Chapter 11 World Purpose
and Life Purpose
(The Destination Of Man)
[1] Among the manifold currents
in the spiritual life
of mankind,
there is
one
to be followed up which
can be described
as the overcoming
of the concept
of purpose
in spheres
where
it does not belong.
Purposefulness
is a special kind
of sequence
of phenomena.
True purposefulness
really exists only if,
in contrast
to the relationship
of cause
and effect
where the earlier event
determines the later,
the reverse
is
the case
and the later event
influences
the earlier one.
To begin with,
this happens only
in the case
of human actions.
One performs
an action
of which
one has previously made
a mental picture,
and
one allows
this mental picture
to determine one's action.
Thus
the later (the deed) influences
the earlier (the doer)
with the help
of the mental picture.
For
there
to be a purposeful connection,
this
detour through the mental picture
is absolutely necessary.
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[2] In a process
which
breaks down
into cause
and effect,
we must distinguish percept
from concept.
The percept
of the cause
precedes the percept
of the effect;
cause
and effect
would simply remain side by side
in our consciousness,
if we
were not able
to connect them
with one another
through their corresponding concepts.
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The percept of the effect
must always follow
upon the percept
of the cause.
If the effect
is to have
a real influence
upon the cause,
it can do so only
by means
of the conceptual factor.
For the perceptual factor
of the effect
simply does not exist
prior to the perceptual factor
of the cause.
Anyone who
declares
that the blossom
is the purpose
of the root,
that is,
that the former
influences the latter,
can do so only
with regard to that factor
in the blossom
which
is established
in it
by his thinking.
The perceptual factor
of the blossom
is not yet
in existence
at the time
when
the root originates.
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For a purposeful connection
to exist,
it is not only necessary
to have an ideal,
law-determined connection
between the later
and the earlier,
but
the concept (law)
of the effect
must really influence the cause,
that is, by means
of a perceptible process.
A perceptible influence
of a concept
upon something else,
however,
is to be observed only
in human actions.
Hence
this is
the only sphere
in which
the concept
of purpose is applicable.
The naïve consciousness,
which
regards
as real only
what is perceptible,
attempts
-- as we
have repeatedly pointed out --
to introduce
perceptible elements
where only ideal elements
are to be found.
In the perceptible course
of events
it looks
for perceptible connections,
or,
failing
to find them,
it simply invents them.
The concept
of purpose,
valid
for subjective actions,
is an element well
suited for such invented connections.
The naïve man
knows how
he brings an event
about and from this
he
concludes that nature will do
it
in the same way.
In the connections
of nature
which are purely ideal
he finds not only
invisible forces
but also invisible real purposes.
Man makes
his tools
according to his purposes;
the naïve realist
would have
the Creator build organisms
on the same formula.
Only very gradually is
this mistaken concept
of purpose
disappearing
from the sciences.
In philosophy,
even today,
it still does
a good deal
of mischief.
Here people
still ask
after the extra-mundane purpose
of the world,
the extra-human ordering
of man's destiny
(and
consequently also his purpose),
and so on.
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[3] Monism
rejects the concept
of purpose
in every sphere,
with the sole exception
of human action.
It looks
for laws
of nature,
but
not for purposes
of nature.
Purposes
of nature
are
arbitrary assumptions no
less than are
imperceptible forces.
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But even purposes
of life
not set
by man
himself are unjustified assumptions
from the standpoint
of monism.
Nothing is purposeful
except
what man
has first made so,
for purposefulness
arises only through
the realization
of an idea.
In a realistic sense,
an idea
can become effective
only in man.
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Therefore
human life can only have
the purpose and the ordering
of destiny
that man
gives it.
To the question:
What is man's task
in life?
there can be
for monism
but one answer:
The task
he sets himself.
My mission in the world
is not predetermined,
but is
at every moment
the one
I
choose for myself.
I do not set out
upon my journey
through life
with fixed marching
orders.
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[4] Ideas
are realized purposefully
only by human beings.
Consequently
it is not permissible
to speak
of the embodiment
of ideas
by history.
All such phrases
as
"history
is the evolution
of mankind
towards freedom,'
freedom,'or'...
the realization
of the moral world order,"
and so on,
are,
from a monistic point of view,
untenable.
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[5]
The supporters
of the concept
of purpose
believe that,
by surrendering it,
they would also have
to surrender
all order
and uniformity
in the world.
Listen,
for example,
to Robert Hamerling:
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[6} As long
as there are instincts
in nature,
it is folly to deny
purposes therein.
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Just
as the formation
of a limb
of the human body
is not determined
and conditioned
by an idea
of this limb,
floating
in the air,
but
by its connection
with the greater whole,
the body
to which
the limb belongs,
so
the formation
of every natural
object,
be it plant,
animal or man,
is not determined
and conditioned
by an idea
of it floating
in the air,
but
by the formative principle
of the totality
of nature
which unfolds and organizes itself
in a purposeful manner.
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And
on page
191
of the same volume
we read:
The theory of purpose
maintains only that,
in spite of
the thousand discomforts
and distresses
of this mortal life,
there is
a high degree
of purpose
and plan unmistakably
present
in the formations
and developments
of nature
-- a degree
of plan
and purposefulness,
however,
which
is realized only
within the limits
of natural law,
and
which
does not aim
at a fool's paradise
where
life faces no death,
growth no decay,
with all their more
or less unpleasant
but
quite unavoidable intermediary stages.
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[7] When
the opponents
of the concept
of purpose
set
a laboriously collected rubbish-heap
of partial or complete,
imaginary or real maladaptations
against a whole world
of miracles
of purposefulness,
such as nature
exhibits
in all her domains,
then
I consider
this
just
as quaint...
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[8] What
is
here meant by purposefulness?
The coherence
of percepts
to form a whole.
But
since
underlying all percepts
there are laws (ideas)
which we
discover through our thinking,
it follows
that
the systematic coherence
of the parts
of a perceptual whole
is simply
the ideal coherence
of the parts
of an ideal whole contained
in this
perceptual whole.
To say
that an animal
or a man
is not determined
by an idea
floating in the air is
a misleading way
of putting it,
and
the point of view
he is disparaging
automatically loses
its absurdity
as soon
as the expression
is put right.
An animal
certainly is not determined
by an idea
floating
in the air,
but
it definitely is determined
by an idea inborn
in it
and constituting
the law of its being.
It is just
because
the idea
is not external
to the object,
but works
within it
as its very essence,
that
we cannot speak of purposefulness.
It is just
the person
who
denies that natural beings
are determined from without
(and
it does not matter,
in this context,
whether
it
be by an idea
floating
in the air
or existing
outside the creature
in the mind
of a world creator)
who must admit
that such beings
are not determined
by purpose and
plan from without,
but
by cause and law
from within.
I construct a machine purposefully
if
I connect
its parts together
in a way
that is not given
in nature.
The purposefulness
of the arrangement
consists
in just this,
that
I embody the working principle
of the machine,
as its idea,
into the machine
itself.
The machine
becomes thereby an object
of perception
with the idea corresponding
to it.
Natural
objects
are also entities
of this kind.
Whoever calls
a thing purposeful simply
because it
is formed according to
a law,
may,
if
he wish,
apply the same term
to the objects
of nature.
But
he must not confuse
this kind
of lawfulness
with
that
of subjective human action.
For purpose
to exist,
it is absolutely necessary
that the effective cause
shall be a concept,
in fact
the concept
of the effect.
But
in nature
we can nowhere point
to concepts
acting as causes;
the concept
invariably turns out
to be
nothing
but the ideal link connecting
cause and effect.
Causes
are
present
in nature
only in the form
of percepts.
[9] Dualism
may talk
of world
purposes
and natural
purposes.
Wherever there is
a systematic linking
of cause and
effect
for our perception,
the dualist
may assume
that
we see only
the carbon copy
of a connection
in which
the absolute cosmic Being
has realized its purposes.
For monism,
with the rejection
of an absolute cosmic Being
-- never experienced
but only hypothetically inferred --
all ground
for assuming purposes
in the world
and in nature
also falls away.
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Author's addition,
1918
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[1] No one
who has followed
the preceding argument
with an open mind
will be able
to conclude
that the author,
in rejecting
the concept
of purpose
for extra-human facts,
takes the side
of those thinkers
who,
by rejecting this concept,
enable themselves
to regard
everything outside human action â€"
and thence human action
itself â€"
as no
more than
a natural process.
He should be protected
from this
by the fact
that
in this book
the thinking process
is presented
as a purely spiritual one.
If
here the concept of purpose
is rejected
even for the spiritual world,
lying
outside human action,
it is
because
something
is revealed in that world
which is higher
than the kind
of purpose
realized
in the human kingdom.
And
when we
say that the thought
of a purposeful destiny
for the human race,
modeled
on human purposefulness,
is erroneous,
we mean
that the individual
gives himself purposes,
and
that the outcome
of the working
of mankind
as a whole
is compounded of these.
This outcome
is
then
something higher
than
its component parts,
the purposes
of men. |
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