We have been brought to the idea of such a correlation between the two
impulsions that the action of the one establishes and limits at the same
time the action of the other, and that each of them, taken in isolation,
does arrive at its highest manifestation just because the other is
active.
No doubt this correlation of the two impulsions is simply a problem
advanced by reason, and which man will only be able to solve in the
perfection of his being. It is in the strictest signification of the
term: _the idea of his humanity_; accordingly, it is an infinite to
which he can approach nearer and nearer in the course of time, but
without ever reaching it. “He ought not to aim at form to the injury of
reality, nor to reality to the detriment of the form. He must rather
seek the absolute being by means of a determinate being, and the
determinate being by means of an infinite being. He must set the world
before him because he is a person, and he must be a person because he
has the world before him. He must feel because he has a consciousness of
himself, and he must have a consciousness of himself because he feels.”
It is only in conformity with this idea that he is a man in the full
sense of the word; but he cannot be convinced of this so long as he
gives himself up exclusively to one of these two impulsions, or only
satisfies them one after the other. For as long as he only feels, his
absolute personality and existence remain a mystery to him, and as long
as he only thinks, his condition or existence in time escapes him. But
if there were cases in which he could have _at once_ this twofold
experience in which he would have the consciousness of his freedom and
the feeling of his existence together in which he would simultaneously
feel as matter and know himself as spirit, in such cases, and in such
only, would he have a complete intuition of his humanity, and the object
that would procure him this intuition would be a symbol of his
accomplished destiny and consequently serve to express the infinite to
him—since this destination can only be fulfilled in the fulness of time.
Presuming that cases of this kind could present themselves in
experience, they would awake in him a new impulsion, which, precisely
because the other two impulsions would co-operate in it, would be
opposed to each of them taken in isolation, and might, with good
grounds, be taken for a new impulsion. The sensuous impulsion requires
that there should be change, that time should have contents; the formal
impulsion requires that time should be suppressed, that there should be
no change. Consequently, the impulsion in which both of the others act
in concert—allow me to call it the _instinct of play_, till I explain
the term—the instinct of play would have as its object to suppress time
in time, to conciliate the state of transition or _becoming_ with the
absolute being, change with identity.
The sensuous instinct wishes to be determined, it wishes to receive an
object: the formal instinct wishes to determine itself, it wishes to
produce an object. Therefore the instinct of play will endeavor to
receive as it would itself have produced, and to produce as it aspires
to receive.
The sensuous impulsion excludes from its subject all autonomy and
freedom; the formal impulsion excludes all dependence and passivity. But
the exclusion of freedom is physical necessity; the exclusion of
passivity is moral necessity. Thus the two impulsions subdue the mind:
the former to the laws of nature, the latter to the laws of reason. It
results from this that the instinct of play, which unites the double
action of the two other instincts, will content the mind at once morally
and physically. Hence, as it suppresses all that is contingent, it will
also suppress all coercion, and will set man free physically and
morally. When we welcome with effusion some one who deserves our
contempt, we feel painfully that _nature is constrained_. When we have a
hostile feeling against a person who commands our esteem, we feel
painfully the _constraint of reason_. But if this person inspires us
with interest, and also wins our esteem, the constraint of feeling
vanishes together with the constraint of reason, and we begin to love
him, that is to say, to play, to take recreation, at once with our
inclination and our esteem.
Moreover, as the sensuous impulsion controls us physically, and the
formal impulsion morally, the former makes our formal constitution
contingent, and the latter makes our material constitution contingent,
that is to say, there is contingence in the agreement of our happiness
with our perfection, and reciprocally. The instinct of play, in which
both act in concert, will render both our formal and our material
constitution contingent; accordingly, our perfection and our happiness
in like manner. And on the other hand, exactly because it makes _both of
them_ contingent, and because the contingent disappears with necessity,
it will suppress this contingence in both, and will thus give form to
matter and reality to form. In proportion that it will lessen the
dynamic influence of feeling and passion, it will place them in harmony
with rational ideas, and by taking from the laws of reason their moral
constraint, it will reconcile them with the interest of the senses.