himself constantly\nand manifestly real. The social environment, as it were, just proves the\nman, his struggle and all, to himself. Some have agreed that the\nindividual consciousness contained nothing on which to ground a positive\ncase for society, for direct positive social interest; but so long as\nman's experience is necessarily paradoxical or contradictory, so long as\nman is divided against himself, or as the labour of life and reality is\na divided labour, the case for society and for personal interest in\nsociety is clear and conclusive. A basis for society lies in the very\nnature of experience. Society is not something added to individuality\nfrom without.\n\nLet us here beware of easy sentiment. Let not our thinking conjure false\nsweetness and light. Experience is truly and essentially social; the\nindividual was not meant to dwell alone; but herein is no immediate\n[p.149] cure-all, no promise of an unperturbed brotherly love, of a life\nfor one and all of simple peace and blissful quietude. On such a plan\nsociety would hardly suit the individual with whom, and with whose\nnatural experience, we have become acquainted. To speak with the\nextravagance of a counter-sentimentalism, the individual of our present\nacquaintance is forever spoiling for a fight. In the life of the society\nto which he belongs; in the life where he watches for his incoming ship,\nthere must always be hate and evil in all their forms, lawlessness and\ndestruction, illusion and error; but--and just here sentiment, the\nsentiment of a really searching optimism, called once before a\nsacrificial and heroic optimism, may find some assurance--never an\nunmixed hate, never a wholly idle destruction, never an unmeaning error.\nCan anything, indeed, that has another thing against it--that has, in\nshort, an opposite--ever be itself unmixed? The good or the evil in\nsociety, being always opposed, is always also shared. So few people\nrecognize, or appreciate, what a great mixer opposition is. Death is the\npassing only of inadequate or unworthy life. Hate witnesses only a false\nlove; sin, a pharisaical righteousness. Destruction marks an imperfect\nconstruction. And in all its forms, evil is not so much something in and\nby itself as an exposure and reproach of what is supposed to be\nunmixedly good. Public crime, for example, is not so local as it\nappears; it is only a generally, widely private vice made locally\nmanifest, and the respectable and law-abiding, who adjudge it evil, are\nbound to feel as if adjudging and condemning themselves. In a word, the\nindividual's natural society [p.149] is never without evil, but in all\nits forms the evil has somewhat of good in it; and although social life,\nnot less than individual life, must be one of conflict and discord,\nnevertheless, because the various factors or factions, however opposed,\ncan never be unmixed, because the members of society must all be good\nand bad, right and wrong--I almost said living and dead\ntogether--instead of being hopeless for having evil in it, the life of\nsociety is so much the more worth living. Shallow sentimentalism may not\nso esteem it, but we need give little thought to shallow sentimentalism.\n\nSo our use of the word \"society\" is not sentimental. Society means\nconflict. It is just the natural sphere of life and reality as for ever\na divided labour, as for ever divided and laborious--divided even\nbetween the powers for supposed good and for adjudged evil, and through\nthe conflicts, in which the division is expressed, what is true and good\nand vital is being forever kept real. Or, to repeat, society is the\nnatural medium through which movement, unity or integrity, poise and\nreality, and practicality are secured and realized in human experience;\nit is that which makes the individual's division against himself\nmanifestly real and positively and progressively effective for a life,\nyes, for his life, at once of vitality and perfect wholeness.\n\nBut now that the five things are said, now that the contradictions of\nexperience have been seen to serve experience by giving it movement,\nunity, poise, practical reality and social character, somebody is sure\nto remark facetiously that on the evidence contradiction is something we\nshould all cultivate assiduously, and [p.151] that henceforth to face\nboth ways, the butt of so much opprobrium, should be one of man's\ngreatest ideals; in brief, that the inconsistent creatures in politics,\nmorals, and theology are the coming examples for mankind. Verily the\ndevil has been given his promised \"character.\" But, alas! in the spirit\nof such startling humour one would have to conclude also that because\ncrime has beyond all question been a means of social development, being\nall-important to the awakening of the social consciousness and\nconscience, all men should at once take thought and find it their duty\nto turn criminals; or, again, that because death has a fundamental part\nin the order of nature and is, moreover, of greatest spiritual worth and\nsignificance, we should all morbidly seek it, being successfully\nrighteous only by being suicides. True, we do need to recognize the\npositive function of crime in the progress of civilization, or in the\nhistory of law, and also to be aware of crime as a possibility in our\nown lives, and we need to be ready to die and to feel besides that dying\nwe are far from losing all that is worth having, but to court crime or\nto seek death would certainly be to deprive either of the very worth\nwhich has made it significant. And in much the same way we may very\nprofitably recognize contradiction or controversy, whether personal or\nsocial, as a necessary condition of all valid experience, but not on\nthat account are we to cultivate what is contradictory, to be always\nblindly spoiling for a contradiction. Like crime or death, if directly\ncourted, contradiction would lose its peculiar effectiveness. The\nboth-sidedness or the all-sidedness, which at once develops and\nconserves human life, is only [p.152] that which is maintained with a\ntenacious, even with a would-be consistent loyalty to each and every\nside.\n\nSo, although grossly misused if directly courted, this defect of\nexperience has its place, even its ideal value, in experience, and what\non the surface seemed an almost if not quite hopeless reason for doubt,\nhas truly become all but transfigured, seeming now a source of real\nassurance. With Heraclitus of old, only perhaps seeing even more than he\nsaw, we can glory in a world of strife. Doubting all things, we can yet\nbelieve that all things work together for what is real, for what is\ngood.\n\nBut let me now put the result, so far secured, of our confession of\ndoubt in a new way. For a life in which every thing has an opposite,\nevery idea a counter-idea, truth very plainly, as has indeed been\nfrequently said, cannot be a specific consciousness nor reality a fixed\nthing. Truth is not a creed, but a spirit. Reality is not a thing, but a\nlife. And for being a spirit truth is only the more realistic? For being\na life, reality is only the more substantial. Perfection, too, even the\nPerfect One, with whom we associate the true and the real, is no\nparticular separate being in a certain established exclusive status, at\nonce infinitely and passively excellent, but a power ever dwelling in\nthe strife that makes for movement and poise. For being such a power,\ntoo, he is only more surely perfect, only more certainly infinite and\nexcellent.\n\nSuch terms as spirit, life, and power are confessedly somewhat dangerous\nterms to use. Especially the first is liable to misunderstanding. Yet,\nwhatever [p.153] common usage may be, when I say that truth is not a\ncreed but a spirit, that reality is not a thing but a power, the\nreference is directly to that agent or principle of validity which has\nbeen found to hold our experience, naturally so faulty, to contact and\nintimacy with the real world. A spirit of truth, a principle of validity\nthere is, to which the very faults of experience give witness, and in\nview of this we who doubt, who doubt the particular things, the creeds\nand the objects generally, the definite forms and ideas, the habits and\nstandpoints of our everyday life or our scientific theory, may yet\nbelieve; we may believe in the real spirit, or power, which makes all\nthings parties to the divided labour of a real life.[2]\n\n\n[1] This limitation is shown, for example, in the logical principle of\nidentity.\n\n[2] The worth assigned in this chapter to the contradictions of\nexperience involves a standpoint which apparently is at variance with\nthat of Mr. F.H. Bradley, whose book, _Appearance and Reality_, has\noccupied such an important place in the philosophical study and\ncontroversy of the last ten years. Of course, here is not the place for\nfinal criticism of Mr. Bradley, since the present examination of doubt\nis no such scrutiny of experience as his; it is far short of what would\nmake a complete philosophical argument. Nevertheless, a word or two\nexpressing the nature of the difference between his view and the view\nadvocated here can hardly be impertinent. Thus, if I read him rightly,\nMr. Bradley has argued from the paradoxes of experience to the complete,\nhopeless phenomenality of experience, while in this study of doubt the\nargument has been from the paradoxes of experience to a thoroughly\nrealistic experience. Again, Mr. Bradley's Absolute is able to include\nthe phenomenal, the relative and contradictory, only because this is so\nunsubstantial as to offer no resistance, while here there has not even\nbeen any question of inclusion. _All experience_, our position has been,\n_is informed with reality; its very contradictions hold an otherwise\nphenomenal, relative, changing experience close down to a real world_;\nand this position, I repeat, is at variance with what Mr. Bradley has\n_seemed_ to say. See, however, a short article, \"Relativity and\nReality,\" in the _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific\nMethods_, Vol. I, No. 24, November, 1904.\n\n\n\n[p.154]\n\nVII.\n\nTHE PERSONAL AND THE SOCIAL, THE VITAL AND THE FORMAL IN EXPERIENCE.\n\n\nContrasts such as those in the title of the present chapter, the\npersonal and the social, the vital and the formal, or instrumental, are\nalways dangerous to clear thinking, and yet in spite of the danger no\nthinking can avoid them. They can be only relatively true; the terms in\nwhich they are couched cannot fail, sooner or later, from one standpoint\nor another, to make an exchange of the very things to which they apply,\nsince opposition, as must be remembered, is always a most effective\nmixer, and therefore they can only punctuate the naturally chiaroscuro\ncharacter that belongs to all articulate thinking. Nevertheless, used\nwith self-control, they are distinctly serviceable.\n\nIn our recent dismission of the value of the essential defects of\nexperience, and particularly when we came to associate social character\nwith the habit of contradiction, a contrast of the personal and the\nsocial was very plainly implied, and some special attention to this\ncontrast, I feel sure, will help us to comprehend more fully what was\nsaid at the time, and will be of great advantage also to our general\npurpose. It was [p.155] said that society was nothing alien, or\nadditional, to the nature of the individual, that a basis for society\nlay in the very nature of experience, that so long as man was divided\nagainst himself and the labour of life and reality was necessarily a\ndivided labour, the case both for society and for personal interest in\nsociety was clear and conclusive; but this was not fully to define the\nparts that are played by the individual person and the social group in\nthe development and maintenance of human life. Some, for example, would\nfear more for the safety of the individual or the person than for that\nof society; and just in recognition of their fear, we honest doubters,\nwho are now also at least potential believers, must look to our\ndefences.\n\nLong ago Plato drew an analogy of the soul or self, of the human\nindividual, to society, and so, too, Aristotle, though not to society,\nbut much more broadly to all nature, and the one analogy or the other\nhas had a good deal of fascination, not to say intellectual inspiration,\nfor thinking men ever since. Yet, so far as I am aware, at least one of\nthe implications of the idea has never been fully stated or appraised,\nand this is much to be wondered at, since there is involved a strong\ncase for both the personal and the social in the maintenance of\nexperience.[1]\n\nPlato found reason, will, and sensuous nature in the individual and\nanalogously a thinking or law-making class, an official or military\nclass, and an industrial or [p.156] appetitive class in society; and\nAristotle, in very much the same way, found the parts of the individual\nsoul analogous to the vegetable, animal, and rational kingdoms of\nnature, and either of these analogies is simple enough and reasonable\nenough to be formally understood, if not at once wholly appreciated,\nwith its mere statement. Still, in order to be sure of appreciation, in\norder especially to get the reflected light on the relation between\nindividual and society, we must look to the facts and conditions which\nare presented very closely.\n\nTo begin with, such an analogy, dealing as it does with the relation of\na part to the whole, has and should have, for a reason not hard to find,\nthe freedom of the city of logic. Other than logical approval of it\nmight be cited. Biology and sociology and psychology might be called in\nto give testimony. And out of the past, the more recent past at least as\nknown to the historian of philosophy, Leibnitz with his _lex analogi\u00e6_,\nor for that matter with the general import of his monadology, might be\nappealed to. But without tarrying for assistance from these quarters,\nhighly respectable though they are, I make a simple, yet perhaps timely\nand--with apologies for so much emotion--soul-satisfying reference to\nthe logic in the case, for after all biology and sociology and\npsychology are always under the restraints of logic, as well as\nalliterated with it; nor does the evidence of logic depend on mere\ntechnical acquaintance with given sets of facts. Thus, in these\nenlightened days, to say nothing of Plato's time or Aristotle's, how can\nthe true part of anything ever dare [p.157] not to have an analogy, even\na \"part-for-part\" or \"one-to-one\" correspondence to the whole in which\nit is comprised? And--this being, as in due time will appear, quite as\nimportant--how can a whole, be it society or nature or anything else,\never have parts without having also, actually or potentially, parts\nwithin its parts? In fact, given any divided whole, and the division,\nhowever far it may be carried, will always involve at least these three\ntypical factors: (1) The individual as the part still undivided, though\nat the same time necessarily inwardly alive with the self-same\ndifferential operation to which it has owed its origin; (2) the\ngroup-part or class, which for the convenience of the adjective form may\nbe known also as the faction, and which was so important to Plato in his\nanalogy of the individual to a class-divided society; and (3) the\nall-inclusive whole. And among these factors in all possible ways--that\nis, even between individual and individual, or individual and group or\ngroup and group, as well as between either individual or group and\nwhole--an analogy in terms of all the various elements of the original\ndifferential operation will persist. Such, almost truistically, though\nalso perhaps somewhat subtly for ordinary purposes, is the logical\ncondition of division or differentiation. Difference, like its limit\nopposition, is thus a great mixer, and division can be no mere\nseparation or isolation of parts. The saying comes to my mind from\nsomewhere, that though division may reveal distinct vertebr\u00e6, the\nvertebra always conceal a spinal cord.\n\nAnalogy, however, although thus universal, although [p.158] applicable,\nas said, in all of the possible ways, must itself share in, must be\nquite under the spell of, the differentiation; it must have as many\nvarious forms as it has expressions. In every expression the relation\nmust indeed be one of analogy, but it can never be of the same order or\ndegree. That of the individual to the group or faction must be\nqualitatively distinct from all others, say from that of the individual\neither to another individual or to the all-inclusive whole. Nor can the\nmuch used and frequently abused distinction between small and large\nwritings, as when history is taken as a large writing of personal\nbiography or a social institution of some special phase of personal\ncharacter, adequately represent the differentiation here in mind.\nConsider how various, internally and externally, are all the terms among\nwhich the analogies obtain. Thus, as of direct interest here, factional\ndifferences are bound to be sharper or wider, they are inevitably more\ndeeply set and more openly exclusive of each other than individual\ndifferences, and in consequence the faction is, not indeed absolutely,\nbut characteristically special or particularistic. Perhaps because of\nits intermediate position between the individual, which is the whole\nimplicitly and potentially, and the completely inclusive environment,\nwhich is the whole actually and definitely or explicitly, it is, so to\nspeak, significantly only one among many, instead of being, as in the\ncase of each of the extremes, many in one. It conspicuously appropriates\na particular character, and while not excluding any of the other\ncharacters which are incident to its own special production, it includes\nthese on the whole only in a negative way, in [p.159] the way in which\nopposition includes what opposes it or action the reaction it always\nimplies or in general any different thing the thing or things from which\nit is different. The extremes, however, as was said, are each \"many in\none,\" though in different ways. The individual, being still only\npotentially divided and being, as it were, the latest residence of the\nprimary operation, is always in some measure directly and positively\nactive with all the different factors of the operation, and this in\nspite of the restraints of any particular class-affiliation, and the\nwhole, though macro-cosmic with respect to the microcosmic individual,\nis at the same time qualitatively distinct, as distinct at least as the\nexplicit from the implicit, the actual from the potential. Whatever a\nmerely formal logic might say, a real logic requires that at most\nmicrocosm and macrocosm are only metaphors of each other. Even their\ndifference of size would be quite enough to differentiate them at least\nas sharply as the difference of size differentiated imperial Rome from\nher prototype the Greek City-State. Can the whole and the part be one or\nmany or many in one, can they be real or alive or conscious, can they be\nmaterial, can they be personal, can they be anything whatsoever in\nqualitatively the same way? Men have often seemed to think so, but\nwithout any good reason. The faction, then, the individual and the\nwhole, are qualitatively different expressions of the elements of the\noperation that has made them; and their relations, always dependent on\nanalogy, must be various accordingly.\n\nBut now, to leave these questions of logic and to turn directly to the\ncase for both personality and [p.160] society, no idea can be more\nimmediately useful to us than that of what is often styled the unity of\nexperience. Of course this unity, as it is real, must meet just those\ntests of reality, or of a real unity, that we have already remarked, but\nwithin the limits of a definition the unity of experience is neither\nmore nor less than the totality of human relations. It is the\nexperience-whole comprising all the phases of human nature; in other\nwords, all the actual or possible relations of man to nature in general,\nor all the manifold states and activities, stages and events, however\ndifferent, however seemingly contradictory, in human life. A real unity,\nas we know, being denied local habitation and a name, is necessarily a\nthoroughly differential unity; and human nature is analyzable in an\nindefinite number of ways. It is, to illustrate, physical, mental, and\nspiritual, or more elaborately, it is athletic, industrial, political,\nintellectual, moral, \u00e6sthetic, and religious, and in its social life has\ndeveloped institutions answering to these different phases of itself. It\nis, again, lawful and lawless, old and young, conservative and radical,\nsympathetic and selfish. But whatever the mode of analysis or division\nor dichotomy, the unity of experience embraces all the elements,\naspects, or relations that are discovered. In a word, even in the\nlanguage of the simple logic indicated above, the unity of experience is\nonly the all-inclusive whole, but here without regard to any distinction\nbetween what is actual or explicit and what is potential or implicit,\nout of which has sprung the differential operation that has made human\nsociety and human history, that has given rise to a manifest [p.161]\nsocial life, to the social class or faction and to the individual\nperson.\n\nAnd the person as the real individual, as the part that is still\nundivided, and that is therefore in itself quick with the differential\noperation, is thus the living, integral exponent of the unity of\nexperience. He is, above all, its unformed or untethered vitality. In\nhim every phase or part of what is possible in human nature moves with\nsome power. He is religious, political, industrial; or spiritual,\nintellectual, and physical; or good and bad, conservative and radical,\nall in one; and characteristically he is each and all of these without\nthe restraints of such visible forms or rites as now and again may\nbecome instrumental to their expression. Hence the familiar idea of the\nuniversality, which is identical with the indeterminate character, of\nany side of human nature; of the political side, for example, or the\nreligious or the physiological, of the lawful or of the lawless. Not any\nparticular political status, nor any particular religion, nor any\nparticular body is universal, but the political or the religious or the\nphysiological is universal--as universal, to repeat, as it is\nindeterminate. Not any particular lawfulness or lawlessness, but the\nlawful or the lawless is universal. Personally, just to sum up what has\nbeen said, all individuals are all things in one, and this idea, as it\nis understood, should correct that erroneous treatment of individualism,\nwhether as a movement in the life of society or even as an incident of\nthe scientific method of induction, to which reference was made in the\ndiscussion of the rise of science.[2]\n\n[p.162] But the story of personality cannot be told by itself. Whatever\nthe person may be characteristically, he is never that alone, and before\nany estimate of all that he is or of all that enters into his life can\nbe attained, attention must be turned to society, the other horn of our\npresent interest, and particularly to the social class or faction. If\nthe person in his peculiar character is general or all-inclusive with\nreference to the unity of experience, the factional life is special,\nparticular, or partial; it is one-sided and outwardly exclusive.\nSociologically as well as logically factional differences are, as has\nbeen suggested, wider and sharper than individual or personal\ndifferences. Personally all men are free, socially approachable, liberal\nin thought and act; not so factionally. Judged from its classes society\nis even a hot-bed of specialism, its classes always tending to become\ncastes, and of hostility, its differences inducing open conflict. An\nillustration of this we have already seen in the rise of the profession\nof science.\n\nWhence, to emphasize at once a most important conclusion, the typical\nrelation of the person to the class is not, as so often said or implied,\nthat of the particular to the general; instead it is that of the general\nto the particular, of the whole to the part, and significantly that of\nthe vital to the instrumental. Yet, to say no more than this would be a\nserious mistake, for at least in two ways this statement must be\nmodified. Doubtless the required modifications are directly consequent\nupon the nature and origin of the relation, but nevertheless they need\nto be carefully observed. Thus, logically and sociologically [p.163]\nfactional differences are not merely wider and deeper; just because more\ndefinitely set, they also imply higher development. Factional life may\nbe special, but through the strength that union gives and the power and\nefficiency that spring from repetition and imitation, it attains a high\ndegree of skill and insight. Again, factional life, like that of\ncorporations, lacks soul; it tends to become formal and mechanical and\nin the sense that this indicates it is static. Hence its instrumental\ncharacter. Between individual and class there is a difference very like\nthat between impulse and habit, or organic life and mere physical\nprocess, or function and structure, or say human nature in terms of its\nlife-principle, of its distinctly dynamic character, and in terms of its\nestablishments or institutions. Accordingly the relation of the person\nto the class is indeed that of the whole to the part, but of the whole\nin a state that is formally undeveloped to the part more or less highly\ndeveloped, and of the whole as a living, functional activity, the\ndifferential operation of the unity of experience, to the part as an\ninstitution or instrument.\n\nFrom all this it appears that the labour involved in the maintenance and\ndevelopment of human life is divided between the person and the social\nclasses in some such way as follows. The class life stands for analysis\nand special development and establishment; personal life for synthesis\nand vitality. The factional life of the class is specialistic, and reaps\nfor human nature all the familiar advantages of specialism; the personal\nlife is general or universal, and saves human nature from the disruption\nand the stagnation to [p.164] which specialism and its formal\nestablishment always tend. The factional life is mediative and\ninstrumental; the personal life is initiative and purposive. And while\nso to define the distinction between person and class, or in general to\nregard their relation as one of whole to part, even with the\nqualifications that were promptly added, may involve some unavoidable\nabstraction, and so some limitation of the view; nevertheless the view\nis as real and significant at least as the conditions upon which it\nrests. Even though persons may be differentiated from each other in an\nindefinite number of ways, no two being personal, materially, in the\nsame way, no two having the same factional restraints, still the\nrelation of whole to part, subject only to the distinctions of\ndevelopment and of dynamic or static character, remains significantly\nthe typical relation of the person to the class. The person may be only\na part of the class, as parts are merely counted, but in interest and\npossibility, in the fullest reach of his vitality, the person is larger\nthan the class. And, if this be the typical relation, then not only is\nthe story of the person seen to be inseparable from that of the class,\nbut also there is clearly a real place in social life at once for the\nperson and for the class. Factional life lacks completeness and\nvitality, and personality, the living, integral expression of the unity\nof experience, supplies these defects. True, a conflict of classes or\nfactions may always be counted on, since the unity of the total life,\nwhich of course includes the classes, will prevent their ever being\nindifferent to each other, and this conflict will make for both\ncompleteness and vitality, but [p.165] negatively, indirectly, always as\nif from outside. Only through the person can vitality and completeness\nbe secured positively and directly and immediately. Personality, on the\nother hand, lacks definiteness and practical efficiency, and only the\nspecial mechanical life of the class can supply these needs. So in the\ntwo together we see a most indispensable co-operation.\n\nThe person, furthermore, because of his particular class affiliation,\nwith the attainment in the way of skill and insight which this imparts,\nis always naturally under constraint not merely to overcome the\nspecialism, but also to apply the special training beyond the immediate\nsphere of its development to all sides of the nature that is within him.\nOut of the depth and breadth of his personal character, bounded only by\nthe unity of experience, he must ever react against the narrowness and\nthe factional ritual, and taking this ritual--or special professional\ntechnique--to be valid mediately rather than immediately, in spirit\nrather than merely in letter, must ever seek to translate his factional\nexperience, its skill and its insight, to all parts of human life. Only\nso can he be true both to his special classification and to his personal\nwholeness.\n\nBut an insistent question: Is such translation possible? On the\npossibility the case for either personality or a class-divided society\nmust finally depend. On the possibility hangs also the worth of this\ncase to the general argument of this book. Logically, there certainly\ncan be but one answer, and that an affirmative one, since analogy, the\nprimal condition of translation, must be universal [p.166] among the\nparts of any unity as well as between any part and the whole. No two\nparts, it is true, can be literal, prosaic reproductions of each other,\nbut metaphors of each other all parts are bound to be, and any part and\nthe whole must also have this relation of the metaphor, so that any\nacquired, more or less highly developed power of thought or action,\nhowever special and however technical, may and must have meaning\nthroughout the whole life of the person or of humanity. Accordingly,\nwith the acquired freedom of any part, the metaphors, relating part to\npart, may, if not must, flash to the remotest regions of the person's\nexperience-world. The left hand, with its unconsciously developed power,\nof course usually unexercised, of mirror-writing, affords only a very\ncrude illustration of what this implies, and a very imaginative\nillustration is in the flashing of the morning light as it reaches\nheight after height of the beholder's outstretched world.\n\nThe conclusions of logic in this matter have sometimes been questioned,\nif not defied. Quite properly, it may be, many people, and particularly\nmany among scientists, have been in the habit of distrusting the leading\nof mere logic in the solution of their problems. But in this particular\nmatter I think that no scientist has ever succeeded in making out a\nnegative case. A few have tried to do so, have thought themselves for a\ntime successful, and then in the end, though not without some\nreservation, have gone over to the other side. Probably their\nundertaking has been inspired by the extravagant views sometimes\nentertained, as when money-getting is supposed to educate [p.167] people\nto an appreciation of music and art, or a ready memory for one class of\nthings to imply the same facility in acquiring a memory of another class\nof things, or skill in the use of tools to make a good dentist, or\nphysical self-control or intellectual sincerity to ensure moral\ntruthfulness. Whereas, if it could be remembered that no special\ntraining could ever be literally applicable beyond the particular sphere\nof its attainment, the relation of part and part of human nature being\nonly analogous and metaphorical, and that in any scientifically observed\ncase special training, when artificially acquired, or when a result only\nof a suggested and merely imitated routine, can hardly count as\nconclusive evidence, the problem would lose much of its interest, and\nscience would be ready even to accept the logical solution. Logically,\nthen, the translation is possible, and scientifically there is no real\nevidence against its possibility.\n\nAs to the translation being positively natural or necessary, as well as\npossible, the suggestion may not be impertinent that whatever is truly\npossible must be also real; that is to say, certain of realization or\nrather somehow and somewhere, in some manner and in some degree already\nin expression. Even the possible can never have been made out of, or\nsprung up out of, nothing. Moreover, the translation here spoken of,\nwherein one developed side of life flashes its message, more spiritual\nthan literal, to another side or the other side of life, plainly can\nrequire nothing unnatural. It exacts only that all the different\nelements of our nature and experience, whether as personally or as\nfactionally manifested, shall be [p.168] forever true to their origin.\nThe apparent obstacles to translation certainly cannot be obstacles on\nthe ground of the analogies of the various parts being only metaphorical\ninstead of literal, for already in the original differentiation that has\nmade person and faction, that has separated the parts, these have been\novercome. The very nature of the person is their overcoming. The unity\nof experience must persist assertive and inviolable, whatever the\ndivisions of experience. The distinct vertebr\u00e6 must always contain a\nspinal cord that has a common origin with them.\n\nAnd it remains to be said that since the person is thus at once the\nliving integral exponent of the unity of experience and the member of\nsome class or faction, translation is his most characteristic activity.\nIn this translation, too, we see him a leader, or a party to real\nleadership, by nature. In it lies his true genius. Indeed, this\ntranslation is just that which makes the great leader or the great\ngenius, for through it the person is ever showing himself superior to\nhis class and training, and to the formal institutions that have brought\nhim up. Factional life, as we know, develops through imitation and\nrepetition, but personality through invention under guidance of the\nflashing analogies. Invention, too, the application of special\ndevelopment beyond the sphere of its origin, is only the psychological\nterm for what sociologically is leadership. In the theory and in the\npractice of art, morals, religion, politics, science, and all the other\nspecial sides of experience, the factional and the personal are ever to\nbe distinguished in this way--the one imitative, the other inventive.\nWitness [p.169] the familiar antitheses between the typical and the\nvital in art-expression, the formally ideal and the really pleasant in\nmorality, the legal and the sovereign in politics, the orthodox and the\nspiritually alive in religion, technical skill and originality in\nscience, and so on. These antitheses are all very important to the\nunderstanding of human experience, particularly of its history, but they\nare frequently seriously misapplied. More than anything else they show\nthe personal ever asserting its superiority over the factional; the\nliving whole, over the developed, established part; and always in order\nthat the whole, overcoming the exclusiveness of the part, may translate\nand appropriate its acquirements.\n\nThere is thus a case for personality hidden in that historical analogy\nof the individual to its group-divided environment, whether society or\nnature, and there is also an equally strong case for society as\nsomething distinct, as something that has its own peculiar work to do.\nThe r\u00f4les, too, that belong to personality and society are as distinct\nand as real, besides being as organic to each other, as in general are\nwhole and part. But the person, at once a corrector of partiality and a\nleader, a distributor of special development, holds a conspicuous place\nand moreover takes a part that just because of his essential superiority\nto the definite and formal is of the greatest moment to our conclusions\nas to the nature of all positive experience. All positive, formal\nexperience we found defective even to the extent of paradox or\ncontradiction, but personality, characteristically, must be superior to\nthis defect. Personality must bridge all [p.170] the divisions of\nexperience, all the gaps in society, all the chasms of history. It must\nbe, though perhaps one may not safely use the word, the very incarnation\nof that spirit of truth, that principle of validity and power for\nadequacy, which has already come to our notice more than once.\nFactionally experience is relative, phenomenal, divided against itself;\nfactionally, too, it is at once formal and contradictory; but personally\nit reaches beyond the forms and contradictions, and is directly in touch\nwith what is true and real. So the contrast between the personal and the\nsocial, the vital and the formal, shows itself quite parallel to that\nbetween the real and the phenomenal, the true and the paradoxical.\n\nA business man says to a friend: \"Personally, as you know perfectly\nwell, I should prefer to do what you ask, but professionally I simply\ncannot, for you know also that business is business.\" A preacher\ndeclares: \"Personally I should just like to speak out clearly and\nwithout restraint, but my church will not let me.\" Personally the\nsoldiers in opposite camps exchange many courtesies, but factionally,\nprofessionally, they meet with rifle and sword on the battlefield. The\nfather punishing his offending child says: \"This hurts me more than\nyou.\" And, in general, personally there are no divisions of life--all are\nall things together, and restraints that separate man and man are\nlacking; but factionally there is always restraint, and open conflict\nand inner inconsistency are unavoidable. The person is thus the medium,\nnot of an abstract universality, but concretely, through his factional\ntraining and his leadership, of the universal life.\n\n[p.171] And, finally, the life of the person is gifted with a great\nfaith, for it is in touch with an untethered reality; but, factionally,\nlife is a constant doubting, for it is constantly narrow and it is a\nconstant contending. So are faith and doubt as close to each other, as\ninseparable, as whole and part, as person and class, and with this\nconclusion we seem to have won for the doubter the right to say\nconfidently: \"My doubts cannot destroy me; I am; even in me there dwells\nthe power that makes for reality; even in me, in spite of the very\ndefects that the conditions of my social life impose, there lives the\nspirit of truth. Nay, even the social life itself, when mine as well as\nsocial, is also real and true.\"\n\n\n[1] This paragraph, and many of the paragraphs that follow it, except\nfor considerable revision and adaptation, were published some time ago.\nSee an article, \"The Personal and the Factional in Society,\" in the\n_Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol. II,\nNo. 13, 1906.\n\n[2] Chap. Iv., p. 72.\n\n\n\n[p.172]\n\nVIII\n\nAN EARLY MODERN DOUBTER.\n\n\nI referred in an earlier chapter to the great Frenchman who boldly\ndeclared that his doubting was all that he could be certain about, but\nthat this, being so very real, being indeed universal, left him a belief\nin himself, although only in his always doubting self. Descartes' belief\nin himself has interest for us, for while his thinking followed lines\nsomewhat different from our own, he seems to have reached nearly, if not\nquite, the same very personal conclusion, namely, the right of the\ndoubter to say: \"I am.\"\n\nDescartes was born in Touraine in 1596, and for the larger part of his\nlife he was at least nominally a resident in the Paris of Louis XIV,\nMontaigne, and the earlier Jesuits. He was educated at a school of the\nJesuits in La Fl\u00eache, and in the course of his mature life he published\nworks of importance not merely in philosophy, but also in science and\nmathematics. His _Meditations_ and _Search after Truth_ are easily first\namong his contributions to philosophy. He died in 1650.\n\nYet not exactly with the Descartes of positive history, but with\nDescartes as a doubter, as perhaps the most notable progenitor of the\nmodern confession [p.173] and the modern use of doubt, are we now\ndirectly concerned; for without the license of this broader view we\nmight lose a large part of the advantage of the centuries that lie\nbetween Descartes' time and our own. He had many disciples, and these\ndisciples uncovered much in the Cartesian philosophy that Descartes\nhimself failed to see, or saw only imperfectly. He was not without\nfaults, too, some moral and some intellectual, if the two are separate,\nand these faults we shall not consider, though the conscientious\nhistorian should never play to the sentimentalist by disregarding them.\nBut with our present task we can afford to forget the faults; just as we\ncannot afford to lose the interpretations and corrections of the\ndisciples. With interests as vital and personal as ours, we seek\nsomething more than matter of fact. Our interest is very near to that of\nthe historical novel, but needless to say, this book is an essay in\nphilosophy, not a novel. Past men and past times can be really useful to\nus, only if, belonging as we do not to the seventeenth but to the\ntwentieth century, we really use them. What we ourselves are able to\nfind in any period or in any human career is always truer or realer,\npossibly in a sense it is also better history, than what lay on the\nsurface at the time or than what was seen, however profoundly, even by\ncontemporaries. So much better did Descartes and all really great men\nbuild than they knew or even willed.\n\nDescartes came into European life at a crucial moment. The period of the\nRenaissance, with its rediscovery of the old world and its stirring\nvision of the new, had culminated in the Reformation, not [p.174] merely\nin the religious reformation that set Protestant against Catholic, but\nin the reformation that appeared in every department of man's life--in\nart, literature, and science, in morals and in politics, as well as in\nreligion. Man asserted his independence of established authority in any\nform. Man, not king, not pope, not even God, became the real centre of\nthe universe. Justification by his own faith was simply overflowing with\na meaning that knew no bounds in his experience.\n\nBut the birth of Descartes was fifty years after the death of Luther,\nand by the time he had reached his intellectual majority, as might well\nbe expected, the Reformation had changed from a spiritual\nenthusiasm--whether among those who were its great leaders or among\nthose who, not less devoutly, were bent on summarily checking its\nprogress--into a practical, thoroughly worldly situation. The two\nopposing parties, without exaggeration, seem to have settled down to\nreal business, and not less in the thought of one than in that of the\nother the end justified any means.\n\nThe society of Jesus was definitely organized and began its notable\ncareer in 1640, and although its members, the Jesuits, have given to\nhistory many wonderful examples of devotion and heroism, Jesuitry itself\nis synonymous with the extreme materialism to which the Roman Church\nresorted in its desperate defence against the Protestants. And on the\nother side, men became not less sensuous and worldly, giving as good as\nthey got. They simply met, or opposed, like with like. Reading the\nhistory of the time with [p.175] its controversies and jealousies and\nintrigues and persecutions, one can only conclude that the honours were\nabout even. If Catholicism felt justified in her acts of sensuous\nbrutality, of almost hellish violence, which culminated in the massacre\nof St. Bartholomew, Protestantism was made the specious, yet not less\nwelcome, excuse for worldliness, general materialism, and sensualism out\nof the Church and in it. Any religious reform, or reform of any sort,\nmust always bring an unscrupulous lawlessness with it, and the great\nReformation was by no means an exception to this rule. Extreme\nhumanists, naturalists, atheists, sensationalists, social and physical\natomists, Machiavellists, sceptics and opportunists of all sorts,\nswarmed in every capital of Europe, and especially in Paris.[1]\n\nBut the extravagant, more or less unconventional things of any time are\noften the best signs of its inner life, since in them we see a few men\nboldly, if not prudently, stepping over the bounds of custom, and\nsometimes even of decency, and giving expression to what is actively\npresent, though often suppressed or concealed, in the lives of all. Thus\ncontemporary with Descartes, and from one side or another expressing the\nmaterialism of his day, there were at least three very significant\nmovements, all of them endorsed by parties, of course under different\nnames, from both of the contending churches, or from their outside\nechoes or reflections, and all of them at least in some degree when not\nin great degree beyond the bounds of common conventional respectability.\nThese [p.176] movements in one church or in the other, or in neither, as\nthe case might be, were, first, a scoffing scepticism; second, a\ndogmatic mysticism; and third, a most visionary gnosticism.\n\n1. Vanini (1585-1619) in Italy, Montaigne (1533-1592) in France, and\nBacon (1560-1620) in England, among many others that might be named,\nwere more or less extravagantly, not mere doubters, but satirical, often\nderisive, scoffing doubters of everything in human life. Conceit of\nknowledge, whenever asserted, in church or state, in everyday\nconsciousness or in science, was declared idolatry and held up to\nconstant ridicule. Could man's wisdom at its best be anything more than\na blinding folly?\n\n2. And religion, the religion of a few, as if in acknowledged sympathy\nwith these sceptics, surrendered everything but God--God being more a\nlonging than an actual fact; a spirit than a positive thing or person.\nEven within the Catholic Church the Oratory of Jesus, a society\nenergetically opposed for good and sufficient reasons by the Jesuits,\nwas organized in the interests of a purified, truly spiritual\nChristianity; and among those who had broken with the Catholics appeared\nnew sects of many names, such as the \"Friends of God,\" \"Collegiants,\"\nand the \"Brotherhood of the Christian Life,\" but with one ideal, the\ndirect untrammelled worship of God. \"God is,\" they proclaimed in so many\nwords; \"and God, just God, is all. Church and creeds and rites and\npriests are hindrances, not helps, to true religion.\" This attitude,\ncommentary as of course it was on the conditions of the day, had almost\nmore satire in it and more doubt than any of the words [p.177] of the\nmost active scoffers; it was so unconscious; so quietly and so piously\nit picked up the crumbs that the scoffers left. Indeed, the sceptics and\ntheir devout, pure-minded contemporaries, Pierre Charron (1541-1603) and\nJakob Boehme (1595-1624), both advocates of religious purity against\ntheology and sensuous ritual, must be said not to have engaged in\nseparate activities, but to have shared the labour of a single activity.\nScepticism and such mysticism are but two sides of the same shield.\n\n3. But with the scoffing scepticism and its complementary counterpart,\nthe dogmatic mysticism of religion, there was associated also a most\nvisionary gnosticism. Thus the science of mathematics was heralded as a\nkey to all the secrets of the universe. A few simple applications of\nmathematics to physical phenomena had been successfully made by the\nscientists--for example, by Galilei--and ere long certain men in the\nworld of the intellectual life went wild over the possibilities of\nmathematics. Obliged, as soon they were, to abandon every other field of\nknowledge--theology, politics, material science, tradition, and\nconvention--they needed but little encouragement to give themselves\nheart and soul to this last resort. Their enthusiasm for mathematics\ndoubtless had a deeper source than this simple account of its rise would\nsuggest, for an intellectual atmosphere in which just such a purely\nlogical, abstract science would develop was the natural product of\nmedievalism; but Galilei's successes may be said to have precipitated\nthe movement, and in any case for many mathematics became, both in its\nprinciples and in its method, an intellectual [p.178] cure-all, and in\nconsequence not only were remarkable advances made in the science\nitself, but men went to the extreme of applying the methods and the\nformul\u00e6 of mathematics in every conceivable direction. Religion,\nmorality, and politics, as well as natural science, were all subjected\nto mathematical treatment. Among the surviving monuments to this\nactivity the _Ethics_, so called, of Benedict Spinoza (1632-77) is\ncertainly the most noteworthy; a work of five books on God, mind,\nemotions, bondage, and freedom--each with its special quota of axioms,\npropositions, corollaries, scholia, and the like, and the procedure of\nthe whole amazingly consistent with that of Euclid. Excuse, also, a\npersonal reminiscence. I can myself recall how in the enthusiasm of a\nfirst course in geometry I formulated a Euclidean proof of the\nproposition: Knowledge is power. I, too, had my axioms, my special\ndemonstrations, my corollaries, and my final Q.E.D.'s. But any\npresent-day resort to mathematics or its methods is only a shadow, or an\necho, of the movement of the seventeenth century. At that time it was a\nmovement of last resort and all the passion of a deceived intellect, of\na mind given over to the most far-reaching doubts, and a disappointed\nfaith, once more acquiring hope, was present in it. The truths and\nmethods of mathematics--what but veracity incarnate, the very mind of\nGod made manifest to mankind!\n\nNor, furthermore, does it take much reflection to appreciate that\nmathematics was after all a very appropriate form for credible knowledge\nto take in a time of scepticism and of religion turning to purism.\n[p.179] Trustworthy knowledge of actual things--that is to say, real\nconcrete knowledge--being held impossible, there was nothing left but\nknowledge of the strictly formal relations of things. Formal principles,\njust like those of mathematics, are altogether innocent of the confusion\nin actual things and persons, in particular events and current issues;\nand accordingly in the seventeenth century, just by reason of this\ninnocence, they were peculiarly timely. Doubt seemed quite unable to\ntouch them; controversy was turned to agreement before them; and even a\ntruth-loving God, so to speak, could appeal to them in support of his\nright to rule the minds and the lives of men. You and I might question\nthe reality of the things we count or the justice of the ratio between\nour wealth and the wealth of certain others in the world, but we could\nnot easily question that two and two are four, or in matters of wealth\nthat one thousand and two thousand dollars are in the same ratio as two\nmillion and four million. Such knowledge as this may not settle any\nactual quarrels that we have, for example, over the number of acres we\nown or the taxes we pay or the prices charged by our butchers or\ngrocers; but what of that? The quarrels are idle any way, and our\nmathematical wisdom, being exact from the start and self-evident, is a\nbasis of perfect agreement between man and man and men and God.\n\nIn short, mathematics is exact and universally credible just because it\nis so empty and so logically formal, being always \"in the abstract,\" in\nthat ideal, wholly blessed region, where there is no disputing, where\nall men readily admit anything that can be [p.180] suggested; and its\nbeing exact for this cause made it the only credible knowledge for\nDescartes' time, a time at once of scepticism and mysticism. With\nVanini, then, and Charron, who were separately engaged, as was remarked,\nin a single activity, we may associate the mathematicians of the day,\namong whom none were more distinguished than Descartes himself and the\nmembers of the Cartesian school. To Descartes we are largely indebted\nfor the Analytic Geometry, and Pascal did important work in the Theory\nof Equations.\n\nIn rough outline we now have the times of Descartes before us, and with\ndeepened meaning I may say again that Descartes came into European life\nat a crucial moment. Materialism was rife, not merely theoretically\namong a few scientists and philosophers, nor practically in some\nisolated class of dissipated human beings, but really and more or less\nopenly everywhere in the whole life and feeling of society. Even the\ndevout played into the hands of the worldly by their very purism. And an\naccompanying doubt, cropping out significantly, now in positive\nirreverence, now in mysticism, now in intellectual formalism, appears to\nhave thoroughly possessed the minds of men.\n\nThere was, too, in Descartes' day a growing sensitiveness to the\nparadoxes of man's experience which have occupied so much of our\nattention. Nothing was what it seemed. One writer boldly declared--not\nmuch later--that France, nay, the whole world, could not be happy until\nall should turn atheists. The boast of Louis XIV, \"I am the State,\"\nwhether literally made or not, was hardly less startling. The sensualism\nof [p.181] the Catholic Church or the Pharisaism of the Protestant was\nflagrantly paradoxical, and was keenly felt to be so on all sides. Men\nturned doubters perforce, and in the fact that with their scepticism\nrose also a movement at once of individualism and cosmopolitanism, we\ncannot fail to see how the course of history illustrates the conclusions\nof a previous chapter. The time was one in which through its humanism,\nor its cosmopolitan individualism, civilization was to reap the harvest\nfrom the medieval organization of society.\n\nDescartes, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his training at a school\nof the Jesuits, seems to have caught the spirit, the real meaning of his\ntime, getting behind the mere letter of their instruction and of their\npoint of view. Only mathematics gave him any satisfaction, and he left\nthe La Fl\u00eache school in the first place conscious that he had learned\nlittle or nothing, in the second place curious about the possibility of\nmen ever knowing anything, and in the third place evidently through the\ninfluence of mathematics strongly prejudiced in favour of introspection,\nor of thought conducted independently of things, as the only possible\nway to certainty. This education, then, and its outcome, true as it was\nto the life of the day, fitted Descartes for his life work, which was\nnothing more or less than the erection of a system of philosophy on the\nbasis of a thorough-going confession of doubt.\n\nDescartes entered upon his great task by taking his day at its word. St.\nPaul, addressing the Athenians, reminding them of one of their own\ntemples, and quoting their own poet Aratus, was not more tactful.\n[p.182] Thus, as if speaking directly to the sceptics about him,\nDescartes doubted everything, because he found, not only in his own\nconsciousness, become too reflective for implicit belief, but also in\nthe wide experience of his race, that everything was dubitable. He\ndoubted church and state, science and society; and he went even farther\nthan this. Also he boldly doubted mathematics, so long his own support\nand the reliance of many others in his time. He did not know surely that\nthere might not be an evil spirit in the universe, a spirit of\ndeception, which even in mathematics was obscuring the mind's vision,\nmaking it see things not as they are, but as they are not. Deception was\nreal enough and obvious enough in life at large to make such a suspicion\nas this at least plausible. Moreover, the notion of an agent of evil in\nthe world had been a commonplace for centuries. It was just a part of\nthat medieval training. So although nothing could be said with certainty\neither way, the plausible mischance had to be faced; mathematics went\nthe way of all doubtful knowledge, and man was left with literally\nnothing but his doubt, his universal doubt. \"_Dubito_,\" said Descartes;\n\"to doubt is my inmost nature\"; and speaking so he at once marked the\nfirst step in his reasoning, so important then and now, and in the\nsimplicity and directness of real genius reported a great, deep fact of\nhis own experience and of that of his time.\n\nBut universal doubt is a _real_ experience, being real just because\nuniversal. Nothing ever is real that is not universal. What is always\nand everywhere is just the mark of something that really is substantial.\nA real [p.183] experience, however, real because universal, be it of\ndoubt or of anything else, means a real self, so that in the always\ndoubting self Descartes found reality, or a real self; and this always\ndoubting self he further characterized as a thinking self. In other\nwords, the real thinker was for him the universal doubter, and,\ncontrariwise, the universal doubter was real, a real thinker, a real\nself. Before Descartes' time, to speak generally, men had identified\nreality with fixed condition or possession, with specific knowledge or\nestablished power or definite prerogative, divine or human, and truth\nwas an object of faith rather than thought, say an unchanging programme\nfor life rather than a pure principle--there is such a wide difference\nbetween a principle and a programme! But Descartes, as we have seen,\nidentified reality with loss or privation, with such an empty-handed\nthing as doubt; he recognized no self but the thinker, and no thinker\nbut the doubter. We always feel the pathos of those who, suffering\nconstant privation, find and often declare that life is very real, and\nyet the sense of reality that comes in this way--namely, in the way of a\nprivation that denies reality all residence in positive experience--is\nespecially strong, and the pathos we feel is certainly not all.\nSomething else hard to name appeals to us, too, and changes the pathos\ninto a nobler because a more positive feeling--good will, perhaps, or\nhonour--since the persistent holding to reality commands a deep respect.\nYet, putting this more positive feeling apart, only the pathos of\nDescartes' real self, real because a thinker and thinker because a\nuniversal doubter, can occupy us now. Enough if we see that [p.184] the\nreality was as indubitable as the universal doubt, the self always being\nreal up to the reality of its experience, and that the pathos is not\nmore for him than for the sceptics and mystics and mathematicians of his\ntime. But, again, in the Latin words, burdened, as so often the Latin\nhas been, with the experience of all Christendom: _Dubito, cogito; ergo\nsum_. I doubt, I think; I as doubter and thinker am.\n\nThat \"I am\" seems a sort of epitome of the humanism, not to say of the\npathos of the humanism of the time. Man had lost everything but his own\nself, his lacking, longing, always seeking self. Montaigne put the\nsituation plainly when he said in so many words, that portrayal of self\nwas the beginning and the end alike of physics, the science of outer\nreality, and metaphysics the science of all reality. Man had been left\nwith his mere self, robbed of beliefs and traditions, and abandoned by\neverything but his doubts and the empty companionship which these\nafforded, but to that, an unshaped thing with an undefined activity,\nreal only for what it did not have, he clung tenaciously and often\nenthusiastically. And Descartes spoke for him: _Knowing that I have\nnothing, I am_.\n\nBut in this self that was real only because always lacking, always\ndoubting, Descartes found a priceless treasure. Every one is familiar\nwith the principle of Christian theology, that the conviction of sin is\na real promise because the actual beginning of salvation, and every one\nhas some appreciation of this principle. It is a principle, too, that no\npriest ever made or could ever unmake, belonging as it does to the very\nnature of conscious creatures. In like manner, [p.185] then, Descartes\nrecognized in the consciousness of doubt, or say of intellectual error,\nthe real promise, because the actual beginning or even the very presence\nof veracity in knowledge. The doubter, conscious of error as he must be,\nwas never without and never by any possibility could be without a sense\nfor truth, an idea of veracity. Doubting all things he must yet believe\nin truth. Plato said centuries before that mere opinion, however false,\nwas nevertheless always in love with true knowledge, and this Platonic\nlove Descartes found in the doubter's conviction of error. In Plato's\nspirit Descartes insisted that doubt was a constant yearning for truth,\na persistent faith in it. Doubt was informed with truth, with the idea\nof truth, very much as one has the \"idea\" of a thing that one cannot\nmaster. Man might be a doubter of all things, then, but in spite of his\ndoubt he must believe in the reality of things, not exactly in the\nindividual reality of each and every thing, but in reality in and among\nall things. For him, doubting and self-conscious, there must dwell in\nthe world a realizing nature or power, an agent of perfect veracity,\nchecking any experience from being altogether deceptive. And, for the\npresent, to narrow our attention to a single phase of the doubter's\nnatural idea of veracity, as Descartes reasoned about it, truth and\neverything that goes with truth, perfection and absoluteness in all its\nphases, could not be solely human if to doubt was human. They must, in\nconsequence, be divine. So God, a spirit of truth and righteousness, was\nreal, as real as the real self of always doubting but ever truth-loving\nman. _Dubito, cogito; ergo sum: etiam_ [p.186] _Deus est. I doubt, I\nthink; as thinker and doubter I am: and what is more, God, veracity\nincarnate, is also_.\n\nAnd here begins or began a great controversy, nor can the issues of it\nbe said to have been wholly settled even to-day. What did Descartes\nunderstand when in this way he proved to himself the existence of God?\nWas only the God he seemed to have lost once more restored to him, and\nrestored intact? Did he merely justify, and so return to its old place\nof authority, the traditional theology of his day? Was his doubt, as\nsome would view it, not his own genuine experience, but simply the\nconceit and pretence of method? These questions need an answer, for\ntheir answer affects not only Descartes' regained religion, but also his\nregained real world in general. So many have been disposed almost to\nlaugh outright at the simple-minded Descartes for his doubting\neverything from matter and mind to God, only in the end to get\neverything back. They have seen him as one chasing the verities out by\none door only to welcome them with outstretched arms as they run in at\nanother that had been left open for their return; and this view of him\nhas been strengthened by the fact that conservatives in religion the\nworld over have made Descartes their victim by appealing to his proof,\nborrowing for themselves his philosopher's robes, as if these could be\neasily assumed and as easily put off. But as to the justice of such a\nview there is little if any good evidence. Matter-of-fact history is not\nour first concern here, as was said; yet, whatever may or may not have\nbeen uppermost in Descartes' mind, the doubt of his day was both general\nand very [p.187] genuine, and the final worth and validity of his\nthinking lies wholly in that, not in his or any one's mere logical\ngymnastic or verbal strategy. Moreover, for reasons which hardly need to\nbe given, the strong probability is that, notwithstanding his well-known\nlack of courage in openly living up to or even thinking up to all the\nconsequences of his reasoning, he did feel in his philosophy not a mere\nrecovery of what had seemed lost, nor a cunning apology for the old, but\nthe birth of a new point of view; and, if this possibility should be\nverified, among other things the conservatives, who have been borrowing\nso much support, have been little if any better than parasites. Still,\neven the probabilities in the case are relatively insignificant to us,\nsince the people of the time and of later times, and we ourselves from\nthe scepticism and mysticism of the seventeenth century, have learned to\nthink of God with a fulness of meaning never attained before, as--what\nshall I say?--not a definite truth, but the living spirit of truth; not\na passive perfection, but a perfect activity; and not even a divine\nperson, in the sense of one more separate being of consciousness and\nwill to inhabit the universe, but the moving and conserving power of all\npersonality--the very active principle of reality present in the\nvicissitudes and conflicts of our existence. And, such being the outcome\nof history, we have to take it as really the meaning of the great\nFrenchman's formul\u00e6. We put aside the controversy, then, with the simple\nreflection that results in history or anywhere else are at least very\nhard indeed to conceive if they are anything more or less than realized\nmotives [p.188] perhaps the realized motives of a man or men building\nsomewhat beyond their clearest knowledge. Whatever has come about must\nalways be what more or less clearly men have been feeling after.\n\nThe God whom Descartes really proves to his time, and still more\npositively to us, must surely be the God not of a satisfied\nunquestioning believer, but of the universal doubter who loves truth and\nwhose doubting and loving make him the always curious thinker; a God\nwithout visibly or even quasi-visibly fixed or specific character of any\nsort, since with his nature set to such a character, tethered like a\nbeast to a stake or like the sun bound to an orbit, he would not be and\ncould not be divine enough--which is to say, veracious or perfect\nenough--for a universal doubter's curiosity; a God, then, who has the\ndivine character of true infinity, who is, too, a spirit in fact as well\nas in word. Infinity certainly cannot belong to a being that is apart;\nsuch a being would at once belie his nature; and \"spirits,\" divine or\nhuman, must not be supposed to be, like Elijah, the merely translated\nbeings of this visible and tangible world, for they can belong only to\nthe invisible and the intangible, which is in this world and of it, in\nits knowledge, in its love and strife, in its changes of all kinds, in\nits work and in its suffering. Yes, a truly living God, living here and\nnow, is the God of Descartes' proof; the God of just that world of\nmovement and conflict, of poise and reality, to which the differences\nand above all the contradictions of experience, as examined by us in\npreceding chapters, have already borne witness. Let us recall how we\nwere able to say that the very conflicts of human [p.189] experience\nwere the wisdom of God. And if this all amounts to saying, as apparently\nit does, that only Descartes' universal doubter, who loves truth too\nmuch ever to claim its final possession, can believe in a real God, then\nwe have reached something that will surely repay the most careful\nreflection.\n\nSome have criticized Descartes for what they regard as a fallacy in his\nreasoning. He jumped, they claim, without any real warrant, from the\nidea of a thing as his premise to the actual existence of the thing as\nhis conclusion, from the idea of veracity, so necessary in the\nconsciousness of the doubter, to the substantial existence of a\nperfectly veracious being, as if, to use their time-worn analogy, the\nidea even of the very smallest sum of money would make the money itself\nmaterialize in somebody's pocket. But, whether or not Descartes fully\nunderstood his own thought, this criticism is very superficial, and it\ngets only a specious cogency from the same matter-of-fact history that\nwe have already pushed aside. No idea, however clear, however necessary\neven to the consciousness of a doubter, of perfect truth could ever\nconjure into existence the unworldly, independently existing,\nspiritually and intellectually isolated God of the Middle Ages; and for\nthat matter one might say, I think quite pertinently, that money not in\nthe pocket is something less than real money, or--which comes to the\nsame end--that the idea of money, if the pocket be indeed empty, must\nimply some sense of the emptiness as well as of the money; and with such\nan implication the idea taken for its full meaning is no such conjurer\nas Descartes' critics have chosen to imagine it. After [p.190] all the\n\"mere\" ideas, or the \"mere\" things in general, that appear in\ncontroversies, are only ingenious ways of packing the jury. An adequate\nidea--that is to say, an idea taken just for its full meaning, for what\nit denies as well as for what it affirms, for the complete universe of\nits discourse--does and must answer to existence; yes, and to\nsubstantial existence too. So, again, the God that Descartes by the\ndoubter's idea of veracity proved to his time and to us, if not also as\nclearly to himself, can have been no mere substantial existence wholly\noutside the doubter's life and consciousness. In such case the universal\ndoubting would indeed have been only the insincere verbal strategy of a\nconservative, the conceit of purely artful method, and the jump objected\nto would have been quite necessary. But Descartes' God answered to just\nthe idea of truth which a universal doubter could honestly entertain; to\ntruth realized only in and through doubt; a God, living in and with the\nseeking, struggling consciousness of the doubter.\n\nFurthermore, for a being, call him doubter or thinker or what you will,\nwhose very nature in deed and in word is awake to a sense of lack and is\nin consequence making a continued outcry: \"Never this, but always\nsomething else, something fuller and realer, something including and\nusing this, something maintained by the very conflicts of this,\"--for\nsuch a being very plainly there never can be anything that is wholly and\nhopelessly beyond, that is not potentially and so actively real in him;\nthere can be no outer nature, but an including and developing nature,\nand no transcendent God, but an indwelling, ever uplifting, [p.191]\nforward-bearing God. Exactly such a being was Descartes' real self, the\nself of his I _am_--\"I as thinker and doubter am\"--and this self had\nneed neither of struggling with nature nor of wrestling with God in\norder to get one or the other on its side, for in its doubt, in its\nconstant confession of incompleteness, even--though this is a flagrant\nparadox--of its own reality as in a sense always outside or beyond\nitself, it had won the supreme victory at the start. Negatives are\nalways such very sweeping, comprehensive things; and to be, so to speak,\none's own negative, to be real and lacking, is somehow to include all\nthings within one's own life and interest. If I may apply an ordinary\nphrase in an extraordinary way, to be always \"beside oneself,\" always\ndoubting, always wanting, always striving, or to be, in the words of\nearlier pages, ever and always divided against oneself, is to have\nenlisted man and nature and God for ever in one's service.\n\nThere is truly such a difference between programme and principle 1 It is\nthe difference between medievalism and modernism, between supposed\nfinality and recognized and asserted movement, between supernatural\nauthority and the authority of natural growth. Enthrone a programme, and\nit is arbitrary and exclusive; it claims, as it must, the sanction of\nanother world; it hopelessly divides human nature as personally embodied\nor as socially organized; it makes life and its sphere irrational and so\ndependent on a blind faith: but a principle, enthroned, draws all things\ninto itself, using to its own constant realization even the changes and\ndifferences of life, making faith [p.192] and reason lie down together,\nand transfiguring both a brutal nature and an inhuman God by revealing\nthem as not indeed formally but vitally rational, and not indeed\nmortally yet humanly alive. In Descartes' proof of God we see the birth\nof modernism; the programme deposed; the principle set in the place of\nauthority.\n\nFinally, then, Descartes did not simply restore what had been lost.\nThough we have been regarding only the religious aspect of his\nphilosophy, we can see in general that, just as not the old God, but\nnevertheless God, remained to the doubter's life, so also not the old\nverities at large, yet nevertheless the verities, or not the old\nreality, yet nevertheless reality, remained also. Man, after all his\ndoubting, even because of it all, was enabled to return to the world of\nall those \"isms,\" the all-pervading materialism, the scoffing\nscepticism, the dogmatic mysticism, and the intellectual formalism, with\na new spirit, a spirit of real confidence, a spirit of hope, a spirit of\nlife, that just by reason of its wants and conflicts believes itself not\nonly very real but also fully worth while.\n\nAnd travellers to-day visiting the streets of Paris or going anywhere\nthe doubting and despairing world over, would do well to imagine\nDescartes, as the modern doubter, travelling and thinking with them.\n\n\n[1] See an article by H.C. Lea in the _American Historical Review_,\nJanuary, 1904, \"Ethical Values in History,\" especially p. 238 seq.\n\n\n\n[p.193]\n\nIX.\n\nTHE DOUBTER'S WORLD.\n\n\nThe doubter's world is a world in which, as we journey, we shall\ndiscover four features that are especially noteworthy and that accord\nfully with the principles of Descartes as well as with the findings of\nour own confession of doubt. Thus, in the order, or suppose I say in the\nitinerary, here to be followed: (1) Reality, without finality, in all\nthings; (2) perfect sympathy between the spiritual and the material; (3)\ngenuine individuality; and (4) for whatever is indeed real, immortality.\n\n\nI. REALITY, WITHOUT FINALITY, IN ALL THINGS.\n\nDoubt is only a particular state, or phase, of consciousness, and it is\nworth while to observe that any state of consciousness whatsoever, any\nattitude of mind, must assume or postulate something real. Indeed, this\nassumption of reality is so positive that no consciousness is ever\nwithout some will to believe, while no will to believe is ever without\nsome real object believed in. Can there be smoke without some fire, or a\nseeming without some being? Were either of these things possible, then\nby the same token there could also be a willing without some doing or a\nwanting without some having. To be conscious of something, [p.194] then,\nmeans not only that something is assumed and, if assumed, willed to be,\nbut also that something really and truly is. Of course, the\nconsciousness is; but, however subjective, the consciousness must have\nmore than its mere subjectivity, than its mere seeming or wanting or\nwilling, being in some way genuinely objective or grounded in reality.\nIn a word, all consciousness implies and demands, postulates and\npossesses, a real world; possibly not just the world formally presented\nto it, but nevertheless reality, and reality, too, in which somehow the\npresented world has a place and part.\n\nThis may or may not be axiomatic, but at the very least it is very near\nto being axiomatic, and, near or far, it quite agrees with the\nconclusions to which, although along somewhat more specific lines, our\nown thinking and Descartes' thinking have been constantly pointing. As\nDescartes might have said, there is no consciousness without a\nthoroughly warranted \"I am,\" and no \"I am\" without an also thoroughly\nwarranted \"The world of my consciousness is and is objectively real.\"\nBut in implications about reality the doubter's consciousness differs\nfrom the believer's consciousness; not by any mere denial, for\nunqualified denial must be wholly alien to honest doubting, and the\ndoubter is himself a believer, but by a peculiar assumption as to what\nthe reality is. Simply doubter and believer, so far as they may be taken\nas independent characters, do not live in the same real world. Thus, for\nthe distinct believer--that is to say, for the specifically dogmatic\nbeliever, for him who is, or who for the moment may be supposed to be,\n[p.195] tenaciously and immovably loyal to some specific body of\ndoctrine and to some specific manner of life--reality is always tethered\nto some stake; while for the doubter it is too real and too free to\nsuffer any such bondage, being infinite and all-inclusive. For our\ndoubter, at once fully self-conscious and honest, no possible experience\ncan ever be in itself real and final, nor, on the other hand, can any\npossible experience ever be altogether unreal and illusory. His reality,\nI say, must be at once free and all-inclusive. Indeed, it could not be\neither of these without being the other. For him nothing is _the_\nreality, just because all things must belong to reality. For him, again,\nthe world's reality is nowhere, just because everywhere; in no defined\nthing fixedly and completely, just because in all things--in them not\nmerely distributively, it is true, but as they work together; and\ninvisible and intangible, indeed generally unknowable, just because any\nconsciousness is necessarily limited to the definite and inadequate\nmediums, or forms, of positive knowledge.\n\nSo the doubter has a real world, but his own real world. Moreover, in\nthe great freedom of its reality we see how all things taken\nindividually or distributively, must be, as the word is used, only\n\"relative\"; and in the perfect inclusiveness, how nothing, however\n\"relative,\" can ever be unreal. Relativism and scepticism have been\nperenially associated, but relativism is not a nihilistic, but a deeply\nrealistic philosophy; it is just the sceptic's natural realism. All\nthings are \"relative,\" but only because reality is at once free from\nanything, and yet inclusive of all things. What is relative is [p.196]\nthus not flatly unreal, as is often supposed, but significantly both\nreal and unreal or neither real--not real to itself alone--nor\nunreal--not without its part and place in whatever is real. The sceptic,\nthough always a relativist, is thus also a most profound realist, and\nthe nature of his realism must help us greatly to our view of the\ndoubter's world.\n\nMoreover, Descartes and his followers were also nativists or\nintuitionists, and, at least for the freer interpretation here\npermitted, their nativism was of a peculiar order, and it involved,\naccordingly, a world which was real in a peculiar way. Usually nativism\nhas stood for the assertion of certain inborn and so necessarily valid\nand unchangeable ideas or characters or powers; as when men contend that\nparticular ideas of God are unassailable because immediately intuited as\na part of man's very being, or again when men declare a particular\ngenius to be born, not made, or insist that a voice of conscience born,\nnot bred, in them, tells them explicitly to do and even to make others\ndo this or that specific thing, to live and make others live in this or\nthat specific way, to accept and make others accept this or that\nspecific programme of politics, morals, or religion. Furthermore,\nnativism of this prevalent type not only has claimed final validity for\nwhat is thus inborn--or given independently of the changing conditions\nof experience--but also has commonly punctuated this claim by viewing\nthe inborn, or the intuited--for example, the dictates of conscience--as\ndirect, immediate, unequivocal signs and mandates of God himself. Genius\nhas been not human, but divine. The intuition at large has [p.197]\npassed for nothing more or less than a supernatural revelation. But such\nan understanding of the innate, though serviceable beyond measure to the\n\"specifically dogmatic believer,\" and though implying too, as of course\nit should, the natural, appropriate world of such a believer, does not\nagree with the principles of Descartes.\n\nSuch an understanding of the innate can imply only a world not merely of\ndefinite, substantial reality, but also of definite, substantial\nunreality. How real to some people, how definite and substantial the\n\"unreal\" is; how brutally fixed and yet how alien to what they are given\nto finding real. They are nativists of the conventional type, and for\nthem the negatives of all things are as fixed and as really or as\nsubstantially not this or that as the positives to which what is innate\nfor them bears its special witness. Their world, in short, is a world of\ntethered error as well as tethered truth, of hopeless, unmixed evil as\nwell as a wholly untainted, unassailable--and why not say also\nhopeless?--virtue, of absolute and effective lawlessness as well as an\nunswerving law, of a free and omnipotent devil as well as a free and\nomnipotent God; for, in simplest language, the rule is a very poor one\nthat does not work both ways. A world, however, which is so constituted,\ncalls emphatically for revision of the view that imparts its character\nto it. Where the unreal is as real as the real, the evil as effective as\nthe good, the false as conclusive as the true, there is certainly need\nof some second thinking. As some good Irish philosopher might put the\ncase, if just this is wholly good or true or real, and just that is\nwholly [p.198] evil or false or unreal, then _the_ good or _the_ true or\n_the_ real cannot be exclusively just this, _the_ evil or _the_ false or\n_the_ unreal cannot be exclusively just that, and _the_ innate,\nresponsible for a world so made, cannot be just in terms of certain\nfixed ideas or characters or powers. When, forsooth, has the manifest\nexistence of evil in any form, of intellectual or moral error, of\npolitical anarchy, of religious heresy, or even of natural violence, not\nshaken man's conceits about what is and what is right? The very\nconceits--and this the more as they are definite and assertive--help to\nmake the manifest evil, very much as a definite law has its part in\nmaking a particular crime, and the evil so arising, as it is distinctly\nmanifested, cannot fail to assail and unsettle the conceits.\n\nAccording to the Cartesian nativism, on the other hand, particularly as\nit was developed by such men as Malebranche and Spinoza, the innate,\nwhich is always at once the final appeal of man's conceits and the\nconclusive witness to what is absolutely real, was indeed one with the\ndivine or supernatural, but it was perhaps just by reason of its truly\ndivine or supernatural character and origin untethered. How could the\nuniversal doubter be born with a specific knowledge or a specific\nprogramme of anything, when the definite or fixed, the specific in any\nquarter whatsoever, must always be a possible object of doubt? Only the\npurest principle, or spirit, is impregnable against the attacks of the\nsceptic. To doubt such a principle is indeed only to enhance its\nimportance. The sceptic, then, the universal doubter, is born only with,\nand what is more he cannot be born without, a real [p.199] interest and\nconstant faith in truth, in true knowledge and right action, but no\nspecial experience can ever compass the length and the breadth, the\ndepth and the height of this interest or this faith. He has a native\nlove for truth and righteousness, a belief in them, as real and as\ninviolable, as universal and as necessary, as his doubt; but the very\ndoubting in him forever saves both the truth and the righteousness from\nbeing destroyed by satisfaction or crucified by any final embodiment. He\nloves and he trusts with all his heart, and he lives in a world that\nforever serves the truth and the righteousness of his love and faith.\n\nSo, taken at least for what he promised, or for what he said between the\nlines, Descartes was a nativist without the nativist's disastrous\nbondage to form and creed, to fixed character and specific programme. He\nwas a nativist, but for him the innate lacked its self-destructive\ndefiniteness; it was just a spirit or principle, or what I have also\ncalled a life or power, ever present not in some, but in all experience,\nand so at once sanctioning all things, and, because able to find\nperfection in none alone, each single thing being relative, sanctioning\nalso a constant conflict between things as good or true or real, and\nthings as bad or false or unreal. Whatever is relative is necessarily,\nso to speak, both-sided or divided against itself. The relativity is\nsuch conflict. Before the judgment-seat of the innate, in short, all\nthings, being relative, must be parties to conflict both individually\nand collectively, nor is their conflict anything but an old story to us.\nAll the paradoxes of experience have been evidences of it. The conflict\napart for the present, however, the meaning [p.200] of Descartes'\nnativism is just this: truth in all experience, reality in all things,\nand reality, or truth, a principle, not a programme. Just this, too,\ndiscloses to us the nature of the doubter's real world.\n\nIn the last chapter we saw in particular the idea of God which the\nuniversal doubter would naturally and consistently entertain and\ncherish. We saw how in the proof of God Descartes, deposing the\nprogramme, set the principle in the place of authority, and how in\nconsequence God became identified with all that was human, with all the\nseeking and striving, the hoping and despairing, the erring and the\nsuffering, of man's life. God's nature just drew all things into itself;\nthe very conflicts of life were his perfection; the incongruities of\nexperience were his infinite wisdom. But the doubter has a metaphysics,\nor cosmology, as well as a theology; Descartes lost and regained a world\nas well as a God; and the doubter's metaphysics, or cosmology, proceeds\nfrom this simple creed: _Reality in all things_. So runs the creed's\nsupreme article, and its two important clauses are these, equally\nfamiliar to us: _Reality without form or residence_--real as a spirit,\nnot a programme, and: _Nothing finally and fixedly real in itself, yet\nall things working together for what is real_. With this creed clearly\nin mind, moreover, we may look out upon the world and see things that\npossibly we have never seen at all, or not seen so clearly before.\n\nWe see that just because reality is so profound, so spiritual, and so\ninclusive, just because nothing can be absolutely real in itself, all\nthings must be \"relative\"--this we saw before, but have we ever quite\nunderstood [p.201] stood the meaning of relativity?--and must be\nrelatively _at once real and unreal_. Perhaps I am still adding little,\nif anything, to what has been said already, but distinctly and\nemphatically the real world can comprise only things that individually\nare relative, relatively real or good or true, and that being thus\nrelative secure their place and part in absolute reality only by being\nalso relatively unreal or evil or false. The very conflict of the\nrelative _ipso facto_ puts it in perfect unity with the absolute. And\nso, seeing this, we see not only a world of relativity and consequent\nconflict, but also a world whose universal relativity makes for a\ngenuine absoluteness, and whose conflict can never be in vain, but\ninstead is always realizing and effective. Thus, all things relative,\nthat is to say all things at once real and unreal, good and bad, true\nand false, are in the constant service of the absolute; and then, only\nemploying again the language of religion and, if not exactly\ninterpreting, at least adapting some well-known lines:\n\n     All service ranks the same with God--\n     Whose puppets, best and worst,\n     Are we; there is no last or first.\n\nAll things, serving reality, are whatever they are together; yet could\nnot be that, were there not a constant conflict in and among all things.\nAll men serving God are whatever they are together; yet, in like manner,\ncould not be that were human society not a sphere of conflict harsh and\nunceasing.\n\nSo we find ourselves well upon our way in the world of the doubter--and\nwhat a world it is! No [p.202] finality, because so much reality.\nConflict, forever necessary to its effective realization. Relativity,\nthat is to say finiteness, of all things, of all things in it, just for\nthe sake of its own true absoluteness, just to conserve its own actual\ninfinity.\n\nAnd, also, in such a world human life, individually and socially, gets\nnew interest and vitality. There is given to human life so much\nfellowship, and yet, at the same time, so much hostility and\ncompetition. Society and the individual, though neither loses its own\npeculiar importance, are so vitally intimate with each other. We cannot,\nhowever, enlarge now upon this point. Another consequence of the\npeculiar realism of the sceptic has a more pressing interest.\n\nIs our universal doubter naturally and honestly an evolutionist or a\ncreationalist? Of course, he may be neither, or he may be one or the\nother with a meaning different from that usually recognized. Terms like\nthese are so very hard to control. Conceivably the doubter, a very\nversatile character always, might even be both evolutionist and\ncreationalist. But, as the terms are commonly used, he must be said at\nleast to have his face towards an evolutional and away from a creational\nview. The difference, again, is seen in that between principle and\nprogramme. An evolutional world is the working out of a principle; a\ncreated world, of a programme--the fixed design of some specified being.\nTrue, one may speak with much significance of persistent, continuous\ncreation, of a creation active at all times and in all things, and it is\nto the point that the Cartesians made much of a doctrine that was very\nnear to such a notion; but a truly continuous creation [p.203] could be\nonly an orthodox substitute, or disguise, for evolution. A truly\ncontinuous creation could be bound by no programme; by definition it\ncould have neither date in time nor location in space. And, what is of\neven greater moment, a continuous creator, ever present and ever active,\ncould never be more or less than the persistent reality of the world\nitself. How could he be aloof or different? So have we come, once more,\nto the immanence of God as a necessary idea of the sceptic.\n\nThe doubter's world, then, is the scene, as realistic as you will and\nperhaps we may say, too, without unwarranted enthusiasm, as bright\nbeneath the morning sun, of the ever present, ever active life of God\nor--with the same meaning--of an evolution which we may call God or\nnature as we please. From this thought, too, if only we remember that\nnothing is unreal and no experience is without some contact with\nreality, there is but a step to the idea that God and man are actively\nparties to one and the same life. To repeat from above, the conflicts of\nhuman life are the perfection, the perfect living of God. God is, nay,\nGod's life is, not what some, but what all men do, and the doubter's\nworld is just the world, the world of things always relative, the world\nof constant conflict, in which alone this can be true.\n\n\nII. THE PERFECT SYMPATHY BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL AND THE MATERIAL.\n\nBut we pass to the second feature of this world in which we are\njourneying, namely, to the sympathy of the spiritual and the physical.\n\n[p.204] As a matter of course the sceptic, by his peculiar attitude of\nmind, must imply something with reference to the relation of the two\nworlds, or the worlds commonly supposed to be two, the spiritual and the\nmaterial, and because for him the reality cannot be exclusively one\ndefinite thing or any number, small or large, of definite things, all of\nthem independent and exclusive, he must imply in the world of things, be\nthese two or as many as you please, that they always work together for\nwhatever is real. Such an implication at first hearing may or may not\nappear to be a pregnant one, but at least it suggests that in some\ngenuine way there must be sympathy between the two things, the two\nworlds--spirit and matter, mind and body. These two must work together\nfor whatever is real.\n\nBut by this necessary sympathy between the spiritual and the material is\nnot meant a mere parallelism so called. Thinkers, present and past, have\ntried to be satisfied with such a meaning. To be quite real, however,\nsympathy must be substantial even to the point of unity, not formal.\nSome friends, and even some married people, are parallel, life matching\nlife at each and every point, but not positively and vitally\nsympathetic. Still, in parallelism, the very name for which is fairly\nindicative of its import, there is a convenient approach to the meaning\nhere intended. Moreover, our Cartesian philosophers were much given to a\ntheory of parallelism in their views of the relation of the two spheres\nof mind and matter; their specific doctrine of continuous creation,\nalready referred to, was parallelistic; and they found the human mind\nand [p.205] the human body, though distinctly two, still \"parallel.\"\nThen, too, in more recent times, parallelism has been in evidence,\nfiguring conspicuously at least as a working standpoint in the\npsychological laboratory, and figuring also, I venture to add, as an\nimportant assumption in philanthropic work. Accordingly, although the\nterm itself does convey a good deal of its meaning, I shall try, in\nwords as simple as possible, to show exactly what the theory of\nparallelism is. This done, we shall be able to see, or think through\nparallelism to sympathy of a more genuine and a more vital sort.\n\nAs was said, the doctrine of continuous creation, holding as it does\nthat the mental and spiritual life of God and the constant changes in\nthe natural world, the world said to be of his creation, are always in\naccord, God in his relation to the world being, so to speak, always up\nto date and having his attention on every place and part, is distinctly\na parallelistic doctrine; but, quite apart from any theological\nreference, parallelism asserts that all states, or events, in the two\nspheres of body and mind, of spirit and matter, are (1) equally real and\nsubstantial, and (2) perfectly harmonious and consistent, in just the\nsense that always in connection with any condition or change in one\nrealm there is an accompanying condition or change in the other,\nalthough (3) between the two there exists and can exist no causal\nconnection whatever. Obviously to make either, whether by what is known\nas causation or in any other way, the producing and wholly determining\ncondition of the other, or of anything in the other, would be at once to\nunsettle the equivalence or balance of their reality, and _equally real_\n[p.206] _they must be_. Thus, in more detail, mind is denied any\nindependent part in the production or determination of anything in the\nmaterial realm, and matter is in no way the source of what transpires in\nmind. Each is, so far as the other is concerned, quite its own master.\nEach is absolutely without any arbitrary influence, any influence not\nnatural or sympathetic or co-operative, upon the other. So to speak,\nneither imposes on the other a \"must\" that is not at the same time\nalready the other's \"would.\" In other words, any state in one is always\nthe occasion, but, so far as an independent causation goes, the wholly\npassive occasion of something quite pertinent occurring in the other. Is\nthere an idea, a state of consciousness; then, corresponding, there is\nsome real thing, some physical object adequate to the idea. Is there an\nact of will; then, corresponding to it, some movement in the material\nworld. Were the relation different from this, were mind and matter ever\nindependent causes, not merely coincidents or perhaps co-operative\ncauses, of each other, then, as is worth adding, besides the disturbance\nof the equivalence of reality, already referred to, there would be\nimplied a fixity of plan, or manner of action, and a definiteness of\npossessed power in the nature of the supposed causes, and these\nimplications would also give offence.\n\nYet in the world of our journeying there must be causation--on some\nplan--of some sort. Parallelism, though sometimes supposed to be more\nsweeping, is really and consistently a denial only of isolated,\nindependent causes. It denies, not causation, but causation as ever\nlocalized or with an exclusive residence. [p.207] In very much the same\nway certain political ideas, growing to explicit expression\ncontemporaneously, have denied, not sovereignty or power, but an\nexclusively localized sovereignty or power, as in the case of absolute\nmonarchy or of an absolute institution, whether church or state.\nParallelism, or at least the inner meaning of it, simply imposes certain\nconditions on a still real causation. These conditions, too, necessarily\ninvolve a significant, even a revolutionary change in the nature and\nvalue of any cause, but beyond peradventure they are unavoidable\nconditions. Thus, every active thing having any part in the causation of\nthe world must always be only one among other active things, each also\nwith some part. Then, secondly, all active things must co-operate, in,\nif not actually through their differences working together and\nharmoniously for what is real. In short, they must be \"parallel.\" And,\nlastly, as something not formally asserted by parallelism but still far\nfrom incongruous with it and, as seems to me, even demanded by its inner\nmeaning, all active things must be always acted upon as well as acting.\n\nTo give a single illustration, though this may be quite superfluous,\nparallelism would view the life of a skilled labourer at work in his\nshop as a process in two parts. On the one hand, the environment,\ncomprising not merely all the tools and materials, but also the body of\nthe workman, moves as a mechanism, each part flying to its appointed\ntask consistently with the particular thing to be done; and then, on the\nother hand, the mind and the will of the mechanic, not by any\nindependent _ab extra_ causation, but [p.208] nevertheless at every\nthought or sensation coincidently and pertinently accompanies the\nenvironment's mechanical movement. Each process is consistent within\nitself, not following nor yet preceding, but accompanying the other in\nperfect step. What makes the environment so tractable or the mind so\npractical? The credit here has usually been given to a _tertium quid_,\nto God, who is so made more a mediator than a creator. God is the Great\nParalleler. But the third condition that was to be met--how about that?\nAre the workman's mind and his environment each at once acting and acted\nupon? Are their two processes virtually one instead of two? and is the\nmediation accordingly, just in the fact of such unity instead of in some\nbeing acting as if from without? So far as the formal theory goes, as\nwas said, this third condition is not fulfilled, but the theory cannot\nbe understood as opposed to such unity; rather it is a first step and a\nlong step towards an appreciation of it. The formal theory, alike in its\nassertion of the parallelism and in its view of God as mediator rather\nthan positive creator, is an effective attack, consistent, as we have\nseen, with the demands of an honest, thorough-going scepticism, upon the\nfixed, independent, arbitrarily creative cause in any form. It does not\nopenly assert causation in any other sense. Seeming quite oblivious, for\nexample, of causation as action with an accompanying reaction, or of\nwhat I should style an organic or differential causation. But, besides\nmaking and needing to make no denial of this, it all but opens the door\nto recognition of such a view.\n\nIn such manner, then, as simply and as briefly as [p.209] I find myself\nable to put the case, runs the theory of parallelism; with its equal\nreality and its non-interference of two distinct but thoroughly\ncorrespondent agencies or substances, certainly a theory of a formal,\nrather than genuine and vital, sympathy. Metaphysically it is dualism\nstill persistent. But one needs only a little insight, and perhaps also\na slight leaning towards the gruesome, to see that it is dualism--at\nleast the dualism of the medieval type--already in a shroud. Even\ndualism demands, and should always be allowed, its funeral service and a\ndecent burial. With the passing of dualism, however, the sympathy\nbecomes more than merely formal. Two things always equally real cannot\nbe really two, and a perfect parallelism, though satisfying to certain\ncherished traditions in philosophy or theology, is so saturated with\nunity as to be almost, if not quite, at the point of precipitation.\nWithout attempting, therefore, any further appraisal of parallelism\nmetaphysically, we may turn to what will seem more practical.\n\nLooking or thinking through this metaphysical theory we can see that it\nis equivalent to a declaration that the physical and the spiritual in\nhuman life, or in life at large, are meant for each other. Perhaps in a\nsomewhat stilted fashion, but nevertheless beyond any chance of\nquestion, it is a philosophy that makes man and nature always accordant\nand adaptable, and coming as it did in the history of thought near the\nbeginning of the modern period, it can lay claim to this meaning on\nhistorical as well as on logical grounds. Its value to philanthropy,\ntoo, perhaps only another sign of its modernism, is easily [p.210]\ndetected, since it supplies just such tangible means as the material\nconditions of life for the accomplishment of philanthropic ends, and its\nservice to scientific psychology, plainly an indispensable service, lies\nin its making the physical nature a medium, not merely for the\nexpression, but also for the study of what is psychical. As for its\nrelation to the argument of this book, it is simply dualism meeting; or\ntrying to meet, the demand, in the first place, that reality itself\nshould be indeterminate--_always a tertium quid_--and, in the second\nplace, that the things that are definite, be they material or spiritual,\nshould work together for reality. Under the same demand, be it said,\natomism could stand only if supplemented by some doctrine of assumed\nunity or co-operation among all the elements--as, for example, by\nLeibnitz's doctrine of pre-established harmony.\n\nBut, furthermore, looking and thinking through the theory of\nparallelism, we can see something of special significance for the\ndoubter's world. Men often forget that new relations of things mean new\nthings, or at least new characters for the old things. Thus, mind and\nmatter, or man and nature, if become, or found to be, parallel, are no\nlonger the mind and the matter, the spiritual man and the physical\nworld, that they were. The two things, just by their complete\ncorrespondence, are changed in a most important way. That they must be\nchanged is quite evident, but how to state exactly what the change is is\nnot easy. That the change, too, must be in the direction of their more\nvital union is evident to us, but again the precise description of it is\ndifficult. Still, I submit that the [p.211] effect of correspondence,\nwhether this be natural or imposed, is to make the things concerned, in\nthe present instance the spiritual and the material, at once dynamic and\nteleologic in character and function. Moreover, they are dynamic with\nthe same reality and teleologic for the same end. To correspond to\nsomething, as parallelism makes matter and mind correspond to each\nother, is not, and cannot be, simply to have a certain character,\nself-contained and generally static; it is, and apparently it must be,\nto have a constant call to action, a constant motive to go beyond self,\nand so to make one's nature mediative or instrumental. Wherefore, if\nthis be in truth the effect of correspondence, in our doubter's world\nmind appears as a thinking, not a mere knowing, and matter as a moving,\nnot a mere being; and the thinking and the motion are instrumental, or\nmediative, to the same end, to the same reality. All of which, moreover,\nbeing translated, means, on the one hand, that in our doubter's world\nman is free to think to some practical purpose, and, on the other hand,\nthat the material world will serve both his thinking and his purpose.\n\nAs to the first of these, the freedom of thought, mind by being relieved\nfrom all danger of any _arbitrary_ interference from the physical world,\nhas at once the conscious right of independent procedure and the\npositive assurance of its thinking, thus free and independent, being\nquite practical or applicable; for plainly the freedom is in, not from,\nthe material world. Nothing possible to thought, no consistent chain of\nreflections upon experience, however abstract, can possibly fail to be\nexemplified in the [p.212] natural world, or--as Hegel said, giving more\ndirect expression to the same idea--the real is rational and the\nrational is real. The applicability of thought to life, therefore, the\nreal utility of looking well before leaping, the ultimate service even\nof the most technically scientific theory is what we see from our\npresent observation-tower, and the splendour of the view hardly calls\nfor remark. Man is free to think, to think in his world and about it;\nand his thought is always incarnate; it is an unfailing mediator between\nhim and the life of the material world about him. \"Well begun is half\ndone\" is an old saw, and for human conduct a great truth, but \"Well\nthought is well done\" is even greater, if not older. Think clearly, and\nthe fulfilling act, the overt expression of your thought, is already\nensured. A thoroughly developed plan finds its execution, as it were,\nalready provided for; such is the perfect sympathy between the mental\nand the physical world.[1]\n\nNow, however, that we have observed the complete freedom of the thinker\nin the doubter's world, now that we see the thinker free, not only to\ndevelop his thought abstractly, but also to expect that the conclusions\nwhich he reaches will be exemplified in his [p.213] world and so to be\nable to apply them there, we are in great danger of serious\nmisunderstanding. Thought is indeed free, but the truly free thinker is\nno single individual developing some particular point of view, although\neven such a one must always have some part in the freedom of thought.\nFree thought is deeper than any of its formal expressions and broader\nthan the positive experience of any of its exponents; it belongs to the\nlife of mind as present throughout the whole sphere of all conscious\nlife; and the single individual has part in it only when his actual,\narticulate thinking is supplemented by his conscious doubting of his own\npeculiar standpoint, his treatment of this as only tentative and\nmediative, and his consequent appeal to thought as always deeper and\nbroader than just what he sees, or--amounting really to the same\nthing--only when his thought is mingled in social conflict and mutual\naccommodation with that of others. In the doubter's world the thought\nthat is at once free and fully applicable is social--just as we know\ndoubt to be social; that perfect applicability, so essential to truly\nfree thought, simply cannot belong to all thinking, or to all thoughts,\ndistributively and indiscriminately, to all specific thoughts and ideas,\n_though all must be capable of some application, more or less enduring_,\nbut only in the first place to the thinking that, like pure mathematics,\nis exact and general simply because strictly formal and abstract,[2] and\nin the second place to the thinking that when material and concrete,\nwhen dealing, with actual affairs and definite practical relations,\nmakes up for its consequent [p.214] relativity and subjectivity by inner\nparadox or contradiction, in so far as individual or personal, and by\nopen opposition and controversy, in so far as it is social, and assumes\naccordingly only the value of a means to an end.\n\nMuch has been said in earlier chapters[3] of the paradoxical nature of\nhuman experience. There was seen to be among men no knowledge without a\ncontradiction, and the ever-present paradoxes of experience were\nrecognized as causes of thorough-going doubt. But, although at first\nsight seeming to blast man's ordinary experience, and his science also,\nthese paradoxes were eventually found also to give to experience\nmovement and poise, reality and practicality, and to involve the\nindividual in a life that was as social as it was real, and thereupon\nthey became as certainly reasons for faith as causes of doubt; they were\nwitnesses to a principle of integrity and validity, a spirit of veracity\nmoving through all experience. Accordingly, once more, our truly free\nthinker, the thinker whose thought is thoroughly applicable to life, is\nsuch a one as lives for and with this principle of validity or spirit of\nveracity, having his every thought informed with it. He is not the\nsingle individual, holding tenaciously to some specific standpoint, but\nthe doubter ever using what he sees and knows, and in using appealing\nbeyond what he sees and knows, or he is even the social life that only\nmore directly and explicitly embraces and uses the views of all\nindividuals, these views always working together for what is true and\nreal; or, lastly, he is the truth-spirit itself which is ever superior\nto [p.215] anything that is either merely individual or merely social.\nThe free thinker is just the honest doubter; a believer in what he knows\nor thinks, but only as a working view to something else; and,\nconsciously, a social being, through controversy sharing with others the\npractical experience of what is real.\n\nWith regard to the peculiar case of mathematics, which is widely\napplicable because formal and as exact as formal, it seems enough to say\nthat while mathematics has very properly become the ideal of all\nknowledge, not excluding such sciences as psychology and sociology, the\nfinal value, the peculiar applicability of mathematics, lies in its\ncharacter as a general attitude or method. It is not strictly a science,\nbut the ideal method of science. Doctrinally, that is, as to any\nspecific intellectual content, there can hardly be said to be any pure\nmathematics, any final body of formula absolutely exact and fully\napplicable. Has not doctrinal mathematics had a history? Has it now no\npromise of future changes? But whatever has a history--can this be quite\n\"pure\"? Have even those axioms, which once upon a time you and I learned\nto respect for their self-evidence, been free from the criticism and\nrevision of the mathematical experts? Then, too, taking any particular\nformula from so-called applied mathematics, such as that simple but\naltogether typical one of the lever, what do we find? An equation is\nsaid to exist between the product of the weight by its distance from the\nfulcrum, and that of the power by its distance from the same point, but\nin application this formula can never be fully exemplified. The fulcrum\nnever is a point. The perfectly homogeneous lever, so [p.216] necessary\nto the equation, is unattainable, if not also unthinkable. There can\nnever be complete absence of friction, nor perfectly ideal suspension of\nthe weight or application of the power. And the necessary atmospheric\ndisturbances, even in a \"vacuum,\" to say nothing of the difficulties of\nabsolute measurements, are not less fatal. Only as method, therefore,\nwhich really means as procedure according to standards of strictest\naccuracy and of highest logical consistency, or as closest, most\nconstant loyalty to a spirit of truth, not as doctrine, can mathematics\nbe said to be freely applicable. Mathematics seems to me to be at the\nvery heart of the working hypothesis. Its tests of accuracy are such as\nforever save science from anything like doctrinal dogmatism.\nHistorically there is much significance in the fact that our doubter,\nDescartes, was almost the inventor of the Analytic Geometry, and that\nthis and the Calculus, which came afterwards, and which we owe chiefly\nto Leibnitz and Newton, comprise rather a methodological than a\ndoctrinal mathematics. With their invention and development the\napplication of mathematics to material facts, or it would be better to\nsay to the investigation of material facts, took tremendous strides. So\nDescartes, who doubted mathematics only because it was not satisfying\ndoctrinally, regained in this case, as in that of his God or his\nmaterial world, not exactly what he had lost. Alike in mathematics and\ntheology he lost doctrine and creed; he won method and life. And, to\nreturn, with reference to the relation of mathematics to the free\nthinker, nothing can be clearer than that this science, at least\nsometimes so called, as [p.217] a method or attitude exacting clearest\npossible procedure and highest logical consistency, is the very\nprinciple of veracity, upon loyalty to which the freedom of thought must\nalways depend. Like this principle, too, mathematics--so much more truly\nthan any other discipline--is superior to anything that is either merely\nindividual or abstractly social.\n\nSo, looking and thinking through the theory of parallelism, we see how\nthought is Bet free. Man is free, as was said, to think always to some\npractical purpose. Secondly, then, with regard to the material world,\nsaid to serve his thinking and his purpose, this in its turn is\nliberated also; it is liberated for a life of its own law and order.\nNature, the material world in general, is no longer the victim of\narbitrary changes. Such changes as spring from the occultly creative\nacts of the spiritual world, or more exactly the spirit-world,\nrepresented by God in the character of an extraneous being, by a\npersonal devil or by those minor spirits or powers of light or darkness,\noften if not usually described as objects of superstition, no longer\ninterfere with nature's orderly course. She is left, unmolested, to be\njust her natural self, consistent and persistent in the way prescribed\nby her own inner being. And then, while subject to no arbitrary\ninterference, she is herself never given to interference, but is, on the\ncontrary, in her own right, essentially at one with that other world,\nthe world of the thinker. Poets have ever fondly sung of nature's\nsympathy with man, and her sympathy deep and abiding is exactly what we\nnow observe, nor can any poem too loftily give expression to it.\n\n[p.218] And what, in more detail, of this sympathetic nature--of this\nideal world, or perfect home, of thinking man? With much interest we\ncertainly might trace all the aspects of its character corresponding to\nthe different phases of the thinker's life, but discussion of them all\nwould take too much of our space and might seriously tax an already\ntried patience. So we shall confine ourselves to one thing alone. The\ntruly free thinker was said to be one who believes in what he knows or\nthinks, but only as a working view to something else. No thought of his\ncould ever compass the fulness of truth within him. What, then, of\nnature?\n\nCorresponding to the thinker's positive knowledge, to the specific law\nor order, which at one time or another he finds manifest in his world,\nthere is the well-known, but often misunderstood, character of nature as\na great mechanism, moving of course under the law. But corresponding to\nhis only tentative acceptance, though always trustful use of what he\nknows, there is the much neglected character of nature as not an idle,\nunproductive mechanism, always doing exactly the same thing, but, if I\nmay so speak, a moving, developing, ever-productive one, serving some\nend larger and deeper than the known law. Nature must indeed be a\nmachine if the thinker's knowledge demands uniformity or law, but an\ninstrument of something other than her mechanical self, in short, not a\nmerely revolving, but an evolving, always productive machine, if the\nknowledge itself is never final.\n\nThe material, mechanical character of nature, as I have said, is often\nmisunderstood. The real meaning of it is lost, and with serious results.\nIn the first [p.219] place, it is taken as if it involved a wholly\nexternal, physical nature, and in the second place it is taken as if it\nrepresented this nature only as moving through its changes _according to\na certain law_ and as having in consequence nothing to do but keep up\nthe dead, strictly \"mechanical\" existence of its law-fixed character and\nincidentally involve man in the tireless turning of its fatal wheels.\nBut nothing could be more superficial, or even more needlessly\nsuperstitious, than this. Obvious facts are overlooked or, if seen,\nforgotten. The simplest demands of a truly scientific mind are slighted\nso inexcusably. Could any law of an alien, external nature ever be an\nactual or possible object of knowledge? And could such law as is known\n--of a nature not alien--ever have any but a relative value, a\nprovisional mediate character? Nature may be a machine, but the law of\nher moving is never identical with any law in positive knowledge, though\nwhat is known is always informed with the law of her moving; and this is\nto make her more than a mere machine. Again, no known law is ever _the_\nlaw, and under _the_ law nature must be qualitatively different from\nwhat under the known law she appears to be. To neglect this difference,\nthen, is seriously to misunderstand the mechanical character of nature.\n\nYet some one promptly objects that I am not at all fair to the common\nunderstanding of mechanicalism. I am told that no one ever thinks of\nnature as revolving strictly in accord with any known law. All men who\ngive any thought to the matter concede that the really ultimate law must\nbe not anything that is known, but only what is yet to be known, and is\n[p.220] merely like in kind to such laws as men have cognizance of. This\ninteresting concession, however, quite fails of its purpose, since it\ndoes not meet the real difficulty here in question. It shows\nmechanicalism, not indeed bound to any particular knowledge, but\nnevertheless still conceiving the final lawfulness of nature _after the\nanalogy_ of a particular law, the merely known or unknown or unknowable\ncharacter of which matters not at all. The analogy is what misleads. The\nanalogy only serves to deaden what really lives.\n\nWhen will men cease to think of the whole after the analogy of the part?\nOf _the_, as if it were _a_? When will God cease to be only another\nperson? And the universe only another thing? And the lawfulness or unity\nof all nature only another formula? This or that formula may show nature\na mechanism as smooth running and as blindly given to dead routine as\ncould be imagined, but nature is ever more and other than known formul\u00e6\nof men, and as more and other, or say as answering to the free spirit of\ntruth that moves in the thought of men, she is as free in her real\nlawfulness as she is infinite. By reason of her infinity there is no law\nthat she may not break. _A_ law may make her a mechanism, dead and idle;\n_the_ law makes her an organism living and productive. How a\npositivistic science, making all knowledge wait on actual experience,\nand accepting all knowledge only tentatively, can ever be\nmechanicalistic or appeal to the ordinary understanding as an argument\nfor the mechanicalistic view of things is hard to conceive. If one\nreasons from known forms to uniform activities, must one not also reason\nfrom the always provisional [p.221] and developing knowledge to\nproductive activities? Must not the mechanism evolve into something\nmore, adding something to man's life, realizing something for all life,\nenlarging even the nature of God himself?\n\nOnce more, therefore, corresponding to the law that men may know and\nthat they can know only as their working hypothesis, there is nature, a\nmechanism moving and herself at work, while corresponding to the great\nliving fact of nature's final lawfulness, or to the thinker's sense of\ntruth as a spirit or principle, not a form or creed or programme, there\nis the constantly, genuinely productive life of nature, the mechanism,\nas has now been said several times, ever evolving beyond its form and\nlaw. Her law is not a law, any more than the thinker's passion for truth\ncan be finally satisfied by a formula or than God's continuously\ncreative life can ever culminate in a single finishing act. The\ndoubter's world, in short, or so much of it as is said to be material,\nis not law-bound, but law-free:[4] an organism, not a mechanism; and\nupon the value of this vision of nature, upon the theoretical or the\npractical value, whether to science or to philosophy, to morals or to\nreligion, to politics or to industry, it seems hardly necessary to\ndwell. But, to add a word or two in very general appraisal of it, such a\nnature, served as it is by every law, by every mechanical action, yet\nbound to move, is active always from design; its life is essentially\npurposive. Not that it serves the purpose of anything, or any being,\nbeyond itself, but in every part and movement it is itself always\nmaintaining an end, the end of its [p.222] its own untethered reality.\nIn words used before, and applied alike to the spiritual and the\nmaterial, it is at once dynamic and teleologic.\n\nSuch a nature, be it especially observed, is the basic condition, if not\nalso the very inspiration of our modern industrialism. This industrial\nage, struggling against the old-time militarism, in its religion, in its\nart and in its literature, in its leisure and in its labour, in city and\nin country, is an age of machinery; of machinery in all the manifold\nforms demanded by all the various departments of human life, not of\nwheels and belts alone; an age of the conscious employment, for human\npurposes, of the resources of all sorts, the materials and the forces\nwhich the natural environment affords. Freedom, not slavery, is\nrecognized as man's ideal portion, and in order to ensure the freedom,\nnot human nature, but physical nature is mechanicalized; or, with the\nsame intent, all the formal means, or instruments, of life are taken as\nincidents of environment, not as essential to man. So is industrialism\nsupplanting the old-time militarism that sought, in all the relations of\nlife, to identify the human with the instrumental. Witness the values\nnow put upon theories and creeds, upon rites and institutions, upon\npersonal habits and social laws. All of these, to begin with, are means,\nnot ends; and, further, they are means whose devising--so man is\ninsisting, as never before--must be, as near as possible, true to\nnature. The sovereign conviction of this age of industrialism appears to\nbe that the only sure way to human freedom is the way of nature;\nemployment of such instruments as she can supply; obedience to such law\nas she may disclose.\n\n[p.223] But many have found this age of industrialism insufficient. It\nseems to them so materialistic. It would view things so much from the\nstandpoint of cold naturalism. The attitude of _laissez faire_ as\nmeaning \"Let nature do the work,\" has so widely possessed the minds of\nmen. If only we could get back some of our former idealism and regard\nnature as once more subject to some supernatural will! Despair like\nthis, however, is blind and as needless as blind. Dependence on a\nlawful, mechanical nature can bring to human life no loss of what is\ntruly ideal and personally worthy. Instead, it brings constant gain, for\nthe knowledge of law and the making of machinery do not rob men of\npersonal opportunity, but rather make the opportunity for personal\nachievement only the more manifest. A mechanical nature is always for\nman, not man for a mechanical nature; and its movement is always\nproductive for man. If, then, industrial life has tended, as it has been\nsupposed to tend, towards materialism and fatalism, the reason can lie\nonly in the blindness of such as refuse to see clearly this visible\nfact. Not merely something always doing, but something always that man\nis doing is the definite message of a nature that ever manifests herself\nunder the form of law. To the thinker, in no uncertain syllables, she\nsays: Go forth and do. And our age of industrialism, if hearing this\nbidding, will lose its unnatural materialism, and find itself quick with\na moral and religious instead of a narrowly practical and commercial\nmotive.\n\nSo in the doubter's world are the spiritual and the material genuinely\nsympathetic.\n\n\n[p.224]\n\nIII. A GENUINE INDIVIDUALITY.\n\nBesides the reality, without finality, of all things in experience, to\nwhich we gave our first attention in this chapter, and the perfect\nsympathy of the spiritual and the material, which we have just seen to\ngive new dignity to the intellectual life, making thought free, and new\nworth to the life and movement of nature, making nature not lifelessly\nmechanical, but mechanically productive; besides these two features of\nthe doubter's world, there still remain two others to be observed by us.\nFor the first of these there is the fact of a genuine individuality.\nDifferent persons, as well as different things, possess a substantial\nworth to the real and the true. No one may be either real or worthy by\nhimself, but no one is unreal for being dependent on others. The\npersons, like the things, that work together for what is real, find the\nservice its own reward. Reality, having no exclusive resting-place must\nitself be dependent. It is dependent on an infinite multiplicity of\ndifferences. Therein lies the person's chance for individuality; nay, it\nis his right to it and assurance of it.\n\nBefore the days of Descartes, to speak generally, the typical individual\nin human society--and let me say also, though at the expense of running\ninto a rather violent metaphor, the typical individual in any class or\ngroup whatsoever--was the soldier, a creature of another's will, doing\nonly another's work, and having reality only by virtue of characters so\napart from individual peculiarities as actually to imply existence in\nanother world. The individual, in other words--if [p.225] at once real\nand worthy--was then an unearthly being. For a being so constituted, or\nliving as if he were so constituted, the creationalistic theology and\nthe analogous monarchical politics were of course largely responsible,\nsince in their different ways they took individual independence of\naction from the general run of mankind. They imposed on men at large a\ncertain uniform of life and belief, and then, as it were, appeased them\nfor this suppression with a doctrine of another life in a world yet to\ncome. Plainly, then, the time was not one when personal individuality,\nexcept as it was referred to the other world yonder and apart, was\nrecognized as of much positive worth. Under the regime of prescribed\nroutine, of life with regard to the hereafter, and of mysterious powers\nof all sorts, more or less in good standing in the realm of the\nunworldly, personal individuality, though in itself not without some\nhonour, was valued chiefly and primarily for the different conditions,\nthe different relations to the things of this world, and the different\nviews of these things, which men succeeded in overcoming, or rather in\ncompletely denying and eschewing. A worthy individuality was thus\nsecured rather through self-denial than self-expression; through the\nvassal's devotion to his lord, the gallant's submission to his lady, the\ncourtier's humility before his king, or the saint's self-abasement\nbefore church and heaven. Just think a moment of resting your claim to\ndistinct personal worth on the mere fact of what you have eschewed or\nescaped being in some way different, perhaps more worldly, more\ndangerous, and more powerful, from what some others have eschewed or\n[p.226] escaped, and you will be able to appreciate the main ground of\nthe ideally significant distinction between man and man in the days\nbefore Descartes.\n\nBut with the advent of the doubter's view of life absolutism and its\nappropriate other-worldism melted away like snow beneath a noonday sun,\nand upon their going self-denial ceased to be the cardinal virtue and\nthe chief ground of an approving self-consciousness. Authority came to\nbe placed not in a visible form, but in an abstract principle. Law\nbecame superior to laws; monarchy to monarchs; divinity to Gods; truth\nto truths, and righteousness to rites and habits. The abstract\nprinciple, too, instead of being, as many might imagine, a wholly\nshadowy thing, real only to the logician, stood for something vital and\nsubstantial, for something wholly real, for an inner spirit or life or\npower in the very things of experience. Authority, henceforth refused to\nany specific thing, whether person or manner of life, institution or\nformal belief, became a prerogative of all things together, of all\npersons or all manners of life or all creeds; and, residing in the\nworking together of them all, it made personal worth consist no longer\nin the denial of individual characters and relations, but in honest\nassertion and open use of them. As some have liked to describe the\nchange, the \"universal individual,\" the individual as an authoritative\nand heaven-made type, that dictated a life and a belief to others\ngenerally, passed away, and in its stead, instead of unity as itself an\nindividual, instead of an incarnate type, came unity as in the relation,\nor the activity maintaining the relation, of all individuals. Instead of\na single planet, for [p.227] example, as the controlling centre of the\nheavenly bodies, came the unity of the solar system through the force or\nthe law of gravity. Instead of a monarch or a book or a city the\nself-sufficient ruler of human life and human thought, came unity\nthrough the ballot; through freedom of thought--always loyal only to a\nreal unity and in being thus loyal also always tolerant; and through all\nsorts of like means to individuality. The \"universal individual\" died,\nand there arose, as it were, out of his grave the living unity of\nmanifold individuals, each one different, yet each quite essential.\n\nAnd the change brought a transfiguration. It was as if the human soul\nhad entered a new body, or as if the human body had received a new soul.\nNot least among the significant evidences of the new life were the rise\nof the study of history and the awakening of a keener and more practical\ninterest in men and things the wide world over. With its valuable\naccounts of the manifold experiences of different peoples and different\ntimes, at last seen to be real parts even of the life present and at\nhand, the study of history became wonderfully absorbing and inspiring;\nand not less valuable than this travel in time was the travel in space,\nthe real travel or the imaginary, which accompanied it. Furthermore,\nsuch ideas as balance of power and preservation of the worth and\nintegrity of the individual nation, and division of labour and right of\nfree speech and of political and religious liberty, developed into most\npowerful influences in the life and consciousness of society. And, to\nreturn definitely to the single person, he found himself, not in spite\nof, but because of his [p.228] special place and special standpoint, an\nactive participant in the effective life of his time. Instead of being a\nmere soldier as before, he found himself a mechanic; certainly the\nproper inhabitant of a mechanically productive nature.\n\nDoubtless the term soldier lends itself more readily to philosophical\ngeneralization than the term mechanic. Perhaps, too, distance in time\nlends enchantment to the view, for the day of the soldier was, while the\nday of the mechanic is. The day of the soldier has reached the stage of\nromance and reflection, while the day of the mechanic suffers from what\nis commonplace and prosaic, from the associations of a particular life,\nfrom dust and smoke and factories, from tools and utilities. Yet the\nmechanic must be the romantic figure of the future. He is the typical\nindividual of these modern times, of these times of the free because\npractical thinker, and of a nature not lifelessly mechanical but\nmechanically productive. Forget the grimy hands and the noisy machinery,\nthe overshadowing smoke and the apparent absorption in mere utility, and\nthink only of the man, who in his best moments feels himself\nindividually responsible and capable, who believes in himself as having\nat once a peculiar and a necessary part in the real life of his time,\nand who expresses himself through some skilful mastery over the\nresources of nature, applying to them the principles his own thinking\nhas uncovered, and using her machinery to the ends of his own nature,\nwhich, as we have seen, is bounded only by the \"unity of experience.\"\n\nRemember, too, the mechanic of our modern world is [p.229] not the\nfactory labourer alone. Wherever in social life, whether in political\nactivity or in industrial management, in educational methods or in\nreligious effort, there appears a man who appreciates the need first of\nobserving natural conditions and finding natural laws, and then of\nacting only in accord with the suggestions of the laws discovered, just\nthere is the mechanic, the responsible agent of a law-free but always\nlawful nature. The soldier as creature of this world was only a passive,\nwholly material part of a mechanism which depended for its movement upon\nsome outside power or will; but the mechanic, be he humble labourer\nskilful in the use of tools, or political leader supporting no law that\nis not, so far as can be known, in accord with natural life, or\nreligious reformer loyal to life as it is, shares positively in the\nactivity that makes the machinery go and in whatever this activity\nproduces.\n\nAnd yet one thing more must be said. Just as before we had to view free\nthought in the light of a divided labour, the individual sharing in it\nonly as he treated his own peculiar experience as hypothetical, as a\nmeans to an end, not merely an end in itself, or as he was subject to\nthe restraint and correction of the different experiences of others, so\nnow we must recognize that effective activity, not less than true\nthinking or than realistic experience, is also necessarily the labour,\nnever of one alone, but of many. The successful mechanic--in other\nwords, the fully responsible agent of a law-free nature--is never an\nisolated creature with merely such a sentimental concern for his\nneighbours as might spring from the recognized chance [p.230] of meeting\nthem in that world of the hereafter, where all are to be equal and where\nlove and peace are to supplant the present hate and rivalry; he is, on\nthe contrary, one among others, different from him, it is true, and\noften very positively at variance with him, but engaged with him in a\nsingle activity and achievement. His difference works not against, but\nwith their differences for thoroughly controlled, truly effective\nactivity. As things are real, though never final, so men, at work in the\nworld, are individual and individually important, but never alone.\n\nThe facts in the case, logically and practically, appear to be somewhat\nas follows: The individual's view-point, and the special machinery by\nwhich he undertakes to realize it, can be only tentative or provisional;\nthey have the character, and usually he knows that they have the\ncharacter, if I may use a somewhat extravagant term, of makeshifts; and,\nsuch being the fact, he is bound always to be in a state of constraint\nor tension, in a relation of suspense towards them and towards the\nenvironment to which they refer or belong. He feels a positive\nresistance, a something disposed to counteract what he would do, and of\ncourse the feeling means that he is really party to a growing life, not\nestablished in a completed life. Suppose a view-point, or a machinery\nthat was perfectly applicable, that worked perfectly, that never did and\nnever could give out, that might not even very suddenly go all to\npieces, and that therefore put no strain nor uncertainty upon him who\nheld or employed it; could such a view-point or such machinery be of any\nservice to a growing life, to productive [p.231] activity? Most\ncertainly not. Tension, or a strained relationship, is necessary to\nevery individual's conduct and to every individual's ideas. But this\nstrain, to be real, just to accomplish its own purposes must be not\nmerely of a person with his own ideas or with the outer world to which\nthe ideas refer, but of a person with other persons; not merely of\nconscious man with a mechanical nature, but of conscious and\nmechanically active man with other conscious and mechanically active\nmen.\n\nIt is now an old story for us, but an important one, that there must be\nsociety. A genuine individuality requires society. Society is a medium\nnot by which something is added to individual life, but by which\nsomething in individual life is kept real and manifest. By maintaining,\nas it were always from without, the natural tension of individual life,\nit ensures to the individual the constant growth that is his legitimate\ninheritance. The doubter is a social creature. The free thinker\naccepting his ideas only tentatively, though at the same time using them\nhopefully, sure that they will lead somewhere, is a social creature; and\nthe mechanic is a social creature, being one with others for whom life\nis not routine but growth, and among whom the growth in which each has\nhis part induces constant tension, the tension of difference, the\ntension of opposition and competition, the tension of mutual correction\nand compensation, the tension, finally, of reality refusing to be bound.\nNot the individual's provisional standpoint, nor yet the machinery that\nhe employs and that sooner or later must go to pieces, not these alone,\nI must therefore reiterate, make the individual effectively [p.232]\nactive in a growing world, make him a worthy creature doing the work of\nnature or of God; these have their place and part; but constant relation\nto other individuals, the objects not less of hate than of love, not\nless of rivalry than of friendship, is also essential.\n\nIn the so-called material world all things, in and by themselves unreal,\nget reality, yes, get individual reality, only as through their very\ndifferences they work together for what is real. In the world of mind,\nor thought, if this can be imagined apart from the world of things, all\nthoughts or ideas, in and by themselves untrue for being subjective,\nrelative, and partial, get truth only as also through their differences,\nso tense and interactive, they work together for what is true. And,\nlikewise, in the world of persons, if indeed this can be imagined apart\nfrom the world of thought, all individuals, call them now mechanics or\nwhat you will, though in and by themselves without personal worth or\nreal individuality, without freedom or immortality, get genuine worth\nand are assured even immortality only as shoulder against shoulder they\nwork together for a life that is true and real, worthy and genuine.\n\nBut in an earlier chapter, dealing with \"The Personal and the Social,\nthe Vital and the Formal in Experience,\" a different argument for\nindividuality was insisted upon. Then the person was individual because\nof his independence of particular form; now he is so because a real life\ndemands the particular and different, with which he is assumed to be\nnecessarily identified. Then he was the \"living, integral exponent of\nthe unity of experience,\" free with the [p.233] genius of universality,\nnow he is one among all the particular conflicting elements of that\nunity--or at least of the reality to which that unity refers. So there\nappears to be even an inconsistency in my thinking. Yet, I venture still\nto think, the inconsistency is only apparent. Certainly it should be\nremembered that the person's asserted genius for universality was not\nfor the universal in an abstract sense, in the sense of the universal as\nsomething by itself and apart from particulars; rather it was for a\nconstant enriching of the universal through particulars, for the\ntranslation of any one particular relation and experience, which had\nreached a higher state of development, to all the other actual or\npossible relations of life; and this can mean only that the universal,\nin which the personal individual has a place, is not denying or\nbetraying, but always holding and lifting up to itself all particular\nfactors or elements in the unity of experience or of reality. Simply,\nthough perhaps abstrusely too, the universal is just all the\nparticulars; unity is always in and through difference; and there is,\ntherefore, without inconsistency, a case for individuality from either\nside. Indeed, the life of the individual being, as was said, always in a\ntension or strain of difference, of opposition and competition, is bound\nto have, it can be real only as it has, both a particular form and a\ngenius for universality. Not in the sense of that conventional theology,\ncrudely dualistic and unthinkable, but in a sense that is not to be\ngainsaid and that may give some meaning even to the conventional\ntheology, every individual is real only in having a body and a [p.234]\nsoul. The soul of a man is only his genius for universality, but for a\nuniversality that works through, not that is independent of, the\nparticular.\n\nSo the difference between this chapter and the former chapter is merely\none of emphasis. The double character of the individual, however, as it\nis now before us, starts an inevitable question. Is the individual as\nimmortal as real? If he is immortal, does the immortality belong to both\nsides of his character, to his body and to his soul, or only to one?\nAnd, admittedly, this question offers more serious difficulties than the\nsuspicion of inconsistency. How can it be met?\n\n\nIV. IMMORTALITY.\n\nTo write a useful essay on immortality has long been one of my\nambitions, and, as regards the views in that essay, my faith and my\nreason alike have so far brought me to this thesis: _Whatever is real is\nimmortal_.[5] \"A most meagre contribution to the subject,\" I hear some\none exclaim. But is it so very meagre after all? \"A most gloomy\ncontribution,\" says another, \"for evil, and above all death, are real.\"\nBut is it so gloomy? Remember, not even death can be real alone.\nPossibly, too, the meagreness will seem less and the gloom will be\nilluminated if the need of the real being also the ideal, is brought to\nmind. That the real must be ideal, that the world must be so [p.235]\nconstituted that the law of whatever is good will prevail in it, has\nbeen a faith manifested among all men and expressed through history in\ncountless ways. True, no particular experience ever satisfies it. Not\neven the particular things we adjudge to be best are adequate to it, and\nthe things we think evil, the suffering and the hardships of all kinds,\nthe always tragic death and the too often offensive life, seem its\neternal rebuke. Yet the faith remains, and you and I and all others are\nforever calling out to it. Our very doubts are its altars; our honest,\nrational thoughts, as they are uttered, are prayers; perhaps the only\nprayers to which we have any right.\n\nSo the real, which must be also the ideal, is immortal; and this, quite\napart from any particular questions about the body or the soul, makes a\nworld to live in and to hope in, whatever happens. Of body and soul,\ntoo, it says something. These, in just so far as they are real, are\nimmortal, and any real relation between them is immortal also, for the\nconclusive test of immortality is just reality, reality here and now.\nWhatever is real in your life or in mine, whatever reality our present\npersonality may possess, be it physical or spiritual, be it both or\nneither of these, that and only that is immortal. That and only that,\nhowever, let it be said again, is now or never. The most serious error,\nso it seems to me, in all the controversy about immortality, is the\nnotion, or the superstition, that something that is real now can pass\naway, or that something real in the future is not real, not freely real\nnow. With this error corrected, of course at the expense of certain\nattempts to bind reality to [p.236] something that is visible, if not to\nthe natural eye, at least to the eye of the mind, man has nothing to\nfear. Reality will hold him to itself, will support whatever truly\ninheres in his friendships or his family ties, in his best hopes or in\nhis personal conceits, for ever and ever. Reality can never betray what\nit has ever harboured.\n\nAnd the whole trend of thinking in this book has been to make the\nreality here spoken of a most hospitable harbour. So innate to all\nexperience is the spirit of truth, the principle of veracity, that life\ncan have no absolute illusions. True, life also can have no positive\nknowledge final and exact, so that all things definitely manifest are\nonly relatively true or real. All things definitely manifest, whether to\nthe consciousness that looks without or that looks within, are mixedly\ntrue or false, real or unreal. But just this impossibility, now so\nfamiliar to us, at once of absolute illusion and of absolute knowledge,\nis, as said so often, a condition of _the_ true and _the_ real, and it\nmeans in this place that nothing which is ever defined, which is ever\nhypostasized or apotheosized, which in any way is erected into a thing\nor nature quite by itself, possessing determined or determinable\nqualities, can ever be said to be either mortal or immortal, since it\nmust be as truly one as the other. It must be significantly, but never\npurely and exclusively either. Not this hand of mine nor that picture on\nthe wall, not this body which, so to speak, I seem to wear, nor that\nsoul, which you or I imagine to be in the body and more or less loosely\nconnected with the body, is unqualifiedly immortal. Nor yet [p.237] is\nany of these unqualifiedly mortal. Still, again, there is immortality,\nand an infinitely hospitable immortality, which the hand and the whole\nbody and the soul, be it yours or be it mine, all have a place and a\npart in. There is immortality, and, besides those things that were just\nnamed, divinity is also immortal. But even a God dies, this being just\none of the things that make him God. Any man, then, or any being, or any\nthing, may say, \"I am immortal.\" No one, however--to speak now only in\nwords directly applicable to man--may say, \"My body is immortal,\" nor\neven, \"My soul is immortal,\" if, so speaking, he means only what he\nseems to say. Body and soul alike, if two separate things, are _both_ of\nthem at once living and dying. They are equally mortal or immortal, for\nonly so, as two things, can they belong to the real self. Can parts, be\nthey two or many more, ever be unmixedly what the whole is? There is\nimmortality, then, yet nothing, not the body nor the soul, is wholly or\nselfishly immortal. Reflect, to take an illustration from the practice,\nif not from the conscious thinking of men, how through the centuries of\nthe dualistic view of human nature, the saving, or the losing, of the\nseparate soul has been a keen human interest, and how the separate body,\nliving, has been neglected and despised, and, dead, has been cherished\nand honoured. Yes, man's immortality is deeper, and it is more\nhospitable, than any distinction, be this invidious on one side or on\nthe other or be it not, between the physical and the spiritual. Even in\nthe case of the spiritual, _the_ cannot be _a_.\n\nThe soldier and the mechanic have been mentioned [p.238] as types of\npersonal individuality appropriate respectively to the medieval and the\nmodern period, to the period of the \"universal individual,\" on the one\nhand, and of unity realized, not through a type, but through the working\ntogether of different individuals, on the other. The type was of another\nworld; the living unity is here and now in this. For the mechanic, then,\ndeath is not what the soldier has found it, and immortality is different\ntoo. But how fully to describe the difference, and how above all really\nto appraise it, I do not clearly know. Perhaps there is not enough of\nthe poetic in my nature. The soldier, as the political historian or as\nthe philosopher sees him, has had his appreciative poets, but the\nmechanic has been little sung. The mechanic's death, however, and the\nlife following it, afford a theme that some poet of the future, let me\nhope, will be able to do justice to. The soldier leaves this for another\nworld, by his violent death only fulfilling his extreme subjection here.\nThe mechanic, somewhat like the tools which he employs, actually\ncontinues with the always productive life of this world, by his death,\nnatural rather than violent, even contributing to, as well as sharing\nin, what is produced. Not less than the soldier's is his after-life an\nappropriate fulfilment of his earthly career; each gains through death\nthe natural reward of his life's service. But though I find myself so\nunable to say what I would, to express either in prose or in poetry all\nthat I seem to feel, there is just one thought that I must try to\narticulate, and that will certainly assist the understanding of the\ndifference between the two deaths or the two after-lives.\n\n[p.239] Soldiers are companionable, of course, but they live less in and\nwith each other than in and with the will which they serve or than in\nand with the separate world which at any moment may suddenly take them\nto itself. Their lives, accordingly, or their deaths, are aloof from\neach other, and are brought together only through their common\nsubjection or their common destiny, through something which is without.\nBut the mechanic is social in his own nature, in his own right. The very\nreality, too, of the world in which he works is, as in so many ways we\nhave seen, maintained only by a divided labour. It is, then, a reality,\nor a labour, that bridges the chasm between one man's life and\nanother's, as well as between all separate lives and the unity of all\nlife. It makes the many lives \"parallel\" and harmonious--nay, it makes\nthem actively and vitally sympathetic. Not, as is certainly true, at the\nexpense of any one's real individuality, for each man has his place and\nhis part, real and immortal, and not one falls unnoticed or unguarded to\nthe ground; but, nevertheless, whatever all have and do, they have and\ndo together. They live-and-die together. There is, in a word, but one\ndeath, as well as but one life, the life or the death, which all share,\nand which accordingly is definitely and specifically nowhere and\nnobody's. And in the light of this supreme unity, while any live, none\ncan be merely dead, or while any die, none can be merely alive or living\nto themselves or their time alone. And, living and dying together, in\nand with each other, all are parties to the immortality of what is real.\n\nSo, again, there is immortality for mankind--the [p.240] immortality of\nhim whom I have called the mechanic. There is immortality, mine and\nyours and ours. We die, but not as dies the soldier, who leaves this\nlife for another quite apart, securing there a companionship denied him\nhere; we die a death that is never death alone, and we die as we live,\nin a companionship that is real now and throughout all time.\nFurthermore, our death is always, or always may be, self-denial, and\nself-denial, too, in its supreme moment, the moment of its greatest\nachievement, but our self-denial is also very different from that of the\nsoldier.\n\nThere is immortality, then, but what results has all that has now been\nsaid for the interpretation of history, for our feelings about the life\nand death of our fellows, and for the relevant doctrines of\nChristianity?[6]\n\nWe commonly think of history as the passing of persons, nations, and\ncivilizations. Men come and go, but history goes on for ever. To be\nsure, history accumulates, as if its gifts from humanity, innumerable\ntreasures, books, relics, institutions, buildings, machinery and the\nlike, but the donors, as we are wont to think, are lost to it, remaining\nas ideal influences perhaps, but not as vitally active in the life they\nonce assisted. This common view, however, must now seem wrong. The past\nmust ever persist in the present, and not as an aside in some other\nworld, nor yet as merely so much ideal influence, but vitally as a party\nto the present. Those that were must also live now. Have we their\nliterature? Yes, and their consciousness [p.241] too. Their\ninstitutions? And also their life. Their achievements? And their power\nand will. Altogether too fanciful, some one thinks; but give it meaning\nfrom what has been said here especially about individuality. In the real\nworld there can be but one life and one death, and we individuals,\nwhatever our century, divide the labour of them both. Even our present\nlife and consciousness and our will must be said to belong, in return,\nto those who have gone before; for it is wrong, it must be wrong, to\nthink of the life of the past and the life of the present as two lives,\nas independent and perhaps even different in kind. Not those that are\nnow gone once lived and we live, but they and we are living, they in us,\nand we with them; they in the world of our life, not in a world yonder\nand apart. They live in us, to suggest a simple analogy, that is perhaps\nmore than a mere analogy, very much as our own past selves, our infancy\nand our youth, are alive with us and in us to-day. If a physical\nscientist can see the same force in the military weapons and engines of\nancient times that he sees in those of our own time, if a sociologist\ncan find the same social phenomena then and now, may not the historian\nregard the older life in general and the newer life as not less\nintimate? Did different winds blow in 1492 from those that blow to-day?\nWas it a different sun that shone in 500 B.C.: from that which shone in\nA.D. 500, or which shines, or tries to shine, to-day? We do not deny\nthat the animal nature is still alive in us as well as around us,\nalthough at the same time we suppose it to belong to a very early period\nin our development. Why, then, should we exclude what is [p.242] so much\nmore recent? Because it is too distinctly human to be so robbed of its\ntemporal independence, of its own date and place? That is certainly a\nstrange reason in view of the fact that men have insisted on erecting,\nin their minds, for the human nature that has passed away, a place which\nis altogether timeless and eternal. Why not dignify human nature, then,\nby making it, and all that it bears, eternal in its own natural life,\nnot in a sphere that is unnatural? It is sheer materialism, in letter or\nin spirit, either to entomb the historic past, as some would, in books\nand monuments of all sorts, or, as others would, to lay it aside in a\nso-called immaterial world. Who does either of these things forgets how\nthe books are written and how the monuments are erected, and how in\ngeneral the things of the past come to be. The future is always a party\nto whatever is done. The men who have ever achieved anything have always\nbeen, in their character and in their work, as if made by the future,\n\"ahead of their times.\" An uncanny phrase, unless one can think of the\ndeeds and men of any time as in a vital unity with the deeds and men of\nall times. A man is great only as he identifies himself with some social\nforce, with some actual movement of his day, fulfilling it out of a long\npast, bringing it to focus and so making it definite and manifest, and\nas the life around him which gave him birth, adopts his will and repeats\nhis achievement. History has many cases of human societies repeating in\ntheir lives as a whole the careers of great men. Only it is not\nrepetition exactly; it is resurrection and continuation. Great men make\nhistory, but they make it only because they [p.243] are alive in it\nbefore their birth and survive in it, in its doing and in its thinking,\nafter they die.[7] Would history be even thinkable without such\ncontinuity? Could we honestly call it history? What good American to-day\nis not, convinced that he has a share in what Washington and Lincoln\naccomplished years ago, and also--and this one may, or may not,\nregret--in the doings of Benedict Arnold and Booth? And, to put a very\npractical question, would it not be well if in the popular consciousness\ngreat men, good and bad, were really identified with history instead of\nbeing treated as fixtures outside of it? Make them separate fixtures and\nyou make them oracles, the spirits of quite another world, with which\nthe demagogue, as if a medium, can excite the people; but identify them\nin a vital way with history and they must grow with it, speaking quite\nas much out of the present conditions as out of the past. Hero-worship\nis too often idolatry, and for my part the literalism of it is only\n\"spiritualism\" trying to be respectable. Every extravagance, of course,\nhas to have its lawful or conventionally respectable expression.\n\nBut what, now, of friendship and family ties? Can we view these in the\nsame light? I think we would; I think we can; I think we must. True, it\nis easier to speak in this large, \"philosophical\" way of history and of\nthe men who have had part in it, inventing and effectively using the\nmachinery that has enabled its progress, than of such matters as\nfriendship and [p.244] family. In these latter matters the heart more\nthan the mind is addressed. Still, the relations of friendship and\nkinship are not themselves born, nor do they die and all friends abroad\nand kin at home live and move and have their being only in these. Does\nit destroy or even weaken the meaning or the reality of friendship to\nhave it said that the relation is as universal as particular or local,\nand as eternal as temporal? Is a relationship worth less than any one of\nits manifestations? Why, the universality of the relationship gives\nmeaning or reality to any manifestation. Friendship, then, or kinship,\nfor this person or that, cannot be separated from the experience in\ngeneral. Separate it, and one's friends or kin surely do die, remaining\nafter death, like the characters of the older history, as only ideal\n\"influences,\" or as unearthly spirits that sometimes idly chatter. But\nin reality, friendship, or kinship, is one, not merely many, all of its\nmembers labouring together for, and forever surviving in, what it truly\nis. The friends, then, or the kin that lived, live still. In others\nabout us? Yes; and in ourselves too; or rather in the relation of man to\nman or in the unity of all that lives. Not literally in others, then,\nalthough the meaning intended was a genuine one, nor yet literally in\nourselves, for nothing crudely like transmigration of souls is in my\nmind, but--to repeat--in the living relationship of friends or kin.\nThere is indeed a truth in transmigration, as also in other related\nnotions; witness all the facts of inheritance, of historical succession\nor continuity, of social growth and personal character, of evolution;\nbut it is the truth, or is near to [p.245] the truth, of a reality that\nis conserved even in its changing. The soldier of the past, let me say,\nat his death was \"translated,\" but the mechanic of to-day is transmuted.\nThe latter word may be stranger and harsher in sound than the former,\nbut there is truly less violence and more honour in its meaning. So,\nagain, friends and kin that ever lived, live still. Friendship and\nfatherhood and motherhood and all the relations of kin, nay, all the\nrelations of life, that make our individuality real, that make it\npersonal, that make it social, that make, it natural, have been from the\nbeginning, live now, and must survive forever, and by their survival\nhold for the present and the future life all who have ever been. Where\nwould faith go, and where worth and responsibility, if birth really\ncreated and death destroyed, or if birth were a coming from no one knows\nwhere, from a realm unlike and apart, and death the return? Birth cannot\ncreate or introduce; it can only express, revealing and realizing. Death\ncannot destroy or \"translate\"; it can be only fulfilment at a crisis.\n\nThe mere wordiness of a philosopher! Possibly. And yet Christianity has\nvery nearly implied, if indeed it has not actually said, and said or\nimplied again and again, exactly the same thing. To science, I know, we\nare peculiarly indebted for the conception of the organism, or the\norganic, which enables us to bring together the universal and the\nindividual, the eternal and the temporal, the omnipresent and the local,\nwithout losing the worth or the reality of either, and of course--for so\nthey would not be together--without erecting separate quarters, or\nworlds, for their [p.246] occupation; but, when all is said, science has\nonly applied at large the very special and personal doctrines of\nChristianity, and has therein helped Christianity to a better\nconsciousness of itself. The Resurrection, the Immaculate Conception,\nthe Divinity, the Immediacy of the Kingdom, the Sacrifice, and the\nBrotherhood of Man are doctrines which one and all testify quite\ndirectly that our real individuality, our real being, lies not in a\nseparate existence of any sort, here or hereafter, but in the abiding\nrelations of the actual life now. In these the Christ resides, the\nalways living Christ. What else can the following mean? \"In as much as\nye have done it unto one of these, my brethren, even these least ye have\ndone it unto me.\" And again: \"For whosoever shall do the will of my\nfather which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and\nmother.\" The living Christ, one of the dogmas of our day, is more than a\nfancy and more than a dogma, and for no one so truly as the scientist,\nthe evolutionist. Christ was too great, too deep-lying, too far-reaching\nin human history not to be more. The letter of Christianity, we are\noften told, has got to go, but it is quite as true that the real letter\nof Christianity has got to stay, has yet to come: the real letter, I\nsay, not the parody of a mere physical appearance and reappearance\nnearly two thousand years ago. If Christ was really not born as men are\nborn, if he did not really die, if truly he still lives in and with our\nlives to-day, if Christianity honestly means the brotherhood of humanity\nand the divinity of man, then simply the Christ was more than a pagan's\nmessenger from another world, and [p.247] more than the creature of a\nsingle moment in history or a single place; also he reveals to us more\nin ourselves than any of these things, and instead of resorting to such\nnotions as parthenogenesis and trance to explain the birth and the\nresurrection, we must rather recognize in him, and in ourselves, an\nindividuality that has, not in spite of, but because of, birth and\ndeath, a share in, a place and a part in the immortality of what is\nreal. Now I am not a good preacher, plainly, nor am I exactly a\nsympathetic theologian, and also I know too well the defects of argument\nthrough scriptural quotation; but I have to hope, as personally I\nbelieve, that in the foregoing paragraph, given in conclusion to the\ndiscussion of immortality in the doubter's world, I have suggested what\nat least is not an unchristian appreciation of Christianity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur journey in the doubter's world here comes to an end. All things are\nreal, yet none final. The spiritual and the material in life are\nsympathetic even to the point of being vitally at one with each other,\nthought being free and practical, and material nature being lawful but\nlaw-free, and mechanical but productively so, and being in her\nproductiveness definite opportunity, not blind necessity, to human life.\nAnd, the \"universal individual\" being dead, having returned to the other\nworld from which he came, all particular individuals have real and\npersonal shares in the life that is, in the work that is ever to be\ndone. Living or dying, the individual, as we have found him, is the\nmechanic of to-day, not the soldier of yesterday.\n\n\n[1] The last few sentences seem like a paragraph from some psychologist\nof the day. My colleague, Professor W.B. Pillsbury, for example, has\njust published a book on the attention, in which appears the following\nstatement: \"It seems that the problem of voluntary activity is largely,\nif not entirely, a problem of the attention ... . The processes which\nare effective in the control of a man's ideas are _ipso facto_ in the\ncontrol of his movements,\" and this, besides being the current\npsychology, is quite in accord with our doubter's vision: \"Well thought\nis well done.\" (See _Attention_, chapter ix. London, 1907.)\n\n[2] Chap. VIII., pp. 177 seq.\n\n[3] Chaps. III., IV., V., and VI.\n\n[4] See also an earlier discussion in this book, chap. III., pp. 49 seq.\n\n[5] Two preliminary efforts have already been put in print. See the\nAppendix, \"A Study of Immortality in Outline,\" to a book: _Dynamic\nIdealism: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Psychology_ (McClurg,\n1898). See, secondly, an article: \"_Evolution and Immortality_,\" in the\n_Monist_, April, 1900.\n\n[6] Except for a few changes, the next few paragraphs are taken from my\narticle, \"Evolution and Immortality,\" in the _Monist_, April, 1900.\n\n[7] In a small book, _Citizenship and Salvation, or Greek and Jew_,\npublished some years ago, I have tried to show this of Socrates and\nChrist.\n\n\n\n[p.248]\n\nX.\n\nDOUBT AND BELIEF.\n\n\n     There was once a brook that ran, at times slowly, at times more\n     rapidly, through fields and woods, under trees and over rocks. At\n     every chance, whatever the obstacles in its course, it fell, much\n     or little, as it could; but impatience and uncertainty filled its\n     life as the minutes and the hours passed. Had life nothing more in\n     store for its troubled waters? Was this groping downward all? Were\n     the memory and the accompanying hope, which haunted every thwarted\n     move, of no avail? Would true fulness of life never be attained?\n\n     But a great moment for the brook came, rewarding it at last,\n     bringing assurance in place of threatened despair. A precipice\n     intervened, and the waters fell hundreds of feet; a glorious fall\n     --spray, sunlight, colour, eloquence.\n\n     \"Now,\" spoke the brook from the deep, smooth pool below, \"now I\n     have lived; now I know that my life was real and that my life was\n     good, for I have found myself, I have found my world; and I have\n     found them where I thought them not. And, speaking so, the brook\n     flowed on contented.\n\nThe confession of doubt, which we set out to make with all possible\ncandour, is now nearly concluded even to the harvesting of the promised\nfruit. The confession began, as will be remembered, with recognition of\ncertain general and easily demonstrated facts, of [p.249] which there\nwere five, as follows: (1) We are all universal doubters. (2) Doubt is\nessential to all consciousness. (3) Even habit, though confidence be the\nhorse, has doubt sitting up behind. (4) Like pain or ignorance, doubt is\na condition of real life. (5) And the sense of dependence, so general to\nhuman nature, gives rise to doubt, although also, like misery, it always\nseeks company--the company of nature, of man, of God. Then, after this\nbeginning, which left us by no means so hopeless as might have been\nexpected, we proceeded to try the doubter, nay, to try ourselves, first\nbefore the court of ordinary life with its ordinary views of things, and\nsecondly, before the court of science, and, in both trials, we found the\ndoubting justified. Alike in ordinary life and in science, even in\nscience where such a result was perhaps hardly to be expected, we found\nwhat at least seemed like illusion and what certainly was paradox, and\nalmost against our will we had to conclude that a spirit of\ncontradiction and duplicity and vacillation dwelt at the very centre and\nthe very heart of our human experience. This spirit of violence, too, as\nthe evidence of its presence accumulated, bade fair to dispel whatever\nhope our confession had left us. Yet out of the evidence there gradually\ndid appear a reason for deepest assurance, and in the end our fear, not\nour hope, was dispelled. Contradiction was seen in its very nature to\npossess positive value. It was seen to protect experience, even while\nexperience was specific and concrete, definite and individual, against\nany fatal digression or partiality of view. It was deeply conservative,\ncorrective, and [p.250] compensative in its effect, but it was all this\nwithout ever being merely negative or destructive towards anything,\nsince its own efficiency required persistent individual differences. To\nexperience it gave movement, constant unity or wholeness, realistic\nvalue and poise, practicality, and, lastly, social expression. And we\nwere able, accordingly, to conclude, in so many words, that both\nordinary life and science, so given to duplicity in their standpoint and\nin their ideas, were really building well, far better, indeed, than they\nseemed or than they clearly knew. Contradiction, in short, as we came to\nsee it, meant unity, but not an empty, abstract unity; it meant unity\nrich and real with an infinity of differences; and so what had at first\nappeared an uncompromising reason for doubt turned, right before our\ndoubter's eyes, into an unassailable ground of belief, making the very\nworld which we had been so uncertain about a world for an inviolable\nfaith. But truth, we saw at once, could no longer be identified with a\nformal idea, known or unknown or unknowable; reality could no longer\nhave the character of a fixedly constituted thing, whether such a thing\nwere present in experience or not; and perfection, even the perfection\nof God, could no longer be a mere status, a passive possession of\ncertain characters, attributes, or prerogatives. Truth became, as was\nsaid, in want of a better word, a spirit; reality was a life; perfection\nwas a power. And thereupon, with the new view thus afforded us, coupled\nas it was especially with the sense in which personally a man could\nclaim reality for himself and yet be party to the factional life of\nsociety, we were able to turn to [p.251] Descartes, an early modern\ndoubter, a father confessor of many doubters, and, overlooking some of\nhis shortcomings in thought and character, to appreciate both the use\nthat he made of doubt, the intimacy that he, too, found between doubt\nand faith, and the world of reality, of most vital sympathy between the\nmaterial and the spiritual, of genuine, personal individuality, and of\nimmortality, through which he led us, doubter, universal doubter though\nhe was. That great Frenchman, as we were enabled to understand him, got\nback the world, the self and the God which he seemed to have lost, but\nhe got them all back transfigured. He got them back, not by denying and\nexcluding what appeared negative and treacherous in their nature, but by\nfacing this and using it, by accepting it and turning it even against\nitself. The very Paris to which he returned as believer was the same\nParis, the Paris of doubt and of evil in all its forms, that earlier,\nhopeless and despairing, he had put behind him. And, once more, his\nexperience was ours, and so helped us to interpret and deepen ours,\nquickening the value of our own previous discovery that within the very\nsources of doubt lay the real bases of belief. Our own doubted world of\nwhat was relative and artificial, and above all contradictory, had\nalready turned, without loss of anything that was in it, into a world of\nreality and belief.\n\nAnd so, for this concluding chapter, as but a sort of focussing of what\nalmost from the beginning has been borne in upon us, but especially at\nthe close has been rich in reality and meaning, we have a sixth general\nfact, which may now be added to the original five. [p.252] _We believe\nthrough our doubts; we believe, not in something apart, but in the very\nthings we doubt_. To this fact really inclusive of all the others, or if\nnot to this fact at least to this conviction which we have achieved\nhere, we shall now turn, and in our concluding chapter we may even\nforget, or retain only as the appropriate background, many of those more\nspecial or more technical details that from time to time have occupied\nus. After so much, that to some, if not to all, who have followed me to\nthis place, may have appeared open to the charge of being mere theory,\ncertain simple, very practical considerations, appealing quite as much\nto the emotions as to the reason, can hardly be out of place. Those who\nare already satisfied, who foresee only repetition, who are themselves\nwithout emotion, or who consider anything like the drawing of a moral to\nbe as useless as it is inartistic, need read no further.\n\n\nI.\n\nWe believe in the very things we doubt. Doubt, this is to say, can\ndestroy nothing. It only calls for closer scrutiny, for wider and deeper\nview, for greater achievement. Its effect is only to make over, renew,\nor fulfil what has already been and must ever remain an object of faith,\nand so doing it keeps the old faith alive. It questions all things, but\nproperly, consistently it raises, not questions of mere existence or\nreality, but questions of meaning and worth, and whatever it truly\nquestions it always quickens. Have [p.253] we not found that with its\ninborn and insatiable passion for truth doubt must believe in\neverything, and that to satisfy this passion, since all things must work\ntogether for what is real and true, it must reject nothing but seek even\nthe universe in everything? All things, from the momentary sensation in\nyour little finger, or the tree yonder on the lawn, to the personality\nof God or the divinity of Christ as an idea in the consciousness of\nmillions of people, all things are; they are in experience; they are\nunassailable realities of experience; but--and just this is as far as\nthe truth-loving doubter, the doubter who is honest with his own\nself-consciousness, can go--what really are they? _What are they?_ is\nsuch an honest question. In this question, too, there is more reality\nfor the things inquired about even than in any man's assertion that they\nare this or that they are that. But the question _Are they?_ would be\ndownright treachery. We doubters, then, believe, but would ever know\nwhat we believe; we have, yet would realize every possibility that what\nwe have affords.\n\nDoubt, I repeat, destroys nothing. From time to time certain doubting\npeople have called their prophets impostors, and have imagined\nthemselves able to put the impostors out of the way, but, as history has\nalways shown, only with the result of reviving among themselves and\noften of awakening in the minds and hearts of others the sense and\nconviction of just that for which the offensive impostors may have\nsuffered violent death. Even history's petty impostors, too, as well as\nthose who have proved heroes and great leaders, have always had their\njustification. An [p.254] absolute impostor has never been. Again,\ncertain people have cried illusion and unreality at things political or\nmoral or even at things physical, but only in the end to feel, and to\nmake others feel, first, their evident narrowness, if not their actual\ndishonesty, and then their need of a more hospitable idea of what is\nvalid and real. Nothing can be, or ever has been, unreal. And, in\ngeneral, doubt of a thing or a person or a God only needs its own\nconscious assertion to turn actually into an appeal from its particular\nobject to the ideal or spirit or principle for which the object had\nstood, and upon this appeal even the object that has been for a moment\ncondemned is justified and glorified. Thus, doubt may deny or depose or\nput to death, but as it is honest it also realizes or restores or\nrevives. Through doubt the sensuous, which is the particular and\nvisible, is ever becoming spiritualized; even this corruptible puts on\nincorruption and this mortal puts on immortality. Or, in these words, if\nwe doubt we may reject the object, the letter, but we cannot reject the\nletter without accepting and asserting the spirit, and we cannot assert\nthe spirit without recalling and exalting and even worshipping the\nletter. The rejection makes for universality by casting down the\nbarriers of the particular experience of time or place, of person or\nnation, of the Greek perhaps, if again I may look to history, or of the\nJew or of the Christian, while the recall and the worship make for\ndefiniteness. Without the previous rejection the worship could be only\nidolatry. So, as Descartes will be remembered virtually to have said,\ndoubt is innately loyal to reality in [p.255] everything, and just\nthrough this loyalty the world it spurns, the world of God and man and\nnature, is for ever called back, a real world once more, because a\nrealized, a spiritually realized world. Why forget, as so many seem to,\nthat reality is an achievement; achieved it may be, as with the brook,\neven by a great fall?\n\nBut have you ever climbed a mountain up and up and up, through thick\nwoods, over rough, almost impassable trails, into clouds dense and\nchilling, stormy and angry, over treacherous snows and frightful cliffs,\nand come out at last on the very top to see both earth and heaven,\nyourself between, the clouds dispersed, the hardships and dangers all\nforgotten, the whole world real and yours? Well, that is doubt become\nachievement. Have you worked at some problem of everyday life, or a\nproblem of science or philosophy, patiently or impatiently applying all\nthe rules and precepts at your command, trying every resort known to\nyou, and in final desperation many you only guess at, and then, when\nfailure seems almost certain, caught a glimpse of the real meaning and\nthe real way, attaining to an insight that reveals a new world to you?\nThat, too, is doubt rewarded. Have you ever visited, perhaps more\ncuriously than reverently, some great Catholic cathedral, or, better\nstill, some temple of the far Orient, and watching the worshippers\nthere, suddenly had a vision of religion as greater and deeper than any\nProtestantism or even than Christianity? That, again, is doubt's\nachievement. Have you ever suffered a great heartrending disappointment,\nlet me say a great personal loss, and [p.256] found it seemingly\nimpossible to return to the routine of your former life, but\nnevertheless, almost imperceptibly, come into a sense of presence and\ngain from the very thing that seemed taken from you? That, once more, is\ndoubt without its sting, robbed of its victory. Doubt means sacrifice,\noften enormous sacrifice, but always a more than equal gain. The light\nthat casts the shadows of doubt, when one can face it, and really does\nface it, as, for another example, in this book we have been trying to\nface it, is so splendid and so uplifting.\n\nSo, a third time, doubt destroys nothing; it only makes reality forever\nan achievement and belief a constantly active life. The fact, now no\nstranger to us, that doubt is social, also shows this. Doubt is social,\nas has been said, since by its isolation it makes the longing for\ncompany, and by its greater freedom the larger opportunity for company;\nand since also the very contradictions or controversies which arouse it\nare never merely individual, being always social also, and social\nrelationship means effort and sacrifice, and is accordingly a peculiarly\ninteresting witness to the losses that doubt must suffer for its greater\ngains. Doubt, in short, shows belief, working not merely for the reality\nof all things, but also for the love of all men. As social, then, as\nworking for the love of all men, doubt involves sympathy. Yet not an\neasy, passive sympathy. A restless, labouring, always growing sympathy\nis the sympathy of the doubter; a sympathy that makes all it covers\nlabour and grow also. Does it hurt your business to doubt it\nsufficiently to make you able to sympathize with the interests of\n[p.257] another? To this question Adam Smith gave a timely answer when\nat a critical moment in industrial history he found in sympathy a\ncondition of successful competition. Does it hurt your politics, if you\ncan lose enough of the partisan's conceit or the jingo's bombast to\nsympathize with the other parties or the other nations? The value of\nreal independence in politics is one answer, and the idea of federation\namong competing states, or of international polity as a basis of\nsuccessful national life, is another. Does it hurt your understanding to\noutgrow your own profoundest ideas and see some validity in the\ndoctrines and formul\u00e6 of others? Does it hurt your Christianity to make\nconcessions to another's Christianity or to the worship of any land or\nany time? The reading of the last great book, or the visit to the pagan\ntemple, is an answer. Simply the doubter the world over, social being\nthat he is by nature, imbued as he is with a living sympathy, must\nrecognize, and must labour to maintain or achieve, the unity of\nhumanity. For him just this is God, or truth, and it is worth far more\nthan anybody's religion or than anybody's rational formul\u00e6. It must\nstand, too, both as the universal authority which both religion and\nreason have over the lives of men and as the motive or living principle,\nor spirit, by which particular religions and particular formul\u00e6, however\nserviceable, are forever unstable.\n\nBut doubt, which is thus social and imbued with a living sympathy, and\nwhich though requiring sacrifice does not destroy belief, but only makes\nbelief active and reality an achievement, may be viewed here in still\nanother way. It shows mankind using or spending [p.258] instead of\neither hoarding or throwing away any of the resources of knowledge and\nfaith, of developed habit and personal association, which life\naccumulates. Some doubters, as men say in the business world, invest\nwhat they have; some speculate. Some are conservative, even timorous;\nsome are very rash. Yet doubt as expenditure is necessary to all who\nwould enjoy the proper, natural increase of their possessions, and while\nthe rash, be they transgressors or reformers, sensualists or\nmaterialists, or equally impractical idealists, at a throw may win or\nlose great riches of mind or spirit, the timorous and\nultra-conservative, the \"practical\" and conventional, are not less\ndependent on chance. There are the new rich, too, and the aristocratic\npoor, and both remind us strongly that the real use of what we have is\nnot only a duty, but also a very sober duty. To hoard blindly or spend\nrashly is to risk unwisely, perhaps to lose all, or, if to win, to win\nidly; while to use well, to doubt clearly and honestly, to doubt even in\none's belief, to doubt only for fuller meaning, for broader and deeper\nlife, for richer companionship, is personally to earn lasting spiritual\ntreasure.\n\nModern science, whose knowledge comprises merely working hypotheses, the\nmeans to truth, not truth itself, or if truth, then only a living,\ngrowing truth, affords one of the best examples of this. Modern science\nis a great faith, a great belief, but only because it is a life, not a\nstatus or possession, only because it is a constant spending, a constant\nusing of knowledge, that earns interest, even compound interest, as\nregularly as the years go by. And experience in [p.259] general, as well\nas science, is also a great belief, and also only because always\ndoubting and so always using and always earning.\n\nDoubt, in a word, is more than a necessity of experience; it is\ndistinctly a duty. Experience itself is but another name for that hard\nmaster who says to every unprofitable servant: \"Thou wicked and slothful\nservant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I\ndid not scatter; thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the\nbankers, and at my coming I should have received back my own with\ninterest. Take ye away therefore the talent from him and give it unto\nhim that hath the ten talents.\"\n\n\nII.\n\nThat doubt is only the expenditure of the treasures of life for future\ngain human history bears witness in a striking way. Times of a general\nscepticism among any people have always been also times of\nconventionalism and utilitarianism towards all things great and small.\nTo employ again a word used before, this means that life has come to\nregard its establishments of all sorts as only \"instrumental,\" not\nfinal. Of course, conventionalism and utilitarianism are commonly\ndecried, just as the accompanying attitude of doubt is commonly decried;\nbut the fears, though not altogether idle, are usually short-sighted,\nfor there is gain ahead. In a certain community, for example,\npatriotism, morality, and piety, long identified with specific forms and\ncustoms and doctrines, have come at last to seem quite unsubstantial. A\nrising cosmopolitanism perhaps has undone the first, sensationalism\n[p.260] or naturalism the second, and mingled ritualism and secularism\nthe third. But however unsubstantial all three may appear in\nconsequence, they are nevertheless retained as still useful, as means to\nsome end, being at least good things to wear or to assume in any way,\nand from the change, though it appear so like decline, the community in\nthe end is most decidedly enriched.\n\nHow can this be? In answer, let us beard the very king of the race of\nthe conventionalists and utilitarians in his forbidding den.\nMachiavelli, with his teaching that the end always justifies the means,\nand his open advice to the leader who would be successful, to make a\npoint of at least seeming loyal and good and pious, shows a typical\nmingling of the sceptic and the utilitarian in sacred things. Moreover,\nwhat Machiavelli taught was also common practice in his time, and soon\nbecame a principle of brilliant statesmanship all over Europe. And to\nadd meaning to his case by associating it with others, conspicuously in\nDescartes' time, as we have observed, and also in Athens at the time of\nthe Sophists, and in Jerusalem when the Pharisees flourished, the same\nstandpoint was much in vogue; while in our own times we do not need to\nlook far to find it. Education, social life, politics, religion abound\nin it, for the tribe of the Machiavellists is no more a lost tribe than\nit is one that began with him whose name it bears. If the name is too\noffensive to some by reason of its connection with a particular\ncharacter and a particular period in Italian history, for Machiavellism\nthey may substitute institutionalism, certainly a more innocent term at\nfirst sight; but the offensiveness, though hidden, [p.261] or\nhalf-hidden, still remains a part of the fact with which we have to\ndeal. The meaning of institutionalism is just that of some asserted end\njustifying any available means, and so under cover of its peculiar\nconceits sanctioning violence. Watch any institution and see how one or\nanother of life's objects of devotion is become, or fast becoming, a\nmere utility. The institution makes life mechanical, and doing this it\nis as treacherous as it seems loyal to the treasured things of life, the\ndeveloped ideas and established customs; it is even as sceptical towards\nthem as it seems faithful; and in the spirit, if not in the letter, of\nMachiavellism it shows them no longer implicitly worshipped, but in use,\nwhich is to say, \"put to the bankers,\" and so robbed of their character\nof sacred treasures. And as for Machiavelli himself, it may be worth\nwhile to remember that with all his offensiveness he has undoubtedly\nbeen very much maligned, and that to any student of history he seems\nonly a very apt though an unpleasantly outspoken pupil of the most\npowerful institution of his time--the Roman Church--for which things\nmoral and religious had certainly become effective instruments of very\nworldly ambitions. So in Machiavellism or in institutionalism, the name\nnow being indifferent to us, we see worship passing into use; we see\nsacred things become secular, or things supposed final becoming only\ninstrumental; and we see, therefore, what appears like loss or\ndecline.[1]\n\n[p.262] But can there be anything besides loss or decline? This again is\nour question, and the answer now comes quick and decisive, whether we\nare thinking of Machiavelli or the Sophists, of the old-time Pharisees,\nor of those in our own life. Decline and even fall never tell the whole\nstory of anything, and just because they mean use, even secular use.\nThat men must worship is surely true, but also men must and do use, and\nthe use, in spite of the strain of the offence and resistance which it\nis sure to arouse, brings profit always. Use, secular use, may imply\nsacrifice of the letter or the established form, but it always leads to\nliberation of the spirit. In scepticism, therefore, and the coincident\nconventionalism and utilitarianism towards sacred things, in the\ninstitutionalism which harbours all these, though often darkly and\nsecretly, we may always read, what in truth history has again and again\nexemplified, the throes of birth, the birth of the spirit. Must it not\nbe that any visible institution, be it ecclesiastical or industrial or\npolitical or educational or ceremonial, just because an institution\ndesigned in some way to serve an active, growing life, is always an\noutgrown, falling institution? As in the case of the Roman Church in the\ndays of Machiavelli, an institution upon its establishment actually\njustifies its enemies by its own practices, while the enemies, so\njustified, do but lay it bare, exposing its hidden thoughts and ways,\nforcing reform upon it, and perhaps in the end themselves \"remaining to\npray.\"\n\nSo is the spirit born, and so do we see in the personnel of\nsociety what a wonderful triumvirate, working [p.263] for the real\ngrowth of human life with a power that nothing can resist, is made by\nthe avowed sceptic, the loyalist, always secretly conventional and\nutilitarian, and the reformer, the great spiritual leader. Even\nMachiavelli in his most offensive pronouncements must have felt\nsomething between his lines which expressed would have transfigured\ntheir meaning, not to say also his reputation, greatly, and, consciously\nor unconsciously, he was certainly a party to the development of what is\nbest in modern life. As for the Sophists, whether we see them as\nsceptics or conventionalists, did they not have Socrates among them?\nBetween them and him, when all is said, the difference was only that\nbetween talent and genius, between great formal ingenuity, which always\nmeans opportunism, and really vital insight, which, shattering\nopportunism with its own weapons, means loyalty, not to existing forms,\nbut to the spirit dwelling in the forms. Much in the same way, too, the\nJewish Pharisees had Jesus, a contemporary, who did but recognize and\nearnestly teach what they were really practising, namely, the utility of\nthe law, or the law for man, not man for the law. Only what for them was\nmerely a selfish opportunity, absorbed as they were in the vested\ninterests of their time and generation, was manifest to him--who was a\ngenius and who used for real gain the talent which they hoarded--as a\ngreat spiritual fact, as a universal truth, bringing opportunity and\nfreedom to all men under all law, not to some men under one law. Thus\nthey were institutionalists; he, by merely turning their narrowness into\na principle of all life, became a reformer, and, indebted to them as he\nwas, he could [p.264] forgive them even when they opposed him. Genius\nalways forgives; the spirit always recalls and cherishes the letter that\nhas given it birth.\n\nSo the institution as an historical fact, whether we see it with the\neyes of Machiavelli or with those of a pope, with the eyes of Protagoras\nor with those of Socrates, with the eyes of the Pharisees or with those\nof Christ, may show worship turning into use, the sacred becoming\nsecular, but it shows also the life of society becoming enriched; it\nshows investment for future gain; it shows doubt, not destroying\nanything, but achieving only what is real; it shows the life of the\nspirit.\n\n\nIII.\n\nNo period of man's earlier doubting can be more interesting than that of\nthe centuries just prior to the Christian era, when the peoples of the\nMediterranean contributed so much, directly and indirectly, to the\npreparation for Christianity and to the discovery, or revelation, which\nfinally came and in due time changed the ancient to our modern world.\nWhat the preparation was has already been indicated, at least partially,\nin the references that have been made to the Sophists and to the\nPharisees. Christianity has been only the interest, the earned\nincrement, or rather should I not say the compounded principal, of the\nscepticism, of the formalism and the utilitarianism which beset the\nGreeks and the Hebrews, to mention no others, as their peculiar\ncivilizations were merging into the larger and deeper life of a great\nempire. In their several lives the demand came, and came, too, from\nwithin, not merely from without, as in all life [p.265] it must come,\nfor use of their gathered treasures, whether spiritual or material, and\nthe rise of Rome was but the result of that demand satisfied, of the use\nrealized. As for the scepticism, this with all its incidents made the\nuse possible, made it possible for the peoples to give or relinquish\nwhat they had to the larger life to which they all belonged, while the\nreligion of Christianity spiritualized for them all the resulting\nempire.\n\nThose wonderful races of the Mediterranean, who achieved--at least some\nof them--such great things in all that counts for civilization, became\nat the last most extravagant sceptics, not only formulating, but also\nvery generally living up to, the conviction of ignorance and\nforgetfulness of reality. Everything which their long past had gathered\nfor them they resigned--or let me say crucified--and themselves they\nthrew, as if with an investor's recklessness, upon a world of chance or\nfate, upon a world seemingly of empty forms in all human relations, a\nworld of disguises for license and of mere conceits of moral power and\nreligious piety. Sensuous mysticism and pantheism, formalism of all\nkinds, Stoicism, Epicureanism, legalism, and cosmopolitanism were\ncrosses upon which one people and another, one class and another, nailed\ntheir long-cherished devotions, their love of God and man and nature, of\ntemple and family and country. A great doubting, then, was truly theirs.\nA great sacrificial offering was their preparation for Christianity. In\na way, with a completeness that seems to have no parallel in history,\nthey put their talents to the bankers--despairing, of course, but hoping\nalso, [p.266] if only their doubting, when it came, may be supposed as\ngenuine as their earlier believing. From the North and from the East and\nfrom the South their good men came, and their rich and their wise, and\nlaid what they had at the feet of the life that was new born.\n\nPeople read their histories so differently. The pagan doubt, the\nChristian revelation and belief, the conversion of the pagan world to\nChristianity, the Renaissance, in which the conversion was in a sense\nreversed, and the Reformation mean such different things to different\npeople. Some must still have it that paganism, or pre-Christianism,\nended in absolutely blind despair, in the avowal of complete failure--as\nif such despair or failure could ever find words for its own utterance;\nthat Christianity came into a hopelessly pagan world wholly from\nwithout, came into a world of nothing but unmixed doubt, and brought\nwith it nothing but unmixed belief; that the conversion was a sort of\nconquest, by a power all its own capturing the pagans, so wholly\nunnerved as to be quite incapable even of a futile resistance; that the\nRenaissance, restoration as it was of the pagan life and thought, was at\nbest a great condescension on the part of Christendom and at worst an\nunfortunate return to the pagan idols; and that in the Reformation the\nChristian Religion Militant did but retreat upon the Bible as its\nimpregnable fortress. But such history can hardly be our history here.\nFor us the rise and the progress of Christianity have had quite a\ndifferent character. To strike at the foundation of that whole structure\nthe pagan doubting was too articulate. It was, also, too earnest. It was\ntoo genuine. The races did indeed resign, as with [p.267] an investor's\nrecklessness, all that they had, but their recklessness was not unmixed.\nTheir doubting had hope in it as well as despair. It still loved the\nspirit of what had been even when it betrayed the letter. It had its\nmartyrs, too, as well as its suicides; its sense of life as well as its\nenervating fear of death. Say what you will, then, a great, warm,\nyearning belief dwelt within it. And so, just because the pagan doubting\nwas too earnest and too genuine and too articulate, because it was, in\ntruth, a great sacrificial offering, the crucifixion on Calvary was also\ntoo true to life at Athens and Alexandria, as well as to life at\nJerusalem, and the resurrection of the spirit was too true to life at\nRome; they were too true to mean anything but fulfilment and\nachievement. Everywhere, in every place and in every department of life,\nthe letter had been rejected; but everywhere also--and this, nothing\nelse, was the true conversion to Christianity--the spirit was accepted.\nAcceptance of the spirit, too, meant that in good time the letter would\nbe restored, as indeed at the Renaissance it surely was.\n\nChristianity, therefore, came when the times were ripe for it. It came\nnot from without, but deeply from within the pagan life of the\nMediterranean. Moreover, if in this way, not in that other way, we must\nread the rise of Christianity, then we must read both the Renaissance\nand the Reformation under the same light. The Renaissance, as was just\nsaid, brought a restoration of the letter; but, necessarily, of the\nletter under the light of the spirit, of the letter transfigured. The\nRenaissance, so dramatically manifested in the Crusades, was only\nChristendom returning to its [p.268] birthplace. With its crusades to\nJerusalem, to all the old capitals, to the pagan ideas and institutions,\nto the ancient languages and literatures, Christianity rediscovered\nitself in the past, winning back in this way some of its childhood,\ncuring a homesickness that a worldly church had made it feel, securing\nfor itself such a deep experience as comes to a man who, after years of\nwandering and forgetting, has returned to the home of his infancy. And\nas for the Reformation--if indeed this was a retreat, shall we say, of a\ndefeated religion upon the Bible, its supposed impregnable fortress--we\nneed only to remember the pagan origin, the Hebrew and the Greek\ninspiration, and the Roman atmosphere of that sacred book.\n\nAnd of the relation of Christianity to paganism, just one thing more.\nThe Christian revelation, so wonderfully portrayed and enacted in the\nlife and character of Jesus, was only an idealization, a spiritual\ninterpretation, of the very present, the thoroughly actual life of the\ntime, of the life that the pagans, doubting but believing, despairing\nbut also trusting, resigning all but hoping for more, had already\nbrought upon themselves; a life of self-denial, of common, universal\nhumanity, all men being \"members one of another,\" and of perfect faith.\nPerhaps the self-denial was bravely concealed in an accepted subjection,\nbut it was not less real. Perhaps the common humanity was military and\nimperial, yet it also was real. Perhaps, too, the faith was blind and\nfatalistic, but it was nevertheless faith. Can faith go farther or do\nmore than fatalism? The pagans, then, had become Christians in fact or\nstatus, and Christianity came, breathing [p.269] life into the bare\nfact, into the self-denial, and the broad humanity and the faith, and\nmade these not the mere phases of bare fact or condition, but motives\nand ideals, manifesting them heroically in a single human life, and so\nin the form and with the power of a personal discovery of self.\n\nWhere genuine doubt is the God is always born.\n\n\nIV.\n\nTo come down to more recent times, for open belief in what they doubted,\nfor doubt well controlled in its expenditure, for doubt as raising\nquestions of meaning rather than the more radical questions of reality\nand existence, perhaps no people of Christendom has been so conspicuous\nas the English. Of course, as has been remarked, expenditure may often\nbecome too conservative, and the question of mere meaning may encourage\ncasuistry; and into the pits of undue conservatism and casuistry the\nEnglish have certainly fallen more than once, so that certain critics\nhave even found them, and in some measure the Anglo-Saxons generally,\ngiven over to hollow disingenuous living. In English political life, for\nexample, the attitude during the conflict with the American colonies in\nthe eighteenth century affords a conspicuous illustration of this, and\nintellectually and religiously English life, has its chapters of an\nunfortunate reserve. But although no good and honest American can fail\nto find objectionable solecisms, some of them decidedly British, in the\nformulated and manifested life of the Anglo-Saxons; nevertheless English\nhistory is a very obstinate argument in behalf of the English temper.\nFrenchmen, though [p.270] so neighbourly to England, have been\nconspicuously more radical than the English in their doubts and\nproblems, and in consequence have been at once more reckless and more\nvacillating in their solutions. The English, always so practical,\nthroughout their history have held to their world as primarily real and\nconsistent, and have therefore neither lost themselves whether in fear\nor in hope of some other sphere, nor been only fickle servants of this.\nConsistently and constantly they have sought only the ever more\neffective use of what they had, of what they found about them. Not\nrevolution, then, but evolution has been the keynote of their history.\nTheir other world, in practice, has meant other parts of this--witness\ntheir colonial activity as well as their missionary enterprises--or only\nother in the sense of deeper and fuller expression of this--witness the\ntestimony of so many of their historians. Macaulay, for a classic\nexample, dwells at some length and with much emphasis upon the English\npeople's genius for a progressive conservatism, remarking that in\nreligion and politics and social life they have given up less of their\npast than any other people, and yet at the same time have kept in the\nforefront of modern progress. It may be contended that this was truer in\nMacaulay's day than at the present time, but there is enough truth in it\nnow to give it point.\n\nInstead of courting doubt as if it had worth in itself, the English may\nbe said on the whole to have courted candour. Candour does not exclude\ndoubt, but it is never merely negative, and for this reason it is\npeculiarly normal and wholesome, although of course having its own\ndangers. To be candid, in the [p.271] sense of the word here intended,\nis to accept what is, which in lack of a better term we may call nature,\nand to insist only on seeing this, and living up to it, deeply and\nfully. The doubting French have appealed to truth and righteousness or\nreality as only an innate conviction, and so have easily missed the\npossible realism of such conviction. Descartes made just such an appeal,\nand though he did indeed gain, or rather regain, a real world, the\nreality did not quite receive even from him, as we have seen, its full\ndue of closeness and intimacy with human life. Rousseau, later, made the\nsame appeal, finding his own personal will intrinsically good, but his\nphilosophy, though a passionate, uncontrolled belief in reality, was\ntaken, not unnaturally, as a call to revolution. But the simple, candid\nEnglish, on their side of the Channel, have appealed, not primarily to\nanything abstractly within the self, not to a mere ideal or sentiment or\nsubjective belief, but to reality embodied and palpable--in a word, to\nnature, the great all-inclusive sphere of candid experience. In France,\nagain, nature has failed ever to be a thoroughly practical thing, a\npositive, directly interesting, wholly pertinent situation. It has been\na cry, of course, sometimes of alarm, sometimes of hope; a great\nenthusiasm, too; a dream; an ideal--if not unideal--substitute for the\npresent life; a sphere often, too often, quite opposed to God and\ngovernment and organized society; but never, or almost never, a present\nresponsibility to be clearly recognized and calmly measured; never, or\nalmost never, a part and parcel of the present life; never, or almost\nnever, something that lives in and [p.272] through God and government\nand society. In England, on the other hand, so differently, if Bacon and\nLocke and Berkeley and even David Hume may be trusted; if Shakespeare\nand Coleridge and Wordsworth, or Hobbes and Burke and Blackstone, or\nCharles Darwin and Herbert Spencer are representative; in England nature\nhas ever been very real and very present; not outside of manifest\nEnglish life, but actually incorporated in it. How else understand\nEnglish deism; the _laissez faire_ economics; the peculiar nature and\ngrowth of the English constitution; the pragmatism of English science;\nthe sun-warmed atmosphere of English literature; the nature-homage and\nbodily vigour of English recreation? How else account for the English\npeople's progressive conservatism?\n\nThe most radical doubt must eventually appeal to nature and, what is\nmore, must sooner or later bring man to live with nature practically and\nresponsibly, intimately and sympathetically; but candour, like the\ncandour of the English, that never doubts without at the same time\nbelieving, lives ever with her. Perhaps the English people need to have\nwhat they seem never to have had--though the Armada threatened something\nof the kind, and the loss of the thirteen colonies, or even the Boer war\nwas, not without its value--a great, overpowering disaster, a deep\nall-searching despair; yet, be this as it may, their part in the\nstruggle of a life that must always doubt in order to grow is always\ninstructive and is often inspiring.\n\n\n[p.273]\n\nV.\n\nThe sceptic has been referred to here as a member of a wonderful\ntriumvirate, and, leaving now the field of historical illustration, we\nmust return to that characterization. The other members of the\ntriumvirate were the loyal defender of the formal law and the great\nspiritual leader. All three were said to be parties to the real life of\nthe spirit, and the sceptic seemed to have a co-ordinate part with the\nothers in this life. But was I not conceding too much? Certainly there\nare many who will wish to protest. Yet I was only making the doubter and\nthe believer face each other squarely and honestly. _Both_ are parties\nto any reform. No leader or true reformer ever can neglect or betray the\ncontentions of either. In the organizations of society professional\nconditions may hold the two characters apart, but vitally they always\nbelong together. If truly we must believe in what we doubt, how can\nthere fail to be between them, not indeed a shallow and sentimental\nsympathy, but a deep, heroic sympathy that is always superior to the\ndifferences of the disrupted life, of a professionally organized\nsociety, without betraying them?\n\nAt once opponents and companions--this is the truth about the doubter\nand the believer. Consider how taken alone neither would be quite\njustified, while together both are justified. Perfect approval or, for\nthat matter, perfect disapproval, can belong to neither singly, not to\nyou or me in our doubting, even though we fully confess, nor yet to him\nwho hides his doubts in an outward show that [p.274] almost deceives him\nas well as others. Of course in all matters as well as in this of\nintellectual honesty, the conceit of individual righteousness or\nindividual possession is a very strong one, but it is \"easier for a\ncamel to go through a needle's eye\" than for a man who is anything or\nhas anything to himself alone, to enter into any kingdom. Is not life\neverywhere a movement and a struggle? And who is there, rich or poor,\nlaw-abiding or lawless, righteous or unrighteous, faithful or\ntreacherous, believing or doubting, who can stand aloof, or who needs to\nstand aloof, and say to himself: \"I personally, within my own nature,\nhave no part in the struggle; for good or for ill, I am just what I am,\nand with him that is against me I have and can have no dealings\"? The\ndoubter, then, and the believer may have to look askance at each other;\nthe looking askance may be quite appropriate to the conflict in which\neach has and must feel his social r\u00f4le, but, at most and worst, they are\nonly jealous lovers. They may be given, and profitably given, as much to\nquarrelling as to gentleness, but they love still, and, to borrow part\nof a line from a familiar college song, their battling love affords just\none more view of that which \"makes the world go 'round\"--instead of off\nat some tangent.\n\nShould some one awake to new views come to me and ask which I would have\nhim do, break away from his traditions and all that they involve or hold\nto them, I could only say, in the first place, that, whichever way he\nturned, he would have some, though only some, justification, for he\ncould not be either right or wrong exclusively; in the second place,\nthat his decision [p.275] not only must be made, and made strongly, one\nway or the other, but must also be his, not mine; and in the third\nplace, that no decision should ever be an absolutely final settlement.\nDecisions are only means to action, and as such they can settle nothing\nfinally. They are not even protocols of peace, often being, on the\ncontrary, merely signals for firing at closer range. Sometimes I know\nthey seem even like real treaties, providing the terms of a permanent\nharmony, and they appear to determine just where the parties to them\nreally stand. But, after all, they do but bring the conflict home,\nmaking it domestic or personal instead of settling it. So once more to\nmy inquirer I may say only this: Choose; fight; fight fair; fight with\nyourself as well as with your enemy; with your belief, not merely with\nhis dogma; or with your doubt, not merely with his dishonesty. So\nfighting you and he will truly be at once opponents and companions.\n\n\nVI.\n\nIs life, then, only a comedy? Is it no better than one of those\nwell-conducted duels that save the honour of all, concerned but bring\ninjury to no one? Let me say, in these last pages, that life appears to\nbe three things, to which I should like to call attention. It truly and\nseriously is a comedy; secondly, it is poetic; and lastly, it has all\nthe gravity and earnestness of duty. Its very tragedy comprises all of\nthese. An old teacher of mine, a much respected and somewhat\nold-fashioned professor at one of our larger universities,[2] [p.276]\nonce published a book entitled, _Poetry, Comedy and Duty_. Exactly what\nhis reasons were for associating these apparently incongruous phases of\nlife I do not recall, but the man and his title have remained pleasantly\nand significantly in my memory, and the reasons which follow, in\nsubstance if not in form, can not be very far from his.\n\nThus, as to the comedy of life, we need only to reflect that where\nextremes always meet, where there is always conflict, but conflict of\nsuch a nature that the parties to it not only may change sides, but also\nin a genuine sense are always on both sides, in such a life politics\ncannot be alone in making strange bedfellows, but the opportunity for\ncomic situations must be unlimited. A life in which reality has no\nresidence, and truth no place where to lay its head, in which fools may\nutter wisdom and the wise may speak folly, in which reformers are easily\nconfused with transgressors and death itself is said to be life, is\nbound to be richly and deeply humorous. Of such a life there can be no\nunderstanding, into it there can be no insight, without the keenest\nsense of humour. To say no more, that doubter and believer are\ncompanions as well as opponents, is cause for a deal of merriment--at\nleast among the gods.\n\nBut life's comedy is also a poem, and no one save a poet can truly\ncomprehend it. Even a metaphysician must be not merely a humorist, but\nalso a poet; perhaps he must be more the poet than any other. Poetry is\nthe portrayal of life through suggestion of harmony, or poise, among its\nconflicting elements. Nor can life be seen, or known, in any more direct\n[p.277] way; only the balance of opposites, which always makes the poem,\ncan possibly present it to our ken. Commonly men feel this when they\ninsist that all portrayal of life, or of reality in general, must be\ndualistic. Dualism, be it the theologian's or the moralist's or the\nmetaphysician's, the statesman's or the scientist's, never is and never\ncan be anything but so much poetry; richly and deeply significant\nalways, and always alive with what is real, but always poetry, never\nprose. Can a reality, that is real only if, to the forms of experience,\nit is always a _tertium quid_, can such a reality ever be present to any\nother than a poet's consciousness? Reality is not knowable face to face;\nit is beyond the reach of positive knowledge; though dwelling in, and\ninforming all knowledge, it can never come to the surface of knowledge;\nfor so, to its own betrayal, it would take sides and get a habitation\nand a name. True, by analogies one may conceive it, as the religious man\nthinks of God's personality, or as the philosopher thinks of the unity\nof his world, or as the scientist thinks of nature's law; but the\nanalogies are always so many tethers, and are accordingly necessarily\npartial, whereas no whole can ever be quite in kind with any of its\nparts. We may conceive reality, then, by the use of analogy--that is, by\nprojecting what we do know of one or another side of life beyond its\nnatural sphere; but such projection, at least for him who has both\ninsight and humour, who feels the limits of his knowledge and the\ngrandly transcendent way in which he has used his knowledge for the\ncrossing of some chasm, and the solution of some conflict in his life,\nis poetry. For [p.278] him who is lacking in both insight and humour,\nwho sees just what he sees and no more, who insists on making reality\naccord literally with his own formal experience, it is only prose. Prose\nis simply formally consistent experience, experience that is wholly\nbound to some determined standpoint, and, being this, in what it\npresents--that is, in its subject-matter--it is always, not adequate and\ninclusive, but partial and narrow and one-sided to reality. Prose, in\nshort, sacrifices wholeness, that is to say, depth and breadth of view,\nto mere formal consistency. Poetry, at least in its subject-matter, is\nabove formal consistency and above partiality. Through its very license\npoetry bears the message of what is real and whole. Poetry forever\nprefers reality to prosaic peace.\n\nSo life is a comedy, rich and deep, and it is a poem, realistic and\ninclusive. It is, finally, a serious duty. To many, stern and oracular\nin their moral sense, the character of duty will seem not to fit at all\nwell into a life that is always humorous, and that is never real and\ncomplete without being also poetic. But it does fit. Duty, they hold, is\nquite too sober ever to be mingled with humour or comedy, and quite too\nprecise and explicit, too plainly prescribed, and in its spirit, when\nnot in its letter, too legal ever to appeal to a poet or to be in any\nway associated with what appeals to him. But tell me, is the Puritan's\nnotion of duty an accurate one? Is it the highest notion? Is it even\nprofoundly moral? Has duty no chance at all on any other plan? In a\nword, are humour and poetry truly fatal to real duty? Why, even such\nquestions must make the stern rigorists among us hope just a little,\n[p.279] though also these good men may still fear, for the relief that\nthe questions seem to promise. Perhaps they mingle their hope with fear,\nonly because, as I feel quite sure, they forget that comedy and poetry\nalways bring more than mere relief. The real comedy and the true poetry\nof life are altogether too deep to do only that. They do indeed bring\nrelief from the rigour and prosaic consistency of any specific programme\nor uniform, and so to any man they are always welcome, though he\ncontinue to suspect them of being wrong; but they bring also a\nresponsibility that is fuller and larger and harder than the formal\nprecept or prescription. Should the rigorist ever love his enemies? Not\nif he would be consistent. Should he ever find hope in what he fears?\nShould he ever laugh at his own manifest smallness? Yet these are real\nduties; they are great, transcendent duties; and, richly humorous as\nthey are, only a poetic consciousness can ever appreciate them and truly\nfeel their living obligation.\n\nFor this, our life of comedy and poetry, which is real only as it is\nboth, no principle can come nearer to the very foundation of duty than\njust the principle, deeply true: _Whatever is, is right_. Men have\nlaughed and men have wept over this truth. Was ever more perfect\nmingling of doubt and belief? Was ever greater jest? Or more tragic\nfact? But truth it is; _the_ truth of all duty; and it is life's eternal\ncomedy--the alpha and the omega, too, of life's own poem.\n\n\n[1] As a positive event in history, belonging to the fifteenth and\nsixteenth centuries, Machiavellism was symptomatic of the great change\nof the period. Cherished institutes, whether of politics or economics,\nof art or morals, of the spiritual life or the intellectual life, were\nbecoming instruments. Thus, democracy was supplanting monarchy,\nProtestantism Catholicism, modern science scholasticism, etc.\n\n[2] The late Professor C.C. Everett, of Harvard University.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n  A\n\n  Abstraction, of science, 58, 107; and duplicity, 61\n  Agnosticism, 75, 106; special dangers of, 111, 117; dogmatic and\n      instrumental, 120; as call for action, 125; as passion for real\n      life, 128\n  Analogy, among the sciences, 97; of individual self to environment, 155;\n      of universal to particular, 33, 220\n  Anaxagoras, 94\n  Anaximander, 34, 94, 147\n  Anti-vitalism, 147\n  Aristotle, 155, 156\n  Atomism, 97, 102\n\n  B\n\n  Babylonians, 106\n  Bacon, 176\n  Baldwin, 15\n  Belief, as unquestioning, 8, 194; and doubt, 53, 105, 107, 130, 133,\n      192, 248\n  Biology, 88, 90, 104, 110\n  Boehme, 177\n  Body, and soul, 227, 237; immortality of, 141, 234\n  Bradley, 153 n.\n  Burns, 94\n\n  C\n\n  Candour, of the English, 270\n  Carlyle, 126\n  Catholicism, 175\n  Causation, 39, 82, 83, 109, 205\n  Change, and habit, 15; as motive, 17; of purpose, 11\n  Charron, 177, 180\n  Chemistry, 34, 36, 88, 90, 91, 110\n  Christ, 51, 246, 263\n  Christianity, and immortality, 240; preparation for, 266; different\n      views of history of, 266\n  Christian Science, 2, 32 n.\n  Class, the social, 62, 126, 162; relation of, to doubt and belief, 171\n  Comedy, 275\n  Companionship, with nature, 21, 71; with man, 24; with God, 26\n  Contradiction, in ordinary views, 30; in idea of reality, 30;\n      of unity, 33; of space and time, 38; of causation, 39; of\n      knowledge, 41; of morality, 44; of law, 49; as of value in\n      experience, 4, 37, 131; and dualism, 101; as corrective of\n      narrowness, 100, 116, 143; as meaning action, 136; as realizing\n      unity, 137; as securing reality and practicality, 145; as\n      requiring society, 147; as not to be cultivated for its own\n      sake, 151; as related to person and class, 170\n  Conventionalism, 66, 260\n  Creationalism, 82, 202\n  Crusades, 267\n\n  D\n\n  Death, 141, 151, 239\n  Deduction, 97\n  Democritus, 65\n  Development, special, transferable, 165\n  Descartes, 6, 172, 196, 251, 254\n  Dichotomy, 101\n  Dogmatism, and fear, 9; and belief, 194\n  Doubt, as widespread, 1, 7; actual, if possible, 6; as essential to\n      consciousness, 9; and habit, 14; as making life real, 18; and\n      feeling of dependence, 21; as Basking company, 21, 255; as mediator\n      between old and now, 25; and atheism, 27; and belief, 55, 105, 130,\n      133, 192, 248, 273; as investment for gain, 259; and candour, 270\n  Dualism, 64, 101, 147, 209\n  Duplicity, of science, 61; of life, 118\n  Duty, 47, 278\n\n  E\n\n  Education, and interest, 18 n.\n  Emerson, 144\n  Energism, 147\n  England, peculiar scepticism in, 269\n  Environment, as source of conduct, 46; social environment and personal\n      individual, 169, 231\n  Epicureanism, 116, 265\n  Epistemology, 92\n  Evil, and good, 45, 133, 150, 276\n  Evolution, 78, 202, 246\n  Experience, unity of, 160\n  Experimentalism, 68\n\n  F\n\n  Fatalism, 49\n  Fear, and dogmatism, 9\n  France, peculiar scepticism in, 271\n  Freedom, of will, 47; of thought, 211, 227\n\n  G\n\n  Galilei, 177\n  Genius, 168, 196, 263\n  God, Descartes' proof of, 181; fallacy in D.'s proof of, 189;\n      D.'s idea of, 186, 190; sceptic's idea of, 26, 187, 190, 203;\n      death of, 237; birth of, 269\n\n  H\n\n  Habit, and doubt, 14\n  Hebrews, 25, 264\n  Hedonism, 64, 147, 265\n  Hegel, 20, 147\n  Heraclitus, 147, 152\n  Hering, 147\n  Hero-worship, 243\n  History, standpoint of, 79; of Christianity, different views of, 266\n  Hope, even in doubt, 13, 19, 37, 48, 53, 105\n  Horace, 21\n  Hypotheses, working, 89, 93, 258\n\n  I\n\n  Idealism, 65, 147\n  Illusions, 2, 23 n., 254\n  Immortality, 141, 234\n  Impostor, the, 253\n  Individualism, 72, 116\n  Individuality, 155, 165, 224\n  Induction, 72, 97\n  Industrialism, 222\n  Infinity, 52, 102, 142\n  Institutions and institutionalism, 16, 59, 260\n  Interest theory, in education, 18 n.\n\n  J\n\n  Jesuits, 172\n  Jesus, 51, 246, 263\n  Jews, 25, 264\n  Jurisprudence, standpoint of, 13, 47\n\n  K\n\n  Kant, 110, 147\n  Knowledge, contradictory views of, 41; of law, and freedom, 51, 212;\n      and the unknowable, 106\n\n  L\n\n  Labour, division of, in special relation of person and class, 163;\n      division of, in experience, 232\n  Law, standpoint of, 13; courts of, 47; contradiction in idea of, 49;\n      and nature, 51, 218\n  Lawlessness, 51, 141, 261\n  Leadership, 168, 196, 263\n  Leibnitz, 133, 154, 210\n  Lessing, 19\n  Louis XIV, 172\n  Luther, 174\n\n  M\n\n  Macaulay, 270\n  Machiavelli, 66, 261, 263\n  Malebranche, 198\n  Materialism, 65, 147, 175\n  Mathematics, 88, 91, 96, 133, 177, 215\n  Mechanic, the, as social type, 228; peculiar death of, 238\n  Mechanicalism, 82, 218\n  Method, Socratic, 71; historical, 95; experimental, 84, 95;\n      mathematical, 96\n  Miracles, 53, 246\n  Monism, 147\n  Montaigne, 172, 176, 184\n  M\u00fcnsterberg, 109 n., 112, 119\n  Mysticism, 176\n\n  N\n\n  Nast, 97\n  Nativism, 196\n  Nature, return to, 22; relation of science to, 23, 56, 74; and\n      God, 26, 203, 271; sympathy of, 23, 203; and law, 51, 220;\n      as mechanical, 217; English and French views of, 271;\n      knowledge of law of, and freedom, 49, 212\n  Necessity, in conduct, 47; superstition of, 49, 212\n  Negativity, 3, 20, 37, 83, 85, 94, 101, 125, 133, 147\n  Newton, 97\n\n  O\n\n  Oratory of Jesus, 176\n\n  P\n\n  Paradoxes, in ordinary consciousness, 30; in science, 75, 98; in\n      religion, 103\n  Parallelism, 204\n  Paris, 172, 192, 251\n  Parmenides, 94\n  Pascal, 180\n  Person, nature of, 155, 165; relation to reality, 170, 184;\n      relation to doubt and belief, 171; part in society, 169, 231\n  Pharisees, 262\n  Physics, 87, 90; epistemological, 94\n  Pillsbury, 212 n.\n  Plato, 65, 155, 156\n  Poetry, 276\n  Positivism, 73, 106, 122\n  Practice, and theory, 113\n  Principle, and programme, 183, 191, 194\n  Programme, and principle, 183, 191, 194\n  Protagoras, 264\n  Protestants and Protestantism, 174, 268\n  Psychology, 10, 87, 91, 210, 212 n.; physical, 92\n  Purpose, 11, 83, 84\n\n  Q\n\n  Question of fact, in science, 83\n\n  R\n\n  Radicalism, 66\n  Realism, of doubter, 193; of believer, 193; in contradiction, 143\n  Reality, double views of, 30\n  Reformation, 173, 266, 267\n  Relative, the, 10, 136, 199, 200\n  Relativity, law of, 10, 136\n  Religion, and scepticism, 27, 184, 189, 268; as paradoxical, 103\n  Renaissance, 173, 268, 267\n  Rome, 267\n  Rousseau, 23, 271\n\n  S\n\n  Scepticism, 176, 265, 269\n  Science, as a return to nature, 23; like ordinary consciousness, 57;\n      as confessing to limitations, 56; defined, 58; as abstract, 58;\n      as a \"looking before leaping,\" 58; and duplicity, 61, 129; method\n      of, and environment, 71; specialism of, 71, 84; as inductive, 72;\n      objectivism of, 75; technique of, 76; and real life, 80, 125, 128;\n      as conservative, 81; and question of fact, 83; as negative and\n      destructive, 83; specialism of, 71, 86; \"mergers\" in, 91;\n      physical, as self-consciousness, 94; as paradoxical, 75, 98;\n      agnosticism of, 106; aloofness of, in ideas of space and time and\n      causation, 108, 109; application of, 114; scepticism of, 23, 258\n  Sin, original, 131\n  Skill, special, as transferable, 165\n  Smith, Adam, 257\n  Socialism, 116\n  Society, as sought by sceptic, 21; as related to individual, 42, 165,\n      171, 231; and science, 23, 60; division of experience in, 60;\n      as real to lower organisms, 84; as medium of conflict, 147\n  Society of Jesus, 174\n  Sociology, 88\n  Socrates, 20, 70, 147, 263\n  Soldier, the, 228, 238\n  Sophists, 66, 262\n  Soul, contradiction in idea of, 35; and body, 227, 237; immortality\n      of, 141, 234\n  Space, 37, 38, 108\n  Specialism, blindness of, 87; in social organization, 71; of science,\n      71, 86; dreams of, 87; artificiality of, 87, 97; contradictions\n      due to, 63, 98; passing of, 128\n  Spinoza, 24, 147, 179, 198\n  Spirit, reality, or truth, as a, 152; of veracity, 105, 133, 170, 214\n  Stoicism, 116, 265\n  Supernaturalism, 32, 52, 147\n  Superstition, 49, 218\n\n  T\n\n  Technique, 76, 119; special, as transferable, 165\n  Tennyson, 89\n  Thales, 34\n  Theology, 26, 131\n  Time, 37, 38, 108\n  Training, special, as transferable, 165\n  Truth, spirit of, 105, 133, 170, 214\n\n  U\n\n  Unity, contradiction in idea of, 31; as expressed through\n      contradiction, 137; of experience, 160\n  Universality, of doubt, 1, 7; of human characters in general, 161\n  Utilitarianism, 66, 261, 263\n\n  V\n\n  Validity, spirit of, 105, 133, 153, 214\n  Vanini, 176, 180\n  Vitalism, 147\n\n  W\n\n  Will, nature of, 11; freedom of, 47; to believe, 193; in relation\n      to agnosticism, 121, 125\n\n  Z\n\n  Zeno, 109, 147","title":"The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinker","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":79799}