Although I was feeling indisposed this evening, yet owing to the love I
entertain for you I have attended this meeting. For I have heard that this
is an open forum, investigating reality; that you are free from blind
imitations, desiring to arrive at the truth of things, and that your
endeavors are lofty. Therefore, I have thought it expedient to discourse
upon the subject of philosophy, which is alike interesting to the East and
the West, enabling us to consider the analogies and differences between
the philosophical teachings of the Orient and Occident.
The criterion of judgment in the estimation of western philosophers is
sense perception. They consider that which is tangible or perceptible to
the senses to be a reality--that there is no doubt of its existence. For
example, we prove the existence of this light through the sense of sight;
we visualize this room; we see the sun, the green fields; we use our sense
of sight to observe them. The opinion of these philosophers is that such
perception is reality, that the senses are the highest standard of
perception and judgment, in which there can neither be doubt nor
uncertainty. In the estimation of the philosophers of the Orient,
especially those of Greece and Persia, the standard of judgment is the
intellect. They are of the opinion that the criterion of the senses is
defective, and their proof is that the senses are often deceived and
mistaken. That which is liable to mistake cannot be infallible, cannot be
a true standard of judgment.
Among the senses the most powerful and reliable is that of sight. This
sense views a mirage as a body of water and is positive as to its
character, whereas a mirage is nonexistent. The sense of vision, or sight,
sees reflected images in a mirror as verities, when reason declares them
to be nonexistent. The eye sees the sun and planets revolving around the
earth, whereas in reality the sun is stationary, central, and the earth
revolves upon its own axis. The sense of sight sees the earth as a plane,
whereas the faculty of reason discovers it to be spherical. The eye views
the heavenly bodies in boundless space as small and insignificant, whereas
reason declares them to be colossal suns. The sense of sight beholds a
whirling spark of fire as a circle of light and is without doubt as to it,
whereas such a circle is nonexistent. A man sailing in a ship sees the
banks on either side as if they were moving, whereas the ship is moving.
Briefly, there are many instances and evidences which disprove the
assertion that tangibilities and sense impressions are certainties, for
the senses are misleading and often mistaken. How, then, can we rightly
declare that they prove reality when the standard or criterion itself is
defective?
The philosophers of the East consider the perfect criterion to be reason
or intellect, and according to that standard the realities of all objects
can be proved; for, they say, the standard of reason and intellect is
perfect, and everything provable through reason is veritable. Therefore,
those philosophers consider all philosophical deductions to be correct
when weighed according to the standard of reason, and they state that the
senses are the assistants and instruments of reason, and that although the
investigation of realities may be conducted through the senses, the
standard of knowing and judgment is reason itself. In this way the
philosophers of the East and West differ and disagree. The materialistic
philosophers of the West declare that man belongs to the animal kingdom,
whereas the philosophers of the East--such as Plato, Aristotle and the
Persians--divide the world of existence or phenomena of life into two
general categories or kingdoms: one the animal kingdom, or world of
nature, the other the human kingdom, or world of reason.
Man is distinguished above the animals through his reason. The perceptions
of man are of two kinds: tangible, or sensible, and reasonable, whereas
the animal perceptions are limited to the senses, the tangible only. The
tangible perceptions may be likened to this candle, the reasonable
perceptions to the light. Calculations of mathematical problems and
determining the spherical form of the earth are through the reasonable
perceptions. The center of gravity is a hypothesis of reason. Reason
itself is not tangible, perceptible to the senses. Reason is an
intellectual verity or reality. All qualities are ideal realities, not
tangible realities. For instance, we say this man is a scholarly man.
Knowledge is an ideal attainment not perceptible to the senses. When you
see this scholarly man, your eye does not see his knowledge, your ear
cannot hear his science, nor can you sense it by taste. It is not a
tangible verity. Science itself is an ideal verity. It is evident,
therefore, that the perceptions of man are twofold: the reasonable and the
tangible, or sensible.
As to the animal: It is endowed only with sense perception. It is lacking
the reasonable perception. It cannot apprehend ideal realities. The animal
cannot conceive of the earth as a sphere. The intelligence of an animal
located in Europe could never have planned the discovery of the continent
of America. The animal kingdom is incapable of discovering the latent
mysteries of nature--such as electricity--and bringing them forth from the
invisible to the plane of visibility. It is evident that the discoveries
and inventions transcend the animal intelligence. The animal cannot
penetrate the secrets of genesis and creation. Its mind is incapable of
conceiving the verity of ether. It cannot know the mysteries of magnetism
because the bestowals of abstract reason and intellect are absent in its
endowment. That is to say, the animal in its creation is a captive of the
senses. Beyond the tangibilities and impressions of the senses it cannot
accept anything. It denies everything. It is incapable of ideal perception
and, therefore, a captive of the senses.
Virtue, or perfection, belongs to man, who possesses both the capacity of
the senses and ideal perception. For instance, astronomical discoveries
are man's accomplishments. He has not gained this knowledge through his
senses. The greater part of it has been attained through intellect,
through the ideal senses. Man's inventions have appeared through the
avenue of his reasonable faculties. All his scientific attainments have
come through the faculty of reason. Briefly, the evidences of intellect or
reason are manifest in man. By them he is differentiated from the animal.
Therefore, the animal kingdom is distinct and inferior to the human
kingdom. Notwithstanding this, the philosophers of the West have certain
syllogisms, or demonstrations, whereby they endeavor to prove that man had
his origin in the animal kingdom; that although he is now a vertebrate, he
originally lived in the sea; from thence he was transferred to the land
and became vertebrate; that gradually his feet and hands appeared in his
anatomical development; then he began to walk upon all fours, after which
he attained to human stature, walking erect. They find that his anatomy
has undergone successive changes, finally assuming human form, and that
these intermediate forms or changes are like links connected. Between man
and the ape, however, there is one link missing, and to the present time
scientists have not been able to discover it. Therefore, the greatest
proof of this western theory of human evolution is anatomical, reasoning
that there are certain vestiges of organs found in man which are peculiar
to the ape and lower animals, and setting forth the conclusion that man at
some time in his upward progression has possessed these organs which are
no longer functioning but appear now as mere rudiments and vestiges.
For example, a serpent has a certain appendage which indicates that at one
time it was possessed of long limbs, but as this creature began to find
its habitation in the holes of the earth, these limbs, no longer needed,
became atrophied and shrunk, leaving but a vestige, or appendage, as an
evidence of the time when they were lengthy and serviceable. Likewise, it
is claimed man had a certain appendage which shows that there was a time
when his anatomical structure was different from his present organism and
that there has been a corresponding transformation or change in that
structure. The coccyx, or extremity of the human spinal column, is
declared to be the vestige of a tail which man formerly possessed but
which gradually disappeared when he walked erect and its utility ceased.
These statements and demonstrations express the substance of western
philosophy upon the question of human evolution.
The philosophers of the Orient in reply to those of the western world say:
Let us suppose that the human anatomy was primordially different from its
present form, that it was gradually transformed from one stage to another
until it attained its present likeness, that at one time it was similar to
a fish, later an invertebrate and finally human. This anatomical evolution
or progression does not alter or affect the statement that the development
of man was always human in type and biological in progression. For the
human embryo when examined microscopically is at first a mere germ or
worm. Gradually as it develops it shows certain divisions; rudiments of
hands and feet appear--that is to say, an upper and a lower part are
distinguishable. Afterward it undergoes certain distinct changes until it
reaches its actual human form and is born into this world. But at all
times, even when the embryo resembled a worm, it was human in potentiality
and character, not animal. The forms assumed by the human embryo in its
successive changes do not prove that it is animal in its essential
character. Throughout this progression there has been a transference of
type, a conservation of species or kind. Realizing this we may acknowledge
the fact that at one time man was an inmate of the sea, at another period
an invertebrate, then a vertebrate and finally a human being standing
erect. Though we admit these changes, we cannot say man is an animal. In
each one of these stages are signs and evidences of his human existence
and destination. Proof of this lies in the fact that in the embryo man
still resembles a worm. This embryo still progresses from one state to
another, assuming different forms until that which was potential in
it--namely, the human image--appears. Therefore, in the protoplasm, man is
man. Conservation of species demands it.
The lost link of Darwinian theory is itself a proof that man is not an
animal. How is it possible to have all the links present and that
important link absent? Its absence is an indication that man has never
been an animal. It will never be found.
The significance is this: that the world of humanity is distinct from the
animal kingdom. This is the teaching of the philosophers of the Orient.
They have a proof for it. The proof is that the animals are captives of
nature. All existence and phenomena of the lower kingdoms are captives of
nature; the mighty sun, the numberless stars, the kingdoms of the
vegetable and mineral, none of these can deviate one hair's breadth from
the limitation of nature's laws. They are, as it were, arrested by
nature's hands. But man breaks the laws of nature and makes them
subservient to his uses. For instance, man is an animate earthly being in
common with the animals. The exigency of nature demands that he should be
restricted to the earth; but he, by breaking the laws of nature, soars in
the atmosphere high above it. By the application of his intellect he
overcomes natural law and dives beneath the seas in submarines or sails
across them in ships. He arrests a mighty force of nature such as
electricity and imprisons it in an incandescent lamp. According to the law
of nature he should be able to communicate at a distance of, say, one
thousand feet; but through his inventions and discoveries he communicates
with the East and with the West in a few moments. This is breaking the
laws of nature. Man arrests the human voice and reproduces it in a
phonograph. At most his voice should be heard only a few hundred feet
away, but he invents an instrument which transmits it one thousand miles.
In brief, all the present arts and sciences, inventions and discoveries
man has brought forth were once mysteries which nature had decreed should
remain hidden and latent, but man has taken them out of the plane of the
invisible and brought them into the plane of the visible. This is contrary
to nature's laws. Electricity should be a latent mystery, but man
discovers it and makes it his servant. He wrests the sword from nature's
hand and uses it against nature, proving that there is a power in him
which is beyond nature, for it is capable of breaking and subduing the
laws of nature. If this power were not supernatural and extraordinary,
man's accomplishments would not have been possible.
Furthermore, it is evident that in the world of nature conscious knowledge
is absent. Nature is without knowing, whereas man is conscious. Nature is
devoid of memory; man possesses memory. Nature is without perception and
volition; man possesses both. It is evident that virtues are inherent in
man which are not present in the world of nature. This is provable from
every standpoint.
If it be claimed that the intellectual reality of man belongs to the world
of nature--that it is a part of the whole--we ask is it possible for the
part to contain virtues which the whole does not possess? For instance, is
it possible for the drop to contain virtues of which the aggregate body of
the sea is deprived? Is it possible for a leaf to be imbued with virtues
which are lacking in the whole tree? Is it possible that the extraordinary
faculty of reason in man is animal in character and quality? On the other
hand, it is evident and true, though most astounding, that in man there is
present this supernatural force or faculty which discovers the realities
of things and which possesses the power of idealization or intellection.
It is capable of discovering scientific laws, and science we know is not a
tangible reality. Science exists in the mind of man as an ideal reality.
The mind itself, reason itself, is an ideal reality and not tangible.
Notwithstanding this, some of the sagacious men declare: We have attained
to the superlative degree of knowledge; we have penetrated the laboratory
of nature, studying sciences and arts; we have attained the highest
station of knowledge in the human world; we have investigated the facts as
they are and have arrived at the conclusion that nothing is rightly
acceptable except the tangible, which alone is a reality worthy of
credence; all that is not tangible is imagination and nonsense.
Strange indeed that after twenty years training in colleges and
universities man should reach such a station wherein he will deny the
existence of the ideal or that which is not perceptible to the senses.
Have you ever stopped to think that the animal already has graduated from
such a university? Have you ever realized that the cow is already a
professor emeritus of that university? For the cow without hard labor and
study is already a philosopher of the superlative degree in the school of
nature. The cow denies everything that is not tangible, saying, "I can
see! I can eat! Therefore, I believe only in that which is tangible!"
Then why should we go to the colleges? Let us go to the cow.
12 October 1912
Talk at Temple Emmanu-El
450 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California