PAIN AND PLEASURE
Since neither pleasure nor pain can be experienced without
consciousness; and since consciousness finds its substratum not in
the body but in the soul; we are driven to the conclusion that what
we call the capacity of the body for pleasure and pain is really the
capacity of the soul for pleasure and pain. But the capacity of the
soul for pleasure and pain is not confined to its functioning
through the body. Sensation, that is to say, the use of the bodily
senses, gives the soul one particular form of pain and one
particular form of pleasure; but that the soul possesses other forms
of pleasure and pain independently of the body is proved by the
psychological fact that intense bodily pain is sometimes
accompanied by intense spiritual pleasure and intense bodily
pleasure is sometimes accompanied by intense spiritual pain.
What is called "the pursuit of pleasure," that rationalistic
abstraction from our real psychological experience, that
abstraction which has been made the basis of the false philosophy
called "hedonism," cannot stand for a moment against the
revelation of the complex vision. Under certain rare and morbid
conditions, when reason and sensation, in their conspiracy of
assassination, have usurped for a while the whole field
of consciousness, such a "pursuit of pleasure" may become
a dominant motive. But even under these conditions there
often comes a shifting of the stage according to which the
pleasure-seeker, sick to death of pleasure, deliberately
"pursues" pain.
If it be said that this change is no real change because what is then
pursued is the pleasure of "contrast" or even "the pleasure of
pain," the retort to such reasoning can only be that in this case the
whole hedonistic theory has been given up; for what is really then
"pursued" is neither pleasure nor pain but the sensation of novelty
or the sensation of new experience.
Pleasure and pain are emotionalized sensations accompanying
various physical and mental states. The psychological truth about
their "pursuit" is simply that we "pursue" certain objects or
conditions because of their immediate attractiveness or "attractive
terribleness," and that the accompanying pleasure becomes first a
kind of orchestral background to our pursuit; and then, later,
becomes, by the action of the law of association, part and parcel of
the thing's attractiveness or "attractive terribleness." Thus what
really occurs is precisely opposite to the hedonist's contention. For
the thing "pursued" swallows up and appropriates to itself the
pleasure and pain of the pursuit; and, by the law of association,
becomes more vividly, even than at the start the motive force
which lures us.
The most ghastly, the most obscene, the most intolerable thing in
the world is when the pain of pure sensation, the pain of the body,
is accentuated to such a pitch of atrocious suffering that the other
attributes of the soul are annihilated; and the humanity of the
person thus suffering is temporarily destroyed; so that what "lives"
at such a moment is not a person at all but an incarnate pain.
That this ultimate ghastliness, this dehumanization by pain, can
only occur where the aboriginal malice of the soul has previously
weakened the soul's independent life, is proved by the fact that the
most atrocious tortures have been successfully endured, even unto
the point of death, by such as have been martyrs for an idea. And
the reason of this endurance, the reason why, in the case of such
martyrizing, the victim has been able to resist dehumanization is
found in the fact that the soul's creative energy or the power of
love has been so great that it has been able to assert its
independence of bodily torment, even to the last moment of
human identity.
Since pain and pleasure, although so often the direct evocation of
the soul's attribute of bodily sensation, are always composed of the
primordial "stuff" of emotion; and since emotion is a projection of
the soul independently of the body, it is natural that the soul
should, in the reverse manner, colour its emotion with the memory
of sensation. Thus it follows that although it is possible for the
soul, when its emotional feeling is outraged or excited, to
experience pain or pleasure apart from sensation, there is usually
present in such an emotional pain or pleasure a residual element of
sensation; for the soul is not a thing which simply "possesses"
certain functions; but a thing which is present in some degree or
other in all its various aspects of energy.
What we call "memory" is nothing more than the plastic consciousness
of personal identity and continuity. And when once the pain
or pleasure of a bodily sensation has been lodged in the
soul, that pain or pleasure becomes an integral portion of the soul's
life, to be worked upon and appropriated for good or evil by the
soul's intrinsic duality.
Thus although the creative energy in the soul, emerging from
fathomless abysses, can enable the soul to endure until death the
most infernal torments, the fact remains that since the attribute of
sensation, which depends entirely upon the existence of the bodily
senses, is one of the soul's basic attributes and has its ground in the
very substratum of the soul, the sensations of pain and pleasure
whether coloured by emotion and imagination or left "pure" in
the clear element of consciousness, are sensations from which the
soul cannot escape.
From this we are forced to conclude that to affirm that the soul can
remain wholly untouched and unaffected by bodily pain or
pleasure is ridiculous. Bodily pain and pleasure are the soul's pain
and pleasure; because the attribute of sensation, through which the
bodily senses feed the soul, is not the body's attribute of sensation
but the soul's attribute of sensation.
To say, therefore, that the soul can "conquer" the body or be
"indifferent" to the body is as ridiculous as to say that the body
can "conquer" the soul or be "indifferent" to the soul. The fact that
the attribute of sensation is a basic attribute of the soul and that
the attribute of sensation is dependent upon the bodily senses must
inevitably imply that the pressure or impact of the bodily senses
descend to the profoundest depths of the soul.
The thing that "conquers" pain in the invincible martyr is love, or
"the energy of creation," in the soul. The abysmal struggle is not
between the soul and the body or between the flesh and the spirit,
but between the power of life and love, in the body and the soul
together, and the power of death or malice, in the body and the
soul together.
What we are compelled to assume with regard to those "sons of
the universe," whose existence affords a basis for the objectivity of
the "ultimate ideas," is that, with them, what I have called "the
eternal idea of the body" takes the place in their complex vision of
our actual physical body. Their complex vision must be regarded,
if our philosophy is to remain boldly and shamelessly anthropomorphic,
as possessing, even as our own, the basic attribute of sensation.
But since their essential invisibility, and consequent upon this their
ubiquity under the dominant categories of time and place,
precludes any possibility of their incarnation, we are compelled to
postulate that their complex vision's attribute of sensation, in the
absence of any bodily senses, finds its contact with "the objective
mystery" and with the objective "universe" in some definite and
permanent "intermediary" which serves in their case the same
primal necessity as is served in our case by the human body.
If no such "intermediary" existed for them, we should be
compelled to relinquish the idea that they possessed a complex
vision at all, for not only the attribute of sensation, but the
attribute of emotion also, demands for its activity something that
shall represent the human body and occupy in their objective
"universe" the place occupied by our physical bodies in our
"universe."
As we have already shown, this primary demand for the "eternalizing
of flesh and blood" is a demand which springs from the profoundest
depths of the soul, for it is a demand which springs from
the creative energy itself, the eternal protagonist in the
world-drama. We must conclude, therefore, that although
these super-human children of Nature cannot in the ordinary sense
incarnate themselves in flesh and blood they can and do
appropriate to themselves out of the surrounding body of the ether,
and out of the body of any other living thing they approach, a
certain attenuated essence of flesh and blood which, though
invisible to us, supplies with them the place of our human body.
This, therefore, is the "intermediary" which, in the "invisible
companions" of our planetary struggle, occupies the place which is
occupied by the physical element in our human life. And this is
evoked by nothing less than that "eternal idea of the body," or
"that eternal idea of flesh and blood," which the creative energy of
love demands. A very curious and interesting possibility follows
from this assumption; namely, that by a process which might be
called a process of "spiritual vampirizing" the same creative
passion which demands satisfaction in the eternalizing of "the idea
of the body" actually suffers, by means of its vivid sympathy with
living bodies, the very pains and pleasures through which these
bodies pass.
The possibility that "the invisible companions," or in more
traditional language that the "immortal gods," should be driven by
the passion of their creative love, to suffer vicarious pain and
pleasure through the living bodies of all organic existences, is a
possibility that derives a certain support from two considerations,
both of which are drawn directly from human experiences. It is
certainly a matter of common human experience to be conscious,
for good and for evil, of a kind of obsession of one's body by
some sort of spiritual power. We may regard these moments of
obsession, with their consequent exhilaration or profound gloom,
as due purely to the activity of our own soul; and doubtless very
often this is the explanation of them. But it is conceivable also that
such obsessions are actually due to the presence near us and
around us of the "high immortal ones."
That when we experience this "spiritual vampirizing" of our
mortal bodies by immortal companions, such an obsession is not
necessarily "for good," is a thing inevitably implied in our
primary conception of personality. For although a purely demonic
personality is an impossibility, owing to the fact that personality
is, in itself, an achieved triumph over evil, it must still remain true
that the eternal duality of creation and "what resists creation" must
find an arena in the soul of an "immortal" even as it finds an arena
in the soul of a "mortal."
Therefore we are driven to regard it as no fantastic speculation but
as only too reasonable a possibility, that when a physical
depression takes possession of us it is due to this "spiritual
vampirizing," in an evil sense, by the power of some immortal
whose "malice" at that particular moment has overcome "love."
But just as the power of physical pain may be dominated and
overcome by the energy of love arising from the depths of our own
soul, so this vampirizing by the malice of an "invisible
companion," may be dominated and overcome by the energy of
love from the depths of our own soul.
It may indeed be regarded as certain that it is when the malice in
our own soul is in the ascendant, rather than the love, that we fall
victims to this kind of obsession. For evil eternally attracts evil;
and it is no wild nor erratic fancy to maintain that the malice in the
human soul naturally draws to itself by an inevitable and tragic
reciprocity the malice in the souls of the "immortal companions."
The second consideration derived from human experience which
supports this view of the vicarious pain and pleasure experienced
by the gods through the bodies of all organic entities is the
psychological fact of our own attitude towards plants and animals.
Any sensitive person among us will not hesitate to admit that in
watching animals suffer, he has suffered _with_ such animals; or
again, that in watching a branch torn from its trunk, leaving an
open wound out of which the sap oozes, he has suffered _with_
the suffering of the tree. And just as the phenomenon of bodily
obsession by some immortal god may be either "for good" or "for
evil" as our own soul dictates, so the sympathy which we feel for
plants and animals may be either "for good" or "for evil."
And this also applies to the relation between these bodiless
"immortals" and the bodies of all organic planetary life. According
to the revelation of the complex vision, with its emphasis upon the
ultimate duality as the supreme secret of life, both pain and
pleasure are instruments, in the hands of love, for rousing the soul
out of that sleep of death or semi-death which is the abysmal
enemy.
The philosophies which oppose pain to pleasure, and insist upon
the "good" of pain and the "evil" of pleasure, are no less
misleading than the philosophies which oppose flesh to spirit, or
matter to mind, calling the one "good" and the other "evil." Such
philosophies have permitted that basic attribute of the complex
vision which we call conscience to usurp the place occupied, in the
total rhythm, by imagination; with the result of a complete
falsifying of the essential values.
In a question of such deadly import as this, we have, more than
ever, to make our appeal to those rare moments of illumination
which we have attained when the rhythmic intensity of the
arrow-point of thought was most concentrated and piercing. And the
testimony of these moments is given with no uncertain sound. In
the great hours of our life, and I think all human experiences
justify this statement, both pain and pleasure are transcended and
flung into a subordinate and irrelevant place. Something which it
is very difficult to describe, a kind of emotion which resembles
happiness, flows through us; so that pain and pleasure seem to
come and go almost unremarked, like dark and light shadows
flung upon some tremendous water-fall.
What we are compelled to recognize, therefore, is that pain and
pleasure are both instruments of the creative power of life. They
only become evil or are used for purposes of evil, when, by reason
of some fatal weakening in the other attributes of the soul, the
purely sensational element in them dominates the emotional and
they become something most horribly like living entities--entities
with bodies composed of the vibrations of torment and souls
composed of the substance of torment--and succeed in annihilating
the very features of humanity.
Pain and pleasure are not identical with the unfathomable duality
which descends into the abyss; for pain and pleasure are definitely
and quite unmistakenly fathomable; though, as the gods know
well, few enough of the sons of mortals reach the limit of them.
They are fathomable; for carried to a certain pitch of intensity they
end in ecstasy or they end in death. They are fathomable; for even
in the souls of "the immortals" they are only instruments of life
warring against death. They are fathomable; because they have
one identical root; and this root is the ecstasy of the rhythm of the
complex vision which transcends and surpasses them both.
The hideous symbol of "hell" is the creation of the false
philosophy which makes the eternal duality resolve itself into flesh
and spirit or into soul and body. The power of love renders this
symbol meaningless and abortive; for personality is the supreme
victory of life over what resists life; and consequently where
personality exists "hell" cannot exist; for personality is the scope
and boundary of all we know. The symbol of "Satan" also is
rendered meaningless by the philosophy of the complex vision;
unless such a symbol is used to express those appalling moments
when the evil in the soul attracts to itself and associates with itself
the evil in the soul of some immortal god.
But just as no mortal can be more evil than good, so also no
immortal can be more evil than good, that is to say intrinsically
and over a vast space of time. Momentarily and for a limited space
of time it is obvious that the human soul can be more evil than
good; and by a reasonable analogy it is only too probable that the
same thing applies to the invisible sons of the universe. But the
philosophy of the complex vision has no place for devils or
demons in its world; for the simple reason that at the very moment
any soul did become intrinsically and unchangeably evil, at that
same moment it would vanish into nothingness, since existence is
the product of the struggle between good and evil.
If any soul, whether mortal or immortal, became entirely and
absolutely good, it would instantaneously vanish into nothingness.
For the life of no kind of living soul is thinkable or conceivable
apart from the unfathomable duality. The false philosophy which
finds its ideal in an imaginary "parent" of the universe whose
goodness is absolute is a philosophy conceived under the furtive
influence of the power of evil. For the essence of the power of evil
is opposition to the movement of life; and no false ideal has ever
done so much injury to the free expansion of life as has been done
by this conception of a "parent" of the universe who is a spirit of
"absolute goodness."
It is entirely in accordance with the unfathomable cunning of the
power of malice that the supreme historic obstacle to the power of
love in the human soul should be this conception of a "parent" of
the universe, possessed of absolute goodness. In the deepest and
most subtle way does this conception oppose itself to the
creative energy of love. The creative energy of love demands an
indetermined and malleable future. It demands an enemy with
which to struggle. It demands the freedom of the individual will.
Directly that ancient and treacherous phantom, the "inscrutable
mystery" _behind_ the "universe," is allowed to become an object
of thought; directly this mystery is allowed to take the shape of a
"parent of things" who is to be regarded as "absolutely good,"
then, at that very moment, the eternal duality ceases to be "eternal"
and ceases to be a "duality."
Good and evil become the manifestations of the same inscrutable
power. Love and malice become interchangeable names of little
meaning. Satan becomes as significant a figure as Christ. All
distinctions are then blurred and blotted out. The aesthetic sense is
made of no account; or becomes a matter of accidental fancy.
Imagination is left with nothing to work upon. The rhythm of the
complex vision is broken to pieces. All is permitted. Nothing is
forbidden. The universe is reduced to an indiscriminate and
formless mass of excremental substance. Indiscriminately we have
to swallow the "universe" or indiscriminately we have to let the
"universe" alone. There is no longer a protagonist in the great
drama, for there is no longer an antagonist. Indeed there is no
longer any drama. Tragedy is at an end; and Comedy is at an end.
All is equal. Nothing matters. Everything is at once good and evil,
beautiful and hideous, true and false. Or rather nothing is
beautiful, nothing is true. The "parent of the universe" has satisfied
his absolute "goodness" by swallowing up the universe; and there
is nothing left for the miserable company of mortal souls to do but
to bow their resigned heads and cry "Om! Om!" out of the belly of
that unutterable "universal," which by becoming "everything" has
become nothing.
This conception of a universal being of "absolute goodness" looms
like a colossal corpse in front of all living movement. If instead of
"absolute goodness" we say "absolute love," the falseness and
deadliness of this conception appears even more unmistakable. For
love is the prerogative of personality alone. Apart from
personality we cannot conceive of love. And we cannot conceive of
personality without the struggle between love and malice.
"Absolute love" is a contradiction in terms; for it is the nature of
love to be perpetually overcoming malignant opposition; and, in
this overcoming, to be perpetually approximating to a far-off ideal
which can never be completely reached.
Devils and demons, or elemental entities of unredeemed evil, are
unreal enough; and in their unreality dangerous enough to the
creative spirit; but far more unreal and far more dangerous than
any devil, is this conception of an absolute being whose
"goodness" is of so spurious a nature that it obliterates all
distinction. This conception of "a parent of the universe" who is
responsible for the "eternal duality," but in whom the "eternal
duality" is reconciled, blots out all hope for mortal or immortal
souls. Between the soul of a man and the soul of an immortal god,
as for instance between the soul of a man and the soul of Christ,
there may be passionate and enduring love. But between the soul
of a man, in whom love is desperately struggling with malice, and
this monstrous being in whom love and malice have arrived at
some unthinkable reconciliation, there can be no love. There can
be nothing but indignant unbelief alternating with profound
aversion. Towards any being in whose nature love has been
reconciled to malice, the true to the false, the beautiful to the
hideous, the good to the evil, there can be no alternative to
unbelief, except unmitigated hostility.
It is especially in connection with the atrocious cruelty of physical
pain that our conscience and our tastes--unless perverted by some
premature metaphysical synthesis or by some morbid religious
emotion--reluct at the conception of a "parent" of the universe.
Personal love, since it is continually being roused to activity by
pain and is continually being expressed through pain and in spite
of pain, has come to find in pain, perhaps even more than in
pleasure, its natural accomplice. Through the radiant well-being
which results from pleasure, love pours forth its influence with a
sun-like sweetness and profusion. But from the profound depths of
pain, love rises like silence out of a deep sea; and no path of
moonlight upon any ocean reaches so far an horizon.
And it is because of this intimate association of love with pain that
it is found to be impossible to love any living being who has not
experienced pain. Pain can be entirely sensational; and in this case
it needs a very passion of love to prevent it becoming obscene and
humiliating. But it also can be entirely emotional; in which case it
results directly from the struggle of malice with love. When pain is
a matter of sensation or of sensationalized emotion, it depends for
its existence upon the body. But when pain is entirely emotional it
is independent of the body and is a condition of the soul.
As a condition of the soul pain is inevitably associated with the
struggle between love and malice. For in proportion as love
overcomes malice, pain ceases, and in proportion as malice
overcomes love, pain ceases. A human being entirely free from
emotional pain is a human being in whom love has for the moment
completely triumphed; or a human being in whom malice has for
the moment completely triumphed. There is an exultation of love
which fills the soul with irresistible magnetic power, so that it can
redeem the universe. There is also an exultation of malice which
fills the soul with irresistible magnetic power, so that it can corrupt
the universe. In both these extreme cases--and they are cases of no
unfrequent occurrence in all deep souls--emotional pain ceases to
exist.
Emotional pain is the normal condition of the human soul; because
the normal condition of the human soul is a wavering and
uncertain struggle between love and malice; but although love
may overcome malice, or malice may overcome love, with relative
completeness, they neither of them can overcome the other with
absolute completeness. There must always remain in the depths of
the soul a living potentiality; which is the love or the malice which
has been for the moment relatively overcome by its opposite. And
just as pain can be both emotional and sensational so pleasure can
be both emotional and sensational. Pleasure, like pain, can be a
thing of bodily sensation alone; in which case it tends to become a
thing of degrading and humiliating reality. A human entity entirely
obsessed by physical pleasure is a revolting and obscene spectacle.
Even with animals it is only when their sensation of pleasure is in
some degree emotionalized that we can endure to contemplate it
with sympathy.
The soul of an animal is capable of being "de-animalized" in just
as horrible a way by a pure sensation as the soul of a man is
capable of being "de-humanized" by a pure sensation. The sexual
sensation of pleasure carried to the extreme limit "de-animalizes"
animals as it "de-humanizes" human beings; because it drowns the
consciousness of personality. There is an ecstasy when personality
loses itself and finds itself again in a deeper personality. There is
also an ecstasy where personality loses itself in pure sensation. In
the region of sexual sensation, just as in the region of sexual
emotion, it is love alone which is able to hold fast to personality in
the midst of ecstasy; or which is able to merge personality in a
deeper personality.
It is because of love's intimate association with pain that we are
unable, except under the morbid pressure of some metaphysical or
religious illusion, to regard the imaginary "parent of the universe"
with anything but hostility. Both pain and pleasure are associated
with the unfathomable duality. And although the unfathomable
duality descends into abysses beyond the reach of both of these,
yet we cannot conceive of either of them existing apart from this
struggle.
But there can be no duality, as there can be no struggle, in the
soul of a being in whom love has absolutely overcome malice.
Therefore in such a soul there can be no pain. And for a soul
incapable of feeling pain we can feel no love. It is of course
obvious that this whole problem is an imaginary one. We are not
really confronted with the alternative of loving or hating the
unruffled soul of this absolute one. And we are not confronted
with this problem for the simple reason that such a soul does not
exist. And it does not exist because every soul, together with the
"universe" created by every soul, depends for its existence upon
this ultimate struggle.
It is from a consideration of the nature of pain and pleasure that
we attain the clue to the ultimate duality. Pain and pleasure are
conditions of the soul; conditions which have a definite and quite
fathomable limit. Malice and love are conditions of the soul;
conditions which have no definite limit, but which descend into
unfathomable depths. Extremity of malice sinks down to an abyss
where pain and pleasure are lost and merged in one another.
Extremity of love sinks down to an abyss where pain and pleasure
are lost and merged in one another. But just as, apart from the
individual soul which is their possessor, pain and pleasure have no
existence at all; so, apart from the individual soul which is the
arena of their struggle, malice and love have no existence at all.
Because we speak of pain and pleasure as if they were "things in
themselves" and of malice and love as if they were "things in
themselves" this can never mean more than that they are eternal
conditions of the soul which is their habitation.
Apart from a personal soul, "love" has no meaning and cannot be
said to exist. Apart from a personal soul, "life" has no meaning
and cannot be said to exist. There is no such thing as the
"love-force" or the "life-force," any more than there is such a thing
as the "malice-force" or the "death-force," apart from some personal
soul. The "life-force" is a condition of the soul which carried to an
extreme limit results in ecstasy. The "death-force" is a condition of
the soul which carried to an extreme limit results in ecstasy.
Beyond these two ecstasies there is nothing but total annihilation;
which would simply mean that the soul had become absolutely
"good" or absolutely "evil."
What we call the "death-force" in the soul does not imply real
death, until it has reached a limit beyond ecstasy. It implies a
malignant resistance to life which may be carried to a point of
indescribable exultation. As I have already hinted there is a
profound association between the duality of love and malice and
the duality of pain and pleasure. But it would be false to our
deepest experience to say that love implies pleasure and that
malice implies pain. As a matter of fact, they both imply a thrilling
and ecstatic pleasure, in proportion as the equilibrium between
them, the balance of the wavering struggle between them, is
interrupted by the relative victory of either the one or the other.
The relative victory of malice or of the "death-force" over love or
over the "life-force" is attended by exquisite and poignant
pleasure, a pleasure which culminates in unutterable ecstasy. The
shallow ethical thinkers who regard "evil" as a negation are
obviously thinkers whose consciousness has never penetrated into
the depths of their own souls. Pain and pleasure for such thinkers
must be entirely sensationalized. They cannot have experienced, to
any profound depth, the kind of pain and pleasure which are
purely emotional.
The condition of the soul which gives itself up to the "death-force"
or to the malignant power which resists creation may be sometimes
a condition of thrilling and exultant pleasure. As we have
already indicated, the normal condition of the soul, wavering
and hesitating between good and evil, is liable to be changed into a
profound melancholy, when it is confronted by the "illusion of
dead matter." But, as we have also discovered, if, in the soul thus
contemplating the "illusion of dead matter," evil is more potent
than good, there may be a thrilling and exquisite pleasure.
The "death-force" in our own soul leaps in exultation to welcome
the "death illusion" in material objects. Upon this illusion, which it
has itself projected, it rejoices to feed. There is a "sweet pain" in
the melancholy it thus evokes; a "sweet pain" that is more delicate
than any pleasure; and it is a mistake to assume that even the
insanity which this aberration may result in is necessarily an
insanity of distress. It may be an insanity of ecstasy. All this is
profoundly associated with the aesthetic sense; and we may note
that the diabolical exultation with which many great artists and
writers fling themselves upon the obscene, the atrocious, the
cruel and the abominable, and derive exquisite pleasure from
representing these things is not an example of the love in them
overcoming the malice but an example of the "death-force" in
them leaping to respond to the death-force in the universe.
It is just here that we touch one of the profoundest secrets of the
aesthetic sense. I refer to that condition of the soul when the
creative energy which is life and love, suffers an insidious
corruption by the power which resists creation and which is malice
and death. This psychological secret, although assuming an
aesthetic form, is closely associated with the sexual instinct.
The sexual instinct, which is primarily creative, may easily, by the
insidious corruption of the power which resists creation, become a
vampirizing force of destruction. It may indeed become something
worse than destruction. It may become an abysmal and unutterable
"death-in-life." That voluptuous "pleasure in cruelty" which is an
intrinsic element of the sexual instinct may attach itself to "the
pleasure in death" which is the intrinsic emotion of the aboriginal
inert malice; or rather the "pleasure in death" of the adversary of
creation may insidiously associate itself with the "pleasure in
cruelty" of the sexual instinct and make of "this energy of cruelty"
a new and terrible emotion which is at once cruel and inert.
All this were mere fantastic speculation if it lacked touch with
direct experience. But direct experience, if we have any
psycho-clairvoyance at all, bears unmistakable witness to what I have
been saying. If one glances at the expression in the countenance of
any human soul who is deriving pleasure from the spectacle of
suffering and who, under the pressure of this queer fusion of the
aesthetic sense with the abysmal malice, is engaged in vampirizing
the victim of such suffering one will observe a very curious and
very illuminating series of revelations.
One will observe, for instance, the presence of demonic energy
and of magnetic dominance in such a countenance; but parallel
with this and simultaneously with this, one will observe an
expression of unutterable sadness, a sadness which is inert and
death-like, a sadness which has the soulless rigidity and the frozen
immobility of a corpse. We are thus justified, by an impression of
direct experience, in our contention that the peculiar pleasure
which many artists derive from the contemplation of suffering and
from the contemplation of what is atrocious, obscene, monstrous
and revolting, is the result of a corruption of both the sexual
instinct and the aesthetic sense by the abysmal malice.
For the pleasure which such souls derive from the contemplation
of suffering is identical with the pleasure they derive from
contemplating the "illusion of dead matter." Philosophers who
give themselves up to the profoundest pessimism do not do so, as
a rule, under the influence of love. The only exceptions to this are
rare cases when preoccupation with suffering does not spring from
a furtive enjoyment of the spectacle of suffering but from an
incurable pity for the victims of suffering. Such exceptions are far
more rare than is usually supposed, because the self-preservative
hypocrisy of most pessimists enables them to conceal their
voluptuousness under the mask of pity.
Nor must we hide from ourselves the fact that even pity, which in
its pure form is the very incarnation of love, has a perverted form
in which it lends itself to every kind of subterranean cruelty. Our
psychological insight does not amount to very much if it does not
recognize that there is a form of pity which enhances the pleasure
of cruelty. There may indeed be discovered, when we dig deep
enough into the abysses of the soul, an aspect of pity which thrills
us with a most delicate sensation of tenderness and yet which
remains an aspect of pity by no means incompatible with the fact
that we continue the process of causing pain to the object of such
tenderness.
Of all human emotions the emotion of pity is capable of the most
divergent subtleties. The only kind of pity which is entirely free
from the ambiguous element of "pleasure in cruelty" is the pity
which is only another name for love, when love is confronted by
suffering. There is such a thing as a suppressed envy of "the
pleasure of cruelty" manifested in the form of moral indignation
against the perpetrator of such cruelty.
Such moral indignation, with its secret impulse of suppressed
unconscious jealousy, is a very frequent phenomenon when any
sexual element enters into the cruelty in question. But the
psychologist who has learnt his art from the profoundest of all
psychologists--I mean the Christ of the gospels--is not deceived by
this moral gesture. He is able to detect the infinite yearning of the
satyr under the righteous fury of the moral avenger.
And he has an infallible test at hand by which to ascertain whether
the emotion he feels is pure or impure pity; whether in other words
it is merely a process of delicate vampirizing, or whether it is the
creative sympathy of love. And the test which he has at his
disposal is nothing less than his attitude towards the perpetrator of
the particular cruelty under discussion. If his attitude is one of
implacable revenge he may be sure that his pity is something else
than the emotion of love. If his attitude is one which implies pity
not only for the victim but also for the victim's torturer--who
without question has more need for pity--then he may be sure that
his attitude is an attitude of genuine love.
The mood of implacable revenge need not necessarily imply a
suppressed jealousy or envy; but it certainly implies the presence
of an element which has its origin in the sinister side of the
great duality. The pleasure which certain minds derive from a
contemplation of the "deadness of matter" is closely associated
with the voluptuousness of cruelty drawn from the recesses of the
sexual instinct. Such cruelty finds one of its most insidious
incentives in the phenomenon of humiliation; and when the
philosopher contemplates the "deadness of matter" with exquisite
satisfaction, the pleasure which he experiences, or the "sweet pain"
which he experiences, is very closely connected with the cruel
idea of humiliating the pride of the human soul.
The duality of pleasure and pain helps us to understand the nature
of the duality of good and evil, for it helps us to realize that good
and evil are not separate independent existences; but are--like
pleasure and pain--emotional conditions of the soul. Thus when
we say that the ultimate duality of good and evil, or of creation
and what resists creation, is the thing upon which the whole
universe depends, we must not for a moment be supposed to mean
that the ultimate reality of the universe consists of two opposed
"forces" who, like blind chemical energies, struggle with one
another in unconscious darkness.
The ultimate reality of the universe is personality, or rather, let us
say, is the existence of an innumerable company of personal souls,
visible and invisible, each of whom half-creates and half-discovers
his own universe; each of whom finds, sooner or later, in the
objective validity of the "eternal ideas," a universe which is
common to them all. The unfathomable duality upon which this
objective world, common to them all, depends for its existence is a
duality which exists in every separate soul. Without such a duality
it is impossible to conceive any soul existing. And directly such a
duality were resolved into unity such a soul would cease to exist.
But because, without the presence of evil, good would cease to
exist, we have no right to say that evil is an aspect of good. We
have no right to say this because, if good is dependent for its
existence upon evil, it is equally true that evil is dependent for its
existence upon good.
The whole question of ultimate issues is a purely speculative one
and one that does not touch the real situation. The real situation,
the real fact of our personal experience--which is the only
experience worth anything--lies undoubtedly in this impression of
unfathomable duality. It cannot be regarded as a reconciliation
between love and malice merely to recognize that love and malice
are not independent "forces," such as can be compared to chemical
"forces," but are states of the soul.
It is true that they both exist within the soul, just as the soul
exists within time and space; but since the soul is unfathomable these
two conditions of the soul are also unfathomable. The struggle
upon which the universe depends is a struggle which goes on
within the circle of personality; but since personality is
unthinkable without this struggle, it may truly be said that the
existence of personality "depends" upon the existence of this
struggle. When we speak of pain and pleasure as if they were
independent entities we are forgetting that it is merely as "states of
the soul" that pain and pleasure exist. When we speak of love and
malice as independent entities we are forgetting that it is merely as
"states of the soul" that love and malice exist. Love and malice,
the life-force and the death-force, these are merely abstractions
when separated from the soul which is their arena.
It is certainly not in harmony with the revelation of the complex
vision to seek to imagine some vague "beginning of things"; when
some inscrutable chemical or spiritual "energy," called "life,"
rushed into objective existence and proceeded to create living
personalities through which it might be able to function.
The revelation of the complex vision is a revelation of a world
made up of unfathomable personalities. Of this world, of these
unfathomable personalities, we are unable to postulate any
"beginning." They have always existed. They seem likely to
remain always in existence. Our knowledge stops at that point;
because our knowledge is the knowledge of personality. The
revelation of the complex vision is constantly warning us against
any tendency to evade the whole question of the original mystery
by the use of meaningless abstractions.
The word "energy" is such an abstraction. So also is the word
"movement." So also are those logical formulae of the pure reason,
such as the "a priori unity of apperception" and the "absolute
spirit." Apart from personality, apart from the complex vision of
the individual soul, there is no such thing as "energy" or
"movement" or "transcendental unity" or "absolute spirit." In
the same way we are compelled to recognize that apart from
personality the unfathomable duality has no meaning. But in so far
as it represents the eternal struggle between life and death which
goes on all the while in every living soul, the unfathomable duality
is the permanent condition of our deepest knowledge.
It is just here that the mystery of pain and pleasure helps
us to understand the mystery of love and malice, the same
insensitiveness in certain souls that prevents their feeling any vivid
pain or any vivid pleasure, also prevents their feeling any intense
malice. But this insensitiveness which prevents their feeling any
intense malice is, more than anything else, the especial evocation
of the power of malice. For intensity, even in malice, is a proof
that malice has been appropriating to its use the energy of life. The
real opposite of intense love is not intense malice but inert malice.
For malignant inertness is the true adversary of creation. From this
it necessarily follows that the soul which is insensitive to pain and
pleasure and to malice and love is a soul in whom the profound
opposite of love has already won a relative victory. It is certainly
possible, as we have seen, for the victory of malice over love to be
accompanied by thrilling pleasure; but, when this happens malice
has lost something of its "inertness" by drawing to itself and
corrupting for its own use the dynamic energy of love. When
malice displays itself in an intense and vivid activity of destruction
it is less "evil" and less purely "malignant" than when it remains
insensitive and inert. For this reason it is undeniably true that an
insensitive person, although he may cause much less positive pain
than a passionately cruel person, is in reality a more complete
incarnation of the power of "evil" than the latter; for the latter, in
the very violence of his passion, has appropriated to himself
something of the creative energy. It is true that in appropriating
this he has corrupted it, and it is true that by the use of it he can
cause far more immediate pain; but it remains that in himself he is
less purely "evil" than the person whose chief characteristic is a
malignant insensitiveness.