{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_78763/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_78763","id":"gutenberg_78763","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78763","summary":null,"tags":["Philosophers","Philosophy -- History"],"text":"MODERN THINKERS\n                                   AND\n                            PRESENT PROBLEMS\n\n                    AN APPROACH TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY\n                           THROUGH ITS HISTORY\n\n                                   BY\n                       EDGAR A. SINGER, Jr., Ph.D.\n\n                         PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY\n                    IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA\n\n\n                                NEW YORK\n                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n                                  1923\n\n\n\n\n                            Copyright, 1923,\n                                   BY\n                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n\n\n                               PRINTED IN\n                        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE\n\n\nThese papers, which had been written from time to time and for various\noccasions, have been brought together without any attempt to make\nthem tell a smooth unbroken story, yet not without regard to their\nconnectedness. They have sometimes served me to bring before the mind\nof youth certain problems on which philosophers have thought again and\nagain. But if they have had any interest for youth, if they are to have\nany for maturity, it can only be because the names that stand over the\nchapters might, if moments had names, be those of moments in each man\u2019s\nhistory.\n\nAnd as such, unless I have altogether failed to make my characters\nreal, these names will be recognized. Who has not sometime been that\nBruno who stepped from his Father\u2019s House, where all had revolved so\nsolicitously about himself, to find without the cold stars gazing down\non his atomy from their places in endless emptiness?\n\nWho has not come to feel, with Spinoza, those inviolable laws of\nmechanism which govern the world about him creeping into his own inmost\nbeing, threatening there all that he had so simply and yet so dearly\nclung to as his freedom and autonomy?\n\nHow many reflecting in their maturity on the unquestioning faiths\nof their childhood have thought to bring these to the test of such\nexperience as natural science depends on, only to find, as Hume found,\nthese faiths unconfirmed?\n\nAnd of those who have lived through this moment of disillusionment,\nthere will always be some who will have come in their own way to the\nposition severe reasoning forced on Kant: The spiritual aspects of\nreality are not issues of science and intellection, but belong to that\nother order of truth grasped by the \u201cpractical reason.\u201d\n\nOthers, meanwhile, will have refused to let their speculation go beyond\nthe insight experience yields, and of these some at least will have\nfound that experience holds out nothing hopeful for now or forever.\nThey will have seen with Schopenhauer into the \u201cdeep abyss\u201d and found\nat the bottom of it only this counsel: Not-being is better than being.\n\nOr if perhaps they have for a moment thought, with Nietzsche, that\nevolutionary science had brought to view a goal that gave heart to the\npitiless struggle of life by holding before it the vision of the \u201cfar\nfuture man,\u201d they may in the end have come to see beyond this Superman.\nBut to have seen beyond him nothing but the super-superman is to have\nseen the goal vanish and the heart lose its hope.\n\nAnd what then? The pages on \u201cPragmatism\u201d and on \u201cProgress\u201d may offer\nsuggestions of an answer. They are still historical in their spirit,\nand like those that had gone before them mean to illustrate, not to\ndemonstrate or affirm. They, too, would stand for moments of any\nthoughtful life and will have done all they were intended to do if they\ninform such a life with, and give it a sense of attachment to the world\nthat has gone before and is going on \u2019round.\n\nBut if one would at the outset know something of what the writer\nsuspects to be the outcome of ordered and historically guided\nreflection on these subjects, let him turn to the closing chapter, if\nnot for encouragement then for warning.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery one will remember the word to his reader with which Montaigne\ncloses the preface to his Essays. \u2019Tis but of himself he would write\nand \u201cit is then no reason thou shouldst employ thy time about so\nfrivolous and vain a subject. Therefore farewell.\u201d\n\nI cannot close _my_ preface without confessing a misgiving that must\nhave beset everyone who ever wrote of the past: that whereas he set out\nto lose himself in history, he may have found in history nothing but\nhimself. But on the bare chance of this having befallen me, I need not\nsay \u201cfarewell\u201d beforehand; for well I know no reader will accompany me\nfar through this past save one who finds _him_self there too.\n\n\n\n\n                           TABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n        CHAPTER                                                     PAGE\n\n     I. Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600                                      3\n\n    II. Benedict de Spinoza 1632-1677                                 37\n\n   III. A Disciple of Spinoza (An Illustration)                       65\n\n    IV. David Hume, 1711-1776                                         97\n\n     V. Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804                                     129\n\n    VI. Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860                               155\n\n   VII. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900                               183\n\n  VIII. Pragmatism                                                   213\n\n    IX. Progress                                                     249\n\n     X. Royce on Love and Loyalty                                    283\n\n    XI. Retrospect and Prospect                                      303\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nGIORDANO BRUNO\n\n1548-1600\n\n\nThe straightest way to the heart of old matters is an old letter. Here\nis one written on the twenty-third of May, 1592, by a gentleman of\nVenice to the Father of the Venetian Inquisition.\n\n\u201cVery Reverend Father and Most-to-be-observed Sir:\n\n\u201cI, Gioanni Mocenigo, son of the Clarissimo Messer Marcoantonio,\ncompelled by my conscience and ordered by my confessor, denounce to\nYour Very Reverend Paternity Giordano Bruno of Nola, whom I have heard\nsay on various occasions when he was conversing with me in my own\nhouse, that Catholics do but blaspheme when they hold the Bread to be\ntransubstantiated into the Flesh; that he is against the Mass; that\nno religion satisfies him; that Christ was a charlatan who, since he\nresorted to tricks to fool people, might well enough have foreseen\nthat he would die a criminal\u2019s death; that there is no distinction\nof Persons in God; ... that the world is eternal and that there are\nan infinite number of worlds, and that God is continually making an\ninfinity of them because He wants as many as He can have; that Christ\nperformed specious miracles; that he was a magician and the apostles\nwere magicians too.\u201d...\n\nThe letter runs on in breathless denunciation, but already one begins\nto make out the image of Bruno reflected in the average mind of his\ntime. The limited intelligence of Mocenigo has honestly misunderstood\nsome of Bruno\u2019s utterances, his malice has distorted others; but the\nperversity of the whole is not due to these faults of detail. Lost in\nthis jumble of stock heresies lies hidden a great idea, the greatest\nperhaps that has ever been contributed by a single mind to the cause of\nour science. \u201cAnd he says the world is eternal and that there are an\ninfinity of worlds.\u201d This sentence has brought the old world to an end,\nhas shattered the heavens under which Christendom was then living, yet\nit falls on the ear of its time with no more meaning or portent than a\ndoubt respecting the doctrine of transubstantiation or the authenticity\nof miracles. Bruno, throughout the course of his driven life and up to\nthe moment of his tragic death, knew most forms of martyrdom. He bore\nnone of these meekly, for his was a lusty soul that did not love to\nsuffer. But neither the hatred nor the cruelty of his world seems to\nhave hurt him so to the quick as did its stupidity. Doubt him and hate\nif you will; but value him you must! He was master of a great idea and\nunacquainted with modesty.\n\nMeanwhile Mocenigo has more to say of this sinner: \u201cHe has expressed\nthe intention of making himself the founder of a new sect under the\nname of the new philosophy. He has said that the Virgin could not have\nbrought a child into the world, and that our Catholic faith is full\nof blasphemies against the majesty of God; that it would be better to\nsuppress the largesses of wrangling friars because they befoul the\nworld; that they are all asses and that our common opinions are the\nteaching of asses; that we have no proof that our faith has merit\nwith God; that the simple rule of not doing unto others what we would\nnot have done unto us is sufficient for right living.\u201d... Perhaps I\nmay stop here. Evidently one who could be guilty of all these follies\nwould be ingenious in inventing others, and Mocenigo\u2019s letter may run\nendlessly on.\n\nWhile this letter was writing, Bruno lay locked in a room of Mocenigo\u2019s\nhouse. \u201cI had thought to learn from him,\u201d Mocenigo explains, \u201cnot\nknowing him to be the wicked man he is, and having noted all these\nthings to lay before your Very Reverend Paternity, and fearing that he\nwould take his departure as he said he wished to do, I have locked him\nin a room at your disposal. As I think him possessed of the devil, I\nhope you will decide quickly what is to be done with him....\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt has sometimes been wondered how Bruno came to accept the invitation\nof Mocenigo to take up his residence in Venice. Italy was for him a\nplace of such peril that it seems incredible he should have ventured to\nset foot in it. \u201cTell me one thing more,\u201d concludes a letter written\nin this same year 1592 by a gentleman of Bologna to a friend in Padua,\n\u201ctell me one thing more. Giordano Bruno, whom you knew at Wittenberg,\nthe Nolan, is said to be living among you just now at Padua. Is it\nreally so? What sort of man is this that he dares to enter Italy, which\nhe left in exile as he himself used to confess? I wonder, I wonder. I\ncannot yet believe the rumor, although I have it on good authority. You\nshall tell me whether it is true.\u201d And history has wondered all the\nmore seeing that Bruno himself had long before prophesied the result.\n\u201cTorches,\u201d he had written, \u201cfifty or a hundred, will not fail me though\nthe march be at noonday should it be my fate to die in a Catholic\ncountry.\u201d\n\nSo far as documents furnish any answer to this question, it lies\nsuggested in a second letter written by Mocenigo to the Holy\nInquisition two days after the denunciation. \u201cIn the course of the day\nthat I kept Giordano Bruno locked up, I asked him whether the things\nthat he would not teach me, as he promised to do in return for the\nmany kindnesses I had done him and the many gifts that I had given\nhim, whether he would not consent to teach me them if I abstained\nfrom denouncing him for all the criminal things he had uttered to me\nagainst our Lord Jesus Christ and against the Holy Catholic Church. He\nanswered that he did not fear the Inquisition, for he had harmed no\none by living in his own way, and moreover he could not recall having\nsaid anything sinful, but that if he had said such things he had said\nthem only to me, and he need not fear that I would do him harm in the\nway I suggested.\u201d Those who can may believe that Bruno is here telling\nthe truth about himself. Those who can may believe that he who eight\nyears before and at a safe distance from Italy had so clearly seen\nthe torches that awaited him there, had since grown blind to them or\nindifferent.\n\nThe next document of the trial is brief enough. Under date of the\nfollowing day--that is, Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of May--is found this\nentry: \u201cClarissimo Dom Aloysius Fuscari presiding. Presented himself\nDom Matheus de Avantio, Captain of the Constabulary, and reported as\nfollows: Sabbath at three o\u2019clock of the night,[1] I arrested Giordano\nBruno of Nola, whom I found in a house over against Saint Samuels, in\nwhich dwells the Clarissimo Ser Gioanni Mocenigo, and I have imprisoned\nhim in the Prisons of the Holy Office, and this I have done by order of\nthis Holy Tribunal.\u201d\n\nThe doors of the prison closing on Bruno bring to an end the story of\nhis life, but from behind these doors there come to us fragments of the\nstory itself as Bruno retells it to his judges. For on the very day\nof his arrest he is examined by a tribunal composed of the Apostolic\nNuncio, the Patriarch of Venice, the Very Reverend Father Inquisitor.\nBefore these, as the clerk of the tribunal records it, was brought a\ncertain man of ordinary height with a chestnut beard, who, when he\nhad been admonished to speak the truth, and before any question could\nbe put to him, burst out of his own accord: \u201cI will tell the truth.\nSeveral times have I been threatened with being brought before this\nHoly Office, but I have always taken the threat for a joke, because\nI am ever ready to give account of myself.\u201d Whereupon he tells how,\nhaving found himself at Frankfurt the previous year, he received there\ntwo letters from Gioanni Mocenigo, inviting him to come to Venice to\ninstruct Mocenigo in the art of memory and the art of invention, for\nwhich this Venetian gentleman had promised to pay him well and treat\nhim in a way that should content him. And so Bruno had come to Venice\nseven or eight months before, living first in lodgings, then for a\nbrief space in Padua, until some two months prior to his arrest he had\ntaken up his residence in Mocenigo\u2019s own house. We already know how,\n\u201ccompelled by his conscience and ordered by his confessor,\u201d Mocenigo\nfinally disposed of his guest.\n\nThen Bruno questioned by the tribunal, laid before it a formal account\nof his life. \u201cMy name is Giordano Bruno, of the family of the Bruni, of\nthe city of Nola, twelve miles from Naples. In this place I was born\nand raised, and my profession was and is letters and the sciences. My\nfather was named Gioanni, and my mother Fraulissa Savolina, and my\nfather\u2019s calling was that of a soldier. He is dead since, and my mother\ntoo.\n\n\u201cI am about forty-four years of age, and I was born, so far as I have\nheard from my people, in the year 1548. I remained in Naples learning\nthe humanities, logic, and dialectics until fourteen years of age ...\nand then I took the habit of Saint Dominic in the monastery or convent\nof Saint Dominic in Naples, and was invested by a Padre who was then\nprior of that convent, called Maestro Ambrosio Pasqua. When the year\nof probation was passed, I was admitted by him to profession, which\nwas solemnly made in the same convent.... Later I was promoted to\nholy orders and at the usual season to the priesthood. I sang my first\nmass in Campagnia, a city of the same state at a distance from Naples,\nresiding the while in a convent of the order, the San Bartholomeo, and\ncontinued in the religious habit of Saint Dominic, celebrating masses\nand the divine offices, obedient to the superior of the Order and to\nthe priors of the monasteries and convents where I was stationed until\n1576....\u201d\n\nI have not wanted to interrupt Bruno, nor to hurry him in his story,\ntedious as it is in the telling. Little event after little event of his\nsecular and of his religious life befalls with the trivial monotony\nof dropping rain. But is it not just so that these little events and\nendless others like them must have fallen on the soul of the living\nBruno, soaking in, soaking in, unnoticed as rain, until his very humors\nran with their humor? Now their humor was the spirit of the old world,\nthe spirit of his Father\u2019s House. Would it not be curious if, having\npulled down this ridiculous old dwelling and in the very act of dancing\namong its ruins, Bruno should suddenly come to see that it was the\nonly house his soul, being such a soul as it was, could dwell in? If\nsomething of this kind did not happen at a moment of his life we are\nfast approaching, then only the gods know what did happen. But I am\nanticipating, or rather laying up reflections against our hour of need.\nFor the moment we have no more than come to the day in Bruno\u2019s life\nwhen he stepped out of his Father\u2019s House to make his way _ins Freie\nhinaus_.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nFifty years ago, before Berti had unearthed the documents of this\ntrial, it was difficult to trace the life of Bruno. Since then it has\nbecome well-nigh impossible. Documents are a great embarrassment to the\nconscientious historian. They are there, these documents, and have to\nbe put in the text; the truth about the case must be relegated to the\nfoot-notes. Now the text runs in this wise: \u201cIn 1576 ... I was in Rome\nat the Convent of Minerva, obedient to the orders of Maestro Sisto de\nLuca, Procurator of the Order. Thither I had gone to present myself\nbecause at Naples two processes had been instituted against me, the\nfirst for having given away certain images of the saints and retaining\nonly a crucifix, it being thought that this showed a lack of respect\nfor the images of the saints; and the other for having said to a novice\nwho was reading a story of the Seven Beatitudes in verse, What did he\nthink he was doing with a book like that?--why didn\u2019t he throw it away\nand read rather some other book, as the lives of the Holy Fathers? This\nprocess was renewed at the time I went to Rome, with other articles\nadded to it which I do not know, for I abandoned the order and threw\naside the habit and went to Noli in the region of Genoa, where I\nsupported myself four or five months teaching grammar to young boys.\u201d\n\nThis is indeed the text, but is not a comment inevitable? What! Bruno\nwould have us believe that in 1576 he is of such fearful mood and timid\ntemper that, having no more on his conscience than the events recited,\nhe abandons church and country, peace and security at the mere frown of\nhis Order, but that in 1592, having in the meanwhile upset, smashed,\nand abused the Christian world, he can look upon the Inquisition\nwithout fear, bethinking him that he had harmed no man in living in his\nown way?\n\nHowever, flee he did. What followed on this flight he recounts to his\njudges as his trial proceeds. Sixteen years of as hard-driven a life\nas one could wish for one\u2019s dearest foe, from Italy to Switzerland\n(to the Geneva of Calvin\u2019s day, where one may imagine that Bruno was\nas much at home as fire on an iceberg), then across to France, from\nLyons to Toulouse, from Toulouse to Paris, from France to England, from\nLondon back to Paris, then hastily to Germany, through many German and\nBohemian cities! Sixteen years of homeless, friendless poverty, now\nteaching small boys, now lecturing at great universities, now living\nwith fine gentlemen, received by a king or a queen, now gathering a few\ncurious students about him, who somehow confused the promise of the\ngreat idea with old mysteries and the arts we call black. Until at last\nwe find him at Frankfurt receiving Mocenigo\u2019s letters promising him a\nhome in Italy, his native land, and a treatment that should content him.\n\nYet these years of travail were those in which his works were written,\nthe Italian dialogues in England, the Latin poems in Germany. The\ngreat idea had received full expression, the \u201cExcubitor,\u201d as Bruno\ncalled himself, the Awakener of sleeping minds, had blown his trumpet\nand the walls of the world had fallen. Splendid is the enthusiasm\nwith which Bruno first announces this new vision of the morning: \u201cLo!\nhere is one who has swept the air, pierced the heavens, sped by the\nstars and passed beyond the bounds of the world, who has annihilated\nthe fantastic spheres with which foolish mathematicians and vulgar\nphilosophers had closed us in. The key of his diligent curiosity has\nopened to the view of every sense and every power of reason such\nclosets of truth as can be opened by us. He has stripped nature of her\nrobe and veil. He has given eyes to the mole, vision to the blind....\nNo longer is our reason imprisoned within the confines of imaginary\nheavens.... We know that there is but one heaven, one immense ether,\nwhere magnificent fires maintain their proper distances by reason of\nthat eternal life in which they have part. These flaming bodies are the\nambassadors which announce the excellence of God\u2019s glory and majesty.\u201d\n\nThis is indeed the voice of an Awakener. But, alas for awakeners! the\nvision of the morning is never fair to those just shaken out of their\ndreams. In an introductory letter to the last of the dialogues we catch\nan echo of the sleeper\u2019s complaint: \u201cIf I shoved a plow, if I kept a\nflock, if I cultivated a garden, if I mended old clothes, no one would\nnotice me, few would consider me, not many would find fault with me,\nand I could easily please everybody. But for having been studious of\nthe field of nature, solicitous for the pasture of the soul, enamored\nof the cultivation of the mind, a very Daedalus fashioning raiment for\nthe intellect, every passer-by threatens me, every one who sees me\nattacks me, who comes upon me rends me, who lays hold on me devours.\nIt is not one, it is not a few; it is many, it is almost all. If you\nwould know why this is, I will tell you the reason of it--I despise the\ncrowd, I hate the mob, the multitude contents me not. One thing I love,\none thing for whose sake I am free in bondage, content in pain, rich\nin poverty, alive in very death. One thing for whose sake I envy not\nthose who are slaves in their liberty, troubled in their pleasure, poor\nin their riches, dead in their life. Their body is the chain that binds\nthem, in their mind is the hell that tortures them, in their spirit\nthe falsehood that makes them sick, in their soul the lethargy that\nkills. Not theirs the greatness of mind which frees, the breadth of\nview which ennobles. Not theirs the splendor which illumines, nor the\nscience which gives life.\u201d It is a brave, even an over-brave flourish\nwith which Bruno ends this proemial epistle: \u201cAnd so the gods deliver\nme from all those who unjustly hate me, and my God be always propitious\nunto me!... The stars let my sowing fit the field and the field my\nsowing, that the world be made content with the useful and glorious\nfruits of my labors!... And if I err, I truly do not believe myself\nto err; whether speaking or writing, I do not dispute for the love\nof victory.... For love of true wisdom and desire for true insight I\nexhaust, I crucify, I torture myself....\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBrave is the flourish, how over-brave we realize with unexpected\nintensity as we follow this solemn trial to its last scene. Having\nrecounted the episodes of his life, Bruno proceeds to the explanation\nand defense of his teachings. At first the new philosophy is presented\nwith no little boldness and confidence, its difference from the formal\nteaching of Christianity admitted and even pointed out. But always with\na certain reserve, as of one who would say, \u201cYes, I have broken the\nframe and melted the flesh of your religion, but if you will let me, I\nwill show how much more nobly its divine spirit dwells in the new body\nI have made for it.\u201d Now this new body differs in no important way from\nthe physical universe as we see it today, so that Bruno\u2019s problem has\nbeen the problem of all Christian thought since his time. What Aquinas\nhad done in the way of making the spirit of Christianity at home in\nthe finite heaven-enclosed world of Aristotle, that Bruno felt must\nbe done over again, now that the world was no longer finite and the\ndistinction between Heaven and Earth had vanished. This is the thought\nthat pervades the first days of Bruno\u2019s account of himself before the\nVenetian tribunal, but as one by one the accusations of Mocenigo\u2019s\nletter fall on him, he seems to lose hope and confidence in himself. He\ndenies, and denies, and denies!\n\nI am not convinced that he is telling the truth in these denials. I am\nnot convinced that Mocenigo\u2019s account of him, barring a few obvious\nmisunderstandings, is false in spirit. No more am I convinced that\nBruno has been frightened into lying himself out of danger. He seems\nto me to say, \u201cAlas! if these matters on which you question me are of\nthe essence of Christianity, then have I been wrong in supposing that\nthe old wine can be put in the new bottle.\u201d Driven and perplexed, he\nhas to decide which lies nearest to his heart, the new bottle or the\nold wine. Remember him fleeing in his early manhood from his Father\u2019s\nHouse, ostensibly in childish fear and unwillingly, but really perhaps\nbecause he needed space, endless space, through which to follow the new\nidea. Remember him coming back to Italy sixteen years later, ostensibly\nbecause he realized that his manner of living and thinking had hurt\nno man and so ought to bring down no judgment on his head, but really\nperhaps because the craving for the old wine was deeper in him than\nthe enthusiasm for the new bottle. Perhaps then we can understand the\nclosing scene of his trial at Venice. \u201cIt may be,\u201d he cries, \u201cin the\nlong time that has passed I have committed other sins and departed from\nthe Church in other ways than those which I have explained, and that\nI have not cleansed myself of all matters of censure, but although\nI have thought much over these things, I can recall nothing more. I\nhave confessed, and I now confess anew my errors, and I am here in the\nhands of Your Most Illustrious Lordships to receive punishment for the\nsaving of my soul. My soul cannot express the depth of its contrition\nfor my fault.\u201d And falling on his knees, he said, \u201cI humbly ask pardon\nof the Lord God and of Your Most Illustrious Lordships for all the\nerrors which I have committed and which I now stand ready to expiate\nin such wise as your wisdom may think proper and judge expedient for\nmy soul. And moreover, I beg that you give me a punishment which shall\nexceed in severity rather than set any public example which may throw\ndishonor on the sacred religious habit I have worn. And if by God\u2019s\nmercy and the mercy of Your Most Illustrious Lordships, life shall be\nspared me, I promise to make such notable reform of my life as shall\npay for the scandal I have given with equal and greater edification.\u201d\n\nIn this unhappy posture I leave Bruno the man to take up the story of\nhis great idea. We shall see him once more indeed, at the moment when,\neight years later, he calmly dies for the idea he now so abjectly\nabandons; but no understanding of the alternating enthusiasm and\ndespair that filled this life can afford to neglect the qualities of\nthe gospel it stood for, forsook, then died for in the end.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nLike all very great ideas, this one is of the simplest. It begins with\nthe observation that the flame of a candle grows bigger as we approach\nit, smaller as we recede from it. Nothing very new in this, you say,\nnor very imposing. No, it is the next step that was so new in Bruno\u2019s\nday, and of such tremendous destructive and creative power. Yet it is\njust as simple as the first. What is true of a candle flame must be\ntrue of a sun and of a star. Is it not indeed simple? Yes, but in all\nthe long while the world had lasted it had occurred to no one before\nBruno to seize upon this simple idea and to follow whither it led. It\nled far, wonderfully far. It led Bruno to journey in imagination out\nand out toward those most distant stars that were then called fixed,\nand were indeed supposed to be fixed in one great sphere that enclosed\nall things, beyond which was nothing, and not even nothing, for there\nwas no beyond; space ended where matter ended, at the walls of the\nworld. But Bruno as he journeyed saw this great sun of ours growing\nsmaller and smaller as he receded from it, and yonder star growing\nlarger and larger as he approached it, until the most wonderful thing\nhappened. The sun began to look more and more like a star, and the star\nmore and more like a sun. There was now no escaping the conclusion--the\nstars that had been called fixed are other suns, our sun but a\nnear-lying star.\n\nA child might have grasped this idea which brought a world to an end.\nDo I say a child? It may be that Bruno was that child, for his mind\nthroughout had much of the waywardness, something of the random and\ntumultuous association of a child\u2019s mind. The past might interest him,\nmight even inspire him; it never had the power of capturing and holding\nhim. But childish as it was, this idea did destroy the old world, for\nif stars were in no wise different from the sun we know, nor the sun\nfrom a star, evidently there was at least one star that was not fixed\nto the ethereal sphere that contained all things. There could then be\nno longer any motive for supposing these other suns to be all at the\nsame distance from the center. They might be anywhere, they might even\n(Bruno had this very modern idea) be moving with respect to each other.\nInevitably Bruno must come to look upon the stars as suns sprinkled\nirregularly throughout the regions of infinite space.\n\nNor was this all. Coming after Copernicus as he did, Bruno had from\nthe first grasped with enthusiasm Copernicus\u2019 idea that not the\nEarth but the Sun was the center of the sphere. I say the center of\nthe sphere, for we must remember that Copernicus never touched the\nboundary of the world, but only changed its center from Earth to Sun.\nIn Copernicus\u2019 thought we still lived within a star-spangled heaven.\nBut now that Bruno had shattered this heaven and sprinkled these stars\nthrough space, he could not well help surrounding those other suns with\nplanets, until not merely an infinity of suns but an infinity of solar\nsystems spread themselves out before his imagination. But could he stop\nhere? When one has once destroyed the distinction between Heaven and\nEarth, when one has once begun to think of nature as everywhere alike,\nit is not easy to stop. Was not one of the planets making its journey\naround our sun inhabited with manifold forms of life? Then why should\nthey not all be? And is it likely that one solar system should be a\nscene of life and the infinity of others not? So it was that Bruno,\nlooking out into space, saw as many inhabited globes as there were\n\u201chundreds of thousands of stars.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese are the matters which Bruno brought back with him from his\njourney to the stars and beyond the confines of the world. I have told\nthem simply, for eloquence is wasted in describing such feats of the\nimagination. They are of themselves eloquent. And we recall with what\nenthusiasm Bruno himself recounted his journey. Is it not possible,\nhowever, that when he returned to earth and told his journeyings to\nmen, he came to perceive, as these men at once perceived, that his new\nvision was not all made of beauty? Is there not in this infinite cosmos\nthat which may depress and even terrify?\n\nIn his \u201cGarden of Epicurus,\u201d Anatole France has put the two worlds side\nby side. One has only to do this to feel that Bruno, who at first held\nout his hands to the new vision, may afterwards have snatched them back\nagain to shut it out.\n\n\u201cWe have some trouble,\u201d says France, \u201cin imagining the state of mind\nof a man in olden times who firmly believed that the Earth was the\ncenter of the Universe, and that all the stars turned round it. He felt\nunder his feet damned souls writhing in flames, and perhaps he had seen\nwith his own eyes, and smelled with his own nostrils the sulphurous\nfumes of Hell escaping from some fissures in the rocks. Lifting his\nhead he contemplated the spheres, ... those bearing the Moon, Mercury,\nVenus--the one that Dante visited on Good Friday of the year 1300--the\nSun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, then the incorruptible firmament from which\nthe stars were suspended like lamps. Beyond, his mind\u2019s eye discerned\nthe Ninth Heaven to which the saints were rapt, the Primum Mobile or\nCrystalline; and finally Empyrion, dwelling of the blessed, toward\nwhich, he firmly hoped, two angels robed in white would bear away,\nas it were a little child, his soul washed in baptism and perfumed\nwith the oil of the last sacraments. In those days God had no other\nchildren than man, and all his creation was ordered in a fashion at\nonce childlike and poetic like an immense cathedral. Thus imagined, the\nuniverse was so simple that it was represented in its entirety with its\ntrue figure and motions in certain great clocks run by machinery and\nappropriately painted.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: Dante\u2019s Conception of the Universe\n\n(From Hearnshaw\u2019s _Mediaeval Contributions to Modern Civilization_.)]\n\nBut now! \u201cWe are done with the spheres and the planets under which\none was born lucky or unlucky, jovial or saturnine. The solid vault\nof the firmament is shattered. Our eye and our thought plunge into\ninfinite abysses of heaven. Beyond the planets we discover no longer\nthe Empyrion of the elect and of the angels, but a hundred millions of\nrolling suns escorted by their cort\u00e8ge of obscure satellites invisible\nto us. In the midst of this infinity of worlds our own Sun is but a\nbubble of gas and our Earth but a fleck of mud.\u201d\n\nThe contrast speaks for itself and needs no comment. It is enough to\npoint out the effect it must have had upon the ethical and religious\nnotions of him who first realized it. What in such a world are we to\nmake of the central episode of Christianity? Bruno\u2019s imagination that\nhad swept through space and sped by the stars had found these worlds\ninhabited by beings \u201cperhaps better, perhaps worse than we are.\u201d If\nthere was no evidence that these dwellers in distant solar systems were\nso much better than we as to need no saving, neither was there any\nevidence that they were so much worse as to deserve none. We were no\nlonger the only children of God. What then? Are we to suppose that the\ndrama of Redemption is being enacted over and over again throughout the\ninfinity of worlds? Is the Son of God being sacrificed over and over\nagain for the sake of His other children? Is He at this moment perhaps\nredeeming with His life the dwellers on some star in the night yonder?\n\nBut destruction did not stop here. Not only the gentler aspects which\nChristianity had given to the sterner religion of pagandom were\nthreatened. That older religion itself, with its well-thought-out\ntheory of the relation between God and man, must either be rejected or\nremodeled. For Aristotle as well as for Aquinas, God and man had formed\nthe real plot of the universe. God, revealing himself most clearly in\nthe turning of the enclosing heaven, set thereby the rest of nature in\nmotion and stirred things down to their very center. So that in the\nregion of earth, water, air and fire there came to be composed bodies\nmixed of all these. They were the living beings we know, which, holding\ntheir ingredients in proper proportion for a while, fell apart again\nand passed away.\n\nThese living beings differed in power. As we pass from the vegetable\nthrough the animal to the human they show themselves increasingly able\nto control the matter in which and of which they are. Highest of all is\nthe human male. It is for the sake of producing him that the mechanism\nwhich fills the region between Heaven and Earth exists and is operated.\nOne might almost say that Nature is God\u2019s workshop for producing man.\nBut why should God be thus interested in producing this particular kind\nof animal? Aristotle\u2019s answer comes less clearly than one could wish,\nyet it comes. It is because man differs from the animals not only in\ndegree but in kind. He is not altogether animal. In his superior body\nthere is contained a soul which is not only of God\u2019s making, but of\nGod\u2019s very substance. That is why man alone can know God. It is as\nthough God needed to be known, recognized, reflected as in a mirror.\nAs for man, he is a bit of divinity momentarily estranged from his\nhome and dwelling, but with the privilege of returning thither can he\nbut free his soul from earthly and sensuous entanglements and interest\nhimself in knowing his Father which is in Heaven.\n\nAnd now that Bruno has destroyed this difference between Heaven and\nEarth, has he not destroyed along with it the distinction between God\nand man? Has not his infinite homogenous world left man a mere mite\nshivering on his fleck of mud as it rolls around its bubble of gas? Man\nis no longer the center of interest; he no longer plays an important\npart in any thinkable plot. \u201cMan is no more than an ant in the presence\nof the infinite,\u201d cries Bruno. \u201cA star is no more than a man.\u201d\n\nWe can understand that Bruno\u2019s awakening, with however great an\nenthusiasm it may have been heralded, can be no pleasant awakening for\nthe sleeper. The world of his dreams was infinitely fairer and warmer\nthan that reality to whose garish light his eyes have been opened. It\ncannot be expected that the awakened should feel any gratitude, and he\ndid not. But what is less obvious is the matter of Bruno\u2019s own feeling\nas the consequences of his new idea gradually unfold themselves to\nhim. Can that first enthusiasm be sustained to the end, or must he too\nshrink before the fuller vision of what he has done?\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf we were to classify men in terms of their reactions to new ideas, I\nthink we should all hit upon these three types. Let me call the first\nthe radical. He is easy to initiate into a new truth, bold to accept\nit at all costs, loses at once all perspective and sees in the past\nonly a bundle of errors without beauty and with no other interest\nthan to furnish matter for jest. And then there is the conservative.\nThe hold that the past has on such a mind is sometimes enormous. He\nis capable of clinging to it at the expense of all the rest of his\nscience and experience. If it has enthralled his heart and imagination,\nhe falls into a mood which the Renaissance called the acceptance\nof \u201ctwo-fold truth.\u201d He believes against all evidence. He believes\nas Tertullian had it, just because the thing is absurd. He insists\nwith Pascal, that the heart has its reasons which the reason cannot\nunderstand. He is a creature of faiths and of mysticisms. Finally\nthere is the philosopher, the only one of the three completely made\nfor unhappiness. He gets no thrill from novelty. He has followed human\nthought through too many revolutions to expect the most violent of\ncataclysms to change things much. He struggles to keep his perspective\nas he would keep his reason, and the views of older humanity do not\nlose their beauty because their expression has been proved wrong.\nRequired to readjust his thought of yesterday to the new fact of today,\nhe undertakes the task cheerfully enough as part of the day\u2019s work.\nThat is what yesterdays, todays, and if it may be, tomorrows are given\nto him for. He measures his success by the extent to which he can mold\nnew thought to the satisfaction of old desire, to old desire newly\ninstructed.\n\nAnd Bruno--to which of these classes does he belong? Is he the radical\nwho would light-heartedly take his place on the fleck of mud and watch\nit roll around its bubble of gas, while he laughs at his neighbors,\nwho in the face of such a universe charm themselves into a continued\nfaith that they are somehow divine souls in whom a God of Heaven is\ninterested? Or will he, on the other hand, become one of those thus\nheld by the past? Will the awakener, now himself fully awakened, try\nto snatch at the fading dream and somehow manage to keep his faith in\nwhat he knows can\u2019t be true? Or will he set laboriously to work, as a\nphilosopher should, to find that interpretation of the new facts which\nlies closest to the meaning, though it may differ from the verbal\nexpression of world-old desires and longings?\n\nAlas! if Bruno would but make up his mind to be any one of these three,\nthe task of his biographer would be easy. But the real Bruno, the\nBruno who mocked, who thought, who recanted, and who died, was not a\ntype. He was a man, and as he was the most human of men, he gathered\nthe greatest possible number of inconsistencies to his heart. Yes,\nhe was a radical who mocked and jeered. Yes, he was a philosopher\nwho labored and thought. And yes, finally, he was a mystic who could\nhold as a splendid if inexplicable possession of his faith, all the\nthings his reason showed to be impossible. I have shown you Bruno\u2019s\nmockery reflected in the somewhat muddy and turbid medium of Mocenigo\u2019s\ndenunciation. I have shown you Bruno the mystic, kneeling before the\nInquisition, completely abandoning the great idea. It remains for\nme to show Bruno the philosopher, Bruno the Pantheist, Bruno the\nunacknowledged inspiration of much that is recognized as great in\nSpinoza and Leibnitz, the acknowledged and highly honored forerunner of\nmuch we take to be greatest in the German Idealism that centers about\n1800.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe left the great idea at the moment, when, having pierced the heavens,\nit had come to realize the consequences of its act. The gentle meaning\nof Christ, the sterner pagan wisdom of God and man had been lost in an\ninfinity that knew no enclosing heaven, in a dreary waste of sameness\nthat knew no distinction, not even that between man and God. Bruno the\nphilosopher was not one to let this work of scientific devastation\ngo on unchallenged. What if there were a God who could dwell just as\nclearly in a heaven that was everywhere as in a Heaven that was above?\nWhat if man could have an interest for and could serve this God, not\nbecause he was different in kind from the ant, but because he was, or\nrather in proportion as he was, different in degree? Does not the life\nthat quickens an animate thing pervade that thing? Is it not the same\nlife which in me beckons with my finger, beats with my heart, thinks\nwith my brain? What then if this infinite world of ours were one great\nliving thing made up of other living things, as our body is made up of\nfinger, and heart, and brain, each of which in doing its own work does\nconsciously or unconsciously the work of the whole? \u201cNatura est Deus in\nrebus.\u201d This is one of the phrases Bruno found in trying to express his\nphilosophy. Nature is God in things, or let us put it--God is the life;\nsuns and planets, men and ants, falling rain and mounting mist are but\nthe gestures of this life. Each thinks it does what it does for its\nown sake, but those who think clearest realize that the joy of their\ndoing as well as the solace of their undoing is the part they play in\nworking out the ideal of the whole. \u201cAnd He lives in me as I live in my\nhand\u201d--the phrase is Von Hofmannsthal\u2019s, the thought is Bruno\u2019s, and it\nis the whole thought of Bruno the Pantheist.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe end of this life is told in a letter written by one Gaspard Schopp\n(a converted Lutheran) to his friend Rittershausen, rector of the\nUniversity of Altdorf:\n\n\u201cIf I write to you now, it is because this very day Giordano Bruno was\npublicly burned for heresy in the Field of Flowers in front of the\ntheater of Pompey.... If you were in Rome, you would learn from each\nand every Italian that a Lutheran was burned, and so you would be not\na little strengthened in your opinion of our savage hatred. But you\nmust know, my Rittershausen, that our Italians do not draw a sharp line\nbetween heretics and heretics, nor do they know fine distinctions,\nbut if any one is a heretic they take him for a Lutheran, in which\nsimplicity I pray that God may continue them....\n\n\u201cNow Bruno was that Nolan ... a professed Dominican who some\ntwenty-three years agone began to doubt of Transubstantiation ...\nthen forthright to deny it, and likewise the virginity of the Blessed\nMary. He migrated to Geneva, ... whence, not approving himself\naltogether sound in his Calvinism (than which, nevertheless, nothing\nleads straighter to atheism), he was driven to Lyons, whence to\nToulouse, from whence he passed on to Paris, where he was a professor,\nbut extraordinarius, as he found that the professor ordinarius was\nobliged to attend Mass. Thence to London, where he published a little\nbook called the \u2018Beast Triumphant,\u2019 meaning thereby the Pope, whom\nyour party is wont to honor with the name of beast.[2] From here to\nWittenberg, where, if I am not mistaken, he lectured publicly for two\nyears. Having gone on to Prague, he published there the works, \u2018On the\nBoundless,\u2019 \u2018On the Innumerable Worlds,\u2019 and yet one other, \u2018On the\nShadows of Ideas,\u2019 in which he taught horrible and moreover most absurd\nthings, as that there are innumerable worlds, that the soul passes from\none body into another, ... that magic is a good thing and permissible,\nthe Holy Spirit is nothing but the soul of the world, and that this\nwas what Moses meant when he wrote, \u2018The spirit of God moved on the\nface of the waters,\u2019 that the world is eternal.... In a word, whatever\nis asserted by the Pagan philosophers, whatever by our older or newer\nheretics he (Bruno) maintained.\n\n\u201cFrom Prague he went on to Brunswick and Helmstadt, and there for a\ntime is said to have taught. Then to Frankfurt for the publishing\nof certain books, and later fell into the hands of the Inquisition\nat Venice, whence when they had had enough of him, he was sent to\nRome. Frequently examined by the Holy Office ... of the Inquisition,\nconvicted by the highest theologians, he now besought eighty days that\nhe might consider, now promised recantation, now defended his point\nanew, now obtained another eighty days; but was really doing nothing\nbut make a fool of the Pontiff and the Inquisition.\n\n\u201cSo that, nearly eight years after he had come before the Inquisition\nhere, on the ninth of February in the Palace of the Grand Inquisitor,\nthere being present the Most Illustrious Cardinals of the Holy Office\nof the Inquisition, ... theologians of counsel, and the secular\nmagistrate, governor of the city, Bruno was brought in, and on bended\nknees heard sentence pronounced against him. And it was in this way:\nthe story of his life was told, of his studies and teachings, and with\nwhat diligence and fraternal admonishment the Inquisition had sought to\neffect his conversion, and what obduracy and impiety he had shown. Then\nthey defrocked him, as we say, and straightway excommunicated him and\nhanded him over to the secular arm to be punished, asking that this be\ndone with clemency and without the shedding of blood.\n\n\u201cWhile this was passing he answered nothing, except this word: \u2018In\ngreater fear, perhaps, do you impose sentence upon me than I do receive\nit.\u2019 So, taken away to prison by the governor\u2019s lictors, he was\nallowed a fortnight in case he should wish to recant his errors; but\nin vain. Today he was led to the stake. When the image of our Saviour\non the Cross was shown to him as he was about to die, he turned away\nhis head and sullenly rejected it. In great misery he thus died, and\nis gone, I think, to tell in those other worlds of his imagining after\nwhat manner the men of Rome are wont to treat impious blasphemers....\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nSurely, he came to that other world of his imagining. It is our world\nand he dwells among us. Little does he remember of the men of Rome,\nof their Illustrious Lordships of Venice, of all the toil and travail\nof that old life of his--hardly enough to fill an idle hour in the\ntelling. But we know him easily for the unchanged soul he was. He\nis that one who came to us of a day and opened our eyes to new and\ntroubling visions. \u201cNow you are free,\u201d he said, \u201cbe glad!\u201d He is that\nsame one who stole back another day and whispered, \u201cBut you are afraid!\nRemember your Father\u2019s House, how safe it was and warm.\u201d He may be\nthere to close the eyes that have seen enough, with what counsel then,\nwho can tell? But once he was fond of saying, \u201cNot only he who wins\ndeserves the laurels; but also he who dies no coward.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nBENEDICT DE SPINOZA\n\n1632-1677\n\n\n\u201cAll things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.\u201d These words\nwhich bring to a close Spinoza\u2019s masterpiece \u201cEthics, after the manner\nof Geometry,\u201d sum up the experience of a life as rare as it was\ndifficult.\n\nBut then, the things that make life difficult are so much a question\nof the nature that accepts or invites them! We may be sure that\nfew, brought to the lap of Lachesis, would have the courage to pick\ntherefrom Spinoza\u2019s lot. To be born of exiled Jews, to be cast off by\nfamily and race as an offender against holy traditions, to live then in\nloneliness among Christians whose faith one does not accept, to die by\ninches at the age of forty-five,--even as lives go this would hardly\nbe called an easy one. How seriously then must we take the sustaining\npower of a philosophy which enabled Spinoza, partly accepting, partly\ninviting his destiny, to lend it an aspect of calm beauty that touches\nour wonder!\n\nOne is tempted to recall the unhappy Bruno; without, tossed and\nhunted; within, torn by a conflict between a new science at once grand\nand desolate, and a memory of things lovable but untrue. In him a\nlofty philosophy was to have quieted this struggle and consoled this\nisolation but did not, unless indeed it did at that last moment when he\nstood at his stake in the Field of Flowers.\n\nThere is much likeness but an all-important difference between Bruno\nand Spinoza, whose names a curious fate linked together first in\ngeneral condemnation, then in general praise. The two were alike in\nthis, that if anything more lonely can be conceived than the fugitive\nexistence of Bruno, it is the monk-like reclusion of Spinoza; if\nanything more desolate than the infinite wind-swept universe of Bruno,\nit is this same universe bereft of the quivering life and all-inspiring\npurpose that Bruno found in it, this world left on our hands a rolling\nmechanism fatal and purposeless. But the difference is profound. The\nphilosophy, yes, one may boldly say the religion of Spinoza, sustained\nhim from day to day, from hour to hour. Bruno\u2019s was rather the poet\u2019s\nvision, vivid enough while it lasted, but dispelled by the shock of\nreality to return only at such moments as that in which his life went\nout. Is it in the power of a thought, is it in the temperament of a man\nthat this difference lies explained?\n\nSpinoza\u2019s thought, whatever its worth, owned a distinguished lineage.\nWhen in 1658 he was excommunicated by the Jews at Amsterdam, he turned\nwith eager curiosity to the learning if not to the faith of the\nChristians. In particular the Dutch physician, Francis Van den Ende,\nhimself a freethinker, became his teacher and friend. From him Spinoza\nacquired his knowledge of Latin and German, by him was initiated into\nthe sciences and introduced to the works of Giordano Bruno and of\none other destined to play a determining part in his thought, Ren\u00e9\nDescartes--\u201cthe father of modern philosophy\u201d as he is sometimes called.\n\nDescartes, whose life overlaps that of Bruno at the one end and of\nSpinoza at the other, is founder of the school of thought the historian\ncalls Rationalistic. Now a rationalist is obviously enough one who is\nbent on following his reason, but reason as opposed to what? We think\nfirst of reason as opposed to authority and revelation; but although\nrationalism came inevitably to discard these sources of belief--had\nalready discarded them in the thought of our very Spinoza--the father\nof rationalism had left some room for both; partly because it might\nfurnish a convenient refuge if the official church with which he\ndesired to live in comfortable relation should press him; partly\nbecause Descartes was in one or two respects less of a rationalist\nthan his school.\n\nOn the other hand the master was emphatic enough on the distinction\nbetween the reason and the senses. It might seem to us moderns that the\nold saying \u201cseeing is believing,\u201d with its implied prohibition against\nbelieving aught that might not be seen, erred, if at all, from a very\nexcess of reasonableness. To Descartes, seeing with the body\u2019s eye was\nstill but flimsy evidence. This organ had too often deceived him to be\nimplicitly trusted, and to back its testimony with that of the other\nsenses,--touch, taste, smell, hearing--was but to multiply unreliable\nwitnesses. Their combined voices might give a certain presumption in\nfavor of their opinion but never an assurance amounting to certainty.\nNot indeed with the eye of the body but with the eye of the mind could\nwe see truth in its nakedness. But what is this organ, this eye of the\nmind, and who is to teach us to use it? The mathematicians, Descartes\nreplies, have long possessed it and long used it. It is to them we must\nturn for instruction.\n\nIf we do--if we turn to Euclid, say--we find that the whole complex and\ndifficult body of truth that we call geometry is made to follow from a\nfew simple truths so certain that we call them self-evident. Why should\nnot all truths be susceptible of the same kind of proof? Why should\nwe not be able to find an axiom of axioms whose certainty was no mere\nmatter of observation, and why, if we find it, should we not be able to\ndraw from it all possible truth, as we deduce the theorems of geometry\nfrom its axioms?\n\nIt was this idea that Descartes followed and it was this idea that\nSpinoza accepted at his hands: To construct a theory of life that\nshould be no mere summing up of various peoples\u2019 experiences, but\nshould, after the manner of geometry, draw from an indubitable source\nthe certainties of morals and religion no less than the truths of\nscience.\n\nBut when we learn what is this axiom of axioms that Spinoza received\nfrom Descartes and made the fountain head of all truth, we find\nourselves spectators of one of those curious tricks of the human mind\nthat make its history always diverting. It may well seem to us as\nthough rationalism were not so much standing on its reason as standing\non its head. For that axiom which is to be the simplest and most\ncertain of all truths, more elementary than that 2 and 2 make 4, or\nthat a straight line is the shortest distance between two points,--that\naxiom is the very proposition before which most of us find our reason\nstaggering, our faith panting and breathless. That axiom consists of\ntwo words: \u201c_God is_.\u201d\n\nI do not propose to develop here the tortured processes of reasoning by\nwhich the rationalists were wont to convince themselves that _what_ God\nis and _that_ He is, were no mere questions of experience. It seemed\nto them as though the very meaning of God assured his existence. But I\nquestion if in the end any of our day would be strongly convinced by\ntheir argument about it. The whole matter is of the less importance\nthat Spinoza\u2019s results in the domain of ethics are not so dependent on\nhis method but that one may readily reword the problem of 17th century\nrationalism in the language of modern science.\n\nNevertheless it is in the first instance devotion to the method he had\nreceived from Descartes that requires Spinoza to differ with his master\non two points of the greatest importance to the sequel. This God, this\n\u201call-perfect being\u201d as the rationalists commonly defined Him, plays a\nrather capricious part in Descartes\u2019 thinking. He is represented as the\nCreator of the physical universe, and in this act of creation as quite\narbitrarily choosing this sort of a world rather than another, a world\nworking out a destiny that is not chosen because it is good but is good\nbecause it is chosen of _God_. For the rest, what this end may be is\nbeyond the ken of human reason, and after having done homage to the\ndivine purpose Descartes feels at liberty to confine his attention to\nstudying the mechanism and reconstructing the history of nature as we\nfind it.\n\nHere one can imagine Spinoza exclaiming \u201cWhat! You would follow the\nguidance of the geometers, deducing all truth from the axiom of God\u2019s\nexistence, and you leave it to God to decide what shall and what shall\nnot follow from his nature!\u201d Do then the axioms of geometry select the\ntheorems they shall establish, accepting some and rejecting others\nfor a motive whether good or bad? No, says Spinoza, God has neither\nintellect nor will: facts and laws follow from His nature as the\nproperties of a triangle from its definition.\n\nThe other element of caprice in Descartes\u2019 final picture of the\nworld is just _man_. He alone of all things occupying a place in\nGod\u2019s universe is not subjected to mechanical law. But how, Spinoza\nmay well ask, can we conceive ourselves to be following the lead of\nmathematicians if we violate the first principles of their science?\nDoes the geometry of a triangle depend upon the place in which the\ntriangle finds itself? How then can the laws of the behavior of bodies\ndepend upon these bodies being in or out of the human machine? The\nhuman body must be determined by the same laws of physics that govern\nall extended things. \u201cAnd as for the mind,\u201d Spinoza adds, \u201cthe order\nand connection of its ideas are parallel to the order and connection\nof the bodily states.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is,\u201d he concludes, \u201cin mind no absolute or free will; but the\nmind is determined to this or that volition by a cause which has itself\nbeen determined by another cause, this again by another and so on _in\ninfinitum_.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat the world reflects God\u2019s choice, that it might to a perfect\nunderstanding reveal God\u2019s purpose, that in it the human being is free\nin body or mind; these are aspects of irrationality which Spinoza is\neager to remove from the fair creation of reason. They represent to\nhim last vestiges of vulgar thought of which the master had after all\nbeen unable to rid himself. Spinoza is at his best in exposing the\npsychology of the multitude with its quaint illusions respecting God\nand man. In the famous appendix to the first book of the Ethics he\nsummons these prejudices as he calls them before the bar of reason:\n\u201cThey all,\u201d he lays it down, \u201cdepend on just this one; that men\ncommonly suppose all things in nature to act as they themselves do\nwith a view to some end, nay, even assume that God himself directs all\nthings to some definite end, saying that God has made all things for\nman, and man that he might worship God. I shall therefore consider this\nprejudice. I shall inquire in the first place why most persons assent\nto it and all are by nature so prone to embrace it. In the second place\nI shall show that it is false; and lastly I shall show how there have\nsprung from it prejudices respecting good and evil, merit and sin,\npraise and blame, beauty and ugliness, and other things of the sort....\n\n\u201cIt will here suffice to assume certain facts all must admit, namely,\nthat all men are born ignorant of the causes of things, and that all\nmen have, and are conscious of having, an impulse to seek their own\nadvantage. From this it follows _first_ that men think themselves free\nfor the reason that they are conscious of their volitions and desires,\nand, being ignorant of the causes by which they are led to will and\ndesire, they do not so much as dream of these. It follows _second_ that\nmen do everything with some purpose in view; that is, with a view to\nthe advantage they seek. Hence it is they always desire to know the\nmotives of action, and when they have learned these, are satisfied.\u201d\n\nAgainst this background Spinoza sketches in with a few quick, vigorous\nstrokes what we may call his psychology of popular religion.\n\n\u201cSince men find in themselves,\u201d he writes, \u201cand external to themselves,\nmany things which are of no small assistance in obtaining what is to\ntheir advantage, as for example, the eyes for seeing, the teeth for\nchewing, plants and animals for food, the sun for giving light, and\nso on, this has led them to regard all things in nature as means to\ntheir advantage. And knowing these means to have been discovered, not\nprovided by themselves, they have made this a reason for believing\nthat there is some one else who has provided them for their use. But\nas they had never had any information concerning the character of this\nbeing, they had to judge it from their own. Hence, they maintained\nthat the gods direct all things with a view to man\u2019s advantage, to\nlay men under obligation to themselves, and to be held in the highest\nhonor; whence it has come to pass that each one has thought out for\nhimself, according to his disposition, a different way of worshipping\nGod, that God might love him above others, and direct all nature to the\nservice of his ... desire. But while they sought to show that nature\ndoes nothing uselessly (in other words nothing that is not to man\u2019s\nadvantage) they seem to have shown only that nature and gods and men\nare all equally mad.\u201d\n\nAnd Spinoza seizes the opportunity to pay tribute to a respectable,\nwell-worn theology:\n\n\u201cJust see how far the thing has been carried! Among all useful\nthings in nature they could not help finding a few harmful things,\nas tempests, earthquakes, diseases, etc. They maintained that these\noccurred because the gods were angry on account of injuries done\nthem by men or on account of faults committed in their worship. And\nalthough experience daily contradicted this and showed by an infinity\nof instances that good and evil fall to the lot of the pious and of the\nimpious indifferently, that did not make them abandon their inveterate\nprejudice. They found it easier to class these facts with other unknown\nthings whose use they could not name and thus to retain their present\nand innate condition of ignorance, than to destroy the whole fabric of\ntheir reasoning and think out a new one. Hence they assumed that the\njudgment of the gods very far surpasses man\u2019s power of comprehension.\u201d\nThis in itself, Spinoza concludes, would have been sufficient to hide\nthe truth forever from mankind had not science, which looks into the\nwhy and not the wherefore of things, shown men a different standard of\ntruth.\n\nThe second paragraph in which he fulfils his promise to show the folly\nof the popular belief in a providence is pervaded by a dry humor:\n\n\u201cI must not overlook the fact that the adherents of this doctrine\nwho have chosen to display their ingenuity in assigning final causes\nto things, have employed in support of their doctrine a new form of\nargument, namely, a reductio, not ad absurdum, but ad ignorantiam;\nwhich shows that there was no other way to set about proving this\ndoctrine. If, for example, a stone has fallen from a roof upon\nsomeone\u2019s head and has killed him, they will prove as follows: If it\ndid not fall in accordance with God\u2019s will for this purpose, how could\nthere have been a chance concurrence of so many circumstances?...\nPerhaps you will answer, It happened because the wind blew and the man\nhad an errand there. But they will insist, Why did the wind blow at\nthat time? and why had that man an errand that way at just that time?\nIf you answer again, The wind rose at that time because on the day\nbefore, while the weather was still calm, the sea began to be rough\nand the man had an invitation from a friend, they will again insist,\nsince one may ask no end of questions, But why was the sea rough? and\nwhy was the man invited at that time? And so they will keep on asking\nthe causes of causes until you take refuge in the will of God, that\nasylum of ignorance.... Hence it happens that he who seeks for the\ntrue causes of miracles and endeavors like a scholar to comprehend\nthings in nature, and not like a fool to wonder at them, is everywhere\nregarded and proclaimed an heretic and an impious man by those whom the\nmultitude reverence as interpreters of nature and the gods. But this I\nleave and pass on to the third point I promised to treat here.\u201d\n\nThe treatment of this third point, our perverted notions of good and\nevil, beauty and ugliness, etc., may readily be imagined. \u201cSince men as\nwe have just said believe that everything was made for their sake, they\ncall the nature of a thing good or bad, sound or corrupt, according\nas it affects _them_.\u201d And from this springs the world-old _problem\nof evil_ as it is called. \u201cMany are accustomed to reason as follows:\nIf everything has followed from the necessity of God\u2019s most perfect\nnature, whence so many imperfections in nature, the stinking rottenness\nof things, their disgusting ugliness, confusion, evil, sin and so\nforth?\u201d But those who ask thus are merely confused, for \u201cthe perfection\nof things is to be determined solely from their nature and power, nor\nare things more or less perfect because they please or displease men\u2019s\nsenses, are helpful or harmful to man\u2019s nature.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWere we to lay aside our Spinoza at this point, we should be inclined\nto agree with the judgment of most of his contemporaries and of his\nsuccessors for more than a century, that although the name of God is\nconstantly on his lips his thought makes the name an empty one, that\nhe is at bottom an atheist. Furthermore we should fail to see how\nhe could have called his great work an \u201cethics,\u201d inasmuch as it is\nhardly to be understood how in a world where every act of the body is\nnecessitated by eternal laws of physics, every thought of the mind by\nequally rigid laws of psychology, there could be such a thing as a good\nor bad act, a good or bad thought. Where there is no freedom, how can\nthere be right and wrong, worth and unworthiness?\n\nAnd yet we shall find that into this hard inhospitable world-picture,\nSpinoza has set a theory of life that not only recognizes and defines\nthe difference between the good and the bad, but culminates in a phrase\nwhose religious feeling is unmistakable: Virtue is knowledge; the only\nknowledge is to know God; to know God is to love him. If one grasp this\npart of his philosophy, one will understand how it came about that him\nwhom the eighteenth century called atheist, the nineteenth remembered\nas a _Gottrunkener Mensch_--a God-intoxicated man.\n\nIt would be too much to attempt to follow the technical expression\nthat Spinoza gives to his thought. Every word is heavy with the burden\nof long centuries of scholasticism. But I think it is not impossible\nto put oneself in possession of one principal idea on which the rest\nfollows, not without jolt, yet with a fair degree of ease.\n\nLet us then put the problem clearly before us. Suppose Nature,\nincluding the incident of human life, were one great machine without\npurpose in the whole, without freedom in the detail, how would it be\npossible to regard any part of nature, a given man for example, as\neither good or bad? If this man lives as he must, what use, nay what\nmeaning in advising him how he _ought_ to live?\n\nSpinoza\u2019s answer involves this fundamental point. There are some\nmachines that exist for a purpose. We may, if we choose, regard it\nas _the nature_ of such a machine to accomplish this purpose. In\nproportion as it accomplishes it we call it good; in proportion as\nit fails we call it bad. Thus a clock is mechanical enough, a matter\nof cogwheels and springs, but that is not _the nature_ of a clock,\nfor we can recognize such an implement without knowing anything about\nthese same cogwheels and springs, if only we know that the thing keeps\ntime. As it keeps accurate time we call it a good clock, and as it\nloses or gains we call it a bad one. It is true that we do not exactly\nblame the clock if it goes wrong; we rather blame the clock-maker.\nBut there is no reason why we should cease to blame the clock-maker,\nwere we to convince ourselves that he too was a mechanism, and owed\nhis lack of skill to the physical constitution of hands and brain.\nIn a word, a mechanism whose nature is to perform a certain function\nmay nevertheless be a good or a bad mechanism for the purpose, and is\npraiseworthy or blameworthy in so far as it performs its function well\nor ill.\n\nIt is only then a mechanism that reveals in its behavior the pursuit of\na purpose that may be regarded as good or bad. So too it is only such\na mechanism that may be regarded as more or less free, more or less\nbound. This notion of freedom and bondage that Spinoza here introduces,\nturns on a distinction which all of us make without realizing the\ndifficulty of defining what we mean by it. It is the distinction\nbetween a being and its environment. With respect to each thing Spinoza\ndivides nature into two parts: one part he calls the inner nature of\nthe thing; the other, nature external to it. Now in one use of the\nterm \u201cnature\u201d this distinction seems to be an impossible one; for in\nso far as I regard a man\u2019s body as composed of atoms obeying the laws\nof mechanics, everything that takes place among these atoms is the\nresultant of the relation of these atoms to all others in the universe.\n\u201cIt is impossible,\u201d Spinoza himself sees it--\u201cit is impossible for a\nman not to be a part of nature and not to follow its general order.\u201d\n\nBut suppose in reference to a given kind of body we neglect all\nthose differences in behavior that make neither for nor against the\naccomplishment of a purpose we have ascribed to it. Will not the grain\nof corn spring up in this field or in that? Will not the human being\npass through the cycle of life in this age and country, or in that?\nAnd in so far as he carries out the purposes of his being in various\nsurroundings, whatever difference of detail in his way of doing it,\nmay we not say that man has a nature of his own independent of his\nenvironment? Finally is not this just what we mean by being free: the\nability to carry out one\u2019s end independently of the circumstances in\nwhich one is placed? On the other hand is not an inability to win out\nunder all circumstances just what we mean by bondage?\n\nThere is then no reason why we should not recognize freedom and\nbondage, good and evil, in certain _parts_ of a world that atom by atom\nis mechanical and purposeless in its constitution.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nHaving presented this central idea, we may now follow with greater ease\nSpinoza\u2019s account of the degree of freedom of which a man is capable,\nof the use of this freedom which we should call good, and finally of\nthe rewards of a \u201cgood life.\u201d\n\nHere we seem to have asked three questions because we have followed the\ngeneral ideas on the subject. To these questions, however, Spinoza\nwould return a single answer. To be good, to be free, to be blessed\nmean one and the same thing. It is a divine thought, if only it can be\nmade to appear.\n\nFirst then let us note that we habitually distinguish the forms of\nlife as higher and lower; the grain of corn is lower than the bee, the\nbee is lower than the man. If we ask ourselves what we mean by this\ndistinction, we shall find I think that we refer to the difference of\nthe degree to which these forms are capable of carrying out a given\npurpose whatever the environment. The biologist would say they differ\nin adaptability. Take merely the common end of self-preservation: the\ngrain of corn is lost if it fall on rocky ground or among the thorns.\nIt can do nothing to save itself. To the bee these circumstances are\nindifferent, yet it in turn would succumb to a blight of the flowers.\nTo the man, this would be but a small matter and we enjoy losing\nourselves in admiration of the ingenuity with which he manages to\nsubsist under the most unusual and threatening conditions. In a word,\nthe higher the form of life, the greater the freedom from environment;\nthe lower, the greater the bondage to circumstance.\n\nWhat now in the future of a thing determines its degree of freedom?\nSpinoza studies the question only within the domain of human life.\nWithin this domain his answer is striking: Freedom comes with\nknowledge; ignorance is bondage.\n\nBut there is more than one sense in which this saying may be taken. We\nhave for example the Baconian thought, \u201cknowledge is power.\u201d That is,\ngiven any end to be striven for, other things being equal the one who\nbrings science to bear is the more likely to conquer circumstances,\nto triumph, to be free. This sense of the power of knowledge is not\nlacking in Spinoza.\n\nBut the freedom that comes with knowledge may be of a higher kind than\nthe mere bettering of our chances of success. After all, human skill is\nextremely limited; defeat is every man\u2019s portion, and one of the most\nimportant questions in life is how to bear failure.\n\nIf knowledge is our best arm to ward off defeat, so is it our best\nsolace when defeat, the inevitable, comes. For do we but understand\nthat the fate that has come upon us was not to be escaped but was\nimposed by the eternal laws of nature, repining becomes impossible.\nPain is a fact, we cannot escape it altogether, we cannot deny it when\nit has seized us. We _can_ though prevent the sourness and bitterness\nthat the ignorant fall prey to when they suffer. For pain is one thing,\nhate another. Pain is not to be escaped; hate may be. And the way to\nkill hate in our hearts is to connect the individual fact that is\npainful with the whole order of nature which makes this as every other\nfact necessary. Now the order of nature as we have seen flows from God\nas the theorems of geometry flow from its axioms. To understand the\nnecessity of any fact is to recognize God as its cause. When we have\ndone this the bitterness of defeat is gone. No man, says Spinoza, can\nhate God.\n\nI have mentioned two senses in which knowledge meant freedom: (1) the\nsense in which it reduces the chances of failure and pain to a minimum;\n(2) the sense in which it frees us from the bondage of passion and\nbitterness, when the unavoidable remainder of pain comes upon us. There\nis still one deepest sense in which knowledge is freedom. So far, the\nexcellence of knowledge has been made to depend upon its fitness as a\nmeans--either to the end of obtaining a maximum of success, or to the\nend of bearing the still inevitable minimum of defeat. We have now to\nconsider knowledge as an end in itself.\n\nSince, as we have seen, the pain of life is the sense of defeat, of\nlimitation; its pleasure the sense of triumph, of freedom, we should\nexpect to find Spinoza urging as the blessed way of life that one, if\nany such there be, which could meet no defeat; that one whose success\ndid not hang upon circumstances in which a man\u2019s life happened to be\ncast; that life, in a word, that was at each moment absolute freedom.\n\nYou will doubtless have anticipated that these blessings are claimed by\nour philosopher for that way of life which is a single hearted pursuit\nof knowledge. \u201cWherefore,\u201d he has written, \u201cthe ultimate aim of the man\nwho is controlled by reason, that is, the highest desire with which he\nstrives to restrain all others, is that which impels him adequately to\nknow himself and all other things that can fall within the scope of his\nunderstanding.\u201d\n\nAnd again he has said: \u201cThere is nothing in nature that is opposed\nto the understanding; nothing that can destroy it.\u201d (The word\n\u201cunderstanding\u201d replaces the original expression \u201cintellectual love.\u201d\nWe shall see presently that for Spinoza to understand is to love God.)\n\nIt is to be regretted that Spinoza did not deal as minutely with the\nquestion: Are we free to obtain knowledge, as he did with the thesis:\nKnowledge when obtained is freedom. For one feels that whatever the\nblessedness of knowledge, if understanding is denied us we are not\nblessed. And has not Spinoza himself said that the path to knowledge is\na difficult one? And he adds \u201csurely it must be difficult, since it\nis so rarely found. For if salvation were easily attained and could be\nfound without great labor, how could it be neglected by nearly every\none?\u201d\n\nHad Spinoza maintained that not only knowledge but the pursuit of\nknowledge was blessed, then indeed salvation must lie at every man\u2019s\ndoor. For is not life itself one long education? And if it bring\nits share of disillusionment, may we not repeat the words of a\ndistinguished German scientist of our own day, \u201cAll disillusionment is\nenlightenment\u201d? And this I think is the burden of Spinoza\u2019s teaching:\n\u201cLet the pain of life teach you to understand and you will not hate\nlife, but in the joy of understanding, love it.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou will learn to love life! But Spinoza has a loftier word for it:\nYou will learn to love God. A clearing up of this expression may\nwell end our account of the religion of Spinoza. You must recall our\nsaying that for Spinoza and his fellow rationalists, all truths were\ndeducible from the single one \u201cGod is,\u201d as all theorems of geometry\nare proved from its axioms. If the truths respecting triangles follow\nfrom the nature of a triangle and are not merely the result of physical\nmeasurement, so too, the truths about the world follow from the nature\nof God and are not merely brute facts that we have to accept because\nwe are continually bumping against them. To understand a particular\nexperience is to recognize God as its cause. But we have seen that such\nunderstanding is the greatest happiness that can come to man, for it\nis his assurance of power, of freedom from pain. Now Spinoza defines\nlove as \u201cpleasure accompanied with the idea of an external cause.\u201d If\nunderstanding is pleasure, and if it is at the same time recognition of\nGod as a cause, it fulfils the condition of being love, and of course,\nlove of God. It is this love of God that is at once knowledge, freedom,\nvirtue and blessedness. \u201cFor blessedness,\u201d our philosopher has written,\n\u201cblessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; nor do we\nrejoice in it _because_ we restrain our desires, but on the contrary\nbecause we rejoice in it we are able to restrain our desires.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know,\u201d he writes, \u201cthat the belief of the multitude is different.\nMost men seem to think that they are free just in so far as they are\npermitted to gratify desire, and that they give up their independence\njust in so far as they are obliged to live according to the precept of\nthe divine law.\n\n\u201cPiety, then, and religion and all things without restriction that are\nreferred to as greatness of soul, they regard as burdens; and they\nhope after death to receive the reward of their bondage, that is, of\npiety and religion. And not by this hope alone, but also and chiefly by\nfear--the fear of being punished after death with dire torments--are\nthey induced to live according to the precept of the divine law so far\nas their poverty and feebleness of soul permit. If men had not this\nhope and fear, but if on the contrary they thought that minds perished\nwith the body, and that for the wretched, worn out with the burden of\npiety, there was no continuance of existence, they would return to\ntheir inclinations, and decide to regulate everything according to\ntheir lusts and to be governed by chance rather than by themselves.\nThis seems to me no less absurd than it would if some one because he\ndoes not believe he can nourish his body with good food to eternity\nshould choose to stuff himself with what is poisonous and deadly; or\nbecause he sees that his mind is not eternal or immortal should choose\non that account to be mad and to live without reason.\u201d\n\nAnd Spinoza closes his doctrine of life with a calm hymn to science.\n\u201cI have completed all that I intended to show regarding the power of\nthe mind over the emotions, and the freedom of the mind. From what I\nhave said it is evident how much stronger and better the wise man is\nthan the ignorant man, who is held by mere desire. For the ignorant\nman, besides being agitated in many ways by external causes and never\nattaining to true satisfaction of the soul, lives as it were without\nconsciousness of himself, of God, and of things, and just as soon as he\nceases to be acted upon, ceases to be. While on the contrary the wise\nman is little disturbed in mind, but conscious by a certain eternal\nnecessity of himself, of God, and of things, he never ceases to be,\nbut is always possessed of true satisfaction of soul. If indeed, the\npath that I have shown to lead to this appear difficult, yet it may be\nfound, and all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nA DISCIPLE OF SPINOZA\n\nAn Illustration\n\n\nI have somewhere found it recorded that as Johann Gottlieb Fichte\nprogressed with his first reading of Kant\u2019s \u201cCritique of Pure Reason,\u201d\nhe was moved to tears. To those who have labored through the tortured\npages of the great German thinker this would be no matter for surprise,\nwere it not for the quality of the tears:--not those of vexation and\nbaffled understanding, indeed, but of enthusiasm and sheer gratitude.\nFor Fichte had fallen into the melancholy persuasion of Spinoza.\nAt least, certain views of this austere thinker of the seventeenth\ncentury appeared to Fichte as no less gloomy in their implication than\nirresistible in the logic which led to them. Irresistible were the\nreasons which had driven Spinoza to look upon nature as governed by\ninexorable Fate. In the world as a whole there was no purpose, in its\nparts there was no freedom. Gloomy, then, was the implication few but\nSpinoza himself could escape, that man in such a machine had lost all\nthe familiar marks of a moral being. It was from the heavy chains of\nsuch bondage that Kant seemed to free the poor Spinozist by holding\nout to him the hope of a deeper-lying freedom, while not denying his\napparent subjection to the universal and necessary laws of physical\nnature. It was by this promise of freedom that Fichte was moved to the\nenthusiasm, the gratitude, the tears of which I have spoken.\n\nIf I have mentioned these matters, it is not because our present\nreflections are to dwell upon the philosophy of Fichte, nor yet upon\nthe historic contrast between Spinoza and Kant. It is rather because\nthe seriousness with which Fichte faced the issue between these two\nthinkers is shared by the men of all times and of all countries\nwho have given themselves to the pleasures and to the burdens of\nreflection. The issue was not first raised by the seventeenth century,\nand was not laid with the eighteenth. That it remains one of the\nmost interesting to which we of the twentieth century can turn our\nattention is just the point which I wish to bring out in the form of\nan example--an example taken, not indeed from the technical philosophy\nof our day, but from a writer holding a distinguished place among its\nnovelists. Those of you who have enjoyed the more mundane writings\nof M. Paul Bourget,--his \u201cCosmopolis,\u201d his \u201cCoeur de Femme,\u201d his\n\u201cComplications Sentimentales,\u201d--are perhaps not prepared to meet in him\nthe philosopher and moralist that shows through his less widely known,\nbut sometimes more admired work, \u201cLe Disciple.\u201d You will allow me,\nthen, to present so much as is indispensable of the story of Bourget\u2019s\n\u201cDisciple.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet me begin by giving some idea of the way in which the plot of the\ntale may have worked itself out in the author\u2019s mind. If a mass of\nrock were to fall from a cliff, and at its foot to crush before your\neyes a human being--and not a mere vague humanity, but, let us say,\na young girl just entering upon the promise of life--you would, of\ncourse, feel the full horror of the catastrophe. More than that, you\nwould not be a descendant of the myth-makers, as we all of us are,\nwere you not to cast about for some soul in the order of things on\nwhom to blame the calamity as though it were a crime. Such shadowy\nbeings from out of the past as the Fates, the \u201cpurblind doomsters,\u201d are\ncreatures of this human instinct to transform physical nature into a\nmoral being. But it is no longer easy to take these inventions of our\nfancy as seriously as did our forefathers. Galileo and Newton have come\nbetween us and the myth-makers. They have enabled us, and at the same\ntime have constrained us, to envisage the event I have just depicted\nas essentially a conflict between gravitational and elastic forces,\nnot one between the human soul and the soul of Fate. The thing moves\nus more, no doubt, than it would had the heavy mass rolled quietly\non to the bottom of the valley, because the young girl as a possible\nobject of sympathy and love is nearer to ourselves than is a mere\ntopographical contour; but our emotions, be they what they may, are not\nof themselves enough to transform a physical fact into a moral event, a\ncatastrophe into a crime.\n\nRobert Greslou, the Disciple of our story, is not indeed made to kill\nsuch a young girl, but in a singularly detestable fashion to render\nit inevitable that she should kill herself. The author has taken care\nthat we should have no feeling but loathing for this creature of his\nbrain. We cannot even extend to him that pity and half-forgiveness that\nthe instinctive man commonly feels for the aberrations of passion. To\nRobert the whole episode was a carefully planned piece of psychological\nresearch,--a vivisection of the emotional life. The author, in his\nanxiety that we should not be tempted to excuse, but should confine\nourselves to understanding, has created a monster. \u201cNon, monsieur,\u201d\nsays Andr\u00e9 de Jussat, the brother of Charlotte, to Robert who has\noffered him all the satisfaction left in his power, \u201cNon, monsieur,\npeople do not fight men like you, they execute them.\u201d\n\nNow, Bourget\u2019s interest in the situation thus created I conceive to be\nthis: May we not gain sufficient insight into the causes of this young\nman\u2019s conduct to make it appear as inevitable as the fall of the rock\nfrom the cliff? And if we do this, must we not view the catastrophe in\nwhich a human being happens to play a part as no less void of moral\naspects than that in which a falling mass is concerned? There we could\nnot blame the stone; here, if the case is made out, we should not blame\nthe man. In neither situation is it meaningful to blame the facts and\nlaws of nature.\n\nIt is for the right so to regard his own conduct that the Disciple\npleads with his old master, Adrien Sixte. At the end of his\nautobiography he makes a tragic appeal to the man whose writings had\nformed his mind. \u201cI felt assured,\u201d he writes, \u201cthat I should be able\nto tell you my story as you develop your problems of psychology in the\nbooks I have so constantly read, and having finished, I find nothing\nto offer you but the despairing cry, De profundis! Write to me, cher\nma\u00eetre, guide me. Strengthen me in the doctrine which was, which still\n_is_, my own,--in that conviction of universal necessity which holds\nthat even our most detestable, our most damning acts, even this cold\nenterprise of seduction, even my weakness when it came to keeping my\nside of the compact of death, are the outcome of laws that govern this\nimmense universe. Tell me that I am not a monster, that there is no\nsuch thing as a monster, that you will still be there when I come out\nof this supreme crisis to welcome me as your disciple, as your friend.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat, then, is the philosophy of this Adrien Sixte that, having brought\na human being to such a pass, it could still be appealed to to bring\nhim through?\n\nAdrien Sixte had made two contributions to philosophy. The first was\na negative analysis of what Herbert Spencer calls the Unknowable.\n\u201cMany excellent minds,\u201d the author assures us, \u201ccatch a glimpse of\nthe probable reconciliation of science and religion on this ground of\nthe Unknowable. For M. Sixte it is a last illusion which he is hot to\ndestroy with an energy of argument that has not been equalled since\nKant.\u201d\n\n\u201cM. Sixte\u2019s second title to honor as a psychologist consists in a\nquite new and ingenious development of the animal origin of human\nsensibility.... He undertook for the genesis of types of thought the\nwork that Darwin essayed for the forms of life. Applying the laws of\nevolution to all the facts that make up the human heart, he thought to\nshow that our most exquisite sensibilities, our most delicate moral\ndiscriminations, as well as our most shameful degradations, are the\nfinal development, the ultimate metamorphosis of very simple instincts,\nthemselves transformations of the properties of the primitive cell: in\nsuch wise that the moral universe exactly reproduces the physical, and\nthat the former is only the consciousness, now painful, now ecstatic,\nof the latter.\u201d\n\nWe owe to M. Sixte some phrases that translate with extreme energy this\nconviction that all is necessitated in the soul--even the illusion that\nthe soul is free.\n\n\u201cEvery act,\u201d he writes, \u201cis but an addition. To say that it is free, is\nto say that there is in a sum more than there is in the elements added.\nThis is as absurd in psychology as in arithmetic.\u201d\n\nAnd elsewhere he put it thus: \u201cIf we knew truly the relative position\nof all the phenomena which constitute the actual universe, we could at\nthis moment with a certainty equal to that of the astronomers, tell\nthe day, the hour, the minute at which, say, England will evacuate\nIndia, when Europe will have burned its last lump of coal, when such a\ncriminal, still to be born, will assassinate his father, when such a\npoem, yet to be conceived, will be composed. The future is contained in\nthe present as all the properties of a triangle are contained in its\ndefinition.\u201d\n\nThe provenance of this type of thought is obvious enough to the\nexperienced reader. Our author has in an ingenious way translated his\nSpinoza into the language of contemporary science. Let us merely catch\nup a note or two that will render our Spinozist\u2019s attitude toward\ncommon morality, and his understanding of the master\u2019s doctrine of\nemancipation through science.\n\nIn the first sense we find that Adrien Sixte has somewhere written,\n\u201cAll conscious beings must be looked upon by the scientist as\nexperiments set up by nature. Among these experiments some are useful\nto society, and one hears of virtue; others are destructive, and one\nhears of vice and of crime.\u201d And he adds, a little by way of flourish,\n\u201cThese last are nevertheless the most significant, and we should lack\nan essential datum for the science of mind if Nero, say, or such and\nsuch a tyrant of the fifteenth century had not existed.\u201d Or again he\nhas said, \u201cTo consider one\u2019s destiny as a corollary of this living\ngeometry which is nature, and therefore as an inevitable consequence of\nthe eternal axiom whose indefinite development is prolonged through all\ntime and all space, this is the unique way to emancipation.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo show that human conduct is so necessitated as to be without moral\naspects: \u201cthis is the unique way to emancipation.\u201d It was just for\nthe master\u2019s aid over the last rough steps of the path to this\nemancipation that we left our Disciple crying, \u201cDe profundis.\u201d Can\nthe aid be given? Can it not? This is the singularly philosophical\ncatastrophe of this singularly reflective novel.\n\nFor us the issue depends upon an analysis of what our philosopher would\nregard as determinants of human conduct. That it is not meaningless to\nseek explanations of human acts all admit, for all alike are engaged\nin the search for them, and much that is of importance to daily life\ndepends upon one\u2019s ability correctly to explain and so to predict\nthe conduct of one\u2019s fellows. The only question is whether the laws\nby which we explain and predict could conceivably be increased in\nprecision until they completely determined conduct. To judge this we\nmust consider of what nature these laws are, _i.e._, in the present\ncontext, with what illustrations of such laws our author furnishes us.\n\nWe are familiar with the idea that the explanation of a fact consists\nin pointing out its likeness to others. We are not surprised, then,\nto find our young analyst, following the guide of a master who, we\nhave heard, regarded \u201cour most exquisite sensibilities\u201d as \u201cthe\ndevelopment of very simple instincts,\u201d looking upon his relations with\na singularly pure young woman as not without likeness to the battle of\nlife throughout the animal kingdom. \u201cIt is the law of the world,\u201d he\nreasons, \u201cthat all existence is a conquest carried on and maintained\nby the stronger at the expense of the weaker. This is as true of the\nmoral universe as of the physical. There are souls of prey as there are\nwolves, tiger-cats, and hawks,\u201d and he kept repeating to himself, \u201cI\nam a soul of prey, a soul of prey,\u201d with a furious access of what the\nmystics call _the pride of life_.\n\nBut if the animal instincts are the most widely related of those that\ndisplay themselves in human conduct, more special instincts must be\nappealed to to account for what is special in the act. Well, in its\nproper place we find that the family of Robert Greslou had its roots\nin war-trodden Lorraine. Of no very remote peasant origin, son of a\nconquered race, he catches himself at certain moments reacting with\ninstinctive hate toward an individual whom he hardly knows and who has\ndone him no personal injury, yet whose every aspect shows him to have\nsprung from the conquerors, in whose most courteous gesture there lurks\na polished insolence of aristocracy.\n\nWhen, then, a human pity for his prospective victim comes upon this\n\u201csoul of prey,\u201d it is such a hate that neutralizes it. \u201cWhy,\u201d he cries,\n\u201cin so many of my imaginings does Charlotte appear by the side of her\nbrother Andr\u00e9? What secret fibre of hatred had this man by his mere\nexistence touched in my heart, that simply to imagine him with his\nsister dried up the fountain of my pity and left nothing in me but the\nwill to win?\u201d\n\nIn answer we are expected to recall the moment when Robert Greslou,\nintroduced into the family of the Marquis de Jussat as tutor to the\nyounger son, finds himself for the first time in the presence of the\nComte Andr\u00e9, heir and dominating spirit of the house. \u201cI felt then,\u201d\nour young analyst records, \u201cin its full force, in the depths of that\ninstinct of life into which it is so hard for thought to descend, the\nrevelation of that sense of race which modern science attributes to all\nnature, and which consequently must be found in man.... Why should not\nthis hostility be an heredity like the rest? The horse that has never\napproached a lion trembles with fear when his stall is made up with\nstraw on which such a beast of prey has lain. Then fear is inherited,\nand is not fear a form of hate? Why should not hate be inherited too?\nAnd in a thousand cases envy is probably nothing but that--was nothing\nmore than that in my case, certainly,--the echo in us of hatreds long\nago acquired by those whose sons we are, and which continue in us the\nbattle of hearts begun hundreds of years ago.\u201d\n\nNo less carefully does our author work out another group of\ninfluences: those that fall within the experience of the individual.\nInfluences of family, of school, of books read, of friends, of\nadventures of sex, of religious education, all culminating in the\nforming of a character whose foundations have already been laid in its\nheredities, in this case a type for which the French have invented\nthe expressive term, a _c\u00e9r\u00e9bral_. The rest one can readily imagine,\nthe delicate suggestions of daily life, the influences, slight in\nthemselves, that play upon the attuned character and to which it\nresounds with acts of this kind or that, an instrument touched by the\nfingers of Fate.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch, then, is our author\u2019s understanding of what it means so to\nexplain a human act that it shall appear to follow inevitably from\nrecognized laws of nature. If it do so follow, we ask again: Can it in\nthe end be regarded as either good or bad?\n\nIt is not to our author that we may turn for an answer. M. Bourget is\nan artist, and owes his allegiance to the interests of the heart, not\nto the curiosities of the intellect. For him it is sufficient to have\nshown that to have lived out a Spinozistic philosophy would in extreme\ncases lead to very ugly results. He is addressing himself, as he tells\nus in his preface, to the youth of France, and it may not be without\ninterest to note the place he gives to the type of philosophy we have\njust been considering among the influences dangerous to the young\nFrance of his day.\n\n\u201cThere are two types of young men,\u201d he says, \u201cthat I see before me\nat the present moment, which are before you too, as two forms of\ntemptation equally redoubtable and dangerous. The one is cynical and by\npreference jovial. He has, since his twentieth year, discounted life,\nand his religion is contained in the single word, _to enjoy_,--which\nis translated by this other, _to succeed_. Whether he go into\npolitics or business, literature or art, sport or industry, whether\nhe be an officer, diplomat, or lawyer, he has only himself for god,\nfor beginning and for end. This young man is a monster, is he not?\nFor it is to be a monster, to have lived but twenty-five years and\nto have by way of a soul a calculating machine at the service of a\npleasure-machine. Yet I fear him less for you than I do a certain other\ntype. This one has all the aristocratic traits of nervous organization,\nall those of mentality. He is an intellectual and refined epicure,\nas the first was a brutal and scientific epicure. This delicate\nnihilist, how unpleasant he is to encounter, and how he abounds in\nthe land! At twenty-five years he has made the tour of all ideas. His\ncritical spirit, precociously awakened, has grasped the last results\nof the most subtle philosophy of this age. Do not speak to him of\nimpiety or materialism. He knows that the word _matter_ has no very\nprecise sense. He is, on the other hand, too intelligent not to admit\nthat all religions may have been legitimate in their time, only he\nhas never believed and never will believe any one of them any more\nthan he will ever believe in anything in particular, if not in the\namusing play of his mind which he has transformed into an instrument\nof elegant perversity. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness, vice and\nvirtue appear to him objects of simple curiosity. The human soul is\nfor him a clever mechanism which it amuses him to take apart by way\nof experiment. To him nothing is true, nothing is false; nothing is\nmoral, nothing is immoral. He is an egoist, subtle and refined, whose\none occupation lies in adorning his Self, in dressing it out with new\nsensations. The religious life of humanity is for him only a pretext\nfor such sensations, as is the intellectual life, as is the life of\nfeeling. His corruption is vastly more profound than that of the\nbarbarian of pleasure, is vastly more complicated, and the pretty name\nof dilettantism with which he covers it hides its cold ferocity, its\nappalling hardness. Ah, we know him too well, this young man; we have\nall just missed being such as he is, we whom the paradoxes of too\neloquent masters have too much charmed. We have all _been_ this man\nfor a day, for an hour, and if I have written this book, it is to show\nyou, you who are not yet like him, child of twenty whose soul is yet in\nprocess of making, what base things such egoism may hide in its depths.\u201d\n\nFor Bourget, then, to have justified this picture of the youthful\nSpinozist, is enough. But for us, who for the moment have become\nphilosophers, who have given ourselves up to the curiosities of the\nmind, it is not enough to have convinced ourselves that certain\nteachings are ugly and unpleasant to contemplate; we must know whether\nthey are true or false. While much that is unlovely is also untrue,\nwho but the poet can feel sure in his heart that only the beautiful is\ntrue? Well, then, if we were to face the issue that seems to be drawn\nbetween that universal necessity which science hopes to establish\nthroughout the domain of nature, and that freedom which ethics regards\nas indispensable to the existence of moral beings,--if we are to face\nthis issue squarely, on which side should we range ourselves?\n\nI answer: On both sides. If you say: But this is difficult to do, I\nshould not be inclined to dispute it; were it otherwise, opinions\non this subject would not be so much at variance. Yet it may not be\nimpossible to do. And that the satisfaction of the result has been\nthought to be worth any effort it may cost to reach it, is evidenced\nby the long struggle which the history of human reflection records, to\nhold at the same time the vital ideals of science and the no less vital\nideals of morality. To consider a way in which I believe this may be\ndone, will occupy us throughout the remainder of the present discussion.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us begin by making clear just what _is_ the ideal which guides\nthe scientist in his expectations respecting the world he studies.\nPerhaps no one accomplishment of science has been more inspiring than\nthe picture of certain large aspects of nature that Newton succeeded\nin drawing,--such aspects, namely, as are presented in the behavior\nof suns, and planets, and moons. All these huge masses are governed\nby a single law, called the law of gravitation. Now to say that they\nare governed by this law means no more than this, that if we knew\nthe mass, the position, and the velocity of each of these heavenly\nbodies at a given moment, we should be able by means of the law\nto predict their masses, positions, and velocities for all future\nmoments. This result is, to be sure, only an approximation, for we\nknow that gravitation is not the only force which bodies exert on each\nother. We have never succeeded, _e.g._, in reducing the attractions\nand repulsions of electrified bodies to gravitation, nor do we any\nlonger try to do this. But Newton\u2019s degree of success provides us with\nan ideal to which we seem ever more and more closely to approach.\nInstead of considering such huge bodies as suns and planets and their\nsatellites, we divide these up into extremely minute parts, which we\nmay call for the moment _atoms_. We struggle then to conceive a law\nas completely determining the behavior of these atoms, as the law of\ngravitation determines that of planets. So that, if we knew a limited\nnumber of characteristics of each of these atoms at a given moment,\nour law would enable us to predict their future and to reconstruct\ntheir past history. As we approach more and more closely to this ideal,\nless and less in the behavior of these small parts of nature is left\nto guess-work. In so far as we hope this ideal may be continuously\napproached, we hope that in its atomic parts nature is entirely devoid\nof freedom. And if we hope this, we must inevitably hope, too, that\nwhat we have called an atom is neither a moral nor an immoral being.\nThis hope is usually called _the mechanical ideal_, and nature in the\nlight of it is viewed as a mechanism. It has guided science to victory\nafter victory, and I venture to think that no result of philosophical\nexperience is more firmly established than this, that whatever theory\nwe may in the end accept respecting human nature, its freedom, its\nmoral responsibilities, no assumption of that theory may stand in\ncontradiction with the mechanical ideal. To have recognized this truth\nand to have had the courage to maintain it at all costs, was the\nheroic service rendered by Spinoza at a moment in human history when\nsuch service was badly needed. It is also the reason why Spinozism, in\nspite of its apparently gloomy outlook upon the world, has made such a\nforcible and lasting appeal to the imagination of thinking men. In what\nfollows it is against certain false implications that have been thought\nto lie in this mechanical ideal, and not against the ideal itself, that\nour criticism must be directed.\n\nNow there is one implication that lies so near the surface I doubt not\nmost who have followed so far will already have drawn it. If, namely,\nthe atoms of which we have spoken are bound by strict mechanical law,\nif it is these same atoms that make up the human body and that are\nconcerned in its every act, must not the conduct of that body be an\noutcome of this same mechanical necessity? And if this be so, must\nnot the science whose ideal we have described set itself once for all\nagainst the hope of finding in human conduct any vestige of freedom,\nany trace of moral responsibility? You remember with what vigor Adrien\nSixte drew this very conclusion. \u201cEvery act,\u201d he said, \u201cis but an\naddition. To say that it is free, is to say there is in a sum more\nthan there is in its elements added. This is as absurd in psychology as\nin arithmetic.\u201d\n\nYet natural as this inference may seem, we should, I think, see that\nit is unjustified, that the instinct which has led mankind to read\nmoral aspects into nature was possessed of a deeper insight than was\nour philosopher with his plausible mathematics. If, indeed, we could\nconstruct the notion of a man out of that of atoms by a process of\naddition, we could not escape the conclusion of Adrien Sixte. Then,\ntruly, moral aspects would be as completely lacking to the whole being\nas they are to the atoms which enter into his composition. That we\ncannot do this,--that we can, indeed, offer no mechanical definition of\nlife, is just the insight which permits us, nay, practically forces us,\nto treat man as a free moral agent.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe can frame no mechanical definition of life! Nor is this the only\nexample offered by experience of a term applied exclusively to\nmechanisms and yet meaning nothing mechanical. Let me give a homely\nillustration. There is, I presume every one would admit, no time-piece\nwhich is not a machine. And yet we can offer no mechanical definition\nof a time piece, for the simple reason that the various machines to\nwhich this term applies have no mechanical principle in common. A\nclass which may include such divers mechanisms as a sun dial, an hour\nglass, a water clock, a pendulum clock, a spring watch, a chronograph,\nhas evidently not been given a single name to mark in the members\ncomposing it a single mechanical nature. The only thing these members\nhave in common is a certain function or purpose,--that of producing a\nmovement keeping pace with the apparent motion of the sun. Just so with\nthe class of beings we call living. Each of them at each moment of its\nexistence is a complete illustration of mechanical law, yet all of them\noffer such divers illustrations of this law that they cannot have been\nput into a single class because of a common mechanical nature. That\nwhich they have in common, by virtue of which they have been grouped\nunder one name, is once more a function or a purpose. For we observe\nthat living things, by whatever mechanical devices, accomplish for the\nmost part a common result, that of self-preservation.\n\nIn these two examples, the one taken from the inanimate, the other\ncomprising the animate world, we see how well it may come about that a\ncertain character belong to a whole, no vestige of which is to be found\nin its constituent parts. A single atom cannot, if the mechanical ideal\nis maintained, be regarded as acting purposefully, yet a sufficiently\ncomplex group of atoms may well enough display purpose in its behavior\nand to that purpose owe its right to the name we give it. In such\ncases the real absurdity we are in danger of committing is not the one\nthat Adrien Sixte scoffs at, but the one he unsuspectingly falls into.\nAxioms of addition are excellent guides for those whose problem is to\nadd. But not all composition of parts into a whole is so simple as the\nbusiness of forming a sum. And where we are not adding, the axioms of\naddition may prove the worst of company.\n\nLet us proceed to an immediate consequence of this last observation.\nIf no mechanical definition can be offered for a given term, it is\nimpossible that the things to which this term applies should be\ngoverned by mechanical law. We may easily convince ourselves, however,\nthat although not subjected to mechanical law, they are frequently,\nindeed generally, governed by another kind of law that is of the\ngreatest interest to us. Let me recur to our illustration of the\ntime-piece. There is a trite truth about time-pieces, which we may\nsay holds as a rule, to wit, that cheap time-pieces are poor ones.\nYet it would be meaningless to ask for a mechanical explanation of\nthis law, for the mechanical imperfection of the cheap sun dial bears\nno resemblance whatever to the mechanical imperfection of the cheap\nwatch. The former may be a poor time-keeper because inexpensively\n(and so grossly) graduated; the latter because the escapement is\ninexpensively (and so crudely) constructed. So it is in the animal\nworld. Of its members we may lay down the rule, say, that each must eat\nif it would live, but the physics and chemistry of nutrition in an oak\ntree are so different from the physics and chemistry of nutrition in a\nhuman being, that if anyone were to ask for a mechanical explanation of\nthis rule we could not offer it, or rather we should have to offer a\ndifferent one for each type of organism we considered. These examples\nwill be sufficient to illustrate the sense of the saying, \u201cBeings whose\nnature is not capable of mechanical definition cannot be subjected to\nmechanical law.\u201d\n\nBut we said further, that the laws to which such beings _were_ subject\nwere of a peculiar nature, and it is particularly important to point\nout one respect in which these laws differ from the mechanical. Such\nlaws as we find controlling the behavior of organisms, for example,\nare of the kind that may be called _laws of purpose_. We explain, that\nis to say, the conduct of organisms in terms of the end or purpose for\nthe sake of which that conduct has taken place. This holds from the\nlowest biological functioning to the highest form of deliberate human\nbehavior. If we consider the explanation which our author offers of\nthe conduct of his unhappy hero, we see that in the end he has been\nexclusively interested in pointing out the motives to which the young\nman reacted. To point out motives is simply to recognize the end for\nthe sake of which the act is accomplished. Now, although this type of\nexplanation is in daily use among all men of all times, it was not\nerected into a scientific system before the reflections of Plato and\nAristotle had shown of what extension it was susceptible. Aristotle\nin particular is responsible for having pushed to the very limit the\nnotion that the greater part of nature\u2019s happenings can be explained\nin terms of the end for the sake of which they occur. The whole drama\nof nature was to him what that of organic life is to most of us, the\nstruggle of individual beings to accomplish their natural purposes.\nBut, interested as Aristotle was in pushing this concept of purpose\nin nature to the limit, he could not blind himself to the fact that\nno purpose could be found in nature which was always and invariably\naccomplished or attained by the beings whose nature it was to struggle\nfor it. Consequently, he was in the habit of saying that \u201claws of\nnature (by which he meant of laws of purpose) were descriptions of what\nhappens always, or for the most part.\u201d That is to say, they pointed\nout the behavior that was normal, but not free from exception. Nature\nwas full of the accidental, of the abortive; and although later science\ndid its best to exclude this notion of the accidental in nature\u2019s\nhappenings, the effort was uniformly unsuccessful and, I think, wrongly\ninspired. For it is exactly to the circumstance that laws of purpose\nare statements of average and not of unexceptional fact, that they owe\ntheir scientific value as labor-saving devices. And what is perhaps of\nmore interest in the present connection, it is to this very lack of\nrigor in the laws governing animal and human behavior that we owe our\nright to regard the individual to which they apply as free.\n\nIn this respect the contrast between laws of purpose with the situation\nof the things to which they apply, and the laws of mechanics with the\npredicament of the things they govern, is complete. For example, the\nmost inveterate statistician will hardly venture beyond the point of\nasserting that the man of alcoholic heredity will for the most part be\nunable to resist the attraction of drink. Yet sometimes he will be able\nto, for sometimes he _does_ resist. Can one conceive of the student of\nmechanics contenting himself with the result that bodies _generally_\nfall to earth with an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second?\nDuring all the while Mercury\u2019s unorthodox behavior baffled Newtonian\nphysics, could any astronomer be found suggesting that perhaps this\nwas a case of exceptional gravitation? As with heredity, so with all\nthe other so-called forces our author brings to bear upon the conduct\nof his hero, giving in the end the illusion of mechanically determined\naction. Heredity, environment, education, serve their purpose well\nenough as terms that point out an analogy between the ends that attract\nbeings of like history, but they yield only an _expectation_ of the\nnormal, not an _assurance_ of the inevitable. Nor could any increase\nof statistical data of this kind do more than give us the materials\nfor a closer calculus of probabilities. It is for the reason that all\nthe laws which apply to human conduct are of this statistical nature,\nthat, being permanently unable to predict it, we must regard it as\nfree. And to be free to attain or not to attain a given end, is to be\nresponsible, is to possess the first condition of a moral nature. Nor,\nin attaining to this insight have we sacrificed aught of our mechanical\nideal. Only, who cares that atoms may neither be saved nor damned, if\nthe beings they so fleetingly compose may be both? One might almost say\nthat moral beings pass over the surface of mechanism as waves upon the\nface of the waters. But they constitute its beauty and its terror.\n\nMay we not then sum up our conclusions in some such form as\nthis?--Mechanical laws _do_ completely determine the conduct of\neverything to which they may be applied, but they cannot be applied to\nan animate being, since no mechanical definition of such a being is\npossible. Laws of purpose _can_ be applied to such a being, but they do\nnot completely determine his conduct. It is because the only law which\ncan thus apply to a human being does not necessitate his behavior, that\nwe are obliged to regard that behavior as free and the being himself\nas responsible. The most that we can do in terms of such laws is to\ncalculate the _chances_ for or against the individual\u2019s success, for or\nagainst his ultimate worth.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere let us stop. Our discussion shows signs of falling into the\nabstract and mathematical, and one may wonder whether anything\npractical can come of it. One will recall the unhappy disciple of\nAdrien Sixte, and will ask oneself: What answer, after all, are we\nreturn to his cry, \u201cDe profundis!\u201d Can we offer him any solace in his\nwretchedness? I think we can, only it is not the kind of solace he asks\nfor, nor can it come from the direction in which he seeks it. I should\nbe inclined to say to him, to Fichte in his Spinozistic mood, to any\nother over whom the mechanical ideal hangs heavily: This ideal is a\nsafe guide in all thinking for which it has a meaning; no atom in your\nbody nor out of it, but what is determined by mechanical necessity;\nbut the sum of these atoms is not you; there is a difference between\nthe whole we call a man, and the sum of the atoms that make up the\nmachine that is to him. These atoms may come and go, the man remains.\nWhat constitutes his nature as a living being, an animal, a man, can\nreceive no definition in terms of the atoms now in his body, nor those\nthat may later take their place. You as living, as animal, as man,\ncan be defined only in terms of the ends common to the individuals of\nthese classes. In so far as thus natured, you fall under laws not of a\nmechanical order. They are laws of average which determine not you, but\nyour chances of accomplishing the ends that define your being. In so\nfar as you accomplish such ends, you are good of your kind; in so far\nas you fail, you are evil,--and if you fail egregiously enough, you are\na monster. The most your self-analysis could have made out by the way\nof excuse is that the chances were against you. And this indeed you may\nhave made out, for who could maintain that all men have equal chances\nin this world? But to have had the chances against you, is not to have\nbeen determined as a falling rock is determined; there is no chance for\nit.\n\nIn the most mechanical system, then, there is, so long as\nclassification of its parts in terms of purpose is possible, a\ndistinction between good and bad, with enough freedom to make this\ndistinction meaningful. But such a philosophy may still seem hard.\nEven to have the chances against one, is not this a gloomy situation?\nIs there, then, no supreme end to accomplish which all men\u2019s chances\nare equal, so that at each moment of life the road to perfection is\nequally open to all, and equally wide for all? We know how many and\nhow beautiful the dreams of such a world-view, recorded in man\u2019s long\nhistory. To judge their rationality is for a deeper insight than mine.\nBut be they real or be they dreams, there is yet one voice from the\npast whose sanity comes home to us. It is that of our old philosopher\nof Koenigsberg, which keeps repeating at this moment the sentence,\n\u201cThere is nothing good but a good will.\u201d With this saying of Kant\u2019s I\nshould even hope to breathe inspiration into the souls that cry, \u201cDe\nprofundis!\u201d My last word to them would be: Trouble yourselves with\nnothing but to make the best of the chances that are left to you. There\nis nothing good but a good will.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nI would willingly take it as evidence that the instinct of the artist\nand the reflection of the philosopher are not unsympathetic, that when\nBourget\u2019s Disciple is at last brought out of his ordeal, it is not to\nbe comforted with the longed-for assurance that all is necessitated\nin the soul; but rather to find for himself the way to redemption by\nmaking the best--the tragic best--of the chances that are left him.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nDAVID HUME\n\n1711-1776\n\n\nThe characters that have occupied us on two previous occasions,\ndifferent as they are, have yet this in common; that their most\npassionate interest was centred in God, and their theory of what man\nis and ought to be depended upon the likeness in which God in the end\nappeared to them.\n\nI have felt that our illustrations of modern thought would be\nincomplete, were I not to include in the series an example of an\nattempt to work out the duty and destiny of man without waiting for\nan insight into the mystery of God. It is the more advisable that we\nexamine one such character, that this way of thinking is neither newly\ninvented, nor yet grown out of fashion.\n\nWe recall that Lucretius, the enthusiastic disciple of Epicurus,\nclaimed for his master the glory of having lifted from the world the\nterror of the gods, of having left man free to study his own nature\nand to work out his own happiness. And I find on my shelves a recent\nwork that bears the title \u201cMorals without the Sanctions of Religion,\u201d\none of many that might be cited whose purpose is to study the good of\nman without making it dependent on God. It is, then, as an expression\nof a common enough idea, but as an uncommonly good expression of this\nidea, that I have settled upon David Hume for our third illustration of\nmodern thought.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt has for some time been rather the fashion to find the grounds of a\nman\u2019s scientific beliefs in his personality and in the character of the\nenvironment in which he lives. And doubtless thinking, like any other\nactivity, has its psychology, an insight into which is helpful enough,\nthough it is notoriously easy to find that characteristic _apr\u00e8s coup_\nwhich we should never have been able to predict beforehand.\n\nWhen I say, then, that Hume had many human traits reminding us of the\nPhilosophers of the Garden whose science is so sympathetic with his\nown, it must not be supposed that only such as are of like easy habit\nof body and companionable temper of mind should take to his principles.\nBut it is interesting to note, after having followed the furious career\nof Bruno, looked in on the sober reclusion of Spinoza, that a different\ntype of man may utter great thoughts; the type that could look back,\nat fifty-eight years, on a life well filled with profitable industry,\nand forward to one thus comfortably pictured in a letter to a friend:\n\u201cI have been settled here [in Edinburgh] for two months, and am here\nbody and soul, without casting the least thought of regret to London,\nor even Paris. I live still, and must for a twelvemonth, in my old\nhouse in James\u2019s Court which is very cheerful and even elegant, but\ntoo small to display my great talent for cookery, the science to which\nI intend to addict the remaining years of my life! I have just now,\nlying on the table before me, a receipt for making _soupe \u00e0 la reine_,\ncopied with my own hand; for beef and cabbage (a charming dish) and old\nmutton and old claret nobody excels me. I make also sheep-head broth\nin a manner that Mr. Keith speaks of it for eight days after; and the\nDuc de Nivernois would bind himself apprentice to my lass to learn it.\nI have already sent a challenge to David Moncreiff: you will see that\nin a twelvemonth he will take to writing history, the field I have\ndeserted; for as to the giving of dinners, he can now have no further\npretensions. I should have made very bad use of my abode in Paris if I\ncould not get the better of a mere provincial like him. All my friends\nencourage me in this ambition, as thinking it will redound very much to\nmy honor.\u201d\n\nThese \u201cfriends\u201d to whom Hume refers, were at that time, as they had\nbeen throughout his life, the best of good company, that is, the\nkind for whom a good dinner would have been nothing had not good\nconversation been its sauce, but for whom the sauce was none the\nworse for dressing out a good dinner. In such good company, it is not\na great matter that Hume should have been free of pleasant sallies\nafter the manner of the letter I have quoted. It throws a higher light\non his character when we find him preparing to receive his last, the\nunbidden guest in the same cheerful humor. \u201cI now reckon upon a speedy\ndissolution,\u201d he writes at the conclusion of his little sketch \u201cMy own\nLife.\u201d \u201cI have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is\nmore strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person,\nnever suffered a moment\u2019s abatement of spirits; insomuch that were I\nto name the period of my life which I should most choose to pass over\nagain, I might be tempted to point to this latter period. I possess\nthe same ardor as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I\nconsider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a\nfew years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary\nreputation\u2019s breaking out at last with additional lustre, I knew that\nI could have but a few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more\ndetached from life than I am at present.\u201d\n\nAnd there follows a characterization of himself that could indeed be\nhardly more detached were it written by a stranger. \u201cI am,\u201d he says,\n\u201cor rather was (for that style I must now use in speaking of myself,\nwhich emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments); I was, I say,\na man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open social\nand cheerful humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of\nenmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.... My company was\nnot unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious\nand literary: and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of\nmodest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met\nwith from them.... My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one\ncircumstance of my character and conduct: not but that the zealots,\nwe may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any\nstory to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they\nthought would wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no\nvanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a\nmisplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and\nascertained.\u201d\n\nIt is hardly to convict this worthy Scot of misstatement, to point out\nthat his pleasing picture of good will toward all men omits to record\nhis two hatreds; hatreds as whole-hearted and constant as one could\nwish. One was for those he called \u201cpriests;\u201d the other was reserved\nfor Englishmen. \u201cO! how I long to see America and the East Indies\nrevolted, totally and finally--the revenue reduced to half--public\ncredit fully discredited by bankruptcy--the third of London in ruins,\nand the rascally mob subdued! I think I am not too old to despair of\nbeing witness to all these things.\u201d This, to his friend Sir Gilbert\nElliot in 1768. It is curious to note that Hume lived just long enough\nto have heard of the signing of the _Declaration of Independence_.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf, then, something of the nonchalance with which Hume throws off\ncomfortable tradition is due to his personal character, much may be\ngathered respecting his motives for so treating common opinion from a\nstudy of his philosophical ancestry. For Hume is the _fine fleur_ of a\ngrowth flourishing in the England of the 17th and 18th centuries, which\nin contrast to the Rationalism of the Continent, is usually called\nEmpiricism. We find anticipations of an empirical philosophy in Bacon\nand Hobbes; but perhaps we should regard John Locke as the real founder\nof the school. Rationalism, as we saw in connection with Descartes and\nSpinoza, was inspired by the example of the mathematicians to hope\nthat all science might be, as their science seemed to be, deduced from\naxioms called self-evident. These axioms appeared to be something\nmore than the mere summing up of experiences. Between the undependable\npredictions of a weather prophet, who has frequently observed that a\n\u201ctwinge of rheumatism means coming storm,\u201d and the confidence of the\ngeometer that if two angles of a triangle measure 120\u00b0 the other will\nbe found to measure 60\u00b0, there seemed to the rationalist not merely\na difference in degree of certainty, but a difference in kind of\nevidence. The former knowledge, unsatisfactory as it was, could only\ncome after experience; the latter, beautiful in its precision, would\nseem to be at the command of a thoughtful man before experience. Hence,\nfor the rationalist, experience fell to the level of a mere _suggestor_\nof truth, an awakener of thought; reason alone could _demonstrate_ the\nsuggestion.\n\nIn complete contrast with such a view-point, the empiricist came\nin the end to make experience the sole test of truth, even of such\ntruth as the mathematician possessed. If the issue is between taking\nthought respecting all things with the rationalist, or everywhere\ntrusting to observation with the empiricist, it is clear the latter has\nplausibility on his side. Who, closing his eyes and reasoning it out,\ncould learn that there were just eight planets, and not seven or nine?\nIf we must do one thing or the other exclusively, is it not easier to\nimagine that the axioms of geometry embody the experience of the ages\nand nothing more, than to suppose that equipped only with the pure\nreason, _i.e._, with the principles of logic, one could discover the\none thinkable world to be that in which a person that is \u201cI\u201d should\nexist with a sheet of paper this moment before him and a fly buzzing by\nhis ear?\n\nSo it seemed more and more as empiricism was developed at the hands of\nLocke, Berkeley and Hume. Belief, we find Hume maintaining in the end,\nis all of a kind; it is the inference from an actual impression (A) to\nan expected impression (B), based on the remembered experience that A\nhas always in the past been followed by B. Since this past experience\nis limited and since the remembrance of it may be defective, the belief\nbased on the two can never amount to certainty.\n\nSuch an attitude may well be called sceptical when contrasted with\nthe older rationalism, in that it denies the possibility of complete\ncertainty in any field of science, substituting as the ideal of\nscientific evidence an ever-increasing balance of probability in favor\nof the opinion we are constrained to accept. But though to think of\nour body of accepted opinion after this manner is to induce an extreme\nflexibility of the imagination, which must be prepared to conceive that\nthe firmest truth may be untrue and has only a more or less inadequate\narray of facts behind which to defend itself, yet it does not follow\nthat nature is a fantastic dream, without order and coherence. Indeed,\n_that_ experience which is to be our guide from now on, assures us of\njust the contrary, and the new evidence that would be required to make\nus admit that an event in exception to any well-founded law had really\noccurred would have to be overwhelming.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nNowhere does Hume\u2019s faith in the evidence upon which the best tested\nuniformities of experience base their claim to acceptance as nature\u2019s\nlaws, show itself more clearly than in his treatment of miracles.\nTo an analysis of the evidence for such miracles as history records\nhe devotes an entire section of his \u201cEnquiry Concerning Human\nUnderstanding,\u201d (1748):\n\n\u201cA miracle\u201d he there writes, \u201cis a violation of the laws of nature;\nand as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws,\nthe proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as\nentire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why\nis it more than probable that all men must die; that lead cannot, of\nitself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and\nis extinguished by water; unless it be that these events are found\nagreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation\nof these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing\nis ever esteemed a miracle if it ever happen in the common course of\nnature.... There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every\nmiraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.\nAnd as a uniform experience amounts to proof, there is here a direct\nand full _proof_, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of\nany miracle; nor can such proof be destroyed or the miracle rendered\ncredible, but by an opposite proof which is superior.\n\n\u201cThe plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our\nattention), \u2018That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle,\nunless the testimony be of such kind that its falsehood would be more\nmiraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.\u2019\u201d And Hume\nillustrates--\u201cWhen anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to\nlife, I immediately consider with myself whether it is more probable\nthat this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact\nwhich he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle\nagainst the other; and according to the superiority which I discover I\npronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the\nfalsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event\nwhich he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my\nbelief or opinion.\u201d\n\nAs a specimen of the manner in which Hume would have one weigh the\nprobabilities for and against miracles, we may take the oft-cited\npassage with which the discussions closes. \u201c... Let us examine those\nmiracles related in scripture; and not to lose ourselves in too wide a\nfield, let us confine ourselves to such as we find in the _Pentateuch_,\nwhich we shall examine, ... not as the word or testimony of God\nhimself, but as the production of a mere human writer and historian.\nHere, then, we are first to consider a book presented to us by a\nbarbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they are still\nmore barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which\nit relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling\nthose fabulous accounts which every nation gives of its origin. Upon\nreading this book, we find it full of prodigies and miracles. It gives\nus an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely\ndifferent from the present; of our fall from that state; of the age\nof man extended to nearly a thousand years; of the destruction of\nthe world by a deluge; of the arbitrary choice of one people as the\nfavorites of heaven, and that people the countrymen of the author;\nof their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing\nimaginable: I desire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and after\na serious consideration declare whether he thinks that the falsehood of\nsuch a book, supported by such testimony, would be more extraordinary\nand miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however,\nnecessary to make it to be received, according to the measure of\nprobability above established.\u201d\n\nHigher critical ability and wider knowledge have since Hume\u2019s day\nbeen brought to bear upon the interpretation of such documents as the\nbooks of the Old Testament, and it is not as an ethnologist that he\nhas any claim upon our attention. But the citation will serve to show\nthat the skepticism of the empirical method is not of a kind greatly\nto disturb our confidence in the commonly accepted laws of nature. It\nwill further serve to establish one point respecting Hume\u2019s theology,\na point which throughout all his hesitating utterances on this subject\nhe never abandons, that, namely, if aught in the world as we know it\npoints to a God, it is not the strange and exceptional, but the regular\nand law-abiding aspects of nature. To him, a wonder-working God is a\nsuperstition of the ages of ignorance and of the ignorant of all ages.\n\n\u201cEven at this day, and in Europe,\u201d he writes in his \u201cNatural History\nof Religion,\u201d \u201cask any of the vulgar, why he believes in an omnipotent\ncreator of the world; he will never mention the beauty of final causes,\nof which he is wholly ignorant. He will not hold out his hand, and\nbid you contemplate the suppleness and variety of the joints in his\nfingers, their bending all one way, the counterpoise which they receive\nfrom the thumb, the softness and fleshy parts of the inside of his\nhand, with all other circumstances which render that member fit for\nthe use to which it is destined. To these he has been long accustomed,\nand he beholds them with listlessness and unconcern. He will tell\nyou of the sudden and unexpected death of such a one; the fall and\nbruise of such another; the excessive drought of this season; the cold\nand rains of another. These he ascribes to the immediate operations\nof providence; and such events as with good reasoners are the chief\ndifficulties in admitting a supreme intelligence, are with him the sole\narguments for it.\u201d\n\nBut, he adds on this occasion, \u201cmany theists, even the most zealous\nand refined, have denied a _particular_ providence, and have asserted\nthat the Sovereign mind or first principle of all things, having fixed\ngeneral laws, by which nature is governed, gives free and uninterrupted\ncourse to these laws, and disturbs not, at every turn, the settled\norder of events by particular volitions. From the beautiful\nconnection, say they, and rigid observance of established rules, we\ndraw the chief argument for theism; and from the same principles are\nenabled to answer the principal objections against it.\u201d\n\nIt is in this \u201crefined\u201d variety that we shall expect to find Hume in\nthe end, if among theists at all. Meanwhile it will be interesting to\nfollow up this reference to a particular providence, belief in which\nHume associates so closely with the acceptance of miracles.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nSection XI of Hume\u2019s \u201cEnquiry Concerning Human Understanding,\u201d is\nentitled \u201cOf a Providence and of a Future State.\u201d A literary device\nputs the argument in the mouth of a friend who has been invited by one\nreferred to in the first person to imagine himself making a speech\nfor Epicurus before an audience of enlightened Athenians. Accepting\nthe challenge the friend opens his apology as follows: \u201cThe religious\nphilosophers [O, ye Athenians], not satisfied with the tradition of\nyour forefathers and doctrine of your priests (in which I willingly\nacquiesce) indulge a rash curiosity in trying how far they can\nestablish religion on the principles of reason; and they thereby\nexcite, instead of satisfying, the doubts which naturally arise from a\ndiligent and scrutinous enquiry. They paint in the most magnificent\ncolors the order, beauty and wise arrangement of the universe; and then\nask, if such a glorious display of intelligence could proceed from the\nfortuitous concourse of atoms, or if chance could produce what the\ngreatest genius can never sufficiently admire. I shall not examine\nthe justness of this argument. I shall allow it to be as solid as my\nantagonists and accusers can desire. It is sufficient if I can prove,\nfrom this very reasoning, that the question is entirely speculative and\nthat when I deny a providence and a future state, I undermine not the\nfoundations of society, but advance principles which they themselves,\nupon their own topics, if they argue consistently, must allow to be\nsolid and satisfactory.\n\n\u201cYou then, who are my accusers, have acknowledged that their chief\nor sole argument for a divine existence is derived from the order of\nnature.... From the order of the work you infer that there must have\nbeen project and forethought in the workman.\u201d Now, \u201cif the cause be\nknown only by the effect, we never ought to ascribe to it any qualities\nbeyond what are precisely requisite to produce the effect.... No one,\nmerely from the sight of one of Zeuxis\u2019s pictures, could know that he\nwas also a statuary or architect....\n\n\u201cAllowing, therefore, the gods to be authors of the existence or\norder of the universe, it follows that they posses that precise\ndegree of power, intelligence and benevolence which appears in\ntheir workmanship.... The supposition of farther attributes is mere\nhypothesis; much more the supposition that in distant regions of space\nor periods of time there has been or will be a more magnificent display\nof these attributes and a scheme of administration more suitable to\nsuch imaginary virtues.... Let your gods, therefore, O philosophers, be\nsuited to the present appearances of nature, and presume not to alter\nthese appearances by arbitrary suppositions in order to suit them to\nattributes which you so fondly ascribe to your deities.\u201d\n\nAnd the pleader proceeds to show that it is as useless to practice as\nunsupported by reason, to supplement the order of things we know by\nanother for which there is no evidence.\n\n\u201cAre there any marks of a distributive justice in the world?\u201d he puts\nit to his hearers. \u201cIf you answer in the affirmative, I conclude that\nsince justice here exerts itself, it is satisfied. If you reply in the\nnegative, I conclude that you have then no reason to ascribe justice in\nour sense of it to the gods. If you hold a medium between affirmation\nand negation by saying that the justice of the gods at present exerts\nitself in part, but not in its full extent, I answer that you have no\nreason to give it any particular extent, but only as far as you see it\n_at present_ exert itself.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe had rather anticipated that we should find Hume among those \u201czealous\nand refined theists\u201d who point to the \u201cbeautiful connection\u201d and\n\u201csingle plan\u201d of nature as to the ultimate evidence of an intelligence\nback of it. But now that we have gathered together his important\ndenials, we begin to feel that Hume\u2019s \u201czeal\u201d for theism must be of the\nmost restrained order, that the \u201crefinement\u201d of his proof must approach\nattenuation.\n\nAnd so in the end, it proves. Not but that there are emphatic enough\navowals of conviction: \u201cThe whole frame of nature bespeaks an\nintelligent author;\u201d we find it written, \u201cand no rational enquirer\ncan, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard\nto the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.\u201d But this\nfirmness of assertion is not an enduring mood. Elsewhere we find at\nleast one \u201crational enquirer\u201d suspending his belief, not for a moment,\nbut indefinitely. The essay which opens with the passage just quoted\nconcludes with these words: \u201cThe whole is a riddle, an enigma, an\ninexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear\nthe only result of our most accurate scrutiny concerning this subject.\nBut such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible\ncontagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely\nbe upheld did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of\nsuperstition to another, set them-a-quarrelling; while we ourselves,\nduring their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the\ncalm, though obscure regions of philosophy.\u201d\n\nTo explain this flickering mood, one is abandoned to one\u2019s own insight\ninto the nature of the man and into the conditions of his problem. In\nthe first connection, we make it out that Hume\u2019s genial bearing before\nmen cloaked, in a seemly well-bred fashion, a deep seriousness of\ncharacter, just as the light tone of certain of Plato\u2019s dialogues is\nchosen as a fit medium for the setting forth of lofty ideas in polite\ncompany. At sixteen, before he had acquired this _pudeur_ of high\nsounding discourse, we find him writing to his friend Michael Ramsay\nwith the shameless solemnity of a Roman sage: \u201cThe perfectly wise man\nthat outbraves fortune is much greater than the husbandman who slips by\nher, and indeed that pastoral and saturnian happiness I have in a great\nmeasure come at just now--\u201d and more of the like! We may safely take\nit that the sage of sixteen had not died in the man of sixty, for all\nthat the latter preferred to talk with his worldly friends of \u201c_soupe\n\u00e0 la reine_ and beef and cabbage (a charming dish).\u201d Well, then, in\ncommon with most natures possessed of a like \u201chigh seriousness,\u201d Hume\nwould have preferred to see the world in a religious light, would\ninstinctively have looked in it too for high purpose. And this high\npurpose, he seemed to see it out of the corner of his eye as one does\nthe first star in the twilight. But when he sought it with full, clear\nvision--it was gone.\n\nThe reason for this phenomenon may, perhaps, lie in the nature of the\nproblem as Hume habitually thought of it. It was, there could be no\ndoubt of it, the order and uniformity of nature that was to reveal\nto us an intelligent cause. But in daily life, as in the highest\nphilosophy, we recognize two kinds of order and uniformity in our\nexperience. It is an established rule that a stone will fall to the\nearth, that all stones will fall in the same way, that a single law\ndescribes a behavior common to this stone\u2019s falling and to the planets\u2019\nswinging in their orbits, a law we imagine to hold for every particle\nof matter in the universe in its reaction toward every other, and which\nwe call the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation is about as high\nan expression of a uniformity holding throughout nature as we have as\nyet come upon. Such laws as those of physics and chemistry are among\nthe best attested results of experience, and we may stare at them\nquite boldly without fear of putting them out of countenance; but then,\ntoo, we may examine them as intently as we will without finding in them\nthe revelation of an intelligence that framed them. For merely as such\nlaws they make no reference to a purpose to which the mechanism they\ngovern is adapted.\n\nBut there is quite another type of uniformity which we are ever\ndiscovering and appealing to, if not in the whole of nature, at least\nin many of its parts. Hume calls it \u201cunity of plan,\u201d and he points\nto the general adaptation of the organs of the body to the end of\npreserving the life of that body. And where we find such adaptation of\nvarious means to a single end, we ascribe life and even intelligence to\nthe organic whole. Nature, from this point of view, is full of life and\nintelligence. Or, rather, should we not say it is full of _lives and\nintelligences_? Here indeed, is the difficulty; can we treat the whole\ncosmos as one great organism? Can we find one supreme end that all the\nobvious minor ends subserve, as they in turn are served by diverse\nmeans? Or, as another similar possibility, can we establish an analogy\nbetween the cosmos and a machine of human invention, an implement of\nthe arts,--a watch, say, to follow Paley\u2019s argument? Here, too, we\nmust find a purpose, for a machine is not merely a mechanism--it is a\nmechanism with a function.\n\nMany excellent minds have expended themselves on this problem, whose\ndifficulty is supreme, and I think we shall not be far wrong in\nasserting that it is at moments when the issue presents itself in this\nway to Hume\u2019s mind that \u201cdoubt,\u201d as he says, \u201cuncertainty, suspense of\njudgment appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny.\u201d There\nseems something beyond Hume\u2019s usual imperturbability in the words\nwith which one of his dialogues concludes: \u201cBelieve me, Cleanthes,\nthe most natural sentiment which a well-disposed mind will feel on\nthis occasion, is a longing desire and expectation that Heaven would\nbe pleased to dissipate, at least alleviate, this profound ignorance,\nby affording some more particular revelation to mankind, and making\ndiscoveries of the nature, attributes and operations of the divine\nobject of our faith.\u201d[3] But perhaps this is only a phrase, for nowhere\nelse do the lips of Hume shape the words \u201crevelation\u201d and \u201cfaith\u201d but\nthat the lines of mockery are seen to form around them.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn this state of mind respecting theology, it is inevitable that Hume\nshould struggle in quite a pagan spirit with the problem of human\nwisdom. Our experience of life being what it is, how may man most\nsuccessfully attain to happiness, and what relation has the line\nof conduct which prudence would recommend to that which has been\ntraditionally regarded as virtuous?\n\nBut first, _has_ there been any one principle of conduct that defines\nit as virtuous; or are there as many notions of virtue as there are\ncommunities with more or less independent traditions? It is a problem\nof ethics upon which every inquirer from Socrates down has spent his\nbest thought.\n\nThere is a little dialogue of Hume\u2019s that suggests the nature of the\nproblem and hints at a solution in a way altogether charming. \u201cMy\nfriend, Palamedes,\u201d the narrator begins, \u201cwho is as great a rambler in\nhis thoughts as in his person, ... surprised me lately with an account\nof a nation with whom he told me he had passed a considerable part of\nhis life, and whom he found, in the main, a people extremely civilized\nand intelligent.\n\n\u201c\u2018There is a country,\u2019 said he, \u2018in the world called Fourli, no matter\nfor its longitude and latitude, whose inhabitants have ways of thinking\nin many things, particularly in morals, diametrically opposite to\nours....\n\n\u201c\u2018As it was my fortune to come among this people on a very\nadvantageous footing, I was immediately introduced to the best company;\nand being desired by Alcheic to live with him, I readily accepted his\ninvitation, as I found him universally esteemed for his personal merit,\nand indeed regarded by every one in Fourli as a perfect character.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd we are thereupon regaled with a display of Alcheic\u2019s virtues. We\naccompany him first in a serenade that he offers, not indeed to his\nlady-love, but to a certain youth, and we learn in this connection,\nthat Alcheic, himself, who had been very handsome in his youth, had\nbeen courted by many lovers, but had bestowed his favors chiefly on\nthe sage Elcouf, to whom he was supposed to owe, in great measure,\nthe astonishing progress he had made in philosophy and wisdom. \u201cIt\ngave me great surprise,\u201d the traveller adds, \u201cthat Alcheic\u2019s wife (who\nby-the-by, happened also to be his sister) was no wise scandalized at\nthis species of infidelity.\u201d\n\nLater it appears that Alcheic was a murderer and a parricide; and when\nasked what was his motive for this action, he replies coolly that he\n\u201cwas not then so much at ease in his circumstances as he is at present,\nand that he had acted in that particular at the advice of all his\nfriends.\u201d\n\nBut that, of all his actions, which was most highly applauded by the\nFourlians, was the assassination of Usbek. \u201cThis Usbek had been to the\nlast moment Alcheic\u2019s intimate friend, had laid many high obligations\nupon him, had even saved his life on a certain occasion, and had,\nby his will, which was found after the murder, made him heir to a\nconsiderable part of his fortune. Alcheic, it seems, conspired with\nabout twenty or thirty more, most of them also Usbek\u2019s friends; and\nfalling all together on that unhappy man when he was not aware, they\nhad torn him with a hundred wounds, and given him that reward for\nall his past favors and obligations.\u201d Usbek \u201chad many great and good\nqualities; ... but this action of Alcheic\u2019s sets him far above Usbek in\nthe eyes of all judges of merit; and is one of the noblest that ever\nperhaps the sun shone upon.\u201d\n\nOther splendid achievements of this gentleman are recounted, and the\nlist might have been longer had not the narrator interrupted his\nfriend. \u201cPray,\u201d said he, \u201cPalamedes, when you were at Fourli, did you\nalso learn the art of turning your friends into ridicule by telling\nthem strange stories, and then laughing at them if they believed you?\u201d\n\u201cI assure you,\u201d replied the traveller, \u201chad I been disposed to learn\nsuch a lesson there was no place in the world more proper. My friend\ndid nothing from morning to night but sneer and banter and rally;\nand you could scarcely ever distinguish whether he were in jest or\nearnest. But you think, then, that my story is improbable, and that I\nhave used, or rather abused, the privilege of a traveller?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be sure,\u201d said I, \u201cyou were but in jest. Such barbarous and\nsavage manners are not only incompatible with a civilized intelligent\npeople, such as you said those were; but are scarcely compatible with\nhuman nature. They exceed all we ever read among the Mingrelians and\nTopinamboues.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave a care,\u201d cried Palamedes, \u201chave a care! You are not aware that\nyou are speaking blasphemy, and are abusing your favorites, the Greeks,\nespecially the Athenians, whom I have couched all along under these\nbizarre names I employed. If you consider aright, there is not one\nstroke of the foregoing character which might not be found in the\nman of highest merit at Athens.... The amours of the Greeks, their\nmarriages (the laws of Athens allowed a man to marry his sister by\nthe father), and the exposing of their children cannot but strike\nyou immediately. The death of Usbek is an exact counterpart to that\nof Caesar,\u201d--and so the parallel runs on until Palamedes concludes\ntriumphantly, \u201cI think I have fairly made it appear that an Athenian\nman of merit might be ... incestuous, a parricide, an assassin,\nan ungrateful perjured traitor, and something else too abominable\nto be named and having lived in this manner, his death might be\nentirely suitable; he might conclude the scene by a desperate act of\nself-murder, and die with the most absurd blasphemies in his mouth. And\nnotwithstanding this he shall have statues, if not altars, erected to\nhis memory.\u201d\n\nI need hardly say that Hume has in the \u201cDialogue\u201d from which I quote\nmade use of a pleasant artifice to force on the reader\u2019s attention the\nnature and difficulty of his problem: to find, namely, a common meaning\nfor the words \u201cvirtue\u201d and \u201cvice,\u201d by whomsoever used; in spite of the\nfact that nearly kindred civilizations will be the one confident it has\nfound virtue, where the other is certain it has found vice. \u201cHow shall\nwe pretend to fix a standard for judgments of this nature?\u201d he finally\nputs the question. \u201cBy tracing matters,\u201d he answers himself, \u201ca little\nhigher.... The Rhine flows north, the Rhone south; yet both spring from\nthe _same_ mountain, and are also actuated in their opposite directions\nby the _same_ principle of gravity. The different inclinations of the\nground on which they run cause all the differences of their courses.\u201d\nAnd one by one with admirable skill, he takes up the virtues of our\nfriend Alcheic, which to us are such conspicuous vices, to show that\nunder the conditions of Greek life most had a quality in common with\nthose perhaps directly opposite acts, which, under the conditions of\nour life we should commend, and that quality, which is the keynote of\nall Hume\u2019s ethics, is \u201cutility.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt appears,\u201d he puts it, \u201cthat there never was any quality recommended\nby anyone as a virtue or moral excellence, but on account of its being\n_useful_ or _agreeable_, to a man _himself_ or to _others_. For what\nother reason can ever be assigned for praise or approbation? Or where\nwould be the sense of extolling a _good_ character or action, which at\nthe same time is allowed to be _good for nothing_? All the differences,\ntherefore, in morals may be reduced to this one general foundation, and\nmay be accounted for by the different views which people take of these\ncircumstances.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nGiven Hume\u2019s world-view, it is evident that the only ones whom we have\na right to count in estimating the agreeable or disagreeable effects of\nour actions are such other sentient beings as experience reveals to us:\nto wit, our fellow humans and perhaps the higher animals. Moreover, the\nonly period which we have a right to consider as containing a life\u2019s\nmeasure of happiness and unhappiness is that which experience confirms\nto us: to wit, that bounded by birth and death.\n\nThus defined, the calculus of utility involved in judging the merit\nof an act may be difficult, but is possible of an empirical solution.\nThere remains only one question of human destiny to be settled, but\nit is an important one. What, namely, is the relation between the\nhappiness experience gives me a right to expect, and the virtue of\nmy conduct? For Hume\u2019s ethics are not egoistic. The utility that\nmeasures the excellence of my act is not merely, nor even primarily,\nits agreeableness to me; but also, and perhaps in larger measure, its\nagreeableness to others. How for this large element of altruism in all\ngood actions am I, the actor, to be paid, if paid I am to be? To this\nquestion Hume gives an elaborate reply in a section of his \u201cEnquiry\nConcerning the Principles of Morals\u201d entitled \u201cWhy Utility Pleases.\u201d\nThe answer is simple enough. There is in the human heart a sentiment\nwe call sympathy, or, to use Hume\u2019s favorite word, \u201chumanity.\u201d To\npossess this sentiment is to rejoice in another\u2019s joy, grieve with\nanother\u2019s grief. To possess such a sentiment is to possess the reward\nof all altruism; for happiness bestowed upon another is bread cast\nupon the waters that returns to us after days as few or as many as may\nbe required to produce in our own soul the sympathetic image of the\nhappiness we have wrought in another\u2019s.\n\nSuch is the theory of human duty and of human destiny which Hume\nhas worked out by the method of Empiricism, which pretends not to\na knowledge of God, nor of a system of things broader than the\nworld of our experience. We may allow his own words to contrast the\nresulting attitude toward life and duty with the theological: \u201cI\ndeny a providence, you say, and supreme governor of the world, who\nguides the course of events and punishes the vicious with infamy and\ndisappointment, and rewards the virtuous with honor and success in\nall their undertakings. But surely I deny not the course itself of\nevents, which lies open to every one\u2019s enquiry and examination. I\nacknowledge that in the present order of things virtue is attended with\nmore peace of mind than vice and meets with a more favorable reception\nfrom the world. I am sensible that according to the past experience\nof mankind, friendship is the chief joy of human life, and moderation\nthe only source of tranquillity and happiness. I never balance between\nthe virtuous and the vicious course of life but am sensible that to a\nwell-disposed mind every advantage is on the side of the former. And\nwhat can you say more, allowing all your suppositions and reasonings?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nIMMANUEL KANT\n\n1724-1804\n\n\nThe religion of Immanuel Kant can be put in one phrase, \u201cWe cannot\nknow that there is a God; but we ought to live as though there were\none\u201d--the difficulty lies in interpreting the phrase.\n\nThat we cannot know there is a God is a conclusion to which we have\nseen the decline of rationalism and the growth of empiricism slowly\ntending. But that we ought to live as though there were a God--what can\nsuch a phrase mean? What manner of life does it prescribe? Above all,\nwhat sort of an _ought_ is this and how does it bind us?\n\nThere is no deeper interest for Kant than that which invites one to\nconsider the meaning of the word \u201cought.\u201d I say, _the_ meaning of\n\u201cought,\u201d yet it may be that the word has more than one meaning. For\ncompare these two examples of its use,--first this: If you want to\nbisect a line you ought to describe certain arcs and draw a certain\nstraight line. And then this: \u201cYou ought to speak the truth.\u201d\n\nWe notice at once a rhetorical difference in these two uses of the\n_ought_. In the first, a certain procedure is commanded _if_ and only\n_if_ we want to bisect a line. Leave out the condition this _if_\nintroduces, and the _ought_ with all that follows on it loses its\nmeaning. No decalogue could be imagined to contain among its commands\nan injunction to describe arcs and draw lines. Let us call this use\nof the _ought_ the hypothetical use, let us call the command such an\n_ought_ introduces a hypothetical command or in Kant\u2019s own phrase a\n\u201c_hypothetical imperative_.\u201d An _ought_ that is inseparable from an\n_if_ is a hypothetical imperative.\n\nOn the other hand when I say, \u201cYou ought to speak the truth,\u201d \u201cYou\nought not to steal,\u201d I seem to be using the _ought_ in a sense that\nneeds no _if_ to make its meaning clear. More than that, attempts to\nsupply an _if_, so far from making the meaning of the _ought_ clearer,\nhave more often than not the effect of changing, of travestying the\nmeaning we instinctively see in it. Truthful speaking and honest\ndealing be indeed useful devices for getting along in the world, but\none who is honest because honesty is the best policy seems to us hardly\nhonest--at all events he seems to have missed the point that honesty is\nenjoined on us without _ifs_ or _buts_. The obligation to be honest is\nan unconditional command, a \u201c_categorical imperative_.\u201d It is of such\nstuff as decalogues are made on--it is so the voice of duty speaks in\nus.\n\nIt needs no pointing out that so far as our examples go, the\nhypothetical ought has no moral flavor. No sin attaches to one who has\nleft undone the things he ought to have done _if_ he aimed at bisecting\na line. Sin does attach to one who has done what he ought not to have\ndone in the way of lying, no matter what end seemed to justify the\nmeans. This hypothetical _ought_ finds its reason in pure science, this\ncategorical in pure morality.\n\nAll this is true, and yet one would form a poor opinion of Kant\u2019s\nthoroughness if one represented him as having rushed from one or two\nexamples to the generalization: All hypothetical uses of the _ought_\nare scientific and non-moral; all categorical uses are moral and\nnon-scientific. To such a generalization Kant does indeed come, and to\nit he clings through difficulties more than enough to discourage one\nin whom the conviction of its truth were less a matter of heart than\nit was to Kant. But however it fitted in with Kant\u2019s character to view\nthe command of duty as sternly categorical, it was equally part of his\ncharacter patiently to seek a reason for the faith that was in him.\n\nIf Kant had wished to establish no more than that there must be\n_something_ categorical about the moral _ought_ distinguishing it\nfrom the many _oughts_ that suggest nothing of morality, his task\nwould not have been hard. For suppose that to every command there\nwas really a hidden condition attached; suppose that the categorical\nwas really a hypothetical imperative in disguise. Then the goodness\nof the act commanded could mean no more than its fitness to bring\nabout a certain result. But what of the result? Is it, too, good? The\nquestion can obviously have no meaning, for only the way can be good;\nthe goal cannot. And yet we seem to revolt against such meaning of\ngoodness: there is a difference to us between a good way of cheating\none\u2019s neighbor and a way of being good. Either then there is some way\nof defining a good end--an end which justifies the means--or else\nthere must be a moral excellence that belongs to certain types of act\nirrespective of what they may lead to, if indeed they lead to aught in\ncommon. In either case we come upon the categorical _ought_--the end\nthat ought to be pursued for its own sake, or else the type of act that\nought to be followed for its own sake with no view to consequences.\nThe first interpretation of the moral ought would be illustrated in a\ntheory that pointed, as did Hume\u2019s, to the happiness of the community\nas an end imposed without condition, while it defined good actions to\nbe such as were well calculated to bring about this end. The second\ninterpretation is in the spirit of the Decalogue, or of the classic\nsaying, Let justice be done though the heavens fall. It is not the\nbusiness of the actor to consider the consequences of his just dealing;\nif the world is so divinely ordered that not the heavens but heaven\u2019s\nblessing fall on the just man, this is a truth to be independently\nestablished. Duty first, consequences after!\n\nNo theory of the moral _ought_ can escape a recognition of a\ncategorical command; but we must choose between the end and the act as\nthat to which the _ought_ applies. If we are sometimes doubtful whether\nKant abides at all points by the decision he first makes in this\nmatter, there can be no doubt that he comes to a decision at once in\nfavor of the view that the moral ought applies to a type of act, not to\nan end this type of act might be calculated to bring about. We should\nstill know our duty if we knew of no such end, we ought still to follow\nduty if there were no such end. It is in trying to carry through this\nidea, which we may call the Decalogue idea, of the categorical _ought_,\nthat Kant meets his most serious difficulties. Yet the motives which\nmade him accept and cling to such an interpretation are such as the\nsimplest may grasp--yes, the simpler one is of heart, the more easily\nmay one sympathize with them.\n\nIn the first place a scientific insight into the means best calculated\nto bring about an end is obtainable only by study and thought. Even the\nsimple device by which a line may be bisected is not at every one\u2019s\ndisposal, while the highest science has but imperfect means to suggest\nfor accomplishing the ends we most crave. But it seemed to Kant that\nduty must make a universal appeal, to the poor understanding as clearly\nas to the richly endowed; morality must be no privilege of the high,\nbut a treasure of the humble. \u201cBe good, sweet maid, and let who will be\nclever,\u201d is a word of homely counsel that has crept into our language\nto show how good a Kantian the plain man may be.\n\nOr again--but really it is the same thought differently expressed--duty\nought to make no hesitating uncertain appeal. No one should have a\nchance to excuse himself on the ground that he was ignorant of the\nlaw. But ignorance of scientific law is the portion of all of us.\nAlas, if we should have to grope after goodness as we do after wisdom!\nThe intellectuality of pagan Greece might and did contemplate such a\nstate of affairs with equanimity or even with favor. The spirit of\nChristianity expressed the deep desire of the unintellectual that at\nleast virtue might be theirs for the willing.\n\nKant had a name for any law that was thus universal (that is, applying\nto everybody) and necessary (that is, free from uncertainty). He\ncalled such laws _a priori_; that is, not dependent for their authority\nupon the slow uncertain gathering of experimental evidence. To him\nthen, the one chance of possessing a moral law _a priori_ lay in the\nrecognition that such a law must in decalogue fashion prescribe a\ntype of act, not an end which might be uncertainly tried for now by\ntruth-telling, now by lying--not an end in short which justified the\nmeans so dubiously that it might be taken to justify any means.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo us mortals wandering in the mazes of life and perplexed--we think\nhonestly perplexed--by the way issues of right and wrong present\nthemselves, the possession of an indubitable law of duty whose\nauthority was higher than any consideration of consequences would be a\ngodsend. Yet because such a thing is desirable, it does not follow that\nit is possible, and we are quite prepared to find Kant at this point\nsetting up as the deepest problem of ethics the question, \u201cHow is a\ncategorical imperative possible?\u201d That is, what sort of a world would\nit be in which men recognized the authority of such an _ought_ and were\nfree and willing to obey it?\n\nAn image of one such world is the common possession of our race.\nGod created this world, and the beings that dwell in it. On these\nbeings he lays certain commands in the form of a decalogue, and their\nauthority rests on the will of God regarded now as King. If God had\npurpose in laying these commands on his subjects, their duty to\nGod\u2019s will must not wait on their insight into his purpose and their\nacceptance of it as theirs. Man has been created free to obey or not to\nobey God\u2019s commands, and is told that happiness will be meted out to\nhim in the measure of his obedience, unhappiness in the measure of his\ndisobedience. But to deserve reward, he must not only obey God\u2019s law,\nbut do it uniquely because it is God\u2019s will. He must conceive himself\nas prepared to obey without promise of reward or threat of punishment.\nMoreover, it is not pretended that this justice will accomplish itself\nwithin the limits of human life on this earth, but in a future life and\nin another world whose existence must be taken on faith. Here then we\nhave an image of a world in which a categorical imperative in the form\nof a decalogue is possible, and not only is possible, but has exactly\nthe relations to purpose and to happiness that Kant required of such an\nimperative. Duty may serve a purpose; but the assurance we have of this\nis no part of the authority duty has for us. The performance of duty\nmay bring happiness; but duty would remain authoritative if we knew\nnothing of any happiness it would bring.[4]\n\nThis world, we might call it the Old Testament World, is then exactly\nthe kind of a world in which morality as Kant defines morality could\nand would exist. Moreover Kant is prepared to show that it is the\nonly kind of a world in which true morality could exist. If we are to\nhave such a thing as a command of duty, we must have the three things\ncharacteristic of our Old Testament world-image: the freedom of man,\nthe immortality of the soul, the ruling power of God. If we take these,\nas well we may, to be the essential beliefs of religion, then it\nappears that for Kant morality is inseparable from religion.\n\nI say that Kant is prepared to prove that without these three\nassumptions, God, freedom and immortality, no categorical imperative\nis possible; but I am far from asserting that a conscientious thinker\nwill be prepared to follow Kant in every step of this proof. It is in\nmost parts a tortured process of reasoning at once over subtle and over\nsimple, and back of it all, one feels that Kant\u2019s deepest motives for\narriving at his conclusions are the instinctive demands of his heart,\nwhich demands a marvelous intellect is made to serve as best it may.\n\nHowever, the first step is obvious enough: unless there is a sense in\nwhich the being on whom a duty is laid is free to follow or not to\nfollow its command, there is no sense in which duty is possible. This\nought ye to do; but alas you cannot! This ought ye to do, and besides\nyou can\u2019t help doing it! These expressions equally rob the ought of\nmeaning. We can quite see that without freedom, duty is meaningless.\nYet the beings on whom the commands of duty are laid are men like\nyou and me, and in such beings we notice that what freedom they have\nis limited in a peculiar way. We are in the habit of attributing to\neach a certain nature or character that we try to regard as working\nitself out--if not in all--yet in many and various situations. But\nin this attempt to explain conduct in terms of character and its\nexpression, we are constantly baffled by what seems to us a duality or\neven multiplicity of characters in the same individual. In this man\nwe explain a certain part of his conduct as the outcome of a strong\nimperious animality; but another part shows his passion restrained by\nmotives of honor, kindness, sympathy. Two natures are at war in him,\nand as we are likely to think of one of these as more really his than\nthe other, we represent him as struggling to conquer himself.\n\nWell, this warfare of a man with himself is one of the commonest things\nin life, and life itself shows that a higher or better self may often\nenough win the victory over and free itself from a baser and lower\ndisposition. But life shows too that the struggle is long and bitter,\nso long that a lifetime is too short a span in which to secure a\ncomplete victory. Just in proportion as the higher self is high, does\nthe struggle grow hard and lengthen itself out. If we conceive the self\nwhose struggles we are watching to be the moral self as Kant describes\nit, all the love and lust of life seem to be arrayed against it. If it\nis to free itself, that is if we are to become completely moral agents,\nnot a lifetime, nor a century, nor a million years, but the whole of\neternity must be allowed us for our battling. But this means that the\nactor must be immortal, and so it is that for Kant the possibility of a\ncompletely moral being, free to act out his moral nature, presupposes\nimmortality.\n\nThe existence of a moral being then involves the acceptance of him as\na free immortal being. But though these are important traits of the\nOld Testament world image which Kant is trying to show to be the only\nimage that makes morality possible, yet the recognition of a man\u2019s\nfreedom and immortality is not peculiar to it, but may be found in\nmany philosophies. Both, for example, have a place in Spinoza\u2019s system\nwhich is as far as possible from giving us an Old Testament account of\nreality.\n\nWhen we add a third condition, the ruling power of God, we have\na difference indeed, but also a difficulty in understanding the\nnecessity of the assumption. To be sure, if we add the idea of justice\nto that of moral worth, if we require that worth should be rewarded\nwith proportional happiness, then indeed we should have to go beyond\nexperience to convince ourselves that such justice obtains, and we\nmight very well identify the ideal of justice with the idea of a\nGod-governed world. But Kant has insisted throughout that the idea of\nright and the idea of reward are independent, why then are they not\nseparable? Why in order that there may be a thing that we ought to\ndo, must there be an assurance that we shall be happy in the doing or\nbecause of the doing of it?\n\nIt is easy to give Kant\u2019s answer to this question--it is difficult to\nmake sure that one has understood it. His answer is simply that while\nmorality may be the _highest_ desire of the human heart, it cannot be\nits _whole_ desire. It _must_ desire happiness as well as virtue.\n\nKant defines the happy man as one whose desires are satisfied. But if\nwe think of this desire as being directed toward a _type_ of object,\nany attempt to interpret Kant\u2019s motives for introducing a God into his\nsystem must meet the obvious difficulty that since morality is the\nhighest type of desire and since it is admitted that all are free to\nbe moral, then the Stoic happiness in virtue is assured quite without\nreference to a divine government of the world.\n\nThe only way we can hope to explain in what sense the will to do one\u2019s\nduty cannot be a complete definition of the object of human desire is\nto understand that happiness depends upon our obtaining, not a type\nof thing,--morality or wealth or power or science--but an individual\nthing. Our demand for moral satisfaction may be realized in one\nsituation as well as another. \u201cTo tell the truth,\u201d if that be all we\nwant, lays no conditions on the particular circumstances under which\nwe tell the truth. We want to follow a principle, and principles are\nabstract enough. But is it not true that the kind of desire of which\nfinite beings have the deepest experience is bent on just those things\nthat cannot be generalized nor made abstract? What we want in them, and\nthat on which our happiness depends, seems to be offered but this once\nin all possible life, and nothing like it could be imagined that would\nmeet our desires just as well.\n\nFor example, when desire is for the love of a woman, it is for the\nlove of _this_ woman, not of _some_ woman. Ask such love what it sees\nto love in this individual that could not just as well be found in\nanother, and the lover will laugh you out. You are not speaking his\nlanguage. You are looking for qualities, types, principles--what he\nwants with all his soul is not a kind of a woman but just _his_ woman.\nAnd to her he sings,\n\n  Who is it says the most? which can say more\n  Than this rich praise,--that you alone are you?\n\nOr do you ask as the thing on which all your happiness hangs that death\nkeep his hands off just this child? Then what meaning would it have for\nyou if a condoling friend were to point out that you had other children\nfar more remarkable? It was not for his qualities you cared when\nyou cared for him, nor yet for his value as a unit in counting your\noffspring.\n\nI don\u2019t pretend to explain why this is, or what it all means;[5]\nbut when Kant maintains that to will a principle and nothing but a\nprinciple is not what we mean by willing, these instances of objects\nof desire that are purely individual and can not be reduced to\nprinciple naturally present themselves as facts of experience that may\nhelp us to catch Kant\u2019s meaning.\n\nOf all principles of willing, the moral principle is the highest; but\nthe willing of individual human beings cannot from its very nature be\ncompletely defined by principle. The only world in which will can have\nan object; _i.e._, the only world in which there can be such a thing\nas will, must be a world of individual things. If it is to be a moral\nworld, it must be possible to struggle for these individual things\nwithout disobeying the law of duty.\n\nHappiness, defined as getting the individual thing you want, must\nbe guaranteed, or else, since you can only want something that is\nindividual, willing is objectless. Who or what is to guarantee that\nthe world in which we willers of concrete things may will consistently\nwith moral principle exists? Not experience, surely; that has a way of\narranging things so that the woman one wants is just the one principle\ndenies one; the child one has set one\u2019s heart on is just the one death\nhas set his seal on. The chapter of \u201clife\u2019s little ironies\u201d is a full\none. Then does it not require the guarantee of a world maker or a world\nruler that life\u2019s indifference or irony have not the last word? Does\nnot the possibility of a moral will hang upon the assurance of God? So\nat least for Kant, God makes goodness possible.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cGod, freedom and immortality,\u201d these three are traits inseparable\nfrom a world in which duty can speak and be obeyed; the Old Testament\nworld is not only _a_ moral world, it is _the only_ moral world. And\nif, so far, Kant has clung very closely to the Old Testament, we should\nfind him in his later writing--his \u201cReligion within the Domain of Pure\nReason\u201d--clinging just as closely to the spirit of the New Testament.\nThose who find his reasoning obscure and faulty, would explain all this\nin terms of his personal psychology and his early environment, for\nKant was a child of that deep Pietism, one might say Quakerism, that\ncharacterizes the Germany of the eighteenth century.\n\nBut if we look upon him as the child of his age in his devotion to\nChristianity, he was no less profoundly influenced by that other\nand equally characteristic movement of his day and generation--the\ninheritance of Rationalism. The Old Testament and even the New\nTestament world images may have deep truth hidden in their\nsymbolism--so the child of pietism would be likely to think--but the\nauthority of this truth was not to be sought in revelation. It must be\nestablished, if at all, by one\u2019s reason--so the disciple of rationalism\nwas bound to maintain. Now Kant is not only a rationalist, rejecting\nrevelation as a source of authority. He is also a critic, to whom the\narguments of rationalism for the existence of God appear flimsy and\nirrational. Neither in reason nor in experience can we find grounds\nfor accepting the existence of God as a scientific fact. Hume could be\nno more convinced than Kant that no aspect of the world with which our\nexperience acquaints us justifies a belief in divine purpose. Kant went\nfurther--no extension of experience in future ages could give us the\nassurance we now lack. God is unknown to our science and unknowable.\n\nWell then, if neither the necessities of thought nor the facts of\nexperience, however we conceive our knowledge of them extended, can\nforce upon us a belief in God and all that hangs on him, what is left\nof religion and of morality that cannot be separated from religion?\nKant\u2019s answer to this question is so confusing that it is little wonder\nthe interpreters of Kant are confused, in disagreement with each\nother and each doubtful of himself. I am obliged then, since we have\nnot the time to try out all the ifs and buts of the case, to present\ndogmatically one line of thought that is to be found in Kant, the one\nalong which post-Kantian thought developed. If anyone tell me that he\nfails to find this thought in his edition of Kant, or that he finds\nothers that do not run parallel with it, we shall not quarrel about a\nmatter commentators have always quarreled about.\n\nIf Kant as a critic has been keen to point out the inadequacy of any\nproof of God, he has been no less earnest in his purpose of showing\nthat no disproof can come to us. This world is one that for aught we\nknow _may_ be God\u2019s world, and if we choose to live as though it were\nGod\u2019s world and we were of his kingdom, we need fear to meet no facts\nthat would block our way and deny us.\n\nDoesn\u2019t it lie near to hand to say--You can make this God\u2019s world if\nyou want to? You can make yourself free, immortal and blest of heaven\nif that is the deepest desire in you, for in all its moral aspects this\nworld of yours is a plastic world and will respond delicately to your\ntouch. Live then as though there were a God, and there will indeed be\none; the world will be divine.\n\nI have called Kant\u2019s world the Old Testament world and you have seen\nin what sense it may be called so; but if you try to think of this\nworld as the mediaeval writers are supposed to have thought of it,\nthen Kant\u2019s religion must be in flat contradiction with itself. If\nGod is such a God, if his creative act is such a gesture as a Michael\nAngelo might paint, if life after death is such a life and spent in\nsuch places as a Dante might describe, then all Kant\u2019s religion is\nbut a leap in the dark. The thing reduces to something like Pascal\u2019s\nwager--bet on God, and if you lose you lose nothing; if you win you\nwin everything. If God, freedom, and immortality are facts hid behind\na curtain that we may never tear aside, we can only take a chance with\nsuch facts. I have already made my bow to those who find other things\nin Kant than the religion I pretend to have drawn from him--and I had\nparticularly in mind such as understand Kant throughout to be thinking\nof the truths of religion as just such facts hid behind the curtain.\nI have refused to quarrel with those interpreters because Kant does\nthink, because Kant can not cure himself of thinking in such terms\nthrough many pages. But this I take to be obvious--if this fashion of\nthinking were the only one possible in view of the situation in which\nscience and religion find themselves, if it is not merely a peculiarity\nof the man Kant and his personal psychology, then those who followed on\nhim, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, were deeply deceived in supposing that\nKant was their inspiration; the post-Kantian development was not a\ndevelopment but a new creation.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nViewing Kant then in the light of the appeal which he made to his own\ntimes, we may see that for him religion is not a matter of what one\ndecides to believe, but of what one decides to do. And the religious\nconsciousness may express the law of its doing in the determination to\nlive as though there were a God. But we must ask it of Kant to explain\nto us what sort of a life this religious life would be.\n\nOne can quite make it out that the first condition to the living of\nsuch a life is to obey the voice of duty as though it were the voice\nof God. That is, to obey it without letting our obedience hang on our\ninsight into the purpose to be worked out, or on the satisfaction we\nare to find in or because of the doing. Just so was the Decalogue\npresented for the acceptance of the Children of Israel. But for them\nthe way of duty was revealed by God himself; for Kant it must be\nrevealed by the reason which accepts it. What sort of a law does this\n\u201cpractical reason,\u201d as Kant calls it, reveal?\n\nKant\u2019s first formulation is imperfect enough, and seems to be based\non an effort to deduce the content of moral law from the meaning of\nlaw itself--as though to say, the command \u201cBe law-abiding\u201d furnished\none with all needed information respecting the law by which one was\nto abide. For, as Kant puts the matter, law must prescribe a type\nof action that is possible for everybody--a meaning of law which\nis well rendered by the common phrase, \u201cWhat is right for one is\nright for all.\u201d And just as one might try to convince a man of the\niniquity of some particular act of his by putting to him the question,\nSuppose everybody were to do that? so Kant at this stage feels that\nwe could try out the validity of any given type of act by putting\nthe same question to ourselves. Suppose the right to lie were up for\nconsideration; if lying is morally right, then it must be possible for\neverybody to lie. But if everybody tried to lie, there would be no such\nthing as a lie, for a lie requires someone to believe it as well as\nsomeone to utter it. Universal lying would be impossible; the maxim,\n\u201cBe a good liar,\u201d could not be generalized into a law.\n\n\u201cSo act that the maxim of your conduct could become a universal\nlaw.\u201d[6] This is the formula that Kant finds first of all for the full\nduty of man. But of course on this basis one could not sell a share of\nstock, for if everybody were to try it, there would be no market. On\nthe other hand Kant himself has only a tortured and inadequate account\nto give of the reason why one should not commit suicide, for it looks\nas though we might all do that much together.\n\nMore interesting is Kant\u2019s second attempt to formulate the law of duty.\nAlmost against his will, one would say, Kant is forced to consider the\nact from the point of view of its purpose. The purpose of a moral act\nmust be such that everybody may pursue the same purpose.[7] An immoral\nworld is one in which many want a thing that can not be shared--Kant\nrecalls with humor the remark of King Francis, that he and his brother\nCharles were in perfect accord for both wanted the same thing--namely\nthe possession of Milan. A moral world is one in which no desires are\ncontradictory.\n\nThe moment Kant has said this he has made the moral world an ideal,\nan image of a world not identical with this present one, but into\nwhich our faith demands that the present one may by our effort evolve.\nIt is impossible so far as I can see to make Kant\u2019s first impression\nof duty square with this account of it. It cannot be that duty is a\nsimple certain command that the humblest understanding can grasp.\nIt must be that duty is a more or less vague striving toward this\nideal, a striving to make the world in which we live with one another\napproximate more and more closely to this beautiful republic whose\nmotto might be modeled after Rabelais, \u201c\u2018Fays ce que vouldras,\u2019 et\nne nuis pas \u00e0 ton voisin.\u201d[8] Religion then is the determination to\nallow nothing to divert us from this struggle which it would not be\nout of place to call the struggle after divinity. Immortality would be\na direction, not a condition. Happiness--the religious happiness--the\nsense of the progress to which we are contributing. All this seems\nto flow naturally from the Kantian conception, but Kant has that in\nhim which will not let such results follow. He stands divided against\nhimself. His theory of duty as decalogue law, his less confident but\nno less enduring conception of the object of religion as facts behind\na veil, stand in contradiction with his view of duty as a struggle\nthat must be more or less blind, baffled, and empirical toward a goal\ninfinitely remote.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn this contradiction we must leave him. Religion, as the name for a\nsearch after the kind of reality in which the multiple strivings that\nleave us divided each within himself and one from another, was the\ndeep inspiration of those who followed Kant. They thought they owed\nthis inspiration to the master, and so indeed they did; but it is\nnot surprising that Kant himself refused to recognize his immediate\noffspring (Fichte) and would probably have been greatly shocked at the\nspeculations of his more remote progeny. Nor is it surprising to one\naccustomed to the disappointments of which the history of thought is\nthe living chronicle that one of those inspired by Kant to this very\nsearch should have ended his seeking with the tragic finding that the\nharmonious will is an illusion and a contradiction. Will is essentially\nwar, cries Schopenhauer. There is that in the experience of every man\nwhich forces him to give ear to this cry, voicing though it does the\ndeepest and final denial of all that is religious.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER\n\n1788-1860\n\n\nWe live in a room that has a dark corner. The shadows are there and we\nknow they are there; but we will not look their way. We busy ourselves\nwith a thousand things that are doubtless important; we sit by the lamp\nand are doubtless full of cheerful thoughts. It is held to be wise\nto behave in this way, and if the things we busy ourselves with are\nreally important then it may be admitted that our conduct is really\nwise. But back there among the shadows, the darkest of them all, lurks\nthe spirit of questioning. \u201cWhat is the use?\u201d it keeps asking, \u201cWhat\nis the use?\u201d If we listen we are lost, yet those who have listened and\nlost themselves tell us that there is such peace to be had of knowing\nthe worst that compared with it the prizes of struggling life are but\nchildren\u2019s toys.\n\n\u201cTo see where the worst problems of life lie,\u201d writes a philosopher of\nour own day, \u201cis a very black experience. And yet, so much does human\nreason live on insight that I have never met a man who was alive to\nthose deepest problems and who repented him of his insight.\u201d[9]\n\nNow the one to whom of all men this insight into the deep abyss has\nbeen vouchsafed was Arthur Schopenhauer. According to the older ideas\nof tragedy, the world has at times and in spots seemed sad enough; but\nSchopenhauer invented a new conception of tragedy, more ingeniously\npainful than any that had gone before, and then he showed that the play\nwhich most completely set forth this idea was just the whole of life.\n\nThe work in which this thought is most systematically developed bears\nthe double title, \u201cOn the World as Will and Idea (Vorstellung),\u201d whose\nfirst edition appeared in 1818. We may safely confine ourselves to this\nsingle work in our present study of Schopenhauer, for his life was one\nof those lives that move rapidly to a moment of maturity then subside\ninto a ruminating reflection on their achievement.\n\nTo have reached at thirty a life-view from which one never afterwards\ndeparts might be taken to argue either a certain shallowness of mind\nor an unusual depth of conviction. One recalls the sixty-year-old\nKant, painfully struggling with a bare theory of method, and then for\nsome twenty years more laboring to apply this method to the problems\nof life with results so vigorously reacting on the method itself as\nto have created a suspicion of change of view. It is certain that in\ncontrast with Kant, Schopenhauer leaves an impression of facility in\nthought and style. This effect is no doubt partly to be accounted for\nby a difference in upbringing and in the circumstances surrounding\nproduction. Kant was the very complete university professor;\nSchopenhauer, a man of the world whose one early experiment in academic\nlife was a most convincing failure. He alone of all the great names\nthat recognize Kant as master--Fichte, Schelling, Hegel--had the\nassured position and material means to spare himself the laborious\ntraining of one who would enter the academic lists. Free then to live\nas he would, he develops the tastes and the methods of the private\nscholar of means, reflecting the experience of an easy bachelor\nexistence of inns, and travel, and wide unsystematic reading.\n\nIt is the early training doubtless of one intended for a higher social\nstratum, that imposes on Schopenhauer a sense of obligation to be\nlordly; a style that is free, rather grand, perhaps a bit overdressed;\na certain insolence of tone from which even his friends suffer at\ntimes, and which when it is question of his enemies sinks to a level of\nabuse whose epithets must be shadowed forth with initial and dash.\n\nBut apart from these external conditions, one recognizes in\nSchopenhauer the spirit of the fighter rather than that of the critic.\nHe is a man of one idea, embraced as soon as encountered, then defended\nwith boldness and eloquence and wit. Such a character hardly develops\nthe great thinker; but it may well be possessed of a great thought. The\nthought of Schopenhauer is none the less great for being gloomy and\nrepellant.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe double title, \u201cThe World as Will and Idea,\u201d hints at a double\naspect that experience presents, the one to the eye of the observer,\nthe other to the mind of the thinker. To the observing eye, it is a\nspread of bodies in space and time, obeying the laws of mechanical\nnecessity; just such a world as Kant has described in his \u201cKritik der\nreinen Vernunft.\u201d Schopenhauer, following Kant, calls this the world of\nappearance, the phenomenal world.\n\nBut when we say \u201ca world of appearances\u201d we seem to hint at a something\nthat appears, and appears not to the eye that follows the mechanical\nbehavior of bodies in space and time but as revealed to the thought of\none who asks: Wherefore this agitated phenomenon? Just as, watching my\nneighbor move and gesticulate, I ask myself: What is it all about? so,\nseeing Nature a-quiver, I ask myself: What does she mean? And just as\nmy neighbor\u2019s conduct is understood when I have caught the purpose,\nthe motive that inspires it, so I may be expected to have reached the\n\u201creal nature\u201d of the fleeting world if I can but find the _will_ which\nit expresses.\n\nIt is then the World as Will that profoundly interests Schopenhauer, as\nit has profoundly interested all men, from the most primitive that have\nimplored the gods, to the most cautiously reflective who, like Kant,\nhave felt confident of at least this much, that no definition of a good\nlife was possible that did not postulate a world-purpose.\n\nNow the plainest man can assure himself that there are enough--alas,\ntoo many--purposes to be found in nature for the looking. There are\nmine and yours, that of our country, of our human race, of other races\ntoo, for the lower animals have disputed the world with us, as the\nvegetables have disputed it with them. But when one asks oneself:\nWhat ultimate purpose is served by all this disputing for a foothold?\nthen indeed one\u2019s imagination is put to the test. There are too many\npurposes, there is too little purpose, to let this search for nature\u2019s\nwill with us end in a quick and happy finding.\n\nAll this is matter of common knowledge and common experience, yet how\nfew have had the courage to give up hope in an ultimate happy finding,\nand how easily is this hope deceived with dreams, how willingly does\nit dispense with proof. Here indeed is the region in which \u201cthe heart\nhas its reasons that the reason does not understand.\u201d Well, it is\nSchopenhauer\u2019s great act of courage that the purpose he was unable\nto find he refused to hope for; the reason that the reason could not\nunderstand he closed his heart to. Resolutely, he searched the dark\ncorner and finally stared at the shadow.\n\n\u201cEverywhere in nature we see strife, conflict and alternation of\nvictory.\u201d\n\n\u201cEvery kind of being fights for the matter, the space, and the time\nof the others. This strife may be followed throughout the whole of\nnature, but most distinctly in the animal kingdom. For the animals have\nthe whole of the vegetable kingdom for their food, while within the\nanimal kingdom every beast is the prey and food of another. So does\nthe will to live everywhere prey upon itself till finally we come to\nthe human race. This, because it subdues all others, regards nature as\na manufactory of things for its use. Yet even the human race reveals\nwithin itself with terrible distinctness the same conflict; the same\nvariance with itself of the will to live, and we cry _homo homini\nlupus_.\u201d[10]\n\nThis picture of universal warfare is the first scene in Schopenhauer\u2019s\nworld-tragedy; but it is far from the climax. It is in itself not even\ntragic, for is it not an aspect of nature that however much it may\nsuggest of defeat and suffering it must reveal just as much of triumph\nand glory? For every victim a victor, and may we not suppose that some\nprinciple of justice awards the pains and pleasures of it all?\n\nBut no, Schopenhauer goes relentlessly on. The conqueror is crowned\nwith vanity and his spoils are illusions:\n\n\u201cThe inner being of nature is a striving without rest and without\nrespite.... a willing and striving that may very well be compared\nto an unquenchable thirst. But since the basis of all willing is\nneed, deficiency and thus pain, the nature of brute and man alike\nis originally and of its very essence subject to pain. If on the\nother hand, it is deprived of objects of desire through too easy\nsatisfaction, such void and ennui fills the heart that existence\nbecomes an unbearable burden to it. Thus life swings like a pendulum\nfrom pain to ennui, from ennui to pain.\u201d And Schopenhauer finds an\nodd unconscious recognition of this truth in the popular imaginings\nconcerning heaven and hell. \u201cAfter man had transferred all pain and\ntorments to hell,\u201d he notes with an amused cynicism, \u201cthere then\nremained nothing but ennui to furnish heaven with.\u201d\n\nThe survivor of the struggle for existence is on these terms hardly\na being to be envied, and the \u201c_terque quaterque beati_\u201d must often\ncome to his lips as he recalls those who have fallen. Indeed, it is\nexactly that place in the scale of existence which gives advantage in\nthe struggle, that brings with it a consciousness of the vanity of this\nsame struggle. It is exactly to man, who in his moment of pride has\nthought nature a \u201cmanufactory of things for his use,\u201d that is given\nthe most poignant sense of alternating hunger and satiety. This most\nnecessitous of all beings \u201cstands upon the earth, left to himself,\nuncertain about everything except his own lack and misery. Consequently\nthe care for the maintenance of that existence under exacting demands\nwhich are renewed every day occupies as a rule the whole of human life.\nTo this is directly related a second claim, the propagation of the\nspecies. Here he is threatened from all sides by the most different\nkinds of danger, from which it requires constant watchfulness to\nescape. With cautious steps and casting anxious glances around he\npursues his path--thus he went as a savage, thus he goes in civilized\nlife; and there is no security for him.\n\n  \u201cQualibus in tenebris vitae, quantisque periclis\n  Degitur hoc oevi, quodcumquest.\n\n\u201cLife is a sea full of rocks and whirlpools which man avoids with\nthe greatest care and solicitude, although he knows that even if he\nsucceeds in getting through with all his efforts and skill, he comes\nthus but the nearer at every tack to the greatest, the total, the\ninevitable shipwreck, death.\u201d\n\nAnd Schopenhauer rounds off the whole with these lines, \u201cThus, between\ndesiring and attaining all human life flows on. The wish is in its\nnature pain, the attainment ... satiety: the end is an illusion and\npossession takes away charm. The wish, the need, presents itself under\na new form, or when it does not, follows desolateness, emptiness,\nennui against which the conflict is just as painful as against want.\u201d\nAnd just as the superior animal is the most suffering of all animals,\nso the superior man is the most suffering of all men. The calm joy of\nscience, the pleasure of the beautiful, the delight in art--\u201cthese\nthings demanding rare talents are granted to very few, and to those few\nonly as a passing dream. And then even these few on account of their\nhigher intellectual power are made susceptible of far greater suffering\nthan duller minds can ever feel. Moreover such men are placed in lonely\nisolation by a nature obviously different from that of others, so that\nhere too accounts are squared.\u201d\n\nAs for the ordinary man, his being \u201cis a weary longing and\ncomplaining, a dreamlike staggering through the four ages of life to\ndeath--accompanied by a series of trivial thoughts.\u201d\n\n\u201cEvery human being and his course of life is but another short dream\nof the endless spirit of nature, the persistent will to live; is\nonly another fleeting form which [nature] carelessly sketches in its\ninfinite pages ... allows to remain for a time so short it vanishes\ninto nothing ... and then obliterates to make new room.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom a previous passage touching on the life and character of\nSchopenhauer it may have been gathered that his was no very lovable\npersonality. And being unlovable, it is not surprising that he was\nlittle loved; neither by wife nor child, which he had not; neither by\nmother nor sister, which he had and offended; nor yet by close friends\nwhich if he had for a moment he usually managed to estrange. It is\ntrue, perhaps, that his dog loved him, the inseparable poodle whom the\nchildren of the neighborhood used to call der junge Schopenhauer, for\nthe tenderest side of Schopenhauer\u2019s make-up was turned toward dumb\nanimals. But the love of a dog is a poor substitute for all other\nloves, and it is not surprising that certain minds to whom optimism\nis a foregone conclusion should have dismissed Schopenhauer with the\nobservation that to him who looks through clouded glasses the world\nmust needs be dark.\n\nIf we are tempted to make this easy comment, we should remember the\nnote that Schopenhauer is never tired of appending to his pages, the\nreminder that he stands not alone but is the expression of whole races\nand civilizations. He is heir to the deep pessimism of the East,\nof Brahminism, of Buddhism, that called life a \u201cveil of illusion,\u201d\nand figured one attached to its purposeless turning as \u201ctied to the\nwheel of things.\u201d He is the voice of that Christianity that fled to\nthe desert, and hid itself in monasteries. He could repeat after the\n\u201cImitation of Christ,\u201d \u201cTruly it is misery even to live upon the earth.\nThe more spiritual a man desires to be, the more bitter does this life\nbecome to him; because he sees more clearly and perceives more sensibly\nthe defects of human corruption. For to eat and to drink, to sleep and\nto watch, to labor and to rest, to be subject to the necessities of\nnature is a great misery and affliction to a religious man, who would\ngladly be set loose.\u201d\n\nNo, Schopenhauer did not stand alone--the past was behind him, and\nas it proved the future ready for his message. Not merely among the\ntechnical philosophers is his influence to be traced, but in that\nsensitive expression of what is passing in the heart of his age--the\nartist. Never has art had the courage it now displays to conceive the\ntragedy of life as Schopenhauer thought it out--not indeed the drama\nof guilt and its punishment, the ideal of justice working itself\nout at the cost of individual pain. This is the older conception of\ntragedy--Schopenhauer would say it is not tragedy at all. To the modern\nconception tragedy lies in the perception that there _is_ no justice\nin the world--only indifference, only chance, only stupidity. One\nmight cite works of Flaubert, tales of Maupassant, pages of Anatole\nFrance; but most notable of all, pretty much the whole literary output\nof Thomas Hardy, that tireless recorder of \u201cLife\u2019s Little Ironies,\u201d\nthat bold acknowledger of crass casualty as the only god of things.\nSchopenhauer does not stand alone against a background of forgotten\ngloom if one may still hear the voice of nature questioning as Hardy\nheard it:\n\n  \u201cWhen I look forth at dawning, pool,\n    Field, flock, and lonely tree\n    All seem to look at me\n  Like chastened children sitting silent in a school.\n\n  \u201cTheir faces dulled, constrained and worn,\n    As though the master\u2019s ways\n    Through the long teaching days\n  Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.\n\n  \u201cAnd on them stirs, in lippings mere\n    (As if once in clear call,\n    But now scarce breathed at all)\n  \u2018We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here.\n\n  \u201c\u2018Has some vast Imbecility\n    Mighty to build and blend\n    But impotent to tend\n  Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardy?\u2019\n\n  \u201cThus things around. No answer I ...\u201d\n\nIt is time we come to the question: What then? Life is a misery, and\nthen what?\n\n\u201cThe door is open,\u201d said Marcus Aurelius. \u201cThe door is open, if the\nhouse is smoky, leave it.\u201d It is the solution of antiquity, and\nSchopenhauer himself finds it much more reasonable than most of the\nreasons that have been urged against it. Yet it is not through this\neasily opened door that he sees a way of escape from the ironic will\nto live. If that will had a date and a local habitation, then indeed\nto kill the body in which it dwelt would put an end to the monster.\nBut such is not the case. Among the accidents of time and space you\nhappen to be one; but had you not been one, or were you no longer one,\nthe game would play itself out by the same rules, only another pawn\nwould be on the spot that was yours. Now the evil of the game is not\nthat _you_ happen to be one of the pieces, but rather that it should\nbe played at all. Not the pawn, but the player must be killed, and\nthe player is always that brutal Will to Live, pitted against itself,\nwinning as it loses and losing as it wins. Step out of it if you will,\nwhat does he care? But stay in it, and by doing your part not with but\nagainst him you may not only emancipate yourself but have your share in\nputting an end to the game itself. What is this part to be played by\neach against the Will to Live? We shall come to Schopenhauer\u2019s account\nof it in due time, meanwhile it is certainly _not_ the impatient\ngesture of self-destruction.\n\nFrom the past again comes another answer to the question: What then?\nIt takes the form of a wine song, and we catch its refrain from the\nlips of singer after singer. \u201cAnother and another cup,\u201d cries Omar, \u201cto\ndrown the memory of this insolence.\u201d\n\nWell, for this solution too Schopenhauer has his sympathy. Not for\nthe wine that is red, to be sure,--its intoxication is too brief, the\nawakening too bitter--but for the wine of beauty wherever it is to be\nfound in nature or in art. It is most natural that Schopenhauer--for\nwhom the woe of life springs from the possession of an aggressive,\nfighting selfhood--should have looked for solace to that beauty in\nwhich, we say, we forget ourselves, before which we stand rapt. The\neffect every one knows--the cause? That was Schopenhauer\u2019s peculiar\ncontribution to the theory of the beautiful. In a word his explanation\nis this. We forget our own individuality with all its torment, because\nwe are seduced by the beauty of the thing we look at to forget _its_\nindividuality.\n\nThere is in the Louvre a somewhat dirty piece of marble whose size and\nweight with the story of how it came to be where it is, may be found\nin the guide books. This at least is its individual description. But\nto the many human beings who have stood rapt before the Venus de Milo\nthere has appeared not this dirt, nor yet this marble, nor yet the\neffigy of a woman; but just the vision of womanhood. And therewith,\nSchopenhauer would suggest, we have taken a step out of the contentious\nworld. It is no longer a human being but human nature we are in\npresence of, and to lose oneself in nature is, while the vision lasts,\nto have forgotten the will to live in its troublesome individuality.\n\nWhile the vision lasts! But the trouble here is that such visions will\n_not_ last. In the contemplation of beauty we have the foretaste of\npeace; but not the peace eternal. And the question comes back upon us:\nWhat is to be done?\n\nThe answer now in progressive completeness comes from three sources.\nThe first suggestion, imperfect though it is, we catch from the\ninstitution of civil law. Now law, and the penalties it provides, is a\nconscious effort to restrain the individual from doing wrong. \u201cWrong,\u201d\nmeanwhile, Schopenhauer defines as \u201cthat quality of the conduct of an\nindividual in which he extends the assertion of the will appearing in\nhis own body so far that it becomes the denial of the will appearing in\nthe bodies of others.\u201d It is then the province of law to fix as best it\ncan the boundaries that enclose a man\u2019s rights to the exercise of his\nindividual will and to prevent his trespassing or being trespassed upon.\n\nBut this rough and partial method of restraining the will to live\nfrom multiplying the misery which it creates in proportion as it is\nuntrammeled is but palliative. A deeper suggestion than that offered\nby formal law comes from an examination of the moral sense. For the\ndistinction between right and wrong as drawn by temporal justice is\nby no means identical with that between good and bad as intuited by\nthe conscience of man. For wrong, as we have seen, means merely\naggression, and right, the exercise of will that commits none of the\naggressions law recognizes. But it is by no means enough to keep within\none\u2019s rights to possess moral worth. \u201cFor example,\u201d our philosopher\npoints out, \u201cthe refusal of help to another in great need, the quiet\ncontemplation of the death of another from starvation while we\nourselves have more than enough, is certainly cruel and fiendish, but\nit is not a wrong.\u201d\n\nWhat then constitutes goodness? The quality of goodness consists in an\ninfinite sympathy, such an intuition of the misery of others as gives\nus a horror of inflicting pain, a delicate skill in alleviating it. Now\nall the misery of life comes from the assertion of the individual will,\nwhich if justice may indeed feebly hold in check, goodness alone can\neffectively still by destroying the distinction between soul and soul.\n\u201cTo the noble man,\u201d we find Schopenhauer writing, \u201cthis distinction\nis not significant.... The suffering which he sees in others touches\nhim quite as his own. He therefore tries to strike a balance between\nthem, denies himself pleasures, practices renunciation, in order to\nmitigate the sufferings of others. He sees that the distinction between\nhimself and others, which to the wicked man is so great a gulf, only\nbelongs to a fleeting and illusive phenomenon. He recognizes directly\nand without reasoning that the in-itself of his own manifestation\nis also that of others, the will to live which constitutes the inner\nnature of everything and lives in all; indeed, that this applies also\nto the brutes and the whole of nature, and therefore he will not cause\nsuffering even to a brute.\u201d And yet this conception of the good life,\nthis living in sympathy and doing works of love, beautiful as the ideal\nof it is, is not the final cure for the world\u2019s misery. The will to\nlive, even so chastened, has not lost all of its genius for harm.\n\n\u201cIf the veil of Maya,\u201d our thinker has it, \u201cis lifted from the eyes\nof a man to such an extent that he no longer makes the egotistical\ndistinction between his person and that of another, ... then it clearly\nfollows that such a man, who recognizes all beings as his own inmost\nand true self, must also regard the infinite suffering of all suffering\nbeings as his own, and take on himself the pain of the whole world....\nAll the miseries of others which he sees and is so seldom able to\nalleviate, all the miseries he knows directly, and even those which he\nonly knows as possible, work upon his mind as his own.... Why should\nhe now, with such knowledge of the world assert this very life through\nconstant acts of will, and thereby bind himself ever more closely to\nit, hug it ever more closely to himself?\u201d Should not rather, we ask,\nthis bitter world-knowledge become a permanent and final _quieter_ of\nall and of every volition? Should not the will now turn away from life,\nshuddering at the pleasures it once craved, but in which it has come to\nrecognize that assertion of life which is the fountain of misery?\n\nAnd Schopenhauer expounds his meaning in a parable. \u201cIf we compare life\nto a course which we must unceasingly run--a path of glowing coals,\nwith a few cool places here and there; then he who is entangled in\nillusion is consoled by the cool places, on which he now stands or\nwhich he sees near him, and sets out to run the course. But he who sees\nthrough the [illusion that separates the \u2018here\u2019 and \u2018there\u2019] and thus\nrecognizes the whole, is no longer susceptible of such consolation; he\nsees himself at all places at once--and withdraws.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis is the transition from virtue to asceticism and here we have the\nlast word of Schopenhauer\u2019s doctrine of the cure. Suicide is a mistake;\nenjoyment of beauty a true solace, but a momentary one. Restrictions\ndevised by society are a corrective, but the misery they can prevent is\nas a drop to an ocean; morality which is at bottom a charity born of\nsympathy is the best the world has dreamed, it destroys more and more\nthe individual will and makes all things one, but though men in the\nideal state morality might produce would suffer together, they would\nstill suffer, for from Schopenhauer\u2019s point of view the disjunction is\nfinal; \u201cEither desire unsatisfied, which is pain, or satisfied desire,\nwhich is ennui.\u201d\n\nWell, this infinite wretchedness of the man who has made the round\nof experience in seeking relief, who has rejected suicide, who has\nawakened from the dream of beauty to find the old pain still there,\nwho has tried, then lost faith in, the devices of law, who has become\nat last a \u201cBeautiful Soul,\u201d to find himself then the sharer of all the\nworld\u2019s misery,--the infinite wretchedness of such a man is a disease,\nnot of the wrong kind of will, but of will itself. All will is evil\nwill, and if one would have an end of pain one must refuse to will at\nall; is not this, the asceticism of Indian sage and Christian saint,\nthe oldest and the ultimate wisdom?\n\nSchopenhauer takes his word \u201casceticism\u201d quite seriously. To this\nlast expression of human insight it no longer suffices that a man\nshould love others as himself and do as much for them as for himself;\n\u201cbut there arises within him a horror of the nature of which his own\n(phenomenal) existence is an expression, the will to live, the kernel\nand inner being of that world which is recognized as full of misery.\nHe therefore disowns his own nature which appears in him and is already\nexpressed through his body. His body, healthy and strong, expresses the\nsexual impulse; but he denies the will and gives the lie to the body.\nIt thereby denies the assertion of the will which extends beyond the\nindividual life, and gives the assurance that with the life of this\nbody, the will, whose manifestation it is, ceases.\n\n\u201cAsceticism shows itself further in voluntary poverty, which not\nonly arises _per accidens_ because the possessions are given away\nto mitigate the sufferings of others, but is here an end in itself,\nis meant to serve as a constant mortification of will, so that the\nsatisfaction of the wishes, the sweet of life shall not again arouse\nthe will against which self-knowledge has conceived a horror. He who\nhas attained to this point compels himself to refrain from doing all\nthat he would like to do, and to do all that he would not like to do,\neven if this has no further end than that of serving as a mortification\nof will.\u201d[11]\n\nAnd Schopenhauer becomes the exponent of that aspect of Christianity,\nas of other ascetic creeds, which is so unintelligible to the pagan\nideals of manhood,--the doctrine of meekness. Since the ascetic\n\u201chimself denies the will which appears in his own person, he will\nnot resist if another does the same, _i.e._ inflicts wrongs upon him.\nTherefore, every suffering coming to him from without, through chance\nor the wickedness of others, is welcome, every injury, ignominy, and\ninsult; he receives them gladly as the opportunity of learning with\ncertainty that he no longer asserts the will, but gladly sides with\nevery enemy of the manifestation of will which is his own person.\u201d\n\nIn his manner of life the Schopenhauerian ascetic is in every detail a\ncopy of the Eastern and Western monk. His body he nourishes sparingly,\nlest its excessive vigor should animate the will. When at last death\ncomes, it is most welcome, and is gladly received as a longed-for\ndeliverance. \u201cFor him who thus ends, the world has ended also.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cFor him who thus ends, the world has ended also.\u201d The seriousness with\nwhich this statement is taken marks the difference between the two\ngreat philosophies of asceticism, the Buddhistic and the Christian.\nWhatever the Master may himself have taught, the Christianity of the\nChurch, say of Augustine, is a pessimism respecting the world we know,\nbacked by an optimism respecting the world we know not, in which\nhowever the meaning of the whole plot is made clear. The _nothingness\nof the world_ as it appears to the eyes of the Christian ascetic\nis then the nothingness of _this_ world, but for him who leaves it\nthere awaits a much richer life in another. For the Buddhist saint,\nno optimism of this kind supplements his pessimism, no other world is\ncalled upon to explain this one, and when he leaves this one through\nthe door of asceticism it is into the eternal peace of Nirvana, of\nnothingness, that he sinks.\n\nIt is the latter understanding of the outcome that Schopenhauer accepts\nat the hands of the mystic East. \u201cWe have recognized,\u201d he writes, \u201cthe\ninmost nature of the world to be will, and all its phenomena to be but\nembodiments of the will, and we have followed this embodiment from the\nunconscious working of the obscure forms of nature up to the completely\nconscious action of man. Therefore we shall by no means evade the\nconsequence that with the free denial, the surrender of the will, all\nthese phenomena are also abolished; that constant strain and effort\nwithout end and without rest at all the grades of objectivity in which\nand through which the world consists; the multifarious forms succeeding\neach other in gradation; the whole manifestation of the will and\nfinally the universal forms of this manifestation, time and space, and\nalso its last fundamental form, subject and object, all are abolished.\nNo will: no idea, no world.\u201d\n\n\u201cBefore us there is certainly only nothingness,\u201d Schopenhauer\nconcludes, but if this prospect be anything but grateful to a man,\nit must be because he has not really seen or accepted the truth\nthat Schopenhauer would demonstrate and impart. \u201cThat we abhor\nannihilation,\u201d he insists, \u201cis simply another expression of the fact\nthat we so strenuously will life.\u201d Of that folly and the pain of it\nenough has been said. \u201cBut if we turn our glances from our own needy\nand embarrassed condition to those who have overcome the world ... then\ninstead of the useless striving and effort, ... instead of the never\nsatisfied and never dying hope which constitutes the life of the man\nwho wills, we shall see that peace which passeth understanding, that\nperfect calm of the spirit, that deep rest, that inviolable confidence\nand serenity, the mere reflection of which in the countenance as\nRaphael or Correggio has represented it is an entire and certain\ngospel; only knowledge remains, the will has vanished.\u201d\n\nAnd it is exactly in this way \u201cby contemplation of the life and conduct\nof saints, whom it is certainly rarely granted us to meet with in our\nown experience, but who are brought before our eyes by their written\nhistory, and, with the stamp of entire truth, by art, that we may\nbanish the dark impression of that nothingness which we discern behind\nall virtue and holiness as their final goal, and which we fear as\nchildren fear the dark ... What remains after the abolition of the\nwill is for all those who are still full of will certainly nothing;\nbut conversely to those in whom the will has denied itself, this world\nwhich is so real, with all its suns and milky-ways--is nothing.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\n1844-1900\n\n\n\u201cGod is dead. God is dead: He died of pity\u201d--the phrase runs\nrefrain-like through the \u201cSayings of Zarathustra.\u201d It is the bright\nnews that Nietzsche brings as his peculiar contribution to the cause of\nhuman hope. These are the glad tidings for whose bringing he expects\nthat his feet shall be called beautiful upon the mountain. Therefore\nthey dance, these feet, and bear toward us one who laughs and sings.\nAt least Nietzsche would have us believe that truth--his truth--\u201ccomes\non light feet\u201d and that it steps to music. \u201cLet the day be counted\nlost,\u201d he cries, \u201cin which we have not somewhat danced, and let us know\nthat truth to be false which brings no laughter with it.\u201d Yet, whether\nit was that truth--Nietzsche\u2019s truth--had somehow not the quality of\njoyousness in it, or whether the poor messenger of these \u201cglad tidings\u201d\nwas the victim of ironical chance, certain it is that his dance brought\nhim to the doors of the mad-house, and that behind these melancholy\ndoors he died.\n\nThere is however nothing but a certain strangeness of phrase that would\nlead one to associate this particular message of Nietzsche with his\nlater insanity. It is no new idea that God is dead, no new expectation\nthat the news will be grateful to all who understand its import.\nXenophanes near the beginning, Epicurus and Lucretius toward the end\nof pagan thought had brought the same intelligence. Only, according\nto Xenophanes the Gods had died not of pity but of vice. \u201cLiars,\nadulterers, cheats are the vaunted Lords of Olympus.\u201d And according to\nLucretius it was again not of pity but of their cruelty the Gods were\ndead, the gods of that religion\n\n  Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat\n  horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans.\n\nNor are the ancients the only ones to whom the world has appeared\ngodless. If for Hume God was only suspiciously silent, for Schopenhauer\nhe was conspicuously absent. Still, it was far enough from\nSchopenhauer\u2019s thought that a God could die of pity. Pity was for him\nthe one divine thing left to a Godforsaken world; it at least might\nsoften, even if it could not cure the fundamental cruelty of life. It\nwas rather the unreason of the world that forbade us to see in its\ncourse a divine guidance. For Schopenhauer, God had died quite mad.\n\nVice, cruelty, reticence, irrationality--these had been variously\nrecognized as ills of which a God might die. It remained for Nietzsche\nto suggest that the most fatal of all disorders, whether in God or man,\nwas just that gentlest of all Christian virtues--Pity or, as the German\ntongue has it, Mitleid: fellow-suffering. In the understanding of the\nmotives that led Nietzsche to this utterance lies the key to his whole\nphilosophy--if the \u201clightning flashes\u201d of his thought may, somewhat\nagainst his will, be called a \u201cphilosophy.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nVirtues like races--perhaps I should say _with_ races--have their\nascendancy and their decline. The quality of pity is not greatly\nadmired of strong young peoples. The virtues of triumphant pagandom\nwere made of sterner stuff: one hears much of temperance, of courage,\nof wisdom, of justice; little indeed of compassion. It is with\nChristianity that faith, hope, and charity are introduced into our\nculture, and throughout Christendom the greatest of these remains\ncharity. Thus it is that Nietzsche always refers to these virtues as\nthe \u201cmodern idea,\u201d and since modernity is to his mind desperately sick,\nhe seeks the cause of its disease in its \u201cfixed idea.\u201d\n\nNow in imagining that charity or pity might well be a symptom of\nweakness, Nietzsche does not stand alone even among modern thinkers.\nSpinoza for one is inclined to be critical of the excellence of pity.\nWhy pity one\u2019s neighbor more than oneself? And Why pity oneself at all?\nIs not such self-pity a form of repining? But the cure for repining is\nunderstanding--the understanding that all things are of God. One might\nas well regret that the area of one\u2019s field is not greater than the\nproduct of its base and side, as that the length of one\u2019s days does\nnot exceed three-score years and ten. And Kant again is no sympathetic\nwitness to the virtue of pity. \u201cThere is but one thing good,\u201d he has\nsaid, \u201cand that is a good will\u201d--the will, namely, to obey the command\nof duty. If one have this one cannot need pity; if one have it not one\ncannot deserve pity.\n\nBut Spinoza and Kant are in this, as in other respects, exceptions\nto the soft mood of modern sentiment. With Schopenhauer, the very\nembodiment of modernity, we have seen pity once more set on high as the\nunselfish virtue. It is the self-less man that becomes the holy man;\nit is the holy man that becomes the sage, denying the world with its\npitiless Will-to-live.\n\nNow it is against this very philosophy of Schopenhauer, against this\nconception of the beauty and wisdom of self-surrender that Nietzsche\nreacts. If to Spinoza pity is a folly, if to Kant it is a superfluity,\nto Nietzsche it is a vice--more than a vice, a disease, that deep\nsickness of modernity which spells decadence. Schopenhauer, and all\nthat older wisdom which Schopenhauer loved, of Jesus and of Buddha,\nthese were Nietzsche\u2019s great denials, these were the false physicians\nof the soul that had made the soul sick in making it sad.\n\nIf Nietzsche reacts so violently against the teaching of Schopenhauer,\nit is not because he is by nature precluded from appreciating its\nseduction. It is rather because he had at one time in his life too\ndeeply understood and too completely yielded to its soothing counsel of\nsurrender that he later bends all his energies to its destruction. This\ncomplete revulsion of feeling was not a unique episode in Nietzsche\u2019s\nexperience. On the contrary his intellectual life is largely a history\nof such accepting and rejecting. Born into a clergyman\u2019s family,\npassing his childhood in quiet Naumburg, Nietzsche in his last years\nclaims the name of Antichrist. Eagerly connecting himself in his\nstudent days at Bonn with one of those corps that treasured the\nrepublican ideals of \u201948, he advocates in his later years a social\norganization modeled on the caste-system of the East. An ardent patriot\nin \u201970, he becomes the contemner of the organized state in general, a\ncontemptuous critic of Germanism in particular. A trained student of\nhistory, a distinguished professor of philology at Basel, some of his\nmost cunning and cutting analyses expose the weakness of the learned\ntemperament. In his first important work, \u201cThe Birth of Tragedy,\u201d we\nfind him an apostle of Wagner; his later \u201cCase of Wagner\u201d is perhaps\nthe cruelest polemic against a man and his art of which modern letters\ngive example.\n\nThe bare enumeration of these changes is bound to leave an impression\nof waywardness. Yet this impression would be in so far false that it\nis clear each accepting was a matter of deep feeling with Nietzsche,\neach rejecting cost its price. At times, to be sure, he would put on\na brave front before the spectacle of his thought\u2019s inconstancy. Only\nthose that can change can grow: \u201cI love those that change,\u201d he writes.\nBut at other times there is more of melancholy in his recalling of\nabandoned ideals. \u201cIf thinking be thy destiny, then honor that destiny\nwith divine honors; sacrifice to it thy best and thy dearest.\u201d It\nis not without reason that he calls the progress of his thoughts a\n\u201cSelbst\u00fcberwindung\u201d and one may best understand the fierce bitterness\nof his attack upon those he has put behind him if one remember that\nnothing less than hatred could replace an old love in this too\ntenacious heart.\n\nIt is then of a piece with the rest, if a philosophy which in the end\nrepresented the dearest foe of his thought should have been the friend\nand guide of Nietzsche\u2019s youth. How deep a meaning Schopenhauer had\nonce possessed for him may be judged from the following extracts. The\nfirst is from a letter written in 1867 to his friend the Baron von\nGersdorff on the occasion of the death of von Gersdorff\u2019s brother:\n\n\u201cPerhaps this death is the greatest grief that could have come to you.\nAnd now, dear friend, you have experienced for yourself--I gather from\nthe tenor of your letter--why our Schopenhauer esteems pain and trouble\na great gift of fate, the \u03b4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 to the resigning of the will.\nYou too have felt and lived through the enlightening, deeply quieting\nand settling power of pain. It is a time in which you can yourself try\nout the teaching of Schopenhauer. If the fourth book of his masterpiece\nnow make on you an ugly disturbing downweighing impression, if it have\nnot the power to uplift you, to carry you through outer violent grief\nto that chastened yet serene mood that comes over us as we listen to\nnoble music, to that mood in which one feels the earthy shell to have\ndropped from one,--then I too will have no more of this philosophy.\nOnly the deeply suffering can and may speak the final word on such\nmatters. The rest of us standing in the current of things, only\nlonging for that denial of the will as for the blessed isles, can not\njudge whether the solace of such philosophy is adequate to times of\ndeep sorrow.\u201d[12]\n\nAnd some three years later, Nietzsche invalided home from the hospital\ncorps of the Prussian army writes to this same friend at the front:\n\u201cThis morning brought me the happiest surprise and a relief from much\ninquietude and anxiety--your letter.... Everything that you write\naffects me deeply, above all the sincere earnest tone with which you\nspeak of this test by fire of our common philosophy of life. I too have\nbeen through a like experience, for me too these months have proved a\ntime in which my beliefs have shown themselves deep-rooted. One can die\nwith them; that means much more than saying, one can live by them.\u201d[13]\n\nOne may die by the light of Schopenhauerian principles! To die by\nthem--the taunt comes from an older Nietzsche--is all that one can\ndo with them. But by this later time, dying, voluntary dying, dying\nwith the breath still left in the body--all this has lost its charm\nfor Nietzsche. He is now all for living; for more than living, for\nfighting; for conquering; for, if need be, killing.\n\n\u201cOne who like me,\u201d he writes in these later days, \u201chas long busied\nhimself with curious interest in thinking out pessimism to its bitter\nend ... has probably in this very pursuit--without precisely having\nwilled it--turned his eyes toward the opposite ideal: toward the ideal\nof the most domineering, the most living, the most aggressive of men,\ntoward him who has not merely reconciled and adjusted himself to things\nas they are and have been; but who wants more of them, just as they are\nand have been--more in all eternity, crying insatiably _da capo_ not to\nhis own life only, but to the whole scene and all the play.\u201d\n\nThe passage is not without a hint of Nietzsche\u2019s personal psychology.\nNo doubt he loved contrast for the sake of contrast; no doubt he\nloved drama--particularly the dramatic conflict of ideas--for the\nplay\u2019s sake; no doubt he loved paradox not a little for its noise. Yet\nit is not hard for the student to make out motives deeper than the\npersonal, and more general, that impelled Nietzsche to turn his eyes\nfrom the ethics of self-sacrifice to the opposite ideal, to the ideal\nof \u201cthe most living, the most aggressive of men,\u201d to the ideal of the\n\u201cCaesarian Conqueror.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo understanding of these motives can leave out of account the great\nscientific idea that had made its appearance in the nineteenth\ncentury--the idea of organic evolution. It is difficult to overestimate\nthe suggestion that would lie in such an idea for one imbued with the\nthought of Schopenhauer. In its Darwinian form, the essential mechanism\nof evolution is seen to be a struggle, a war between race and race,\nbetween individual and individual. That such warfare is the necessary\nexpression of the will to live, the most universal principle of that\ntroubled phenomenon we call nature, Schopenhauer had indeed grasped,\nhad insisted upon, had made the cornerstone of his theory of life. But\nthen Schopenhauer had dwelt with equal insistence on the uselessness,\nthe irrationality of the struggle. It was all cruel, then, nowhere\nbenign, because nowhere directed toward an end. But now a purpose in\nthe struggle is just what the evolutionary hypothesis seems to suggest.\nWhat if life\u2019s pitiless cruelty were justified as the indispensable\nmeans to a supreme end--the end namely of producing a being higher than\nany of those that take part in it? By the selection of the fittest,\nwould not this warfare result in the production of the superior? And\nif the superior could be produced only at the cost of the inferior, is\nthere not in this sacrifice something more than wanton and irrational\ncruelty?\n\nIt is little wonder that one already impressed with the\n\u201cself-contradiction\u201d involved in a will not to live should seize upon\nthis suggestion. \u201cI bring you a goal,\u201d cries Zarathustra. And this goal\nhe calls the \u201cUebermensch.\u201d\n\n\u201cI preach to you the Superman. Man is something to be overcome. What\nhave you done to overcome him?\n\n\u201cAll things before you have produced something beyond themselves, and\nwould you be the ebb of this great flood? Would you rather go back to\nthe animal than overcome man?\n\n\u201cWhat is the ape to man? A jest or a bitter shame. And just that shall\nman be to the Superman, a jest or a bitter shame.\n\n\u201cYou have traveled the way from worm to man, and much in you is still\nworm....\n\n\u201cLo, I preach to you the Superman.\n\n\u201cThe Superman is the meaning of the earth.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo produce the higher race! that is \u201cthe meaning of the earth,\u201d the\nmeaning that Schopenhauer had missed, that only one coming after Darwin\ncould have seized; a meaning that does not mask the cruelty of life,\nyet takes from it its tragedy--the tragedy of senseless casual pain.\n\nBut now that we have found the goal, we may also define the worth of\nlife and its duties. In deducing these we meet the most astonishing\n\u201cUmwerthung aller Werthe,\u201d the complete inversion of those notions of\nworth which we dwellers in Christendom have inherited. \u201cI sit,\u201d says\nZarathustra, \u201cwith old shattered tables of the law around me--and\nwith new tables, too, half made out.\u201d We approach an understanding of\nNietzsche\u2019s meaning when he wrote that God and man dies of pity. For\nif with him we make whatever promotes progress toward the superman\nour good, whatever retards it our evil, then must it not be that a\npity which spares the weak for pity\u2019s sake is the very vice, the moral\ndisease, which makes for decadence? Is not pity the anodyne of those\nwho despair of life, and is not hope in the future necessarily cruel?\n\nBefore we who are of necessity touched with modernity react against a\ndoctrine so little in accord with our profession of self-sacrifice,\nit would be well to ask ourselves how seriously we take this our\nprofession. Is the quality of mercy indeed never strained for us?\nFor example, are we citizens of a young and prosperous country eager\nto throw open its doors to the unhappy dregs of outworn lands and\nexhausted civilizations? For this would be the charitable thing to do.\nHow many are prepared to encourage the mentally unsound or physically\ndiseased to propagate? Yet pity must deny itself something if it would\ncondemn misfortune to wed loneliness.\n\nTo be sure one expects at this point to hear of \u201cthe deeper pity\u201d; to\nbe told that such deeper pity must let some perish in their misery\nthat more may not be made wretched. Even so, we have passed from the\ndoctrine of the supremacy of charity to the theory of \u201cthe greatest\nhappiness to the greatest number.\u201d Already we must occasionally cry\nwith Nietzsche, \u201cBe hard!\u201d and must at moments understand his phrase,\n\u201cThe will not-to-help may be higher than the sympathy that springs to\naid.\u201d\n\nAnd we might carry our criticism of sympathy a step further. What\nsanction has the formula \u201cthe greatest happiness to the greatest\nnumber\u201d? Obviously, the sanction of the approval of the greatest\nnumber; it is the complete expression of the egoism of the mob. But\negoism for egoism, is there anything to recommend the ideal of the\nmob as against that of the exceptional being? Surely, if we make\nprogress our guide, those who have done the most to bring about modern\nconditions are just those whom the mob has condemned and suppressed as\nworking against its welfare. Socrates was poisoned, Jesus crucified,\nCaesar assassinated, Bruno burned, Napoleon isolated, for their crimes.\nIt makes little difference whether the crime was against the state,\nthe priestly tradition, the republic, the church, the nations; the\npower to punish in each case came from the masses. Each of these\nconquerors was and had to be a pitiless egoist, hesitating not at all\nto overturn the world of his day for the sake of his own ideal. Looking\nback on these historic figures, one is tempted to say that the glory of\nthe world abides in its criminals, those lonely men, those egoists.\n\nIf I have included the gentle figure of Jesus in a list of the\nconquerors, it is not because Nietzsche would regard him as one who had\nmade for the world\u2019s progress, however much he may have contributed\nto its history. Nietzsche would, however, include the founder of the\ngospel of love among the master egoists. Of course, modernity will cry\nparadox! \u201cGranted,\u201d it will say, \u201cgranted he brought a sword into the\nworld, was it not an enormous pity for the humanity that was to be that\nmoved him to destroy the world that was, and with it, himself?\u201d\n\nNietzsche\u2019s handling of this paradox is one of the significant\nmovements of his thought. To understand it we must go back a little.\nIt is not the question of the personality of Jesus, of the motives\nthat were clearly present to his own consciousness that Nietzsche\nwould discuss. In general, he is completely indifferent to the kind of\nevidence furnished by self-analysis respecting the motives of conduct\nand the ground of opinion. Even those whose powers of analysis might\nbe supposed to give them a right to speak--the great philosophers\nand lovers of truth--are to Nietzsche deceivers or self-deceived.\n\u201cWhat tempts me to look upon all philosophers half with mistrust,\nhalf with amusement is not that one discovers again and again what\ninnocents they are, how often and how easily mistaken and misled,\nnot, in a word, their prattle and childishness. It is rather that, in\nspite of the great and virtuous noise made by the whole company the\nmoment the question of truth is even remotely touched on, they do not\ndeal ingenuously with us. They all pose as believing that they have\narrived at their own opinions by the self-development of a cool pure\nand divinely impassible dialectic (in contrast with the mystics of all\nshades, who, honest fools, _will_ speak of Inspiration). At bottom,\nhowever, it is some idea loved at first sight, most frequently some\nheart\u2019s desire made abstract and well refined that they defend with\nreasons found for the purpose. Advocates denying the name, cunning\nspecial pleaders for their prejudices, they christen these _The Truth_.\u201d\n\nIf then the lover of truth cannot tell the truth about himself, if the\ncool thinker is unable to reveal the grounds of his thought, how much\nless can the man of heart tell what is at the bottom of his heart, the\nman of passion tell where his deepest passion lies? It remains for\nNietzsche to make good these short-comings.\n\nAnd Nietzsche makes them good in a way that lacks neither simplicity\nnor decision. He lays it down that there is one motive to which all\nothers reduce, and to which everything that lives instinctively reacts.\nThis motive is not the mere desire to preserve oneself, the desire\nthat many have supposed sufficient to explain even the phenomenon of\nevolution. It goes beyond self-defense to strive after the maximum\nof aggression. Nietzsche calls it \u201cder Wille zur Macht\u201d--the Lust of\nPower. It is this that makes the world dance, that makes the brute\nprepare the way for man, that drives man to produce the superman. It is\nconsequently this that compels the thinker to his thought, the meek to\nhis resignation, the crucified to his cross.\n\n\u201cI am not of those of whom one asks \u2018why?\u2019\u201d Nietzsche has once written.\nIf you cannot accept his assurance that the deepest spring of conduct\nis the will to conquer, then accept the contrary doctrine: Nietzsche\nis prepared to trust his insight that you do this because the contrary\ndoctrine is just the one _you_ need to work out your own scheme of\nconquest,--as a wolf may on occasion sincerely prefer the pelt of a\nlamb to his own natural coat.\n\nIt is to the lust of power in men\u2019s hearts that the gospel of the\ncrucified one appeals! The paradox is perhaps most completely worked\nout in Nietzsche\u2019s \u201cGenealogie der Moral.\u201d Here history is made to\nreveal a long conflict between two contradictory estimates of worth.\nFor the one standard a contrast exists between high morals and low;\nfor the other, between holiness and sin. The code of ethics based on\nthe first of these contrasts embodies, as the etymology of its terms\nindicates, the aristocratic conception of worth. \u201cHigh morals\u201d are\nsimply the manners of the upper, the ruling class; \u201clow morals,\u201d the\nhabits of the underlings. This standard of valuation is accepted by\nthe high and low alike of a race in its youth and strength. The second\nstandard defining the opposition between good and evil is an invention\nof the miserable and oppressed; it is their reaction against their\nconquerors, the expression of their resentment. It can only become\ndominant in decadent races; its triumph in Christianity is evidence\nthat the modern world has sunk to the ideals of the lowly--that is to\nsay, of the low.\n\nIf we place these two codes side by side, we realize how completely\nthe acceptance of either demands the \u201cUmwerthung aller Werthe\u201d\nacknowledged by the other. The highest worth in the aristocratic\nmorality is the pride of strength; the great wickedness to the lowly\nmoralist is just this same pride of strength. The great virtue of the\nslave-morality is humility; to the aristocratic taste this humility is\nabject. Of the history of the warfare between the two, Nietzsche gives\na sufficiently dramatic account. Characteristic is his picture of the\ntriumph of the slaves:\n\n\u201cAll that has been accomplished on the earth against the higher orders\nis as nothing compared with what the Jews have done: the Jews, that\npriest-led people that finally contrived to have satisfaction of its\nenemies by a complete upsetting of all their ethical standards, in\nother words, by an act of intellectual revenge. It was the Jews who\nwith inexorable logic dared to deny the aristocratic equation (good =\nlofty = powerful = beautiful = fortunate = god-favored) and who with\nbottomless hatred--the hatred born of impotence--set their teeth in a\nformula: to wit, \u2018only the wretched are the good; only the poor, the\nweak, the lowly are the good; the suffering, the sick, the unlovely are\nindeed the only servants of God and the only ones blessed of God--while\nyou, O ye high and mighty, you are in all eternity the men of sin, of\nviolence, of lust, the insatiable, the Godless, and you shall be in\nall eternity the unblessed, the accursed, the damned!\u2019... With the\nJews begins the slave-morality, that morality which has a struggle of\ntwo thousand years behind it, one which we fail to note to-day, just\nbecause--it is victorious.\u201d\n\nThe master is made to accept the slave-morality, the tyrant is\nmade afraid! Our English poet Browning has given a picture of this\nmoment in history which surpasses even Nietzsche\u2019s in vividness. The\nman-forsaken, cowering yonder in his selfless humility--tempts the\ntyrant to wring from him one gesture of rebellion, one word that\nsuggests pride of self. In vain! The slave\u2019s arm of defense is just\nnon-resistance, just a mimicry of non-entity.\n\n  When sudden ... how think ye the end?\n  Did I say \u201cwithout friend\u201d?\n  Say rather, from marge to blue marge\n  The whole sky grew his targe\n  With the sun\u2019s self for visible boss,\n  While an Arm ran across\n  Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast\n  Where the wretch was safe prest!\n  Do you see? Just my vengeance complete,\n  The man sprang to his feet,\n  Stood erect, caught at God\u2019s skirts, and prayed!\n  --So, _I_ was afraid!\n\nBut the psychology of this fear of the Lord that is the beginning of\ndecadence? How is the tyrant to be made to accept the \u201cSklavenmoral,\u201d\nto respect, even to imitate humility and to call it holy? Well, the\nslave has on his side two things that make for success: superior\nnumbers and superior cunning. For \u201conly those who have need of\ncunning,\u201d Nietzsche writes, \u201cacquire it.\u201d And the strong has one\nvulnerable point--his superstition. It is this point that the instinct\nof slave-hatred has found; with cunning and with numbers it has managed\nto inculcate a belief in the God of Pity, to overthrow the aristocratic\nappreciation of high and low, to substitute for it a morality of the\nmiserable that sets up the distinction between holiness and sin. It is\nthe denial of the will to conquer implied by such a standard of conduct\nthat makes modernity decadent, that unfits it to produce the superman.\nNo wonder Nietzsche should have claimed the gratitude of higher men for\nhis glad tidings, the God of Pity is dead!\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn passing beyond the morality of decadence, every suggestion of a plan\nof life that might be substituted for it, must come from the past: the\nyoung races not yet fallen into decrepitude give us our models of the\nheroic. We cannot however turn the clock back, we cannot repeat their\nacts today without becoming such anachronisms as a Cervantes could make\nlaughter of. It may be however that our own institutions, foremost of\nwhich is the well-organized state, leave ample room for the heroism\nthat prepares the way for the superman.\n\n\u201cWhere the state ends--there begins the man who is not superfluous....\n\n\u201cWhere the state ends--Look, my brothers! Do you not see the rainbow\nand the bridges that lead to the Superman?\u201d\n\nWhere the state ends! only there does Nietzsche\u2019s interest begin. But\nwould he have the state end much nearer its beginning; yes, before\nits beginning; would he return to the condition that has no social,\nno political organization? Perhaps--it is hard to say; but it is not\nnecessary that one advocate anarchy in order that one should prepare a\nfield for that great struggle of man against man out of which are to\nemerge the victors, the fathers of the superman.\n\nHuxley suggests another solution. For him too where the state ends\na new struggle begins. The state assures security of life, and of\nthis security is born a new desire--the _aviditas vitae_, let us say\nthe desire for the maximum of life measured in terms of power and\nenjoyment. With this struggle born of the _aviditas vitae_, begins\nNietzsche\u2019s theory of ethical values. Here indeed there can be no\nquestion of unselfishness, of self-sacrifice for another. Within this\ndomain the meaning of good and bad stands out with perfect clearness.\n\n\u201cWhat is good?\u201d Nietzsche asks. \u201cAll that heightens in man the feeling\nof power, the desire for power, power itself.\n\n\u201cWhat is bad? All that comes from weakness.\n\n\u201cWhat is happiness? The feeling that our strength grows, that an\nobstacle is overcome.\n\n\u201cNot contentment, but more power; not universal peace, but war; not\nvirtue, but forcefulness.\n\n\u201cThe weak and ineffective must go under; first principle of _our_ love\nof humanity. And one should even lend one\u2019s hand to this end.\n\n\u201cWhat is more harmful than any vice? Pity for the condition of the\nineffectives and weak--Christianity.\u201d\n\nYet one must not imagine that this pitiless struggle of which is to be\nborn the man of tomorrow is gloomy and hate-inspired. On the contrary\nit is joyous, and gives scope for a much nobler love than that which\nis pitiful. I know of no institution of modern life that so nearly\nrealizes Nietzsche\u2019s idea of this struggle together with the virtues\nit engenders, as does that of sport among gentlemen. Here one plays\nto win, and to spare one\u2019s opponent or to be spared by him merely mars\nsport. Yet one does not hate one\u2019s opponent, but loves him for his good\nsportsmanship. Only, this love, this friendship among strong men must\nnot weaken the arm, must not soften the will; if it do, it destroys\nitself and is returned with contempt. We do not hate men because we\nfear them, Nietzsche makes it out, but just because we do not fear\nthem. The hatred that leads one to shun one\u2019s kind is born of disdain.\nLife that has for its joy the joy of battle, for its reward the sense\nof strength that grows with its exercise, for its delight the love of\nbrother warriors, a brother that can give and take death generously! It\nis only the many too many, weakly looking on and trembling before the\nspectacle of a strength they fear and hate, that have no joy of life\nand cry, \u201cLet there be peace.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nI would willingly describe this Homeric scene more in detail, consider\nthe part that certain heroes, the warrior, the artist, the philosopher,\nplay in it. But we must sweep on to larger issues, for there is a\nquestion that must have occurred to everyone as our description of the\nNietzschian battle has advanced. It is the old question, Cui bono! We\nfight, suppose we win? Little Peterkin, who was surely brought up on\nSchopenhauer, is there to ask, What good has come of it? A little power\nmore or less, what does it matter? Our brief hour is still a brief\nhour, our atomic selves cannot greatly swell, what after all is the use\nof fighting when we cannot befool ourselves as to the nature of the\nspoils?\n\nFor answer, we might point once more to the Superman. For him we kill\npity in our hearts; for him, and not for spoils, is the battle fought.\nSurely the conqueror is conquered and his winnings cannot warm a grave.\nIt is for the sake of them that come after that the costly struggle is\nmaintained. Every fighter should know this; it should fire his heart\nand give him courage to be hard. \u201cHigher than the love of thy nearest\nstands the love of those most remote from thee, thine offspring, the\nfar future man. Higher than the love of thy kind is for me the love\nof a Shadow. This Shadow that runs before thee is more beautiful than\nthou; why dost thou not give him thy flesh and thy bones?\u201d\n\nBut this Superman? Can things stop with him? Is he really a goal? Or\nonly a transition, a bridge to the super-superman? Has evolution really\nchanged the situation that Schopenhauer depicts? In the endless flux\ncan one find a purpose that abides?\n\nThis phrase--the endless flux--brings us to one of the strangest phases\nof Nietzsche\u2019s doctrine. One who, with Schopenhauer, has deeply\nquestioned the evidence of purpose, the harmony of purposes in this\nworld of ours, one who has groped in the night of things for that which\nmight inspire one\u2019s will to live has perhaps been caught by the great\nidea of evolution, has perhaps cried with Nietzsche, \u201cI will live and\nstruggle for to-morrow.\u201d Then, to such an one, the old questioning\nspirit returns as it is bound to return to men who think. The morrow of\nto-morrow looms up before him; the eternal flux of to-morrows stretches\nitself out and loses itself in a vague \u201cWhither?\u201d\n\nIf now this one turn to Nietzsche for an answer, he receives one\ncertainly; but, surely, a mocking one!\n\n\u201cI preach,\u201d cries Nietzsche, \u201cthe Wiederkunft.\u201d\n\nOne day Zarathustra and his Dwarf come to a certain portal.\n\n\u201cLook on this portal, Dwarf. It has two faces; two ways come together\nhere which no man has traveled to the end.\n\n\u201cThis long road back of us measures an eternity. And that long road\nbefore us--that is another eternity.\n\n\u201cThey are opposed, these two ways; they meet each other head-on and it\nis here at this portal that they come together. The name of this portal\nis written over it; it is the _\u2018Now.\u2019_\n\n\u201cBut if one were to follow one of these roads further, and always\nfurther,--thinkest thou, Dwarf, they would always be opposed?\n\n\u201cLook upon this _\u2018Now\u2019!_ From this portal there runs a long way back;\nbehind us lies an eternity.\n\n\u201cMust not all things that can come to pass already have passed along\nthis road? Must not everything that can happen already have happened\nand run its course?\n\n\u201cAnd if all things already have come to pass, what thinkest thou,\nDwarf, of this _\u2018Now\u2019?_ Must not this portal have been here before? And\nare not all things in such wise fast knotted together that this _\u2018Now\u2019_\ndrags with it all things to come? That, consequently, it drags itself\nback again?\n\n\u201cFor what of all things can come to pass, must they not again pass\nalong this endless road that stretches before us?\n\n\u201cAnd this slow spider crawling in the moonlight; aye, and this\nmoonlight, and I and thou in the portal whispering together, whispering\nof eternal things, must we not all of us have been before?\n\n\u201cAnd must we not return again and again along that long road--must we\nnot eternally return?\n\n\u201cSo spake he, and always lower and lower; for he was afraid of his\nthoughts--and afterthoughts!\u201d\n\nSurely Nietzsche is mocking us with his Wiederkunft,--with his doctrine\nof the eternal returning of things! What! he teaches that the struggle\nhas a goal, and that goal is just--tomorrow? Then, when bewildered by\nthe vision of the infinite stretch of tomorrows we turn to him for\nexplanation, he tells us that the stream is not even infinite but like\nancient Ocean \u201cflows in upon itself.\u201d\n\n\u201cTied to the wheel of things,\u201d India said we were, \u201ctherefore, let us\ngive up.\u201d\n\n\u201cTied to the wheel of things,\u201d Nietzsche agrees we are, \u201ctherefore, let\nus keep on.\u201d\n\n\u201cCourage is the best of them that kill. Courage kills even pity. Now,\npity is the deep abyss: deep as one sees into life, just so deep does\none see into pain.\n\n\u201cBut courage is the best of them that kill; courage that lays hold on\nthings; courage puts even Death to death, for it says to life: \u2018War das\ndas Leben? Wohlan! Noch einmal!\u2019\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nNoch einmal! To make one ready to cry _da capo_ to life, that is the\ntest of a philosophy! Nietzsche\u2019s doctrine of the Wiederkunft has no\nscientific importance, but this fact is itself unimportant. It makes\nlittle difference whether the River Ocean flows in upon itself, or\nflows endlessly on, or falls at last into Hades. The important thing is\nthat worth and happiness lie in playing the game of life as experience\nreveals it to us, no matter what that game may be.\n\n\u201cThy will be my will, O Nature,\u201d cried the Stoic Emperor. Is this\nwill the will to conquer, is it the will to produce the higher type,\nis it the will to flow, is it the will wheel-like to turn in saecula\nsaeculorum--the word of life is \u201cThat also will I\u201d; the word of\nsickness and death is, \u201cThat will I not.\u201d\n\nThere is enough of the dramatic for such as have a taste that way\nin the circumstance that just this lonely, pain-wracked, finally\nbrain-sick man should have begun his philosophy with the phrase: \u201cGod\nis dead of pity for men,\u201d and should have concluded it with that other:\n\u201cWar das das Leben? Wohlan! Noch einmal!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nPRAGMATISM\n\n\nNothing could be easier, you would say, than to distinguish the things\nman has made from those he has merely stumbled upon and found. The suns\nand their satellites, with the laws of their turning; the earth, with\nits seas and continents and the ways of its winds and weather--surely\nno man took thought on these things to make them. Whereas, from the\nfirst bit of flint chipped to serve a human need to all our world has\nnow to show of instruments of power and works of art we have a record\nof human ideals wrought in material, while man, surrounded by his\nhandiwork, has come to live more and more under laws of his own making.\n\nAristotle thought the difference between products of nature and works\nof art so plain that he need not pause to explain it. The years that\nhave passed since then have developed no better mind than Aristotle\u2019s,\nno keener wit than Plato\u2019s, but they have brought us a wealth of\nexperience--of an experience at once enlightening and disillusioning,\nuntil\n\n  Jetzt sind wir so klug und witzig\n  Es verblutet uns das Herz.\n\nWe are no longer sure of very much, and among the things we are most\ndoubtful about is just this distinction between what man has made and\nwhat he has found. To prove this, no one need go further afield than\njust to consider himself. Surely I may say of myself, my character, my\nprivate life that it is man-made, for am not I the man that made it?\nIt expresses all my ideals so far as I could realize them, and never\nwould it have been just what it is had I not moulded it that way. And\nyet, who among us has not sat up of nights with that strange being he\ncalls himself, and wondered however he came to bring so uncompanionable\na companion home with him and where the devil he found him? Ernst\nMach tells an amusing anecdote at his own expense. One day he was\nmounting the steps of a bus when he noticed at the other end of the\naisle a man\u2019s face peering into his. He had no more than asked himself\n\u201cWhere have I seen that degenerate looking pedagogue before?\u201d--when he\ndiscovered he was looking into a mirror.\n\nAnd who, wearying of this sorry companion, has not tried to change\nhim for a better, only to find himself after a longer or shorter\nwhile with the same old fellow at his elbow--a trifle more set in his\nways, perhaps, but otherwise little altered? Of the sadder sort of\nautobiographies I should put the Journal Intime of Henri-Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric\nAmiel easily first. Not from pain or poverty, not from the malice of\nother men nor any disgrace of outer fortune did he suffer, but just\nfrom the being that was himself. \u201cFrom the beginning,\u201d he writes in\n1858, \u201cI have been a dreamer fearing to act--in love with perfection\nand as incapable of renouncing her demands as of meeting them. In\nshort, a mind of wide vision and a character of no strength; curious to\nfeel all that is to be felt, unfit for any action.\u201d \u201cHere,\u201d comments\nhis friend, Edmond Scherer, \u201cwe have Amiel\u2019s cross. He wanted--he\nwanted to want--to will, and will-power was wanting in him. He cursed\nthe inner spell that was on him, but he could not shake it off.\nAfter each attempt to break it he fell back into himself again, more\nbewildered, more weary and bruised than ever. In the waging of these\ncombats the years wore on, until the moment was near when Amiel would\nhave to acknowledge to himself that the circle was definitely closed\nbehind him.\u201d Would you say that Amiel had made his destiny or found it?\nWould you say that any of us is of his own workmanship, or does our\nlife slowly unfold itself to us as to Oedipus his fate?\n\nWhat is thus suggested by self-examination is confirmed by the study of\nother lives. The friend whose wayward course has made your affection\nanxious for him--can you, with the best will in the world, change him\nfrom himself? Some, out of bitterness of their experience, have said\nit would be easier to repeal the law of gravitation than in any way to\nalter human destiny. Others to be sure are more sanguine, and will not\ngive up seeking a way so long as there is a will to save. But whether,\neven when they appear to succeed, it is not rather their patience that\nis rewarded by being allowed to live long enough to witness what would\nhave come about without any of their doing, or whether character is\nmore truly a thing made by human effort than a thing found and unfolded\nto our observation--respecting these matters there is divergence of\nopinion.\n\nNow, confidence in our ability to tell what we have made from what we\nhave found once shaken, there is no saying how far our questioning mind\nmay carry us. No saying, I mean, in the case of any individual man--for\nit is easy enough to tell the general history of this doubt and\nuncertainty. It reaches all the way from those who think that back of\nall apparent creating by finite beings there is a Nature with its laws\nthat was never made, but can only little by little be made out. Let\nus call those who think in this way \u201cRealists.\u201d Historic uncertainty\nthen reaches all the way from the realists to those who think that\nheaven, the earth, and all that in them is, have no reality save as\nthey are the thought and work of finite minds. We will call these\nthinkers \u201cIdealists.\u201d From realist to idealist and back again, through\nall intermediate phases, the dialectic of history swings; but it does\nnot merely mark time therefore, it also measures progress. It is of one\nmoment--I think a rather interesting moment--of this progress that I\nwould speak in due order. Let this, then, be my prologue--and so to the\ntale.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn 1907, William James wrote of the philosophy to which he had devoted\nthe last ten or twelve years: \u201cI fully expect to see the pragmatist\nview,\u201d so he called this philosophy, \u201crun through the classic stages\nof a theory\u2019s career. First, you know, a new theory is attacked as\nabsurd; then, it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant;\nfinally, it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim they\nthemselves discovered it. Our doctrine of truth is at present in the\nfirst of these three stages, with symptoms of the second stage having\nbegun in certain quarters.\u201d\n\nLooking back over the years that have lapsed since this was written,\nI cannot say that James\u2019s prophecy as to the future of pragmatism\nhas been fulfilled; but that the world, at least the world in which I\nhave lived, has lost its first sense of the absurdity of pragmatism\nis undoubtedly true. No one was more bitten than I with this first\nfeeling of the absurd, unless it was some other of my kind among those\nwho gathered of an evening in 1896 to listen to a reading of James\u2019s\nnow famous little essay on \u201cThe Will to Believe\u201d--the essay which, so\nfar as James was concerned, opened the campaign for pragmatism. James\nhad written the paper that winter as a lecture to be delivered before\nthe Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities, and I cannot\nrecall what the occasion was that brought a small number of us graduate\nstudents at Harvard together to hear it re-read; but I do recall that\nwe were very much bewildered and not a little shocked by the reading.\n\nNot all, I dare say, who afterwards read this \u201cWill to Believe\u201d will\nhave experienced any such shock and bewilderment, nor will many have\nfelt what we found so upsetting in a bit of writing that was, as\nwriting, certainly, altogether delightful. But you must know that this\nparticular gathering was made up of students who had been brought up\nin that theory of truth which I have called the realistic, and their\nhabitual attitude toward truth was such that they held their truth the\ntruer the more they were its discoverers and the less they had had to\ndo with the making of it.\n\nThere were, to begin with, the laboratory men. Now, a laboratory is a\nschool of the most rigid discipline--a discipline whose first principle\nis \u201ckeep yourself out of your experiment.\u201d I think you will understand\nwhat I mean by this when I say that a scrupulous experimenter about\nto take conclusive readings in a matter that promises to be of some\nvalue to science will, if possible, get another observer ignorant of\ntheir import to take these readings for him, lest something of his own\nexcitement and anxiety corrupt his very touch, sight and hearing, and\nwarp his result to his will. And, what was this James was defending--a\n\u201cWill to Believe\u201d? No wonder some wag of the lot dubbed it \u201cThe Will to\nMake Believe\u201d! And what was this again James was saying--\u201cFor purposes\nof discovery ... indifference is to be less highly recommended, and\nscience would be far less advanced than she is if the passionate\ndesires of individuals to get their own faiths confirmed had been kept\nout of the game.... On the other hand, if you want an absolute duffer\nin an investigation, you must, after all, take the man who has no\ninterest whatever in its results: he is the warranted incapable, the\npositive fool.\u201d Had James addressed a gathering of the Sons of St.\nPatrick, in the sense of demonstrating to them that the Pope of Rome\nwas the Beast mentioned in Revelations, he might have called forth a\nnoisier response, but none less sympathetic than ours.\n\nOne who would invite a man to bring his enthusiasms, his likings and\ndislikings, in short, any will of his other than the will to persevere,\ninto a laboratory with him would naturally not forbid him to keep all\nthis equipment by him in whatever pursuit of truth he might engage,\nwhether of history, economics, morals or religion. And just as James\nshocked the realist spirit of that little Harvard gathering of a score\nof years ago, so have his writings fallen afoul of realism wherever\nthey have been read--and perhaps few writers on philosophy have been\nmore widely read than William James. This is to have made enemies\nindeed, for the genius of realism, the spirit of the seeker who would\nfind what he might find and call it truth, naked, unclothed upon with\ngarments of human interpretation, has sometime breathed in every\nscience and every art.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTake the realistic historian now--but you will doubtless know this\ncharacter better if I show him to you, and the effect he produces upon\nother temperaments, than if I merely describe him as a type. Among the\nmost entertaining of the reviews that Anatole France contributed to \u201cLe\nTemps,\u201d in the late 80\u2019s and early 90\u2019s, is one that he devotes to a\nwork \u201ctout \u00e0 fait solide et puissant\u201d of Louis Bourdeau, \u201cL\u2019Histoire et\nles Historiens, essai critique\u201d--a critical essay on history considered\nas an objective science--\u201cin which,\u201d as France remarks, \u201cM. Bourdeau\nputs works on history in a class with fables and Mother Goose tales.\n\n\u201c\u2018History,\u2019 says M. Bourdeau, \u2018is not and cannot be a science.\u2019 The\nreasons he gives for this have not failed to make an impression on my\nmind, and perhaps there is a special reason why they should impress\nme--the sum of which is that I had tried to point out these reasons\nbefore he did. I had thrown out suggestions of them flippantly and in\na spirit of badinage ten years ago in a little book of mine called the\n\u2018Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard.\u2019 I set no store by them then, but, now\nthat I see they are worth something, I am in haste to claim them.\n\n\u201c\u2018In the first place,\u2019 I said in this little book,--\u2018In the first\nplace, what is history? History is the written presentation of past\nevents. But what is an event? Is it any fact whatever? No, sir. It\nis a noteworthy fact. Now, how is the historian to judge whether\na fact is noteworthy or not? He judges according to his taste and\ncaprice, follows his own idea, in short, proceeds after the manner\nof an artist. For facts do not of their own accord divide themselves\ninto historical facts and non-historical facts. Again, a fact is\nsomething extremely complex. Does the historian represent facts in\nall their complexity? No, that is impossible. He will represent them\nstripped of the greater part of their detail, consequently truncated,\nmutilated, different from what they were. As to the interrelation of\nthese facts, the less said of that the better. If a so-called historic\nfact is brought about (which is possible) by one or more non-historic\nfacts--and for that very reason unknown--how can the historian\nestablish a relation between these facts?\u2019\n\n\u201cThese, if I am not mistaken, are the fundamental ideas upon which M.\nLouis Bourdeau rests his right to refuse to history any scientific\nvalue....\n\n\u201cIndulgent minds find a way to get along with the treacheries of\nhistory. This muse is false, they think, but she no longer deceives us\nwhen we have found out that she is deceiving us. Constant doubt shall\nbe our kind of certitude, they say. Prudently, we will go our way from\nerror to error toward a relative kind of truth, for even a lie is some\nkind of a truth....\n\n\u201cBut as for M. Bourdeau, he does not wish to be deceived even\nknowingly, and he absolutely repudiates history. He drives her from\nhis door as deceitful, shameless, dissolute, having sold herself to\nthe powerful, a courtesan in the pay of kings, an enemy of the people,\nwanton and false.\u201d\n\nSo far, the picture of non-objective history in all its\nugliness--history as it has been written in the past. But now the\nhistory of the future, objective history, realistic history--ah, that\nwill be quite another story. It is Bourdeau who speaks: \u201cThe historians\nof the future will have for their first task the gathering and\ninterpreting of statistical data concerning the common events of life.\nThe activity of thought always expresses itself in acts, and the only\nway to take account of these is, after having classified them under\ndefinite functions, to set them down at the moment of their happening,\nto count them under given conditions of population, of time and place,\nthen to compare these results whether simultaneous or successive, to\nnote the variations of the function and to make the inductions that\nthey warrant. Thus, and only thus, may we some day know what the\nmultitudes that make up humanity are doing.\n\n\u201cThis is the way we must write history from now on, not only in the\nyoung countries which, like Australia, Canada, La Plata, are founded\nunder new conditions, but even in the old societies of Europe that,\nlike the others, hope to work out for themselves an ideal order of\nlabor, of peace and of liberty. For one who has reached our point\nof advancement, any other way of studying history is inexact and\nchildish. A reform is coming, and will either be made by the historians\nor in spite of them. The age of literary historiography is about to\nclose; that of scientific history about to open. When it shall be\nable to reconstruct for us the life of a people in the way we have\nindicated, we shall see that no story can offer so much of interest, of\ninstruction and of grandeur.\u201d\n\nI do not know that every one is bound to share Bourdeau\u2019s enthusiasm\nfor statistical history. Perhaps some will hope with France that they\nmay not be spared to read history written in this way, and will solace\nthemselves the meanwhile with their Thucydides and Herodotus. But at\nleast, all will have caught the martial tread of realism resounding\nthrough these passages.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the laboratory sciences the objective spirit sits as a strong man\nin his castle, impregnable, unattackable. There we see him dreaming\ndreams of conquest, the fair domain of history, in which we may include\neconomics, seems ready to fall to his bow and spear for the world\u2019s\nendless betterment. And what lies beyond? Lands that are the fairest,\nrichest, most desired of all; and yet which will take all his daring,\nall his courage, all his steadfastness and an undying enthusiasm to\nmake his own. They are the lands of morals and religion.\n\nI like those chapters of history that tell how the spirit of the\nexperimenter sets out to conquer the realms that have so long been\nruled by masters with whom he can have no sympathy--tradition, coming\nout of the vague mists of the past; superstition, born of human\nignorance; mysticism, inarticulate, ecstatic, offering reasons for\nitself that are reasons only to those who ask for none. To win all this\nfor objectivity, for the kingdom of the kind of truth that believes\nonly because the experiment says so, the experiment that any unbeliever\nmay repeat for himself and abide by the result--this is surely a brave\nadventure, and whether they meet victory or defeat one cannot refuse\none\u2019s enthusiasm to those who have had courage to make it.\n\nOf those who set forth in this way, I should call David Hume the\nfather. Would you, for example, know what is right and what is wrong?\nThen turn not to inspired writings, but travel widely through the\ncivilizations of different countries and different times and seek\nas you would seek any other historical fact, first, what people\n_called_ good and what they _called_ bad. Then, if underlying the vast\ncontradictions of historic precept you find nevertheless an agreement\nin the purpose these precepts, set in their native settings, served,\nwhy, then, you will have arrived at the only meaning good and bad can\nhave.\n\nOr, would you know whether this is God\u2019s world or no? Turn not to\nreputed miracles, and indulge not in idle dreams of another world in\nwhich the faulty humanity and utter finiteness of this one will have\nfound its supplement and correction; but, take just the order and\npurpose of this world as your best experience reveals it to you. It\nmay be that this seeking will leave you dark, puzzled, uncertain; but\nbetter the unrest of judgment suspended than the dream-like peace of\nfaith unfounded.\n\n  It fortifies my soul to know\n  That, though I perish, truth is so.\n\nwrote Arthur Clough. And, again, he has written:\n\n  To spend uncounted years of pain,\n  Again, again and yet again,\n  In working out in heart and brain\n    The problem of our being here;\n  To gather facts from far and near,\n  Upon the mind to hold them clear,\n  And, knowing more may yet appear,\n  Unto one\u2019s latest breath to fear\n  The premature result to draw--\n  Is this the object, end and law,\n    And purpose of our being here?\n\nOver these verses Clough has written: \u201cPerch\u00e8 pensa? Pensando\ns\u2019invecchia.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy think, indeed, when thinking leaves one old--so old, so cold, so\nsadly wise? That thinking--the realist\u2019s way of thinking--does leave\none in melancholy mood may be no objection to thinking in this way;\nbut it may not be ignored as a fact of history. Realism\u2019s hymn of\ntriumph is written by the best of its poets and the most sincere of\nits prophets--Leconte de Lisle. One does not attempt to translate a\nLeconte de Lisle, but the thought of the final verses of his poem on\nthe Southland may be put in some such way as this--\n\n  Man, if with heart full of joy or bitterness\n  Thou go at noonday through these radiant fields--\n  Flee! Nature is empty and the sun consumes;\n  Nothing here is alive, nothing sad, nothing joyous.\n\n  But if having put tears behind thee and laughter\n  Thou be turned to forgetfulness of this troubled world,\n  No longer knowing how to pardon nor how to curse,\n  And would taste a last sad volupt\u00e9--\n\n  Come! The sun speaks to thee a glorious language;\n  Lose thyself in its implacable flame\n  And return slow-footed to the vile city of men,\n  Thy soul seven times steeped in divine nothingness.\n\nIt is like that. This wondering in a world we did not make and cannot\nchange, in which all our creating is illusory--a chance trivial\nexpression of what the world has made us--with no other purpose in our\nwandering but\n\n  For to admire and for to see,\n  For to be\u2019old this world so wide.\n\n--why yes, the fulness of such experience comes as near as can be to\nbringing us to a seven-fold sense of the _n\u00e9ant divin_.\n\nWell, when a man\u2019s philosophy has turned bitter to his tongue and hangs\nheavy on his heart, there are three things he may do. He may abide by\nthe consequences of his philosophy, and seeing no fault in the premises\naccept the conclusion with all valiance. Or, he may rebel against\nall logic and reason and trust that sympathies and antipathies are\nsafer guides to truth than any evidence could be. Or, finally, he may\nexamine the premises anew. It is, I must confess, only to the last--to\nthe reasoners and critics who go patiently to work to re-examine old\nbeliefs--that I lend a respectful ear. But I do not know that I can\nbegin an account of the backward swing from such extreme realism as\nI have pictured to such extreme idealism as I can tell only part of\nbefore I close, better than by letting the mere spirit of unreasoning\nrevolt against this selfless objectivity express itself.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith an exquisite insight into the psychology of those he calls \u201cWir\nGelehrten,\u201d and with no care for the truth or error of the ways of\nthe objective spirit, Nietzsche registers his revolt against all\nthis spirit stands for. \u201cHowever gratefully we may still welcome the\nobjective spirit,\u201d he writes in his \u201cJenseits von Gut und B\u00f6se,\u201d\n\u201cin the end we must learn to put some caution into our gratitude\nand some restraint on the enthusiasm with which selflessness and\nimpersonality of mind have come to be extolled as ends in themselves,\nas an emancipation and an enlightenment. The objective man who no\nlonger curses or upbraids, the ideal scholar in whom the scientific\ninstinct after a thousand whole or half failures has at last come to\nfull growth and blossoming, is surely the most precious tool there is;\nbut his proper place is in the hands of a stronger man than he is. We\nsay he is an instrument--he is a mirror, he is no end in himself. The\nobjective man is indeed a mirror. Accustomed to subject himself to\nall that is to be known, without any other pleasure than such as the\nknowing, the mirroring gives, he waits till something comes his way,\nthen spreads himself delicately before it so that the light foot-steps\nand ghostly passing of spirit things may not be lost to his surface\nand integument. What there is of a person still left in him seems to\nhim accidental, often arbitrary, oftener still disturbing; so much\nhas what was his very self become a medium through which pass and in\nwhich are reflected foreign forms and happenings. If he tries to think\nabout himself at all, it is an effort for him and more often than not a\nfailure. He changes easily; he tries to grasp his own needs, and only\nthen is he clumsy and awkward. Perhaps it is his health that bothers\nhim, or the petty pent-up character of wife or friend, or the lack\nof companions and companionship. Oh, yes, he tries to think out what\nis the matter with him. No use! Already his thought has swept on to\nthe more general case, and tomorrow he will know as little as he did\nyesterday what\u2019s to be done about it. He has lost serious interest in\nhimself, time spent on himself is wasted. He is cheerful, not for want\nof things to worry about, but for want of fingers and hands to lay\nhold on his trouble. His way of taking whatever turns up, his sunny\nunconstrained hospitality to anything that comes along, his way of\nwishing everybody well, his dangerous indifference to the difference\nbetween yes and no--ah, how often he has to pay for these his virtues!\nAnd, as just a man, he is too often taken for the caput mortuum of\nthese virtues. Would you have him love or hate--I mean love or hate as\nGod, women and brutes understand love and hate--why, he will do the\nbest he can and give what he can. But no one should be disappointed if\nthis is not much; if just here he shows himself ungenuine, unattached,\nunreliable--rotten. His love is thought out, his hates are trumped up\nand rather a _tour de force_, little side issues and exaggerations.\nHe is only genuine when nothing prevents him from being objective.\nHis mirroring and everlastingly even soul can no longer say \u2018yes,\u2019 no\nlonger say \u2018no.\u2019 It imposes nothing on anything, neither does it upset\nanything. It says with Leibnitz, \u2018Je ne m\u00e9prise presque rien.\u2019\u201d\n\nIf in this passage Nietzsche reveals his delicate antipathy for a\ncharacter we had all been taught to worship, in others he shows himself\na pragmatist before that word had been heard of. The philosopher for\nhim is no wanderer of the seas, accepting what shores he comes upon\nwhether they smile on him or frown. For Nietzsche, the philosopher is\na Caesarian conqueror who has his way with truth, and truth is such a\nthing as a strong man may have his way with.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut, \u201cI am not of those of whom one asks \u2018why?\u2019\u201d Nietzsche has\nsomewhere written, and this is so true that I can use him for no more\nthan a vehement example of spleen. If I am to enter upon the path of\na more or less reasoned reaction against that objectivity we have all\nsometime held sacred, I must turn to those of whom one can ask \u201cwhy?\u201d\nAnd, notably, to William James.\n\nNow, if I do turn to James to ask him \u201cwhy?\u201d--Why is not the realist,\nwith all his sad heroism and resigned courage, the noblest and best\nthat man has imagined?--he answers, or I take him to, Because realism\nis a philosophy of little faith! Faith it is that makes worlds,\nrealistic science has only the wit to acknowledge and the strength to\nsuffer what faith has wrought. Bold to endure, it is timid to change,\nand a world in the making needs its makers, needs its poets and\nactors more than it needs audience or spectator. At the bottom of the\nrealist\u2019s brave heart lurks an abiding fear--the fear of making a fool\nof himself. But a world in the making like a battle in the fighting\ncries out for fools and the foolhardy. Faith risks to the point of\nfolly, and because all making anew is a colossal risk, let us have\ncolossal faith.\n\nHere, if I am not mistaken, you have the principal difference between\nthe realism that went before and the pragmatism that came after. The\nfaith which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.\nFor there are such things, the pragmatist contends, as faiths that\nrealize themselves, beliefs that come true only because they are\nfirmly held and courageously acted upon, hopes that would never have\nbeen fulfilled had not he who held them gone ahead in the confident\nexpectation that they would be fulfilled. Take, James would have you,\njust that familiar class of questions of fact, \u201cquestions concerning\npersonal relations, states of mind between one man and another. _Do\nyou like me or not?_--for example. Whether you do or not depends, in\ncountless instances, on whether I meet you half way, am willing to\nassume that you must like me, and show you trust and expectation.\nThe previous faith on my part in your liking\u2019s existence is in such\ncases what makes your liking come. But if I stand aloof, and refuse to\nbudge an inch until I have objective evidence, until you shall have\ndone something apt [as the realists say] _ad extorquendum assensum\nmeum_, ten to one your liking never comes. How many women\u2019s hearts are\nvanquished by the mere sanguine insistence of some man that they _must_\nlove him! He will not consent to the hypothesis that they cannot. The\ndesire for a certain kind of truth here brings about that special\ntruth\u2019s existence, and so it is in innumerable cases of other sorts.\nWho gains promotions, boons, appointments, but the man in whose life\nthey are seen to play the part of live hypotheses, who discounts them,\nsacrifices other things for their sake before they have come, and takes\nrisks for them in advance? His faith acts on the powers above him as a\nclaim, and creates its own verification.\u201d\n\nThese be but trifling affairs of commonplace life if you will,\nbut the imagination sweeps easily on from the relation of man and\nman to all that man\u2019s work which is done shoulder to shoulder. \u201cA\nsocial organism,\u201d James goes on, \u201cof any sort whatever, large or\nsmall, is what it is because each member proceeds to his own duty\nwith a trust that the other members will simultaneously do theirs.\nWherever a desired result is achieved by the co-operation of many\nindependent persons, its existence as a fact is a pure consequence of\nthe precursive faith in one another of those immediately concerned.\nA government, an army, a commercial system, a ship, a college, an\nathletic team, all exist on this condition, without which not only\nis nothing achieved, but nothing is even attempted. A whole train\nof passengers (individually brave enough) will be looted by a few\nhighwaymen, simply because the latter can count on one another, while\neach passenger fears that if he makes a movement of resistance, he will\nbe shot before anyone else backs him up. If we believed that the whole\ncar-full would rise at once with us, we should each severally rise, and\ntrain robbing would never even be attempted.\u201d\n\nHave you ever, O patient reader, in the heat of a political campaign\nfor what you thought were better things met with that cool chilling\nintelligence that hastens to warn you against trying to change human\nnature? As it was in the beginning it is now and ever shall be,\ngangs without end. Amen! And he is right, this unduped and undupable\nintelligence is right--but on one condition only: The world will always\nbe as it was at the beginning if it is exclusively inhabited by unduped\nand undupable intelligences--by realists, in short. Or, have you ever\ntried to refresh your tired soul with what the Germans have written\nof Realpolitik? If so, you will already know a great deal of what\npragmatism is _not_. It is not a philosophy of the \u201cwhat never has been\nnever can be\u201d temper of mind.\n\n\u201cThere are cases,\u201d James puts it, \u201cwhere a fact cannot come at all\nunless a preliminary faith exists in its coming. _And where faith in\na fact can help create the fact_, that would be an insane logic which\nwould say [with Huxley] that faith running ahead of scientific evidence\nis the \u2018lowest kind of immorality into which a thinking being may\nfall.\u2019...\u201d\n\nI am afraid there is about the pragmatist something of that dangerous\ncitizen who will not hesitate on occasion to grasp this sorry scheme of\nthings entire and shatter it to bits, full of the faith that it can be\nremoulded closer to the heart\u2019s desire.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cBut now,\u201d James returns to his argument, \u201cthese are all childish human\ncases, and have nothing to do with the great cosmical matters, like the\nquestion of religious faith. Let us then pass on to that....\n\n\u201cTo most of us religion comes in a way that makes a veto on our\nactive faith illogical. The more perfect and more eternal aspect of\nthe universe is represented in our religions as having a personal\nform. The universe is no longer a mere _It_ to us, but a _Thou_, if\nwe are religious; and any relation that may be possible from person\nto person might be possible here. For instance, although in one sense\nwe are passive portions of the universe, in another we show a curious\nautonomy, as if we were small active centers on our own account. We\nfeel, too, as if the appeal of religion to us were made to our own\nactive good-will, as if evidence might be forever withheld unless we\nmet the hypothesis half way. To take a trivial illustration: just as a\nman who, in a company of gentlemen made no advances, asked a warrant\nfor every concession, and believed no one\u2019s word without proof, would\ncut himself off by such churlishness from all the social rewards that\na more trusting spirit would earn,--so here, one who should shut\nhimself up in snarling logicality and try to make the gods extort his\nrecognition willy-nilly, or not get it at all, might cut himself off\nforever from his only opportunity of making the gods\u2019 acquaintance.\nThis feeling ... that by obstinately believing that there are gods ...\nwe are doing the universe the deepest service we can, seems part of the\nbeing and essence of the religious hypothesis.\u201d\n\nI do not lay this passage before you as an example of clear thinking\nand cogent reasoning. Who does not find it baffling, elusive, leading\nto no kind of action, must have a mind differently constituted from\nmine or from any with which I am more intimately acquainted. It is,\nif you please, the groping of a faith that feels it has a right to\nexist, but does not know as yet what is right for it to do. All of\nwhich is most unpragmatic--not at all practical. But perhaps this very\nquality, this manner of James\u2019s of feeling his way through the dark _en\nt\u00e2tonnant_, with his heart\u2019s courage for his only light, is what most\nendears him to our age. We sit with Zarathustra midst shattered tables\nof the law, and our awkward fingers cannot grave new ones hurriedly. We\nfumble, we hesitate, we begin again. We fumble, we hesitate, but we\n_do_, if we are idealists, begin again.\n\nNow, one of the new things we have tried is just this manner of meeting\nthe universe half way in the matter of religious faith. And this trial\nhas been no interchange of philosophical abstractions; but a struggle\nof very living men. To tell about it will perhaps illustrate better\nthan anything else the appeal pragmatism made to some and the offense\nit gave to others.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have all known, though doubtless our fathers knew him better, that\nstudious theologian who, as proof of a devout life\u2019s industry, left\nbehind him a Testament worn to something like its elemental dust. He\nwas a realist in temperament, and sought God and God\u2019s meaning in\ndocuments as an historian might seek to reconstruct some character\nof the past from the archives. He was supplemented in his labors by\nlearned indefatigable searchers of other remains of the past from\nwhose ruins they sought to bring corroborative testimony. He was\nopposed only by other students who had pored over their Testaments with\nequal devotion, if to opposite purpose, and by other archaeologists\nwho had searched the ruins with equal pains, if with other result.\nBut protagonist and antagonist alike of the Christianity into which\nwe were born were realists. Neither dreamt that the existence or\nnon-existence, the benevolence or cruelty, the oneness or manyness of\nGod were matters with which his personal wishes and strivings, his\nfinite wantings and not wantings could have anything to do. If you had\nsuggested to either that perhaps God was still in the making and that\nthose who would know Him must strain their eyes toward the future, not\nkeep them fixed on the past--it is a question which would have been\nfirst to put you down as an impious fellow and a blasphemer.\n\nHow different from all this is the spirit of that recent movement\nwithin the Christian church that is generally called Modernism!\n\u201cDefined and condemned in the encyclical _Pascendi_,\u201d writes J.\nBourdeau, in 1907, \u201cmodernism continues to fill the reviews and the\nperiodicals, even those that ordinarily treat of matters profane. This\ninternal crisis of Catholicism, this new attempt to reconcile the\nchurch with the times, aimed at internal reform, not at schism. It was\ndestined to end in the excommunication or interdiction of some of its\nmore refractory spirits and in the submission of almost all. And yet,\nby those who shared its hopes, modernism is not looked upon as the bed\nof a torrent from now on to be dry; it runs like an underground river,\nand some day, perhaps, will come to the surface again with sufficient\nforce to sweep away the dikes.\u201d\n\nWell, this modernism which M. Bourdeau, in his little volume,\n\u201cPragmatisme et Modernisme,\u201d brackets with pragmatism as being of the\nsame temper, is, like all other modernities, not very new. We associate\nit with such names as Father Tyrrel, in England; l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Loisy, in\nFrance; the senator and novelist Fogazzaro, in Italy, and if the matter\nhas interested us, with a host of other writers no less distinguished.\nBut it is really of the essence of Newman, and goes back to Pascal. For\n\u201cThe heart,\u201d Pascal has said, \u201chas its reasons that the reason does not\nunderstand.\u201d It was to these reasons that Newman listened, and offers\nus again in his \u201cGrammar of Assent,\u201d and it is these reasons that\nmodernism would have to be the only ones on which Christianity can be\nsafely founded.\n\nBut what are they, these reasons, and what does this voice of the\nheart say? Its first clear utterance is negative. It does not care\nwho wrote the various books of the Scriptures, or what corroborative\nor contradictory evidence those who study the documents and monuments\nof the past may come upon. \u201cHigher critics,\u201d so far from being its\nenemies, are welcome participants in its cause. As little does it cling\nto the literal sense of the various dogmatic interpretations the\nChurch has from time to time put upon the sacred writings. Would you\nknow, for example, whether there is a Real Presence? Modernism would\nanswer: The Eucharist is indeed meaningless unless there be a Real\nPresence; but whether Christ is really there for you or not depends on\nyou alone. And the like of other dogmas.\n\nYet it would appear that history, sacred, ecclesiastical, or profane,\nis no dead letter to the modernist. He is intensely conscious and\namply studious of the past. Nor will he, if I make him out, permit its\nepisodes to be treated as symbols, parables and allegories. No, the\npast tells the story of a great religious truth in the making. If you\nask him what Christianity is, he will tell you it isn\u2019t, it never has\nbeen, it never will be any definitely finished thing; but for him it\nis the best guide to living that he with all his devotion and all his\nthought can make it. The modernists are Christians because they are\nheirs to, and imbued with the spirit of Christianity, as they are not\ninspired of the Buddha or of Confucius. Yes, they are devout Catholics\nbecause they can work better at the making of a religion in the\natmosphere of their ancestral church than in any other air. Religion\nto them is to aid in the way best suited to their temperaments and\ntraditions in the evolution of religion; for them Christianity is in\nprocess, and we are the potters that mould it, not the explorers that\ndiscover it.\n\nWell, J. Bourdeau is not wrong; modernism and pragmatism are indeed\nof like temper and children of the same age--an age of troubled\noutlook, but of brave if chastened hope. The contrast between the\nrealistic theologian with his ancient texts, documents, monuments,\nand the idealistic theologian who turns to the past not for authority\nbut for guidance, not for facts but for a sense of tendency and\ndirection--this contrast is not unlike that other one pragmatism has\nbrought about between \u201cNatural Religion\u201d and what I may call \u201cHuman\nReligion.\u201d Natural religion sought in the order of nature evidence of\nits designer, of a thoughtful purpose back of or in it, the same spirit\nthat a naturalist might hunt for the tracks of a mastodon or follow the\nwanderings of a glacier. For the humanist, the purpose of nature is a\nthing in the making, and we are here to help make it. It will turn out\nas our finite efforts form it--good or bad, as we are good or bad; wise\nor not, as we are. The practical message of \u201cHuman Religion\u201d is pretty\nmuch that with which James closes his little essay, \u201cIs Life Worth\nLiving?\u201d \u201cBe not afraid of life. Believe that life _is_ worth living\nand your belief helps create the fact. The \u2018scientific proof\u2019 that you\nare right may not be clear before the day of judgment (or some stage\nof being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is reached.\nBut the faithful fighters of this hour, or the beings that then and\nthere will represent them, may then turn to the faint-hearted who here\ndecline to go on with words like those with which Henry IV. greeted the\ntardy Crillon after a great victory had been gained: \u2018Hang yourself,\nbrave Crillon! we fought at Arques, and you were not there.\u2019\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have tried to show pragmatism as a moment in the swing of thought\nfrom realism to idealism, and how for it the most vital, that is to\nsay, the moral and religious aspects of our world are things to work\nand fight for, to make and to mould, not just to find and come across.\nIts god is indeed a god of battles, and we are his soldiers on whom his\nvictory depends. But as I view this battle, it is not to be fought out\nin heart throes and outpourings of sentiment. These may indeed change\nand better human relationships; but it must not be forgotten that human\nrelationships exist in a physical universe that is older than they,\nand promises to outlast them. Now, just the physics of things show a\nstrong tendency to be amoral and atheistic. \u201cYou all know the picture\nof the last state of the universe which evolutionary science foresees.\nI cannot state it better than in Mr. Balfour\u2019s words: \u2018The energies of\nour system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the\nearth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has\nfor a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit\nand all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness which in\nthis obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence\nof the universe will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer.\n\u201cImperishable monuments\u201d and \u201cimmortal deeds,\u201d death itself, and love\nstronger than death, will be as if they had not been. Nor will anything\nthat is be better or worse for all that the labor, genius, devotion,\nand suffering of man have striven through countless ages to effect.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat,\u201d comments James, \u201cis the sting of it, that in the vast drifting\nof the cosmic weather, though many a jeweled shore appears, and\nmany an enchanted cloud-bank floats away, long lingering ere it be\ndissolved--even as ours now lingers for our joy--yet, when these\ntransient products are gone, nothing, absolutely _nothing_ remains to\nrepresent those particular qualities, those elements of preciousness\nwhich they may have enshrined. Dead and gone are they, gone utterly\nfrom the very sphere and room of being. Without an echo; without a\nmemory; without an influence on aught that they may come after to make\nit care for similar ideals.\u201d[14]\n\nHas not, then, realism the last word in this argument and does not the\nrolling mechanism of things have its way with us in the end--since it\ncompasses not only our death, but the collapse of the very theatre in\nwhich our little lives have played themselves out?\n\nNo, I should say, this is not the moral of the tale, though there is\na moral to the tale. \u201cKnowledge,\u201d writes Francis Bacon, in his \u201cNovum\nOrganum,\u201d \u201cknowledge and human power are synonymous.\u201d So are human\nimpotence and human ignorance synonymous. The child that dips a cup of\nwater from the fountain is subduing nature\u2019s mechanism to its needs. It\nis only a question of how great is our knowledge if we would know how\ngreat is our power.\n\nWe die, our world dies, only because we know no better, have thought\nof no way of preventing; but knowledge and human power are indeed\nsynonymous, and I know of no end to either. But, as for those of us\nbound to die before we have learned how not to, and as for our children\nwhose world may well vanish before they have thought of a way of\nsaving it, we have always this solace--that we know we are facing the\nonly way salvation can come from when our face is toward science. \u201cFor\nnature,\u201d says Bacon, with his queer crooked smile,--\u201cnature is only\nsubdued by submission.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nPROGRESS\n\n\nWe little realize, until we have met them socially, how engaging the\nmanners of cannibals can be. It is unfortunate that so many obstacles\nlie in the way of our making their better acquaintance,--they live\nso far out of town for one thing, and for another are so clannish a\nset that only occasionally is one of our sort welcomed to their inner\ncircles. Yet when one who has had this fortune returns to tell about\nit,--which happens too rarely--we can see it has been a revelation to\nhim and an enlightenment. There is that friend of our youth, Herman\nMelville, who about the year 1840 was entertained by the Merquesan\nIslanders--I swear that as I read him I find something very winning\nabout the ways of these people. It is true they were what Melville\ncalls \u201coccasional cannibals\u201d; but although cannibalism, however\noccasional, cannot win our entire approval (perhaps because, as\nMontaigne suggests, we have learned how much better it is to torment\nour enemies alive than to consume them dead) yet it is not wise or just\nto allow our prejudice against an odd local custom to blind us to so\nmuch that is fair in their lives.\n\nFor much there is that is fair in the lives of the Typees. Dwelling\non that enchanted island of the Pacific, their lines are cast in\npleasant places. The asperities which civilization seems rather to have\naggravated than smoothed do not roughen their way. Their existence is\npassed in the midst of tropical plenty, on which their numbers, few\nand hot on the increase, make light demand. They toil not to cover\nwhat nature has conceived in innocence, and spin but lightly to adorn\nwhat nature has fashioned fair. Little thought do they take on their\nhousing. \u201cThere are few villages,\u201d Melville tells us, \u201cthe houses\nstand here and there in the shadow of groves or are scattered along\nthe banks of the winding stream; their bamboo sides and their gleaming\nwhite thatch forming a beautiful contrast to the perpetual verdure\nin which they are embowered. There are no roads of any kind in the\nvalley; nothing but a labyrinth of foot paths twisting and turning\nwithout end.\u201d Yet the morals of these people do not seem to have been\nso far below our standards as their benighted condition might lead us\nto expect. \u201cThere seemed,\u201d says Melville, \u201cto be no rogues of any sort\nin Typee. In the darkest nights the natives slept securely with all\ntheir worldly wealth around them, in houses the doors of which were\nnever fastened. The disquieting thought of theft and assassination\nnever disturbed them. Each islander reposed beneath his own palmetto\nthatching, or sat under his own breadfruit tree, with none to molest or\nalarm him. There was not a padlock in the valley.\u201d\n\nI had gone so far in one of my readings of Melville, and was beginning\nto wonder in the back of my head what a Typee introduced into\nour civilization could find to say of us half as pleasant as the\nthings their guest had noted of them, when I recalled that another\nhad long ago put the like question to himself when he was in much\nbetter position to answer it. It was when the New World was very\nmuch newer than it is now, that Villegaignon landed in a country he\nsurnamed Antarctic France, where dwelt a people of cannibals the very\ncounterpart (as I judge) of our friends the Typees. \u201cThree of these\npeople,\u201d the Sieur de Montaigne records, \u201cwere at Rouen in the reign\nof our late King, Charles the Ninth, who talked with them a great\nwhile. They were showed our fashions, our pomp, and the form of a fair\ncity; afterwards some demanded their advice, and would needs know of\nthem what things of note and admirable they had observed amongst us.\nThey answered three things,\u201d ... of which Montaigne seems particularly\nimpressed with this one: \u201cThey had perceived [they said] there were men\namong us full gorged with all sorts of commodities, and others which\nhunger-starved and bare with need and poverty begged at their gates:\nand found it strange these moieties [they have a phrase whereby they\ncall men but a moiety one of another]--strange these moieties so needy\ncould endure such an injustice, and that they took not the others by\nthe throat, or set fire to their houses.\u201d\n\nI do not suppose Montaigne approved, any more than we can, the touch\nof savagery that concludes these observations; but on the whole they\nseem to have confirmed him in certain opinions he had already formed\non the pretended advantages of civilized over barbarous life. For this\noccasion on which he actually met and conversed with the cannibals was\nnot the first acquaintance he had with them. There had long been with\nhim a certain serving-man who had spent some ten or twelve years in\ntheir country, and seems to have given his master much the same account\nof them as Melville has given us of the Typees. I cannot refrain\nfrom recalling in Montaigne\u2019s own words his reflections on the whole\nspectacle of savagery and civilization:\n\n\u201cNow I find,\u201d he says, \u201cas far as I have been informed, there is\nnothing in that nation that is either barbarous or savage,--unless men\ncall that barbarism which is not common to them.... They are even\nsavage as we call those fruits wild which nature of herself and of\nher ordinary progress hath produced,--whereas, indeed, they are those\nwhich ourselves have ordered by our artificial devices and diverted\nfrom their common order we should rather term savage. In those are the\ntrue and most profitable virtues, and natural properties most lively\nand vigorous, which in these we have bastardized, applying them to the\npleasure of our corrupted taste.... And if notwithstanding, in diverse\nfruits of those countries that were never tilled, we shall find that\nin respect of ours they are most excellent and as delicate to the\ntaste, there is no reason art should gain the point of honor over our\npuissant mother Nature. We have so much by our invention surcharged\nthe beauties and riches of her works, that we have altogether choked\nher; yet wherever her purity shineth, she maketh our vain and frivolous\nenterprises wonderfully ashamed.\n\n  \u201cEt veniunt hederae sponte sua melius,\n  Surgit et in solis formosior arbutus antris,\n  Et volucres nulla dulcius arte canunt.\n\n\u201cAll our endeavor or wit cannot so much as reach to represent the nest\nof the least birdlet, ... no, nor the web of a silly spider....\n\n\u201cThose nations seem therefore so barbarous unto me because they have\nreceived very little fashion from human wit, and are yet near their\noriginal naturality. The laws of nature do yet command them which are\nbut little bastardized by ours, and that with such purity as I am\nsometimes grieved the knowledge of it came not sooner to light, what\ntime there were men that, better than we, could have judged of it. I am\nsorry Lycurgus and Plato had it not; for me seemeth that what in these\nnations we see by experience doth not only exceed all the pictures\nwherewith licentious poesy hath proudly embellished the Golden Age, but\nalso the conception and desire of philosophy.... It is a nation, would\nI answer Plato, that hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters,\nno name of magistrate nor of politic priority, no use of service, of\nriches or of poverty, no occupation but idle, no respect of kindred but\ncommon, no apparel but natural, no measuring of lands, no use of wine,\ncorn or metal.... The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason,\ndissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction and pardon were never\nheard of amongst them. How dissonant would Plato find his imaginary\ncommonwealth from this perfection?\n\n  \u201cHos natura modos primum dedit.\u201d\n\nI had thought to begin a sound philosophical account of the nature\nof progress with a picture, not, if I could help it, unsympathetic,\nof man\u2019s condition before he had felt its benefits. The plan would\nrecommend itself to any philosopher as suitable and convenient to its\npurpose, yet here am I well beyond the beginning of my discourse,\nstill lingering with the cannibals, and, what is worse, sensible\nthat I have not been diligent to uncover the many causes there must\nbe for rejoicing that we are not as they were. Not that there is any\ndifficulty in pointing to the host of things we can do which they could\nnot. We have only to mount in one of our winged ships and look down on\nthe simple Typee rubbing two sticks together for their spark, to see\nin all the distance that lies between us the like of what Prometheus\nscaled Heaven for. But what in all this is there to rejoice over?\n\nIt is singular how many have asked this question and found no answer,\nor have answered--Nothing. I do not cite the licentious poets Montaigne\nrefers to as having invented a Golden Age and feigned a happy condition\nof man before progress had spoiled the world for him; although these\nare many, and if their wisdom is not of the philosopher\u2019s kind, yet is\nit all the closer to that \u201cancient wisdom of childhood\u201d a wise man does\nwell to keep near him. But even learned academies have thought the\nquestion not beyond their interest and study. In 1749, the Academy of\nDijon set for the prize competition of the following year the question,\n\u201cWhether the progress of the arts and sciences had contributed to the\npurification of life?\u201d The prize was won by J.-J. Rousseau. His little\nessay, generally known as the \u201cDiscours sur les Sciences et les Arts,\u201d\nworked on the thought of its time as seldom so casual a thing. \u201cOne\ncannot,\u201d Jean-Jacques wrote then, \u201cone cannot reflect on the ways of\nlife without finding pleasure in recalling the image of its first\nsimplicity. That was a fair shore, bedecked by only Nature\u2019s hand,\ntoward which our eyes are ever turning back regretfully as we watch it\nfade in the distance.\u201d\n\nThere may be, nay, I think there must be, a meaning and a moral to\nthis disgust of the enlightened here and now, this longing for a\nlife not all \u201csicklied o\u2019er with the pale cast of thought.\u201d But the\ninterpretations of this feeling we most commonly meet with are not I\nhope to be taken very seriously, for if they are, there is no counsel\nfor us but one of despair. Thus, whatever could come of the lament for\nthe good old days, the golden days, before science had done this or\nthat to cloud our first innocence? No history written in such ancient\ntimes but that it can recall times still more ancient when things went\nbetter with the sons of the gods because then they knew less. And it\nis still open to any one--traveler, philosopher, poet--to draw what\npicture he will of far away lands wherein, for that nobody wanted very\nmuch, everybody found all he wanted. The subject of this sketch may\nvary from Diogenes snarling in his tub to a Typee girl dancing in her\nflowers; from the desert to which the Christian cenobites withdrew to\nTasso\u2019s bosky places, where, before that vain word Onore had mingled\nits grief with love,\n\n  Sedean pastori e ninfe,\n  Meschiando alle parole\n  Vezzi e susurri, ed ai susurri i baci\n  Strettamente tenaci ...\n\nBut of all this, nothing is serious, nothing sincere,--of all those\nwho lament the past not one would take the first step toward it, so\nlittle is it in man\u2019s nature to retreat. Or if anyone would, yet what\ncould he do, save drag his own sadness into the desert with him? As for\nthe world, it must even go on with its science, though it be but the\nscience of hurting itself.\n\nWherefore, no less futile than regret for a past we cannot recover,\nis fear for a future we cannot avert. It is natural that certain\nconditions arising out of the progress of science should make gentle\nsouls anxious for what is to come. Science is power, and as no man can\ncommit the sins he is impotent to commit, there is a certain safeguard\nfor innocence in ignorance. Only after having eaten of the Tree of\nKnowledge did our first parents come to mourn outside the gates. No\nshepherds and shepherdesses conceived the iniquity of Babel\u2019s tower,\nand Egypt and great Babylon were of no children\u2019s dreaming. Yet must\nman go on gathering unto himself knowledge with all its power for harm\nand no warning gesture of the fearful can stay him. Our only comfort\ncan be that however great a power for harm science may bring, it ought\nto enhance in equal measure the power for good,--did we but know what\ngood and evil were.\n\nDid we but know good and evil! In the suggestion that perhaps we\ndo not, in the suspicion that this is just the knowledge to which\nscience does not help us,--yes, in the fear that it is science itself\nwhich throws doubt on ethical standards--is, I conceive, a motive for\ndeprecating the progress of science more serious than the others, and\nmore sincere. Science is, indeed, endlessly critical; no authority\nof tradition or of general acceptance imposes upon it; nothing for\nit is finished, nothing fixed; and to those to whom all goodness is\nin danger the moment one asks, What is good? science may well seem a\ndangerous growth,--unhallowed in its origin, curiosity; damnable in its\noutcome, unrest. And yet if as we assume science must progress, stayed\nneither by regret for the past nor by fear for the future, then must\nits questioning spirit invade every realm of opinion, examine the most\nsacred of beliefs, look into the very meaning of good and evil.\n\nFor this reason we did well, I conceive, to begin a consideration of\nprogress with some account of the skeptics. Science itself cannot\nquarrel with those who meet its advances with the question, What is the\ngood of you? But it can only begin its answer by asking another, What\ndo you take to be good?\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat do you take to be good? Evidently there cannot be two minds, one\nof which points to the advance of civilization with every confidence\nthat it means the world\u2019s betterment, the other conceiving that men\nmay grow wiser and none the better for that, unless _the good_ is\nunderstood by them in different senses. What are these two meanings\ntangled in the single word,--_the good_?\n\nIt is this question that Immanuel Kant has studied with peculiar\ncare and thoughtfulness in his ethical writings, and there he has\nmade a distinction between two such meanings that seems very much\nto our purpose. The first, in his stiff academic way, he calls the\n_hypothetical_ use. Thus, if you were to enquire what would be the best\nthing to do in order to attain a certain object, your answer would\nrecommend a certain procedure as \u201cgood,\u201d certainly, but good only on\nthe hypothesis that such and such is your end. Your hypothetical good\nwashes its hands of any responsibility for what, if anything, of some\nother kind of good or evil may attach to your purpose; it only places\nits wits at your disposal in devising the best means to this end. Is\nyour purpose to rob a bank?--Then will science set itself to think\nout for you the best way of robbing a bank. After that, let who will\ncomplain that bank-robbing is not a good thing to set about, he cannot\ndeny that you have set about it in a good way.\n\nBut it seemed to Kant, as I suppose it would to anyone, that we do not\nrestrict ourselves to this hypothetical use of the term good. There\nseems to us to be a distinction between a good way of thieving and a\nway of being good. If so, must there not be a good that is sought for\nits own sake and not merely for the sake of what it may lead to? Is\nthere not a _categorical_, an _absolute_ good? And surely Kant was not\nvery far from the thought of all of us when he sought to identify\nthis absolute good with the moral good and with the object of virtue.\nPlainly we see that however good a thief a man may become, he does not\nincrease in virtue as he advances in science. And have we not here come\nupon the ultimate meaning of those who contend that, let the world\nadvance never so in its science, it grows no whit better? Its increase\nis altogether measured in those hypothetical goods thanks to which the\nthieves of today are indeed better thieves than the crude ones that\nused to be; but as little as ever do they know, and still less do they\ncare, for that absolute good, that moral world, to have progressed away\nfrom which is to have gone backward indeed.\n\nWhat, we asked of the critics of civilization, do you take to be good?\nAnd setting aside those who have idly answered, It was good when the\nworld was young, before Onor \u201cbound in nets the tresses Zephyr used to\nscatter,\u201d--setting aside \u201clicentious poesy\u201d we have found the answer\nof serious men to be, The world will only be good when it has become\nmoral. Not the growth of science, but the increase in morality is real\nprogress, progress toward the absolute good. We have then only to make\nplain morality\u2019s meaning to have found what progress is.\n\nMorality no doubt first presents itself to most of us as a set of laws\nor maxims of conduct to follow which is virtue. These laws we may think\nof as delivered unto man in God\u2019s own voice, and carved upon tables\nof stone. Or, if our image of their origin and authority be not so\ndefinite, we may still find moral peace in the thought that what words\nthe still small voice of conscience whispers to us are no less God\u2019s\nwords. They are what Antigone took them to be--\n\n  The immutable unwritten law of Heaven.\n  They were not born today or yesterday;\n  They die not, and none knoweth whence they sprang.\n\nIf many have been unable to keep the sweet moral confidence of\nchildhood until the end, it is because riper experience has not\nconfirmed to them Antigone\u2019s premises, nor mature reflection born out\nher conclusions. Do they _not_ die, these unwritten laws: are new ones,\nindeed, never born? For a little searching we may find that not a\nprecept marks a virtue for one people at one time, but that elsewhere\nor elsewhen its ordinance is taken to be vicious. And conversely, we do\nnot have to travel far to find vice turning into virtue. Antigone\u2019s own\npeople are not so remote from us as the Mingrelians and Topinamboues;\nwe owe them much that we prize most in our culture, and would be proud\nto match them in more ways than one. And yet, consider their admiration\nin the way of a man, which, if it was any one, was surely the Wise\nUlysses. Now, if there are any two principles of Christian morals\nmore firmly planted in our souls than others, they are the maxims, Be\ntruthful, and, Be kind. But was Ulysses truthful? was Ulysses kind?\nTo leave for one\u2019s unconquered enemies a wooden horse as it were a\nparting token may be an innocent enough thing to do, however pagan. But\nto make of this wooden horse a disguised troop ship is not within the\nstrict letter of truthfulness; and to sally forth therefrom to slay\nyour quondam foes while they sleep in the security of your peace does\nnot show a kindly spirit. Yet it does not appear that the Greek gods\nresented any more than did the Greek people Ulysses\u2019 cruel craft: all\nof which would lead one to suspect that the unwritten law of peoples,\nif indeed it come from Heaven, must come from only that part of it\nwhich is directly overhead at the time.\n\nBut let time and place be never so circumscribed, and men never so in\naccord as to their moral maxims, are these maxims at least consistent\nwith one another? Does one bid us be truthful?--then another bids us\nbe kind! But how in this vale of perplexities is one always to be\ntruthful yet never unkind? \u201cYes I know,\u201d writes an old gossip of mine\nand fellow philosopher, \u201cI know. Morality; Duty. But how hard it is to\ndiscover what is duty! I assure you that for three quarters of my time\nI do not know where duty lies. It is like the hedgehog that belonged\nto our English governess at Joinville. We used to spend the evening\nlooking for it under the furniture, and when we had found it, it was\ntime to go to bed.\u201d[15]\n\nFor these reasons, most have abandoned the attempt to define the moral\ngood in terms of maxims, which they take rather to be hypothetical\ngoods in disguise. They are rules indeed, but only rules of thumb\nholding \u201cfor the most part.\u201d If they vary with the time and place, if\nwithin the most circumscribed communities they contradict one another,\nthis is because they cannot pretend to be good in themselves, but\nare only the means which the community accepting them has found by\nexperience to be best fitted for attaining a certain end. It is indeed\nthe end that justifies the means, it alone is the categorical good, and\nthe whole meaning of morality is to be sought in its purpose.\n\nBut those who, like David Hume, have sought the purpose common to all\nthe discordant moral maxims of history, have found it not in some\nquality this purpose might be assumed to have, without question of him\nwhose purpose it was. No, the moral purpose founds its right to have\nall other purposes bow to it on nothing but the authoritative position\nof the one that has chosen this purpose as his. Suppose, with Hume,\nwe found no harmony in the moral ordinances of all the many peoples\nof history save that each maxim at the time and under the conditions\nof its acceptance was held to serve the well-being of the community.\nNow communities are not so different from particular men but that they\nmust, like men, hold their well-being to lie in having the objects\nof their desire accorded to them. From which it follows that to act\nvirtuously is to make your will conform to the will of the community to\nwhich you belong. Descartes has somewhere said that God did not choose\nthis world because it was good, but the world is good because God chose\nit. Just so, a community does not choose its purpose because it is\ngood, but that purpose is good which the community chooses. We might\nsay that, not the good will, but the Good Willer is morality\u2019s last\nword on the subject of the categorical good.\n\nThus it would seem that all virtues melt into one, and that one is what\nthe late Professor Royce was fond of calling \u201cloyalty,\u201d the devotion\nof my will to the will of another. I am aware that not just _any_\nother-will, whosesoever it may be, is contemplated by moralists as a\nfit object of loyalty\u2019s devotion. The Other to whom my will should bow,\nif I would be moral, is generally conceived to be more numerous than\nI (_e.g._ the majority), or more inclusive (the family, the state,\nthe cause), or in some sense higher (God). In short, the Other-will\nis taken to be, in one way or another, an Over-will, and moralists\nmay differ widely as to which one of several conceivable Over-wills\nshould be recognized as the Absolute. But for the purpose of this\ndiscussion, one illustration of moral loyalty is as good as another,\nfor the difficulty that morality has found in making good its claim to\nhave laid hold on the absolute good lies not, I conceive, in deciding\n_which_ Other-will is sovereign, but in convincing a man that he ought\nto acknowledge as sovereign _any_ other will than his own. One who is\ntold that it is not good for him to remain captain of his soul is bound\nto ask, Why not? It is morality\u2019s way of dealing with this _why_ that\nI would consider in an example which, for being simple, loses nothing\nthat I can think essential to the issue.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn Thomas Hobbes\u2019s \u201cLeviathan,\u201d one finds an account, clear,\nlegalistic, unsentimental, of the meaning of duty interpreted as the\nobligation of your will and mine to bow to a Sovereign-will. The\ntitle-page of the first edition (1651) of this work bears the image of\na man of heroic size whose body is made up of little men. The little\nmen stand for you and me, the big man is Leviathan. The story of the\ngeneration of the living giant made up of living men is in this wise:\n\n\u201cNature it seems hath made men so equal ... as though there be found\none man manifestly stronger in body or quicker in mind than another,\nyet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man\nis not so considerable as that one man can therefore claim to himself\nany benefit to which another man may not pretend as well as he.... From\nthis equality of ability arises equality of hope in attaining of our\nends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, they become\nenemies, and in the way to their end ... endeavor to destroy or subdue\none another.... From this diffidence of one another, there is no way\nfor any man to secure himself so reasonable as anticipation; that is,\nby force or wiles to master the persons of all the men he can, so long\ntill he see no other power great enough to endanger him....\n\n\u201cHereby is manifest that during the time men live without a common\npower to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is\ncalled war, and such a war as is of all against all.... In such\ncondition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is\nuncertain, ... no arts, no letters, no society, and, what is worst of\nall, continued fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man\nsolitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short....\n\n\u201cAnd consequently, it is a precept, or general rule of reason, _that\nevery man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining\nit; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps\nand advantages of war_.... From this fundamental law of nature, by\nwhich men are commended to endeavor peace, is derived this second law;\n_that a man be willing when others are so too, as far forth as for\npeace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down\nthis right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against\nother men as he would allow other men against himself._\u201d\n\nThus \u201cthe final cause, end, or design of men, who naturally love\nliberty and dominion over others, in the introduction of restraint upon\nthemselves in which we see them live in commonwealths, is the foresight\nof their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that\nis to say, of getting themselves out from the condition of war, which\nis necessarily consequent to the natural passions of men when there is\nno visible power to keep them in awe and tie them by fear of punishment\nto the performance of their covenants.\u201d\n\nNow \u201cthe only way to erect such a common power ... is to confer all\ntheir power and strength upon one man or upon an assembly of men that\nmay reduce all their wills ... unto one will, ... which is as much as\nto say, to appoint one man or an assembly of men to bear their person,\nand every one to own and acknowledge himself to be author of whatsoever\nhe that so beareth their person shall act ... in those things which\nconcern the common peace and safety; and therein submit their wills\nevery one to his will, and their judgments to his judgment.... This\ndone, the multitude so united in one person is called a Commonwealth,\nin Latin, Civitas. This is the generation of that great Leviathan, or\nrather, to speak more reverently, of that _mortal god_ to which we owe\nunder immortal God our peace and defence.\u201d\n\nSeldom has the \u201cgeneration\u201d of an Absolute been so clearly set forth.\nWe do not suppose, any more than Hobbes himself did, that this word\n\u201cgeneration\u201d has any historical significance. Men never lived in the\nstate of nature here defined, they never foregathered to reason out in\nthis way the advisability of organizing themselves into commonwealths.\nInstead of \u201cgeneration,\u201d read, if you will, \u201cjustification,\u201d _i.e._,\nthe justification in reason for the commonwealth\u2019s existence and\ndominion. Then observe that not only does this great loyalist (the\nwhole Leviathan is one of the loyalist documents of the Civil\nWars)--not only does he demand a reason for the loyal faith that\nis in him, but in the development of this reason it turns out that\nthe absolute _is not another will at all_, but only one\u2019s own will\nthoughtfully dealing with others to win for itself a \u201cmore contented\nlife.\u201d\n\nNow of course it is an absurdity to try to give a reason why any will\nwhatever should be taken for absolute and expect to keep it so; for\nthe very function of this reason is to show what more ultimate end\nis served by acknowledging this will as master. But if we do follow\nHobbes\u2019s reason for bowing as deep as we do bow to Leviathan, this\nreason is that our own deepest desire--or what Hobbes takes to be\nsuch--is thereby best served. \u201cFor it is,\u201d says he, \u201ca voluntary act;\nand of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to\nhimself.\u201d\n\nWhy then, that morality which promised to give us a meaning of the good\nthat would enable us to understand how the progress of science with\nits hypothetical goods might let us stray from or even lead us away\nfrom _the_ good, has turned out to be itself offering us a hypothetical\ngood, _to be itself an effort of science_,--the science of many wills\nmeeting in presence of but a single world. And this I take to be the\nfate, not only of Hobbes\u2019s but of all moralities: differ as they may\nrespecting that Other-will they take to be absolute, they all alike\nrecommend a sacrifice of my will to another will, not indeed for the\nsacrifice\u2019 sake, nor yet for that other will\u2019s sake when all is said,\nbut that my own will may find \u201ca more contented life thereby.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nMost of us have let our thoughts respecting the good of life stop\nwith the acceptance of those moral goods that the opinion of our time\ntakes to be absolute. These standard objects of loyalty, the state,\nthe hearth, the cause, we serve with devotion and to them make our\nsacrifice. It is natural we should look with distrust, even with\nhostility, upon those who have let their thought go further and have\nasked, How in serving these Other-wills is our own deeper desire the\nbetter fulfilled? And yet, if our analysis is so far correct, this is\nthe most intelligent, the most dignified of questions; for no historic\nmorality has really meant to present itself as a system of sacrifices\nwith no corresponding satisfactions.\n\nBut if we ask of the current morality of loyalty, What is the greater\ncontentment bought by each of us at the price of the sacrifices we make\nin loyalty\u2019s name? we come upon serious matters for reflection. There\nhave been those who maintain that current morality cannot meet the\ndemands of intelligence, and as there are two ways in which in buying a\nthing for a price one may drive an unprofitable bargain, so there are\ntwo critics of current morality. The one thinks the price morality asks\ntoo high; the other esteems the thing bought of no value. Let me call\nthe one the _Reforming Moralist_; the other the _Amoralist_.\n\nNow the reward morality holds out to all who make sacrifice to it\nis some ideal of peace, whether it be peace on earth and good will\namong men, or that peace which passeth understanding. Our reforming\nmoralist then holds fast to the ideal of peace as the deepest of human\ndesires, but questions whether current morality in its uncritical\nacceptance of traditional loyalties has found the most intelligent,\n_i.e._, the least sacrificial way of peace. Thus if he is not blind\nto the citizen-peace that comes from living in Commonwealths to whose\nOver-will we particular men make our loyal sacrifices, neither will he\naccept such nationalism as refuses to sanction covenants of nation with\nnation to the establishment of their more peaceful, if less autonomous,\nrelations. He sees in that group-will we call the national-will but an\nhistoric device for improving the conditions of private life. He sees\nnothing but unreformed, that is, atavistic and stupid morality in such\nnationalism as would make the autonomy of the state an end in itself to\nwhich private life must forever yield its contentment. There is a sense\nin which he would say with Remy de Gourmont--\n\n\u201cThe life of nations, of groups, of individuals is one struggle\nagainst morality. Man pushes on toward liberty, and can accept only\nsuch discipline as assures him at the cost of temporary subjection a\nmore agreeable and more complete exercise of this supreme good. All\ndiscipline that is not founded in liberty is caduque, and it is for\nthis reason that civilization has always succeeded in surmounting\nsystems of morals.\u201d[16]\n\nBut if our reforming moralist acknowledges the supreme value of peace\nand would only make the pursuit of it more intelligent, our amoralist\ndenies that the human heart can ever rest in peace or even really wants\nto. Peace, if it were complete, would mean stagnation, will-less\napathy, that ennui of life Schopenhauer judges to be worse than any\nmisery the war of aggressive wills can engender. In the Nietzschian\nman-of-might our amoralist sees his ideal, a will that knows no\nOver-will, acknowledges no loyalty, but whose motto is \u201cWeltmacht oder\nUntergang.\u201d For him, life shall at least know nothing of ennui, no\nstatic stagnant peace, no Nirvana.\n\nThus if we approach in an historian\u2019s spirit the attempt to think out\nthe world-desirable to make for which is to progress in the only sense\nthe word can have, we find humanity divided between those who desire\npeace and those who want war.\n\nOn behalf of peace the moralist points not alone to the misery war\nbrings to the vanquished, not alone to its cost to the victor and to\nthe vanity of his ephemeral winnings; but to that utter loneliness\nwhich the war of all upon all makes the only lasting portion of each. A\nsolitude of struggle, without one to cheer the effort, without one to\nshare the joy (if joy it can then be called) of triumph--can any human\nheart endure, let alone desire war?\n\nBut the amoralist, full of the _certaminis gaudia_, turns in disgust\nfrom the hopeless state of the peaceful who having nothing more to\nfear can have nothing left to hope for. Our longing for peace is an\nillusion of certain moments of war-weariness, but a picture of eternal\npeace, stagnant, ambitionless, dead--and yet not dead enough--who could\nendure it, who could really desire peace?\n\nLonely ambition--peaceful acquiescence in a common lot! The history of\nhuman relations is a struggle, more often than not a compromise between\nthese ideals. There is enough inspiring in each to make any man of\nunderstanding long for it, there is enough repulsive in each to turn\nany thoughtful soul against it. Wherefore the gruesome spectacle of\nworld war is but the outer and visible sign of the struggle that goes\non every silent moment within the heart of each, as the volcano is but\nthe overt violence of long sullen rumblings that have gone before. And\nso things must last if and so long as we really want two irreconcilable\nideals: compromise must follow makeshift, war must punctuate peace,\nworld without end.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nInto a world so distraught comes that child of God, that messenger of\nheaven, the modest philosopher. His cheerful gospel is that all men\u2019s\nills are curable by taking thought, that men suffer only for their\nfalse philosophy. Now, of all philosophies none is so false as that\nwhich pretends one cannot have his penny and his cake. True it may\nbe in the letter that I cannot keep a certain copper in my pocket\nand honestly entice a sweet-meat out of the baker\u2019s window. But I\nmust be a sorry philosopher if I cannot keep all the potentiality of\nfuture enjoyment the penny stands for, and yet have all the actual\nsatisfaction I happen for the moment to visualize in the form of cake.\nOr to put the thought in less poetic and more general terms, the heart\nthat thinks itself torn by conflicting desires owes its plight to the\nfailure of its imagination to realize that only the formulas in which\nit has so far expressed its desires are in contradiction; the desires\nthemselves may well enough be reconciled in a larger world-view.\n\nTake our present problem for example. It is impossible, you say, that\nI should deny the ambition to conquer for the sake of the love of\nmy neighbor without killing what is most vital in myself. And it is\nequally impossible that I should give play to my ambition to conquer\nwithout losing my neighbor\u2019s love and living a lonely struggle. These\nthings are indeed impossible in the world to which the imagination\nof the past has been fettered,--this little finite earth the fulness\nwhereof is so easily emptied. If to have all that I can win of such\nmeagre fulness is the only meaning I can give to ambition, either I\nmust kill ambition and love my neighbor across a fence, or I must\ntear down the fence and kill my neighbor. But what if the fault of\nall this lay not with the darkness of reality, but with the blindness\nof untrained imagination? What if we could set before ambition a\nboundless prospect, so that never, far as conquest might reach, could\nit find cause to weep for lack of more to conquer? What if, in the\nvery conquering of such a world, the gain of one, so far from being\nanother\u2019s loss, were the equal spoil of all, yes, and a weapon forged\nto the hand of all for new victories? Wherefore _then_ should ambition\nyield or love be denied?\n\nBut perhaps you will say, this _is_ but an imagining and a dream. Our\nhumdrum world, the only real one, offers no such object of ambition;\nand if it did, our nature, just human nature, is not such as could\nunderstand, still less be fascinated and inspired by it.\n\nDoes it sound ridiculous to say that our world _is_ one that holds out\njust such a prospect to all who will but see? Aye, and that many a\nhuman eye has seen, and having seen remained single to this vision? I\nwill call the promised land the Kingdom of Nature Subdued: I will call\nthe vision the Vision of Science.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the beginning, Man was Nature\u2019s creature and her plaything.\nSometimes she seems to have fondled her toy and been good to it, given\nit pleasant places to dwell in and let the light of her countenance\nshine upon it. Those who think only of these rare moments may sing, O\nbella et\u00e0 dell\u2019 oro! O Paradise; O Paradise! They forget how rare were\nthese moments and how capriciously bestowed. Elsewhere were many griefs\nof which man could not so much as guess the reason, and if he dared\nraise his questioning gaze to God he was mocked for his impotence and\nnothingness: \u201cWhere wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth?\ndeclare, if thou hast understanding.\u201d\n\nBut need makes for perspicuity. Time passed, and some few caught a\nglimpse of the vision of science; caught it, widened it, brightened\nit and passed it on. Perhaps their lives were not very happy in a\nworld where they were much alone; but it is easier to tell of their\nostensible hardships than of their enthusiasms--who knows but that even\nthey found here their compt? Time went on, and that Nature which had\nbegun by being so cruel and capricious a mistress became through man\u2019s\nscience more and more his slave. Human eyes were not so often turned to\nthe gods in supplication. A Greek slave rang out to his fellows, \u201cWhy\ncall ye upon the gods? Ye have hands? Wipe your own nose.\u201d\n\nThe earth yields; step by step death itself gives ground; and shall\nwe think of the stars only to fear them and to read our fate in them?\nShall they forever whisper to us their old taunting questions: \u201cCanst\nthou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of\nOrion? Canst thou bring forth Mazaroth in his season? or canst thou\nguide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?\ncanst thou set the dominion thereof on the earth?\u201d--And shall we always\nanswer, Alas!\n\nBut I am dreaming a dream. Is it though so ill a thing to dream, if\none does not forget how to laugh the while? Yes, I know, the stars\nare rather big for our frail hands to play with even as all Nature\nonce played with us. But how else am I to say that there is nothing in\nNature that can forever resist the onward march of science? What else\nam I to say when the same master equations hold in heaven as on the\nearth, and Arcturus with all his sons is but a falling pebble painted\nlarge?\n\nLet us dream then and laugh with Aesop at his frog. It is certain that\nneither our laughter nor our dreams can hurt our wise neighbor very\nmuch, and if we go the toilsome way toward the conquest we dream of,\nhe or one that comes after may sometime look back on us and say, Yes,\nthat was Progress. _The measure of man\u2019s co\u00f6peration with man in the\nconquest of nature measures progress._\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nROYCE ON LOVE AND LOYALTY\n\nA Footnote in Illustration\n\n\n[Something we had to say, in clarifying the thought of Kant, of a\nquality of human _love_ that holds its object single and unique. And\nagain, in estimating the part played by morality in the ideal of\nprogress, we had occasion to remark the unwillingness of some to admit\nthe finality of those sacrifices _loyalty_ calls for.\n\nThese matters are not so simple but that history, in dealing with them,\nshows sharp discord where it does not uncover sheer confusion. The love\nthat sets its heart on _one_ has been held the highest; it has also\nbeen put the lowest of all loves. Loyalty that lives on sacrifice has\nbeen prized as an enduring condition of all worth; it has not escaped\ndisparagement as a human makeshift. Above all, \u201clove\u201d and \u201cloyalty\u201d are\nso mixed in men\u2019s minds that, although any pair of lovers could tell a\nservice of love from a servitude to loyalty, philosophers cannot always.\n\nThe brief discussion that follows seemed to the writer to illustrate\na difficulty it may not have removed. He considered that it could not\nlack point for those who in foregoing passages on love and loyalty\nhave found themselves more involved than enlightened. For the rest, it\nhas seemed best to leave this \u201cfootnote\u201d in the form and wording its\noriginal occasion inspired.[17]]\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne who like me has gone to Royce for wisdom now this long time and\nnever come away empty, may yet live to know that some of his receivings\nare more his belongings than others. Thus, if it ever happen to me that\nI find my hold on the \u2018Absolute\u2019 slackening and the thing slipping from\nme, I cannot think that even in that day I shall have forgotten two\nwords I have heard. Love and loyalty, loyalty and love: this pair I\nexpect will still be singing its burden in my soul after other things\nhave left off singing there. But I hope that when this day comes I\nshall know better than I do now whether love and loyalty are two names\nfor the same thing; or whether they are not the same, yet brothers\nand friends; or whether in the end they are not rather enemies, of\nwhich one can survive only if the other doesn\u2019t. Nor do I know, though\nI should very much like to, how Royce himself would answer these\nquestions. Sometimes the words fall in such close juxtaposition in his\nwritings that I wonder whether they do not express a single idea whose\npeculiar quality is just unselfishness. But again I bethink me that to\nbe just unselfish is not enough for an absolutist, if for anyone; that\ngiving up can only be justified when it is a means of acquiring; and I\nwonder what loyalty can have to say for itself half as convincing as\nthe things love could point to. Until at last I find myself speculating\nwhether if love had its perfect way with us there would be any place\nleft for loyalty in our lives, and whether we could not look back on it\nthen as on a virtue happily outlived.\n\nAnd this may be my matter in a nutshell--is not loyalty a thing to be\noutlived, and is not that which alone can enable us to live it down a\nlove so perfect it calls for no sacrifices? Some such thought has long\nbeen with me, but if I am to lay my troubles before you, it is time\nI put aside a language too rich in sentimental associations and took\nup the idiom I love best, that of cold and, if may be, mathematical\ndefinition.\n\nAny definition of loyalty that could have meaning for me must assume\nthe existence of something many deny to have either existence or\nmeaning, and which I shall call in my own way the mind of a group,\nor a group mind. The conception of a mind belonging to a group of\nbeings each one of which has a mind of its own, yet such that the\nmind of the group is no more to be known from a study of its parts\nthan is the mentality of Peter from the psychology of Paul, is a\nvery old conception and perhaps for that reason supposed by some to\nbe old-fashioned and out-worn. It is a mere analogy, they say, and\na very thin one at that, to speak of a group of organisms as itself\nan organism; it is Plato, it is Cusanus, if you will, but it is not\nmodern. Benedetto Croce even goes so far as to be polite about the\nmatter. \u201cThe State,\u201d he writes, \u201cis not an entity, but a fluid complex\nof various relations among individuals. It may be convenient to delimit\nthis complex and to entify it for the sake of contrasting it with other\ncomplexes. No doubt this is so; but let us leave to the jurist the\nexcogitation of this and the like distinctions--fictions, but opportune\nfictions--being careful not to call his work absurd. It is enough for\nus to be sure we do not forget that a fiction is a fiction.\u201d\n\nTo Royce the group mind is far from being a fiction, though he may\nprefer to call it by some other name than group mind--maybe universal\nmind or universal will. But if to him it seems natural, as it does\nto me, to recognize group minds, while to Croce the entity is but a\npolite fiction to be pleasantly dismissed, there must be some lack of\ndefinition befogging our issue. Nor can I think of any way in which old\nissues can better be made clear than by recalling old images.\n\nAristotle would not have asked when and where do new _entities_ appear,\nbut where and when must we take account of new _forms_. Now matter was\ninformed for Aristotle when the behavior of some class of beings was\nrecognized to be predictable in terms of purpose. Thus earth, water,\nair and fire sought their proper places, one below, another above, and\nthe others in between. But we remember how no sooner had these elements\nreached their proper places than, transformed by the sun\u2019s heat, they\nwere no longer at home where they found themselves, but must needs seek\ntheir new homes anew. Thus homeward bound in opposite directions, they\ncollided and became entangled, so that mixtures of the four appeared,\nwhich, as it proved, kept their proportions for a longer or shorter\nwhile ere they lost their equilibrium and fell apart again. Among these\nmixtures were vegetables and animals and men, but Aristotle is very\nfar from defining this new class, organisms, in terms of the quantities\nof the elements that enter into their bodily composition. No, what they\nhave in common and all they have in common is a new purpose, that of\nself-preservation (and, if we are to follow Aristotle rigorously, that\nof type-preservation). But why in this class of beings does a new form\nappear when there is nothing in any one of them but so much earth,\nso much water and so much of the rest? Because, I take it, in order\nthat the purpose of the group may be realized, the purpose of each\nconstituent of that group must be defeated: when the earth in us finds\nits way back to earth and our fire to fire, then we are no more. Which\nis the fundamental difference between us and them: if we win they lose;\nif they win we are done for. The whole has a purpose whose realization\nis only possible if the purposes defining the parts are given up for it.\n\nI suppose Croce would say that nothing better could be offered in\nsupport of a modern fiction than an ancient fable; and I confess that\nI can think of nothing better fitted to set forth the complex problem\nof how beings of one mind can combine to form groups of another mind,\nthan Aristotle\u2019s account of the way elements in the form of mechanism\ncombine to produce a group with that other form, life. Perhaps I\ncan make out the connection between old and new ideas by a single\nexample. I know of no fellow easier to get along with than your average\nParisian: many a time have I sat at his board, looked in his eyes,\nlistened to his amusing wit and wondered how the great-grandfather of\nmy host could have been part of the Reign of Terror. And yet I suppose\nthe Parisian of today is not very different from the Parisian of four\ngenerations ago, when groups of these same Parisians were ranging the\nstreets of Paris crying, \u201cA la lanterne!\u201d However much it was in the\ncharacter of the Pierre, Paul, Jean and Jacques Bonhomme of those old\ndays to steer for home, their distributive tendency was contradicted by\ntheir collective tendency. A new form, a new entity had appeared; it\nwas the spirit of the mob. It may be pleasant to call such new entities\nfictions; but it would be a most dangerous fiction to suppose pleasant\nmen made pleasant mobs.\n\nI must let this single illustration take the place of what might at\nsome other time grow into a systematic account of the varieties of\ngroup minds that history and personal experience reveal to us. For my\nworld is highly organized--groups within groups and groups within these\nin a way one might have learned at the feet of Nicolaus or by gathering\none\u2019s history from Gierke\u2019s \u201cGeschichte des Deutschen Rechts.\u201d But on\nthis occasion, instead of going into all this literature and all this\nphilosophy, let me come back to the matter of loyalty\u2019s worth. There\nwould be no such thing as a demand for loyalty were there no call for\na man to deny his wish for home--whether home be on earth or on high\nfor him--for the sake of organizing himself into a group; which means,\nas we have seen, sacrificing his purpose for the group purpose. Now,\nwhat you think of the value of this sacrifice depends altogether on the\nesteem in which you hold group minds. If you can find some principle on\nwhich to estimate their dignity as something worth dying for in part\nor altogether, then loyalty may be the last word of virtue. But if\nyou find that at their very best there is something rather primitive,\nsometimes amoeboid, sometimes tigerish about such minds, then you\nshould seriously consider whether your biped soul owes anything more to\nthis polypod entity than the entity owes to it. Merging oneself into\nsomething big may not be just the same as reaching for something high.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut I am not belittling loyalty. It is a great virtue so long as it\nunderstands itself to be making a virtue of necessity. Just so is it a\ngreat virtue to acquire equanimity in the face of death, in such wise\nthat not being able to invent a way of getting around the thing one\nmay accept it for the time being without disturbing oneself or one\u2019s\nfriends more than the episode calls for. Still, if I had some genius to\nspend, I should rather contribute it to the suppression of dying than\nto the cultivation of a cheerful manner in dying. So should I rather\nspend my time, if it were worth while, in wearing away the conditions\nthat make loyalty necessary than in developing a spirit of loyalty.\nAnd so, or I mistake him, would Royce; for I can not get over the\nimpression that for him, too, loyalty is but a half-way house on the\nroad to something better--which something better is _love_.\n\nIt is with relief I find a definition of love can be effected which\nmakes no very heavy demands upon one\u2019s sentimental experience; in fact,\nrequires no more in that way than a fair understanding of the theory of\nsubstitutions. For the peculiar quality Royce finds in the idea of love\nis that _love individuates_. This its quality is for him its virtue\nalso and its excellence, so that the more love individuates the more\nis it love. We are far enough from the days when a Plato could hold\nthe love to be higher that had detached itself from the individual and\nattached itself to the quality, had forgotten the beautiful being to\nthink only of his beauty. For Royce, love is not love unless it has\nsucceeded in making its object irreplaceable.\n\nNow I do not know whether this constitutes a complete definition of\nlove. There is something hopeful about the suggestion that it may\ndo so; for if no one has been able to say anything very articulate\nabout love, neither has anyone said much that is intelligible about\nindividuation. But certain difficulties occur to one. Is love the only\nthing that individuates? If there is such a thing as Platonic hate,\nwhich I suppose would be the sort of hate that hates the sin and not\nthe sinner, why should there not be such a thing as a romantic hate\nwhose object would be just the sinner and not his fault? Or may not\na process of individuation go on, cold and impassible, untouched by\neither hate or love?\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne day Flaubert took his disciple by the hand and led him into the\nsecret places of art. The talent of the artist, he said, is a long\npatience spent in learning how to portray so that your portrayal leaves\nthe object it offers just as individual as the thing is found. \u201cWhen\nyou pass a grocer sitting at his door, or a concierge smoking his pipe,\nor a stand of cabs, show me this grocer and this concierge, their pose,\ntheir physical appearance, suggesting also by the skill of your image\nall their moral nature in such wise that I do not confuse them with\nany other grocer or with any other concierge. And make me see with\na single stroke in what a certain cab horse is unlike fifty others\nfollowing him or going before.\u201d\n\nWhy, then, besides love and hate, art too claims to be that\nwhich individuates--and not because, if we may believe a certain\nphilosophically minded critic, art has borrowed anything of love or\nhate. This disciple of Flaubert, this Maupassant, carried out his\nmaster\u2019s teachings if ever an artist did, but there is that in his\nway of doing it which makes one feel that Anatole France\u2019s account\nof him is not altogether wanting: \u201cHe is the great painter of the\nhuman grimace. He paints without hate and without love, without anger\nand without pity--hard-fisted peasants, drunken sailors, lost women,\nobscure clerks dried up in the air of the office, and all the humble\nfolk whose humility is without beauty and without merit. All these\ngrotesques and all these unfortunates he shows us so distinctly that\nwe think we see them with our own eyes and find them more real than\nreality itself. He is a skillful artist who knows he has done all there\nis to do when he has given life to things. His indifference is as\nindifferent as nature.\u201d\n\nI am not so very confident that all these claimants to the right of\nindividuating--love, hate, art--are equal claimants. As for hate, some\npoverty of experience may account for the fact that all I know of this\nromantically valued emotion has sometime been directed against persons\nunknown, whose manner of conducting themselves on the earth beneath and\nin the waters under the earth showed nothing more clearly than that\nthey had forgotten the human being and were utterly lost in loyalty. A\nhate of such poor quality cannot well be said to individuate, and it is\ncertainly not any experience of my own that would lead me to suppose\nromantic hate, as we have imagined it, to be real. Respecting the\nimpassibility of the creative artist, I am no less skeptical, and so I\nthink is France at bottom; for of this same artist whose indifference\nis as indifferent as nature, he says in another passage of the same\nappreciation that his hardened hero \u201cis ashamed of nothing but his\nlarge native kindliness, careful to hide what is most exquisite in his\nsoul.\u201d\n\nNo, I am not convinced that love has any rivals in the art of\nindividuating, and if not, then to call it that which individuates\nis to define it completely. But whether it is a deduction from this\ndefinition or whether it is an independent element in a fuller\ndefinition of love, it must be set down as an important fact about\nit that love wants the will and desire of the beloved to prevail.\nIt wants the will of another to prevail, and as the easiest and\nmost obvious way of bringing about this result is to yield its own\nwill, it has generally been supposed that love was less the art of\nindividuating than the art of yielding. But this is just the mistake\nthat has prevented love from taking its place among the more seriously\nmeant categories of philosophy and realities of life; for this yielding\ndisposition that might be supposed to make for peace in a republic of\nlovers is the very matter introducing trouble and perplexity there.\nIt is the very matter that has made traditional Christianity less\neffective than it might have been, failing where it fails, not because\nthere is anything better to be conceived than its gospel of love, but\nbecause it has supposed a good heart and convinced will was enough to\nbring about its kingdom.\n\nOur two great experiments at loving--the love of man and woman and the\nlove of one\u2019s neighbor--have been too much alike in this, that they\nboth supposed love to be the sort of thing one could fall into and be\ndone with. But it is clear this is not at all the way of the matter,\nand in our poor imaginings about the lovers\u2019 republic we have been too\nmuch guided by our imperfect experience of what our loves have been to\nthink our way into what the love that individuates ought to be. Oh,\nyes, our love has yielded; its great vice has been its contentment in\nyielding rather than suffer the labor and unrest of that thinking which\nalone could have saved its kingdom. In this dear illogical passion\nfor yielding, we have been content with a division of the spoils; one\nis allowed to give this, the other that; one now, the other then; and\nso we have patched up our lovers\u2019 quarrel as best we could without\nlogic. But logic, which is supposed to have nothing to do with love\nand has had little enough to do with the old loves of this world, has\neverything to do with the love that individuates. For, the moment love\nbegins to be a mutual affair, neither lover has the right to usurp\nthe privilege of giving; else what is left for the other lover to do?\nWithout logic our lovers are doomed to stand bowing to each other\nbefore the door of promise till time grows gray.\n\nHowever, besides logic there is such a thing as bad logic, which is\nperhaps nothing more than a well-meant half-thoughtfulness in presence\nof puzzling experience. As a result of this half-thoughtfulness there\nhas sometimes crept a half-reasonableness into the matter we are\nconsidering, which would begin by suggesting that the various and\ncontradictory desires of lovers, though equally strong, cannot, save by\nimprobable chance, be equally high and worth while; that, therefore,\nthe logical thing to do would be to let the lower ideal recognize the\nhigher and bow to it, while the higher might somehow forget its longing\nto give and content its poor heart with being given to.\n\nThere are many difficulties in the way of making such an account of the\naffair persuasive, but there are more serious troubles ahead of anyone\nwho would try to make it meaningful. Chief of these is the hopelessness\nof defining high and low in the matter of purposes and ideals. Here,\nonce more, Royce is quick to analyze the difficulty and remove it;\nfor, if I read him aright, he sees no way, and no more do I, by which\nthe value of ultimate objects of desire may be compared. It is easy to\ncalculate the better means, but how is one to know the better end? Only\nthis may we do--we may discover that purposes which seem contradictory\nare not really so, and that neither need sacrifice itself to the other\nif thought be allowed to work its perfect work. No doubt happiness lies\nin getting what we want; but this is not the same as getting what we\nthink we want, as capturing what we go after; for our wants are none\nthe less hard to make out because they are our own.\n\nThis, then, is thought\u2019s infinitely difficult task in the service of\nlove, to analyze apparent desires until it has found the real want at\nthe core of appearance, while the postulate on which alone the advent\nof the kingdom becomes possible is that thought may find our real wants\nnot contradictory. The times are not without sign that Christianity as\nan ethics is coming to realize how very intellectual is the task it has\nset itself in trying to bring the kingdom of Christ\u2019s vision to be on\nearth. What Christianity most needs, writes Tennant, is a philosophy.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe brief time we allow ourselves for our utterances ought yet to prove\nample for a person of industry and thrift to make himself thoroughly\nmisunderstood; and I hope I have used it to no less purpose on this\nthan on former occasions; but among the misunderstandings I would\nprevent, if I could, is that which would sum up the matter of my\ndiscourse as a defense of _individualism_ against _collectivism_. Such\nan issue could only be meaningful for one to whom the collectivity was\ndenied some sort of individuality which the \u201cindividual\u201d enjoys. But\nI have tried to show that I could conceive no such difference between\nthe mind of the part and the mind of the group. The group mind may\nbe loved with the human love that individuates, as well as can the\nsoul of a fellow-man; and no doubt one may love one\u2019s country as a\nmistress. But the difference between the love of equals and the love\nof constituents is plain. The latter sort of love can last only so\nlong as its object endures, and as long as it lasts its sacrifices are\nincurable; for in a world that has conquered strife there would no\nlonger be that contradiction between the will of a group and the will\nof its parts, which alone makes the group entity meaningful. Groups\nbound in mutual respect of each other and studying to preserve their\nparts irreplaceable _have no minds_; the entity born of struggle and\ncalling for sacrifice has simply disappeared; where we had a group\nmind, we have now but an aggregate of minds, \u201ca fluid complex of\nrelations among individuals.\u201d But the love of equals can push on toward\nthe ideal without destroying the very object of its devotion; it can go\non searching the core of concord in the stupid appearance of discord\nuntil love has found a way to make loyalty a lost virtue and a group\nmind a thing that is no more.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nRETROSPECT AND PROSPECT\n\n\nWhen I had gathered together the pages in which for a time I had been\nliving with these men whose thought had been so real a thing to me, who\none by one had said their word and left it to live or die according as\nmen\u2019s hearts received it, I was as though suddenly and newly aware of\nthe great modern city without pressing on my window-panes. Little by\nlittle its vast insistent presence seemed to push my whilom companions\nout of the room of being back to their places among the many silent\ndead. For indeed, I reflected, how few, how vanishingly small a number\nof those who are out there will be better, worse or different for\nanything these lives had spent themselves to gain and to give.\n\nIf such thoughts came to me, as to any one they might, must they not\nhave come often and often to those of whom I have been telling? and\nmust not these men have been seized at times with a wistful sense of\nthe humor of their situation? If so, what gave them courage to keep on\nand to endure until the end? Was it that by some fatality they were\nbond-slaves to the remote, from whose dominance they could not, even\nif they would, have freed themselves? For one may suppose that all men,\neven philosophers, are human enough sometimes to crave the response of\ntheir fellows to the effort of their lives; the recognition not merely\nof some few initiated ones, but of the many or of those who represent\nthe many by the simplicity of their thought. Must not many a one whose\nlabor was with the stars have stopped on his way to envy some singer at\nthe street-corner whose trivial melody had caught the ear and held the\nsteps of passers-by? What reasoning then, or what destiny carried our\nstar-gazer on to his lonely vigil?\n\nYou may say, the psychology of the man who thinks of cosmic things is\nsimple and that his steadfastness is due to his inability to realize or\nhis ability to forget the homely intimate things of life that to the\nrest of us are, if not important, yet all the more indispensable. To\nthis I answer: \u2019tis unlikely! But whether true or not of any of those\nwhose thoughts must seem (if I have not entirely failed to render them)\nso much our own, let it not be true of us!\n\nI mean, that no one can think of himself as likely to enrich the world\nso greatly by his thought and labor that he may count himself to be or\nencourage himself to become a soul solitary to its toil. Which, being\nso of our lives as a whole, we frequently feel and wholesomely feel\nthat it is not very well for us to indulge even moments of these lives\nin studies and reflections so detached from all the give and take of\nour other time as to leave no trace of influence there.\n\nPerhaps indeed it cannot be said of any of our momentary flights away\nfrom familiar things that we come back from them with no star-dust on\nour wings, and so these spirit holidays may be excused as may any other\nholiday on the ground of their quickening and refreshment. But little\nas I would quarrel with holidays of any kind, and satisfied as I should\nbe had any one found these pages opening to him a door to some fourth\ndimension where momentary exhilaration or passing forgetfulness might\nbe found, yet I have the feeling that holidays are but a poor imperfect\ndevice for making other days more livable.\n\nIn these last reflections, I am sensible that I have been clumsily\nfeeling my way to the asking of a question. It is this: May we not\nbring the experience of the most thoughtful men of the centuries\nthat have gone before so to bear in our daily living that it will no\nlonger be noble, because no longer necessary, to scorn delights and\nlive laborious days (save holidays)? May not these men have been the\nprophets of that mediation which will make labor and delight one thing?\nMay it not be possible for us after their leading so to live and strive\nin the moment that more and more of the whole toward which it tends may\nbe felt in it? And this whole, the while, will it not come so to be\nconceived that its real presence in the crumb of bread and drop of wine\nmay make of our daily partaking a sacrament as bright as it is enduring?\n\nIf so, and, as it seems to me, only if so, will these thinkers about\nthe whole have found that for which they seemed to waste their\nbeing--the response of the man living the moment, which is everyman.\nThen will we the studious have brought back from our wanderings with\nthese \u201csouls of men outworn\u201d something more than ineffable things and\nmemories of dreams dreamt with them. To men bound for the most part to\nlive the moment, that moment would not have lost its throbbing intimacy\nbecause it had lost its solitude.\n\nNow of all desirable things, one may feel and in a poor fashion of\nwords try to tell how desirable they are, without having much hope of\nsecuring them for himself or of being able to offer them to others.\nBut it cannot be a bad way to begin winning something for oneself at\nleast by enriching one\u2019s reflection with all the stored experience of\nhistory. And as history is not always easy to gather, it is at least\na generous impulse to tell of what is to be found there a little more\nsimply and compendiously than others have cared to tell it. Which\ndone--and the doing of it has that peculiar quality of giving to the\nlabor of the moment its sense of participation--it is time to look\nabout one with one\u2019s own eyes.\n\nWhat under such circumstances the private eye, turning from the past\nand peering into the future, thinks it sees there, might well be kept\nprivate for all the authority it can have and for all the interest it\nmay have for another. Each will have his own vision of the horizon. But\nit has never been found that the truth is in the end better made out by\neach holding his own counsel as to what he timidly thinks he descries\nthere. No, out of the confusion of many witnesses comes what little we\nhave guessed or can hope to guess of truth, and no less of that truth\nwhich, because it deals with the tie that binds the least with the\ngreatest of things, I venture to call religious.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn these pages, little or no mention has been made of those great\nhistoric religions in whose name temples and cathedrals have been\nbuilt, and throngs have been moved to worship and to war. This neglect\nhas not been due to indifference: it will perhaps have been felt that\nthese matters were present to the writer as the background against\nwhich the thought of the philosophers had to be portrayed if we were\nto gain insight into their motives and meanings. But our study was to\nbe of those who had given reasons for the faith that was in them, or\nit might be for their lack of faith. This, the great swaying mass of\nhumanity cannot be expected to do, and if the learned and thoughtful\nof its various communions have constantly tried to do it for their\nfellows, these studious devout minds are led by the very diligence of\ntheir reflection to interpret the formulas of the throng in a way the\nthrong could not understand. Thus they too become philosophers, and for\nthe depth and learning of their thought are as interesting as any of\nthose here presented. It would be hard to find in history a clearer and\nmore judicious mind than Thomas Aquinas.\n\nBut because these theologians are in modern times the exponents of\nreligious views that are widely spread in some manifest form or other,\nwe may assume that they are familiar figures in the thoughts of men of\nour day and civilization. Wherefore it is of others, churchless and\nalone, with nothing but their personal writings to make their views\nknown, yet religious in the object of their inquiry and in the conduct\nof their thought, that I have chosen to speak.\n\nThe immense dialectic of the thought of these men has presented so many\naspects of the religious problem that it must have left in the reader a\nsense of confusion if not of bewilderment. Such a baffled mood comes on\nevery thoughtful student, not once, but again and again, as he reviews\nthe past and tries to estimate the value of its gain; to consider what\nhas definitely perished with its time, what perhaps marks development\nand points somewhither.\n\nLet me then suggest as well as may be done in a few words some things\nthese men have put behind them and some things to which, with all their\nmutual opposition, they seem resultantly to point.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the first place, their common assumption has been that the way of\narriving at religious truth was by reason or experience, not by what is\ncommonly called \u201crevelation.\u201d There is nothing new or modern in this\nattitude of mind. The earliest critics of popular religion share the\nfeeling that (as Xenophanes wrote, in the sixth century B.C.):\n\n By no means at the beginning did the gods reveal all things to mortals,\n But mortals themselves, by inquiry, in time have made gradual progress.\n\nAnd even among those who did not mean to be critics, we find some\ndevoutly maintaining that divine revelation brings naught that reason\nand experience cannot confirm; naught, then, they could not have\nreached: \u201cNon alia est philosophia, _i.e._, sapientiae studium, et alia\nreligio,\u201d writes John Scotus in the ninth century. \u201cQuid est aliud de\nphilosophia tractare nisi verae religionis regulas exponere? Conficitur\ninde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem conversimque veram\nreligionem esse veram philosophiam.\u201d (_De praedest. proem._)\n\nBut those who from revelation turn to _reason_ and those who turn to\n_experience_ for evidence in all matters, are of two different tempers\nof mind and habits of thought. The first we found represented in\nSpinoza with his _Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata_; the second in\nHume with his methods of natural history and human history.\n\nOf these two schools, I think we may regard the first as definitely\nclosed. That is, to establish the existence of God by logic alone and\nas a necessity of thought, would only be dreamed of today by those who\nmeant by God, by logic, and by thought\u2019s necessity something quite\ndifferent from anything the seventeenth century rationalist could have\nmeant by those terms.\n\nYet to say that the _method_ of a Spinoza is dead, is not to say that\nhis contribution to the spiritual problems with which he dealt is\nnaught. Nothing could be more important to our whole attitude toward\nthese problems than Spinoza\u2019s insight: The scientific demand that we\ntreat nature as an inviolable mechanism and the ethical demand that\nthe human element in nature remain a free agent _are consistent_.\nIt can readily be seen that all the rest of one\u2019s thoughts about\nthe world must hang upon one\u2019s acceptance or non-acceptance of this\nreconciliation of mechanical necessity and living freedom. (It must not\nbe supposed, however, that all later thought was agreed that Spinoza\nhad effected this reconciliation; perhaps the present writer is without\ncompany in thinking that Spinoza\u2019s indications in this sense may be\nfollowed to a clear and satisfactory issue.)\n\nIf the method of rationalism has lost meaning for us, do we then abide\nin the confidence that experimental science must find all that is to be\nfound of an object for religion to attach itself to? To my thinking,\nno! Or rather, the meaning of experience and with it of empirical\nscience has been so altered by later reflection that the relation\nbetween human desire and human finding is no longer conceived to be\nthat austere separation which a Hume, a Clifford or a Huxley made the\nbasis of intellectual honesty and even of moral honor.\n\nThere is nevertheless one result of the empirical philosophy which\nit is hard to believe we shall ever set aside. Whatever we may have\ncome to think experience means, those who have once entered into the\nspirit of these clear thinkers will not lightly abandon the idea that\n_experience is one_. There is not for most of us one kind of experience\nthat confirms the law of falling stones and revolving planets,\nanother unrelated kind that gives us a sympathetic but inarticulate\ninsight into life and its ways, and yet another which in incomparable\ntheophanies reveals to us another world. In a word, empiricism has\ntaught us to accept the postulate that whatever the nature of our\nbeliefs, their meaning must be communicable, their evidence must be\ndemonstrable by one to another.\n\nWhat has happened to change things since Hume\u2019s day is, first of all,\njust a deeper searching into the meaning of experience itself, with\nperhaps this finding: that the reality our empirical science reveals\nto us is not merely a thing found and received but also _a thing\nwilled and made_. Kantian criticism it was that suggested the part\nplayed by the knower in the formation of the thing known. This knower\nwas not merely informed by experience as to the world he had chanced\non, but of himself he informed his world. Imperfect, disconnected\nand unconvincing as were Kant\u2019s efforts to state and illustrate this\nconception, it is nevertheless to him that one turns for the first\nsuggestion of that idealism whose more recent expressions have been\nillustrated in the chapter on Pragmatism.\n\nMeanwhile, really unaffected by this development of method are\nSchopenhauer\u2019s gloomy findings and Nietzsche\u2019s exaltation of the\nmight of man. Just as the facts of life as he observed it left Hume\nunable to point to anything in experience that could guide life\nreligiously, so these facts as Schopenhauer more fully took them in\nleft life irreligious and blind. Again, it was but what he took to be\na broader experience that led Nietzsche to conceive the destiny and\nperfectability of life to lie within the control of life itself, and it\nis only a still broader view of experience that robs this philosophy\nfor us of what inspiration it had and leaves it but a gospel of\ngritting-the-teeth.\n\nYet we may not lay aside these two \u201cfindings\u201d regarding life without\nnoting how deeply each has seen into the human heart. If the insight\nof each is directly contradictory to the insight of the other, it is\nbecause the human heart is in contradiction with itself.\n\nIt can listen, this heart of man, to the voice of Schopenhauer crying\nfor peace. It can understand this voice even to the point of feeling\nthat the peace of those who have ceased to be is happier than the being\nof those who have lost hope of peace. Not indeed for us is the \u201cmelius\nest ipsum esse quam non esse\u201d of older simpler times.\n\nBut on the other hand, Nietzsche would not make the appeal he does\nif man did not shrink from every vision of peace that has ever been\noffered to him, as from something worse than nonentity. Indeed we \u201cenvy\nnot the dead that rest....\n\n  \u201cWhat peace could ever be to me\n  The joy that strives with strife?\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus it would seem that the philosophy which alone can bring to pass\nthat gladness of the moment which comes not from its content, but from\nwhat there is mixed in it of fulfilment and of promise--that philosophy\nmust give validity to two theses:\n\n(1) Reality must in all its aspects be shown to be such a thing as\nhuman effort may make and mould.\n\n(2) This effort must set before itself an ideal in which are\nconsistently included all that is genuine in the old ideals calling\nthemselves Peace and War.\n\nIf the first of these theses was the topic of the chapter on\nPragmatism, the second was that which inspired the conception of\nProgress. Only if to each moment of life there is vividly present\nthe sense that it is a moment of creation, and equally present a\nsatisfaction in the vision of what is to be created, can the moment be\na joyous one. Not joyous in a way to wring from us a \u201cVerweile doch! du\nbist so sch\u00f6n!\u201d But joyous with that quality which would let our _Ave_\nbe a welcome to the hoped for, our _Vale_ a benediction on a promise\nleft behind.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf our Modern Thinkers have done aught to help us so to pass a moment,\nwhy, so, let them pass.\n\n\n                                  Finis\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  \u00e0 Kempis, Schopenhauer and, 167.\n\n  Amiel, 217.\n\n  amoralist, 274, 276.\n\n  Antigone, 264.\n\n  _a posteriori_, 105.\n\n  _a priori_, 105, 137.\n\n  Aquinas, 24, 308.\n\n  Aristotle, 24, 25, 89, 289, 290.\n\n  art, and the universal, 170-172;\n    individuates, 294-296.\n\n  asceticism, Schopenhauer on, 176-178.\n\n  assent, Newman\u2019s \u201cGrammar of,\u201d 242.\n\n  _aviditas vitae_, Huxley\u2019s, 205.\n\n\n  Bacon, Francis, 57, 104, 247, 248.\n\n  Balfour, 246, 247.\n\n  beautiful, Schopenhauer\u2019s theory of the, 170-172.\n\n  Berti, _Vita di Giordano Bruno_, 11.\n\n  body, and mind, 45, 46.\n\n  Bourdeau, J., 241, 242.\n\n  Bourdeau, L., 223-226.\n\n  Bourget, \u201cLe Disciple,\u201d 68-95.\n\n  Brahminism, Schopenhauer and, 167.\n\n  Browning, 203.\n\n  Bruno, iii,\n    Mocenigo\u2019s denunciation of, 3-8;\n    trial at Venice, 9-18;\n    recantation, 18;\n    new astronomy, 18-21;\n    ethical and religious consequences, 21-26;\n    \u201cnew philosophy,\u201d pantheism, 29-31;\n    Schoppius on sentence and execution of, 33-34;\n    and Spinoza, 39, 40; 197.\n\n  Buddhism, Schopenhauer and, 167, 178, 179, 189.\n\n\n  cannibals, Melville on, 251-253;\n    Montaigne on, 253-256.\n\n  categorical, good, _ought_, see imperative.\n\n  Christianity, Kant and, 146, 147;\n    Schopenhauer and, 167;\n    Nietzsche and, 187, 206;\n    its intellectual task, 300.\n\n  civilization, a decadence, 257, 258.\n\n  Clifford, 312.\n\n  Clough, 228.\n\n  Coleridge, Mary, 314.\n\n  Copernicus, 20, 21.\n\n  Croce, 288, 290.\n\n  Cusanus, Nicolaus, 288, 291.\n\n\n  Dante, his world, 22.\n\n  Darwin, influence on Nietzsche, 193-195.\n\n  Decalogue, 137.\n\n  Descartes, and Spinoza, 41-45; 104, 267.\n\n  determinism, Spinoza\u2019s, 40, 45, 46, 53-55, 67, 69-78, 310, 311;\n    of mechanical ideal, 82-84.\n\n  disciple, Bourget\u2019s \u201cLe Disciple,\u201d 68;\n    problem and plot in relation to Spinoza, 69-78;\n    discussion of problem, mechanism, purpose, and freedom, 81-92;\n    outcome, 92-95.\n\n\n  empiricism, 104-107, 311, 312.\n\n  Epictetus, 280.\n\n  Epicurus, \u201cGarden of,\u201d 22; 99, 112.\n\n  Ethica, _ordine geometrico demonstrata_, 39, 310.\n\n  evolution, Nietzsche and doctrine of organic, 193-195.\n\n\n  Fichte, 67, 149, 154, 159.\n\n  Flaubert, 168, 294, 295.\n\n  France, Anatole, contrasts ancient and modern worlds, 22, 23, 168;\n    on realism in history, 223-226; 266, 294, 295.\n\n  freedom, consistent with mechanism, 53-55, 84-92;\n    Kant on, 140.\n\n  Fourlians, morality of, 120-123.\n\n\n  geometry, ethics after manner of, 39; 42, 43, 45, 310.\n\n  Gierke, 291.\n\n  God, ontological proof of, 43, 44;\n    Kant, 131, 142-146, 148-149;\n    \u201cis dead,\u201d 185-187.\n\n  Goethe, 315.\n\n  good, the, see imperative; 261-273.\n\n  _Gottrunkener_, Spinoza _ein_, 52.\n\n  Gourmont, Remy de, 275.\n\n  group, mind of, 288-292, 301.\n\n\n  Hardy, 168, 169.\n\n  Hegel, 149, 159.\n\n  Heine, 215.\n\n  Hobbes, 104, 268-272.\n\n  humanity, Hume on, 126.\n\n  Hume, personality, 100-104;\n    inheritance of empiricism, 104-107;\n    on experience _vs._ miracles, 107-112;\n    on Providence and Future State, 112-115;\n    on Natural Religion, reasons for vacillation, 115-119;\n    on problem of morals and definition of virtue, 119-125;\n    on virtue and happiness, 125-127; 227, 228, 266, 267, 311, 312.\n\n  Huxley, his \u201c_aviditas vitae_,\u201d 205; 312.\n\n  hypothetical, good, _ought_, see imperative.\n\n\n  ideal, mechanical, 82-84;\n    teleological, 89;\n    of progress, 281.\n\n  idealism, German, 29; 219.\n\n  immortality, Kant on, 140, 141.\n\n  imperative, Kant on hypothetical and categorical, 131-137; 261-263.\n\n  individuation, effected by love, 143-145, 293, 294, 296-299;\n    effected by art, 294-296.\n\n  Inquisition, Bruno before the Holy, 3-18, 33.\n\n\n  Jesus, Nietzsche\u2019s conception of, 189, 197-200.\n\n  James, see Pragmatism.\n\n  John Scotus, 310.\n\n\n  Kant, iv, 67;\n    attitude toward religion, 131;\n    on imperatives, 131-137;\n    on presuppositions of morality, 137-146;\n    postulates freedom, immortality, God, 146-150;\n    moral law, first formulation, 151-152;\n    second formulation, 152, 153;\n    on harmony of wills, 153, 154; 187, 261-263, 312.\n\n\n  law, mechanical and teleological, 86-92, 117-119.\n\n  Leconte de Lisle, 229.\n\n  Leibnitz, 29, 233.\n\n  Leviathan, Hobbes\u2019s, 268-272.\n\n  Locke, 104.\n\n  logic, and ethics, 42, 43;\n    and love, 297-300.\n\n  Loisy, l\u2019Abb\u00e9, 242.\n\n  Lou\u00ffs, Pierre, 153.\n\n  love, individuates, 143-145, 293, 294, 296-299;\n    and logic, 297-300.\n\n  loyalty, defines morality, 268, 274;\n    defined, 288-290.\n\n  Lucretius, 99, 165, 186.\n\n\n  Mach, Ernst, 216.\n\n  Marcus Aurelius, 212.\n\n  Maupassant, 168, 294, 295.\n\n  mechanism, Spinoza on, 40, 45, 46, 53-55, 67, 69-78, 310, 311;\n    ideal of, 82-84;\n    consistent with purpose and freedom, 53-55, 84-92.\n\n  Melville, Herman, on Typees, 251-253.\n\n  mind, and body, 45, 46;\n    group, 288-292, 301.\n\n  miracles, Hume\u2019s treatment in \u201cEnquiry,\u201d 107-110.\n\n  Mocenigo, his denunciation of Bruno, 3-8.\n\n  modernism, and pragmatism, 241-244.\n\n  Montaigne, v, 253-256.\n\n  morality, Kant\u2019s law of, 151-153;\n    proposed as absolute good, 263-268;\n    questioned as absolute good, 268-272;\n    reformed, 274, 275;\n    discarded, 275, 276.\n\n\n  nature, man in state of, 251-258, 269-271;\n    conquest of, 279-281.\n\n  Newman, 242.\n\n  New Testament, Kant and, 146.\n\n  Nicolaus, of Cusa, 291.\n\n  Nietzsche, iv;\n    key-note of, 185;\n    historic comparisons with, 185-188;\n    and Schopenhauer, 188-193;\n    and Darwin, 193-195;\n    on superman as goal, 195;\n    on transvaluation, 195-199;\n    on genealogy of morals, 199-204;\n    on anarchy, 204-205;\n    on will to power, 205-207;\n    on eternal returning, 208-211;\n    vanishing goal, 211, 212;\n    on courage, 212;\n    on scientific spirit, 231-233; 276, 313, 314.\n\n\n  ought, see imperative.\n\n  Old Testament, world of, 139, 146.\n\n\n  parallelism, 45, 46.\n\n  Pascal, 27, 149, 242.\n\n  _Pascendi_, Encyclical, 241.\n\n  philosophers, Nietzsche\u2019s estimate of, 199.\n\n  pietism, influence on Kant, 146.\n\n  pity, a vice, 187-189.\n\n  Plato, 89, 288, 293, 294.\n\n  pragmatism, v;\n    relation to realism and idealism, 215-219;\n    James\u2019s first presentation of, 219, 220;\n    reaction of realists against, 220-230;\n    Nietzsche and, 231-234;\n    \u201cWill to Believe,\u201d 234-239;\n    and modernism, 240-244, and \u2018human\u2019 religion, 244-245;\n    physical science and ideals of, 245, 246, 315.\n\n  progress, v;\n    skeptics of, 251-261;\n    conditional and absolute, 261-262;\n    toward moral good held absolute, 263-268;\n    morality proves conditional good, 268-273;\n    as viewed by reformed morality and by amorality, 273-276;\n    and conflicting ideals of peace and war, 277;\n    final definition of, 277-281.\n\n  Providence, Hume on \u201cParticular,\u201d 112-115.\n\n  purpose, consistent with mechanism, 53-55, 84-92.\n\n\n  quakerism, German, 146.\n\n\n  Rabelais, 153.\n\n  rationalism, of Descartes, 41-45, 104.\n\n  realism, 218;\n    in science, 221;\n    in history, 222-226;\n    in ethics, 227;\n    in religion, 228, 240-242;\n    in art, 228, 229.\n\n  religion, \u201cNatural History of,\u201d 110;\n    Kant\u2019s attitude toward, 131;\n    identified with philosophy, 310.\n\n  Rousseau, 258.\n\n  Royce, 157, 267, 285, 287, 289, 293.\n\n\n  Schelling, 149, 159.\n\n  Scherer, on Amiel, 217.\n\n  Schopenhauer, iv, 154;\n    \u201cWorld as Will,\u201d 158-161;\n    on universal strife, 162-167;\n    forerunners, 167, 168;\n    followers, 168, 169;\n    on suicide, 169, 170;\n    on the beautiful, 170-172;\n    on civil law, 172-173;\n    on moral intuition, 173-175;\n    on denial of will, 175-178;\n    on Nirvana, 178-181;\n    and Nietzsche, 186-193; 313, 314.\n\n  Schopp, letter describing Bruno\u2019s trial and execution, 31-34.\n\n  Spinoza, iv;\n    family, life, death, 39;\n    and Bruno, 39, 40;\n    and Descartes, 40-46;\n    on popular theology, 46-51;\n    _ein Gottrunkener_, 52;\n    purpose and freedom, 53-55;\n    knowledge goodness, happiness, 55-63; 104, 187, 310, 311.\n\n  suicide, Schopenhauer on, 169-170.\n\n  superman, iv, 195, 196, 205, 208.\n\n  super-superman, iv, 208.\n\n  sympathy, Hume on, 126;\n    Schopenhauer on, 173-175;\n    Nietzsche on, see pity.\n\n\n  Tasso, 259, 263.\n\n  teleology, see purpose.\n\n  Tennant, 300.\n\n  tragedy, Schopenhauer\u2019s conception of, 158, 168, 169.\n\n  Typees, of Melville, 251-253.\n\n\n  Ulysses, morality of, 265.\n\n  utility, Hume on, 125;\n    \u201cWhy Pleases,\u201d 126.\n\n\n  Van den Ende, Francis, 41.\n\n  Venice, Bruno before tribunal at, 9-18.\n\n\n  will, to live, see Schopenhauer;\n    to power, see Nietzsche;\n    to believe, see pragmatism.\n\n\n  Xenophanes, 186, 309.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] This would be Saturday afternoon.\n\n[2] A curious ignorance of the content of the \u201cSpaccio!\u201d There are\nnumerous other faults of detail in this account.\n\n[3] Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, XII.\n\n[4] This image of the Old Testament World is not of course supposed to\nbe that of the ancient Hebrews. Rather does it represent this world as\nreflected in the thought of a modern Christian community.\n\n[5] The individuating quality of love is again discussed in Chap. X, on\n\u201cLove and Loyalty.\u201d\n\n[6] The exact wording: \u201cHandle so, dass die Maxime deines Willens\njederzeit zugleich als Princip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten\nk\u00f6nne.\u201d K. d. p. V., 1, 1, 1.\n\n[7] Cf: \u201cIn der ganzen Sch\u00f6pfung kann alles was man will, und vor\u00fcber\nman etwas vermag, auch _bloss als Mittel_ gebraucht werden; nur der\nMensch ... _Ist Zweck an sich selbst_.... Eben um dieser willen ist\njeder Wille ... auf die Bedingung der Einstimmung mit der _Autonomie_\ndes vern\u00fcnftigen Wesens eingeschr\u00e4nkt, es n\u00e4mlich keiner Absicht zu\nunterwerfen, die nicht nach einem Gesetze, welches aus dem Willen des\nleidenden Subjects selbst entspringen k\u00f6nnte, m\u00f6glich ist....\u201d K. d. p.\nV., 1, 1, 3.\n\n[8] Pierre Lou\u00ffs.\n\n[9] Royce.\n\n[10] Abridged.\n\n[11] Abridged.\n\n[12] Gesammelte Briefe, p. 61.\n\n[13] Ibid., p. 170.\n\n[14] Pragmatism, p. 104.\n\n[15] Anatole France.\n\n[16] The meaning and value of \u201cloyalty\u201d is more fully discussed in\nChap. X, on \u201cLove and Loyalty.\u201d\n\n[17] The paper on \u201cLove and Loyalty\u201d was written for the American\nPhilosophical Association at its Philadelphia meeting in 1915. The\noccasion was peculiarly dedicated to Royce in honor of his sixtieth\nbirthday. The author\u2019s thanks are due to Professor J. E. Creighton for\nhis courteous permission to reprint from the Philosophical Review, XXV,\n3, and from the volume \u201cPapers in Honor of Josiah Royce, etc.,\u201d 1922.\n\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s note: German, French and Latin text is transcribed as\nis, without correction of possible printing errors. Repeated chapter\ntitles have been removed (those on the same page as the chapter start).]","title":"Modern thinkers and present problems : $b an approach to modern philosophy through its history","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":68019}