Chapter 8 The Factors
of Life
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[1]
Let us recapitulate
what we
have achieved
in the previous chapters.
The world
faces man
as a multiplicity,
as a mass
of separate details.
One
of these separate things,
one entity
among others,
is man himself.
This aspect
of the world
we
simply call the given,
and
inasmuch as we
do not evolve it
by conscious activity,
but just find it,
we call it percept.
Within this world
of percepts
we perceive ourselves.
This percept
of self
would remain merely
one
among many other percepts,
if
something did not arise
from the midst
of this percept
of self which
proves capable
of connecting all percepts
with one another
and,
therefore,
the sum
of all other percepts
with the percept
of our own self.
This
something which emerges
is no longer merely percept;
neither is it,
like percepts,
simply given.
It is produced
by our activity.
To begin with,
it appears
to be bound up
with what
we perceive
as our own self.
In its inner significance,
however,
it transcends
the self.
To the separate
percepts it adds
ideally determined elements,
which,
however,
are related
to one another,
and are rooted
in a totality.
What is obtained
by perception
of self
is ideally determined
by this something
in the same way
as are all other percepts,
and is placed
as subject,
or "I",
over against the objects.
This something
is thinking,
and
the ideally determined elements
are the concepts
and ideas.
Thinking,
therefore,
first reveals itself
in the percept
of the self.
But it
is not merely subjective,
for the self
characterizes itself
as subject
only
with the help
of thinking.
This relationship
in thought
of the self
to itself
is what,
in life,
determines
our personality.
Through it
we feel ourselves
to be thinking beings.
This
determination of our life
would remain
a purely conceptual (logical) one,
if
no
other determinations of our self
were added to it.
We should
then be
creatures whose life was expended
in establishing purely
ideal relationships
between percepts
among themselves
and between them
and ourselves.
If
we call
the establishment
of such
a thought connection
an
"act
of cognition",
and
the resulting
condition
of ourself "knowledge",
then,
assuming
the above supposition
to be true,
we should have
to consider ourselves as beings
who
merely cognize
or know.
[2] The supposition is,
however,
untrue.
We relate percepts
to ourselves
not merely ideally,
through concepts,
but also,
as we
have already seen,
through feeling.
We are,
therefore,
not beings
with a merely conceptual content.
The Naive Realist
holds
that the personality
actually lives more genuinely
in the life
of feeling than
in the purely ideal element
of knowledge.
From his point of view
he is
quite
right
in interpreting
the matter in this way.
To begin with,
feeling
is exactly
the same,
on the subjective side,
as the percept
is on the objective side.
(Poppelbaum translation:
Feeling
signifies
on the subjective
side exactly
the same
as percepts
signify
on the objective side.)
From the basic principle
of naive realism
--that
everything that can be perceived
is real --
it follows
that feeling
must be the guarantee
of the reality
of one's own personality.
Monism,
however,
as here understood,
must grant
the same addition
to feeling
that it considers necessary
for percepts,
if these
are
to stand
before us
as full reality.
Thus,
for monism,
feeling
is
an incomplete reality,
which,
in the form
in which
it first appears
to us,
does not yet contain
its second factor,
the concept
or idea.
This is why,
in actual life,
feelings
appear
prior to knowledge.
At first,
we have merely a feeling
of existence;
and
it is only
in the course
of our gradual development
that
we attain
to the point
at which
the concept
of self
emerges from
within the dim
feeling
of our own existence.
However,
what
for us
appears only later,
is
from the
first indissolubly bound up
with our feeling.
This is
why the naive man
comes to believe
that
in feeling
he is presented
with existence immediately,
in knowledge
only mediately.
The cultivation
of the life
of feeling,
therefore,
appears
to him more important
than anything else.
He will not believe
that he
has grasped
the nexus of the world
until he
has received it
into his feeling.
He attempts
to make feeling,
rather than knowing,
the instrument
of knowledge.
Since
a feeling
is
something
entirely individual,
something equivalent
to a percept,
the philosopher
of feeling
is making
a universal principle
out of something that
has significance
only within his own personality.
He attempts
to permeate
the whole world
with his own Self.
What the monist,
in the sense
we have described,
strives
to grasp through concepts,
the philosopher
of feeling tries
to attain through feelings,
and
he regards
this kind
of connection
with the objects
as the more direct.
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[3] The tendency
just described,
the philosophy
of feeling,
is often called
mysticism.
The error
in a mystical outlook
based
upon mere feeling
is that it
wants
to experience directly
what
it ought to gain
through knowledge;
that it wants
to raise feeling,
which is individual,
into a universal principle.
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[4] Feeling
is
a purely individual affair;
it is the relation
of the external world
to our self as subject,
in so far
as this relation finds expression
in a merely subjective experience.
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[5] There
is yet
another expression
of human personality.
The Self,
through its
thinking,
shares the life
of the world
in general.
In this manner,
in a purely ideal way
(that is,
conceptually),
it relates
the percepts
to itself,
and itself
to the percepts.
In feeling,
it has direct experience
of a relation
of the objects
to itself
as subject.
In the will,
the case
is reversed.
In willing,
we are concerned once more
with a percept,
namely,
that
of the individual relation
of our self
to what is objective.
Whatever
there is
in willing
that is not
a purely ideal factor,
is just
as much mere
object
of perception
as is
any object
in the external world.
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[6] Nevertheless,
the Naive Realist
believes here
again
that he
has
before him
something far more real
than
can be attained
by thinking.
He sees in the will
an element
in which
he is immediately aware
of an occurrence,
a causation,
in contrast
with thinking
which only grasps
the event
afterwards in conceptual form.
According to
such a view,
what
the I
achieves
through its
will is a process
which is experienced immediately.
The adherent
of this philosophy
believes
that in the will
he has
really got
hold
of the machinery
of the world
by one corner.
Whereas
he can follow
other occurrences
only from the outside by
means
of perception,
he is confident
that in his will
he experiences
a real process
quite immediately.
The mode
of existence
in which
the will appears
within the Self
becomes
for him
a concrete principle
of reality.
His own
will
appears
to him
as a special case
of the general world-process;
hence
the latter appears
as universal will.
The will
becomes
the world-principle
of reality
just as,
in Mysticism,
feeling
becomes
the principle
of knowledge.
This kind
of theory
is called the philosophy
of will (thelism).
It makes something
that can be experienced only
individually into the fundamental factor
of the world.
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[7]
The Philosophy of Will
can
as little
be called scientific
as can
the Mysticism
based on feeling.
For both
assert
that
the conceptual understanding
of the world
is inadequate.
Both demand
a principle
of existence
which is real,
in addition
to a principle
which is ideal.
To a certain extent
this is justified.
But
since
perceiving
is our only means
of apprehending
these so-called real principles,
the assertion
of both the Mysticism
of feeling and
the Philosophy of Will
comes
to the same thing
as saying
that we
have two sources of knowledge,
thinking and perceiving,
the latter presenting itself
as an individual experience
in feeling
and will.
Since the results
that flow
from the one source,
the experiences,
cannot
on this view
be taken up directly
into those
that flow
from the other source,
thinking,
the two modes
of knowledge,
perceiving
and thinking,
remain side by side
without any higher form
of mediation
between them.
Besides
the ideal principle
which is accessible
to knowledge,
there is said
to be a real principle
which
cannot be apprehended
by thinking
but can yet be experienced.
In other words,
the Mysticism
of feeling and
the Philosophy of Will
are both forms
of naive realism,
because
they subscribe to the doctrine
that
what is directly perceived
is real.
Compared
with Naive Realism
in its primitive form,
they are guilty
of the yet further inconsistency
of accepting one particular
form
of perceiving
(feeling
or will,
respectively)
as the one and
only means
of knowing reality,
whereas the
[8] The philosophy
of will
turns into
Metaphysical Realism
when
it places
the element
of will even
into those spheres
of existence
where
it cannot be experienced directly,
as it can
in the individual subject.
It assumes,
outside the subject,
a hypothetical principle
for whose real existence
the sole criterion
is subjective experience.
As a form
of Metaphysical Realism,
the Philosophy of Will
is subject to
the criticism made
in the preceding chapter,
in that
it has
to get over
the contradictory stage inherent
in every form
of Metaphysical Realism,
and must acknowledge
that the will
is a universal world-process
only in so far
as it
is ideally related
to the rest
of the world.
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Author's addition,
1918
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[1] The difficulty
of grasping
the essential nature
of thinking
by observation
lies
in this,
that it
has all too easily eluded
the introspecting soul
by the time
the soul
tries
to bring
it
into the focus
of attention.
Nothing
then remains
to be inspected
but the lifeless abstraction,
the corpse
of the living thinking.
If
we look only
at this abstraction,
we may easily find ourselves
compelled
to enter
into the mysticism
of feeling or
perhaps the metaphysics
of will,
which
by contrast
appear so "full of life"
We should
then find it strange
that anyone
should expect
to grasp
the essence
of reality
in "mere
thoughts"
But
if
we once succeed
in really finding life
in thinking,
we shall know that
swimming
in mere feelings,
or being intuitively aware
of the will element,
cannot even be compared
with the inner wealth
and
the self-sustaining yet ever moving
experience
of this life
of thinking,
let alone
be ranked above it.
It is owing precisely
to this wealth,
to this
inward abundance
of experience,
that the counter-image
of thinking
which
presents itself
to our ordinary attitude
of soul
should appear
lifeless and abstract.
No
other activity
of the human soul
is so easily misunderstood
as thinking.
Will
and feeling
still fill the soul
with warmth even
when
we live through
the original event
again in retrospect.
Thinking all
too readily leaves us cold
in recollection;
it is
as if the life
of the soul
had dried out.
Yet this
is really
nothing
but
the strongly marked shadow
of its real nature --
warm,
luminous,
and penetrating deeply
into the phenomena
of the world.
This penetration
is brought about
by a power
flowing
through the activity
of thinking itself --
the power
of love
in its spiritual form.
There are
no grounds
here
for the objection
that to discern
love
in the activity
of thinking
is to project
into thinking a feeling,
namely,
love.
For in truth
this objection
is
but
a confirmation
of what
we have been saying.
If
we turn
towards thinking
in its essence,
we find
in it both feeling
and will,
and these
in the depths
of their reality;
if
we turn away
from thinking
towards "mere" feeling
and will,
we lose from these
their true reality.
If we
are ready
to experience
thinking intuitively,
we can also do justice
to the experience
of feeling and
of will;
but the mysticism
of feeling
and the metaphysics
of will
are not able
to do
justice
to the penetration
of reality
by intuitive thinking --
they conclude all too readily
that they themselves
are rooted in reality,
but
that the intuitive thinker,
devoid
of feeling
and a stranger
to reality,
forms
out of "abstract thoughts"
a shadowy,
chilly picture
of the world. |
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