IX

_What is Truth?_

The sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist, and the

assertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind, that the only

philosophy which has spread in our day is that of Kant, which takes

scepticism for its point of departure. But read the preface to the

first edition of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ attentively, and you

will be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question:

'What is truth?' He only set himself to solve the problem, what should

a man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the

objective truth. The old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven

assertions, which could not bear criticism, irritated Kant, and he

decided to get rid, even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of

scepticism, of the unscientific discipline which he, as a teacher of

philosophy, had to represent. But the confidence of the sceptics and

Kant's deference are not in the least binding upon us. And after all

Kant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook. For if

we do not know what is truth, what value have the postulates of the

existence of God and the immortality of the soul? How can we justify

or explain any one of the existing religions, Christianity included?

Although the Gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions

of the laws of nature, yet it does not in itself contain anything

contrary to reason. We do not disbelieve in miracles because they are

impossible. On the contrary, it is as clear as day to the most ordinary

common sense that life itself, the foundation of the world, is the

miracle of miracles. And if the task of philosophy had reduced to the

mere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle, her business would

have been splendidly accomplished long ago. The whole trouble is that

visible miracles are not enough for people, and that it is impossible

to deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place

that other miracles, without which mere existence is often impossible,

will also happen in due course. Men are being born--without doubt

a great miracle; there exists a beautiful world--also a miracle of

miracles. But does it follow that men will rise from the grave, and

that paradise is made ready for them? The raising of Lazarus is not

much believed nowadays even by those who revere the Gospel, not because

they will not admit the possibility of miracles in general, but because

they cannot decide _a priori_ which miracles are possible and which

are not, and therefore they are obliged to judge _a posteriori._ They

readily accept a miracle that has happened, but they doubt the miracle

that has not happened, and _the more they doubt,_ the more passionately

do they desire it. It costs nothing to believe in the final triumph

of good upon the earth (though it would be an absolute miracle), in

progress or the infallibility of the Pope (these too are miracles and

by no means inconsiderable), for after all men are quite sufficiently

indifferent to good, to progress, and to the virtues of the Pope. It

is much harder, nay quite impossible, standing before the dead body of

one who is near and dear, to believe that an angel will fly down from

heaven and bring the dead to life again, although the world is full of

happenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead.

Therefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no

truth. Truth exists, but we do not know it in all its volume, nor can

we formulate that which we do know: we cannot imagine why it happened

thus and not otherwise, or whether that which happened had to happen

thus, or whether something else quite different might have happened.

Once it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity, but Hume

explained that the notion of necessity is subjective, and therefore

must be discarded as illusory. His idea was caught up (without the

deduction) by Kant. All those of our judgments which have the character

of universality and necessity, acquire it only by virtue of our

psychological organisation. In those cases where we are particularly

convinced of the objective value of our judgment, we have merely

to do with a purely subjective certainty, though it is immutable

and secure in the visible world. It is well known that Kant did not

accept Hume's deduction: not only did he make no attempt to banish the

false premisses from our intellectual economy, as Hume did with the

conception of necessity, but, on the contrary, he declared that such

an attempt was quite impracticable. The practical reason suggested to

Kant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their

source, yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world

of phenomena, that is in the space between the birth and death of man.

If a man has lived before birth (as Plato held), and will live after

death, then his 'truths' were not, and will not be necessary there,

in the other world. What truths are _there,_ and whether there are

any truths at all, Kant only guesses, and he succeeds in his guesses

only because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions. He

suddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world, a

right of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his

special patronage by the philosopher himself. But why can faith do that

which reason cannot? And a yet more insidious question: Are not all

postulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights

in the first Critique, but which subsequently obtained a verdict of

_restitutio in integrum,_ by changing the name of the firm? The last

hypothesis is the most probable. And if so, then does it not follow

that in the real world so carefully divided by Kant from the world of

phenomena we will find much that is new, but not a little that is old.

In general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world

of an instant, a brief dream, utterly unlike real life, is mistaken.

This assumption, first enunciated by Plato, and afterwards elaborated

and maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical

thought, is based upon no data at all. There's no denying, it is very

pleasant. But as often happens, as soon as the wish was invested

with language, by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an

expression, so that it lost all resemblance to itself. The essence

of the true, primordial life beyond the grave appears to Plato as

absolute good refined from all alloy, as the essence of virtue.

But after all Plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness

of the ideal existence, and constantly flavours it with elements

which are by no means ideal, but which give interest and intensity

to his dialogues. If you have never had the occasion to read Plato

himself, acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching

of any of his admirers and appreciators, and you will be struck by

its emptiness. Read the thick volume of Natorp's well-known work,

and you will see what value there is in Plato's 'purified' doctrine.

And in passing I would recommend as a general rule, this method of

examining the ideas of famous philosophers, by acquainting oneself with

them not only in the original works, but in the expositions of their

disciples, particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples. When

the fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the

naked, unadorned 'truth' remains--disciples always believe that the

master had the truth, and they reveal it without any embellishment or

fig leaf--only then does it become quite clear of how little value

are the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers.

Still more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins

to draw conclusions from his master's proportions. The book of the

aforesaid Natorp, a great Plato expert, is a _reductio ad absurdum_

of all his master's ideas. Plato is revealed as a logical Neo-Kantian,

a narrow-minded savant, who had been put thoroughly through the mill

at Freiburg or Heidelberg. It is also revealed that Plato's ideas, in

the pure state, do not in the least express his real attitude to life

and to the world. One must take the whole Plato with his contradictions

and inconsequence, with his vices and virtues, and value his defects at

least as much as his qualities, or even add one or two defects, and be

blind to one or two virtues. For it is probable that he, as a man to

whom nothing human was alien, tried to assume a few virtues which he

did not possess, and to conceal a few failings. This course should be

followed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines. Then 'the

other world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our

earthly vale. And perhaps, in spite of Kant, some empirical truths

will be found common to both worlds. Then Pilate's question will lose

much of its all-conquering certainty. He wished to wash his hands of

the business, and he asked, 'What is truth?' After him and before him,

many who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and

taken their stand upon scepticism. But every one knows that truth does

exist, and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the

clarity and precision demanded by Descartes. Is the miraculous bounded

by the miracles that have already been seen on earth, or are its

limits set much wider? And if wider, then how much?

X

_More of Truth_

Perhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between

men is impossible, at least the usual communication by means of

language. Every one may know it in himself, but in order to enter into

communication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept

some conventional lie. Nevertheless the value and importance of truth

is by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market

valuation. If you were asked what is truth, you could not answer the

question even though you had given your whole life to the study of

philosophical theories. In yourself, if you have no one to answer,

you know well what the truth is. Therefore truth does not by nature

resemble empirical truth in the least, and before entering the world

of philosophy, you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search,

and to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge. In a word, you

must be ready to accept something absolutely new, quite unlike what is

traditional and old. That is why the tendency to discredit scientific

knowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the

inexperienced eye.

That is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the

investigator. The most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has

been, and always will be, inculcated habit. From the practical point

of view it is much more important to a man to know the things which

may help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his

existence, than those which have a timeless value. The instinct of

self-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for

knowledge. Moreover, one must remember that the instinct has at its

disposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence, that all human

faculties without exception are under its command, from unconscious

reflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness. Much

and often has been said in this regard, and for once the _consensus

sapientium_ is on my side. True, this is treated as an undeniable

perversion of human nature--and here I make my protest. I think that

there is in this nothing undesirable. Our mind and consciousness must

consider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of

instinct, even if it be the instinct of self-preservation. They should

not be conceited, and to tell the truth they are not conceited, but

readily fulfil their official mission. They pretend to priority only

in books, and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life. If by

some accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad

with terror, like children lost in a forest at night. Every time that

the mind and consciousness begin to judge independently, they reach

destructive conclusions. And then they see with surprise that this

time too they were not acting freely, but under the dictation of the

self-same instinct, which had assumed a different character. The human

soul desired the work of destruction, and she loosed the slaves from

their chains, and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their

freedom by making great havoc, not in the least suspecting that they

remained just as they were before, slaves who work for others.

Long ago Dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction

is as natural to the human soul as that of creation. Beside these

two instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological

properties, required only under given, and accidental, conditions.

Of truth--as not only the crass materialists now confess, but the

idealists also have found in their metaphysic--nothing remains but

the idea of the norm.--To speak in more expressive and intelligible

language, truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time

and space might establish between themselves some kind of communication

at least. That is, a man must choose between absolute loneliness

with truth, on the one side, and communion with his neighbours and

falsehood, on the other. Which is the better, it will be asked. The

question is idle, I reply. There is a third way still: to accept

both, though it may at first appear utterly absurd, especially to

people who have once for all decided that logic, like mathematics,

is infallible. Whereas it is possible, and not merely possible--we

would not be content with a possibility: only a German idealist can be

satisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all--it

is continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states

do coexist. All men lie when they begin to speak: our language is so

imperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes

a readiness to speak untruth. The more abstract the subject is, the

more does the disposition to lie increase, until, when we touch upon

the most complicated questions, we have to lie incessantly, and the

lie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are. For a

sincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of

contradictions, and in order to avoid all appearance of lie, he tries

to make a logical agreement between his opinions: that is to raise his

lie to Herculean heights. In his turn, when he receives the opinions

of others, he applies the same criterion, and the moment he notices

the smallest contradiction, he begins naively to cry out against the

violation of the fundamental decencies. What is particularly curious

is that all the learned students of philosophy--and it is strictly to

them that I address myself here, as the reader has probably observed

long ago--certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest

philosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions

from his system. How well armed was Spinoza! He spared no effort,

and stuck at nothing, and yet his remarkable system will not bear

logical criticism. That is a matter of common knowledge. So it appears

that we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency, and

whether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's

conception of the world. And after Kant, his disciples and successors

might have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of

consistency, and that truth lives by contradictions. As a matter of

fact, Hegel and Schopenhauer, each in his own way, partly attempted to

make an admission of this kind, but they derived small profit from it.

Let us try to draw some conclusions from the foregoing. Certainly,

while logic can be useful, it would be unjustifiable recklessness

to refuse its services. Nor are the conclusions devoid of interest,

as we shall see. First of all, when you speak, never trouble to be

consistent with what you said before: that will put an unnecessary

check upon your freedom, which, without that additional fetter, is

already chained in words and grammatical forms. When you are listening

to a friend or reading a book, do not assign great value to individual

words or even to phrases. Forget separate thoughts, and give no great

consideration even to logically arranged ideas. Remember that though

your friend desires it, he cannot express himself save by ready-made

forms of speech. Look well to the expression of his face, listen to

the intonation of his voice--this will help you to penetrate through

his words to his soul. Not only in conversation, but even in a written

book, can one over-hear the sound, even the timbre of the author's

voice, and notice the finest shades of expression in his eyes and

face. Do not fasten upon contradictions, do not dispute, do not demand

argument: only listen with attention. In return for which, when you

begin to speak, you also will have to face no dispute, nor to produce

arguments, which you know well you neither have nor could have. So you

will not be annoyed by having pointed out to you your contradictions

which you know well were always there, and will always be there, and

with which it is painful, nay quite impossible, for you to part. Then,

then--and this is most important of all--you will at last be convinced

that truth does not depend on logic, that there are no logical truths

at all, that you therefore have the right to search for what you like,

how you like, without argument, and that if something results from your

search, it will not be a formula, not a law, not a principle, not even

an idea! Only think: while the object of search is 'truth,' as it is

understood nowadays, one must be prepared for anything. For instance,

the materialists will be right, and matter and energy are the basis

of the world. It does not matter that we can immediately confound

the materialists with their conclusions. The history of thought can

show many cases of the complete rehabilitation of opinions that have

been cast off and reviled. Yesterday's error may be to-morrow's truth,

even a self-evident truth. And apart from its content, wherein is

materialism bad? It is a harmonious, consistent, and well-sustained

system. I have already pointed out that the materialistic

conception of the world is just as capable of enchanting men as any

other--pantheistic or idealistic. And since we have come so far, I

confess that in my opinion no ideas at all are bad in themselves: so

far I have been able to follow with pleasure the development of the

idea of progress to the accompaniment of factories, railways, and

aeroplanes. Still, it seems to me childish to hope that all these

trivialities--I mean the ideas--will become the object of man's serious

seeking. If that desperate struggle of man with God and the world

were possible, of which legend and history tell--think of Prometheus

alone--then it was not for truth and not for the idea. Man desires to

be strong and rich and free, the wretched, insignificant creature of

dust, whom the first chance shock crushes like a worm before one's

eyes,--and if he speaks of ideas it is only because he despairs of

success in his proper search. He feels that he is a worm, he fears that

he must again return to the dust which he is, and he lies, pretending

that his misery is not terrible to him, if only he knew the truth.

Forgive him his lie, for he speaks it only with his lips. Let him say

what he will, how he will; so long as we hear in his words the familiar

note of the call to battle, and the fire of desperate inexorable

resolution burns in his eyes, we will understand him. We are used to

decipher hieroglyphs. But if he, like the Germans of to-day, accepts

truth and the norm as the final goal of human aspiration, we shall also

know with whom we have to deal, were he by destiny endowed with the

eloquence of Cicero. Better utter loneliness than communion with such a

man. Yet such communion does not exclude utter loneliness; perhaps it

even assists the hard achievement.