THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

_The Theory of Knowledge as Apologetics_

The modern theory of knowledge, though it always consciously takes

its rise from Kant, has in one respect quite disregarded the master's

commandment. It is very strange that the theorists of knowledge,

who usually cannot agree among themselves upon anything, have as it

were agreed to understand the problem of knowledge quite otherwise

than Kant. Kant undertook to investigate our cognitive faculties in

order to establish foundations, in virtue of which certain existing

sciences could be accepted, and others rejected. One may say that the

second purpose was chief. Hume's scepticism made him uneasy only in

theory. He knew beforehand that whatever theory of knowledge he might

invent, mathematics and the natural sciences would remain sciences and

metaphysics be rejected. In other words, his aim was not to justify

science but to explain the possibility of its existence; and he started

from the point of view that no one can seriously doubt the truths of

mathematics and natural science. But now the position is different. The

theorists of knowledge direct all their efforts towards _justifying_

scientific knowledge. Why? Does scientific knowledge really need

justification? Of course there are cranks, sometimes even cranks of

genius, like our own Tolstoi, who attack science; but their attacks

offend no one, nor do they cause alarm.

Scientists continue their researches as before; the universities

flourish; discovery follows discovery. And the theorists of knowledge

themselves do not spend sleepless nights in the endeavour to find

new justifications for science. Yet, I repeat, though they can come

to an understanding about practically nothing else, they amaze us

by their unanimity upon this point--they are all convinced that it

is their duty to justify science and exalt her. So that the modern

theory of knowledge is no longer a science, but an apology. And

its demonstrations are like those of apology. Once science must

be defended, it is necessary to begin by praising her, that is by

selecting evidence and data to show that science fulfils some mission

or other, but indubitably a very high and important one, or, on the

other hand, by painting a picture of the fate that would overtake

mankind, if it was deprived of science. Thus the apologetic element

has begun to play almost as large a part in the theory of knowledge

as it has done hitherto in theology. Perhaps the time is at hand when

scientific apologetics will be officially recognised as a philosophic

discipline.

But, _qui s'excuse s'accuse._ It is plain that all is not well with

science, since she has begun to justify herself. Besides, apologetics

are only apologetics, and sooner or later the theory of knowledge

will be tired of psalms of praise, and will demand a more complex and

responsible task, and a real labour. At present the theorists start

with the assumption that scientific knowledge is perfect knowledge,

and therefore the premisses upon which it is builded are not subject

to criticism. The law of causation is not justified because it appears

to be the expression of a real relation of things, nor even because we

have data at our disposal which could convince us that it does not and

will never admit exceptions, that uncaused effects are impossible. All

these things are lacking; but, we are told, they are not needed.

The chief thing is that the causal law makes science possible, while

to reject it means to reject science and knowledge generally, all

anticipation, and even, as some few hold, reason itself. Clearly, if

one has to choose between a slightly dubious admission on the one side

and the prospect of chaos and insanity on the other, there will be no

long hesitation. Apologetics, we see, has chosen the most powerful of

arguments, _ad hominem._ But all such arguments partake of one common

defect; they are not constant, and they are double-edged.

To-day they defend scientific knowledge; to-morrow they will attack it.

Indeed, it so happens that the very belief in the causal law begets a

great disquiet and turmoil in the soul, which finally produces all the

horrors of chaos and madness. The certainty that the existing order

is immutable is for certain minds synonymous with the certainty that

life is nonsensical and absurd. Probably the disciples of Christ had

that feeling when the last words of their crucified Master reached them

from the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' And the

modern theorists may explain triumphantly that when the law became the

instrument of chaos and madness, it was _ipso facto_ abolished. 'Christ

has risen,' say the disciples of Christ.

I have said that the theorists may triumph; but I must confess that I

have not found in any of them an open glorification of such an obvious

proof of the truth of their teaching. Of the resurrection of Christ

they say not a word--on the contrary, they make every effort to avoid

it and pass it by in silence. And this circumstance compels us to pause

and think. A dilemma arises: if you grant that the law of causation

suffers no exception, then your soul will be eternally haunted by the

last words of the crucified Christ; if you do not, then you will have

no science. Some assert that it is impossible to live without science,

without knowledge, that such a life is horror and madness; others

cannot be reconciled to the thought that the most perfect of men died

the death of a murderer. What shall we do? Without which thing is it

impossible for man to live? Without scientific knowledge, or without

the conviction that truth and spiritual perfection are in the last

resort the victors of this world? And how will the theory of knowledge

stand with regard to questions such as these?

Will it still continue its exercises in apologetics or will it at last

understand that this is not its real problem, and that if it would

preserve the right to be called philosophy, it will have not to justify

and exalt the existing science, but to examine and direct some science

of its own. It means above all to put the question: Is scientific

knowledge really perfect, or is it perhaps imperfect, and should it

therefore yield its present honourable place to another science?

Evidently this is the most important question for the theory of

knowledge, yet this question it never puts. It wants to exalt existing

science. It has been, is now, and probably will long continue to be,

apologetics.

_Truth and Utility_

Mill, seeking to prove that all our sciences, even the mathematical,

have an empiric origin, brings forward the following consideration.

If on every occasion that we had to take twice two things, some deity

slipped one extra thing into our hands, we should be convinced that

twice two is not four but five. And perhaps Mill is right: perhaps we

should not divine what was the matter. We are much more concerned to

discover what is practically necessary and directly useful to us than

to search for truth. If a deity with each four things slipped a fifth

into our hands, we should accept the additional thing and consider

it natural, intelligible, necessary, impossible to be otherwise. The

very uniformity in the sequence of phenomena observed by the empirical

philosophers was also slipped into our hands. By whom? When? Who dares

to ask? Once the law is established no one is interested in anything

any more. Now we can foretell the future, now we can use the thing

slipped into our hands, and the rest--cometh of the evil one.

_Philosophers and Teachers_

Every one knows that Schopenhauer was for many years not only not

recognised, but not even read. His books were used for waste-paper.

It was only towards the end of his life that he had readers and

admirers--and, of course, critics. For every admirer is at bottom a

most merciless and importunate critic. He must understand everything,

make everything agree, and of course the master must supply the

necessary explanations. Schopenhauer, who did not have the experience

of being a master till his old age, at first behaved very benevolently

to his disciples' questions and patiently gave the explanations

required. But the further one goes into the forest, the thicker are

the trees. The most loyal perplexities of his pupils became more and

more importunate, until at last the old man lost patience. 'I didn't

undertake to explain all the secrets of the universe to every one who

wanted to know them,' he once exclaimed, when a certain pupil persisted

in emphasising the contradictions he had noticed in Schopenhauer. And

really--is a master obliged to explain everything? In Schopenhauer's

words we are given an answer, not ambiguous. A philosopher not only

cannot be a teacher, he does not want to be one. There are teachers

in schools, in universities: they teach arithmetic, grammar, logic,

metaphysics. The philosopher has quite a different task, one which does

not in the least resemble teaching.

_Truth as a Social Substance_

There are many ways, real and imaginary, of objectively verifying

philosophic opinions. But they all reduce, we know, to trial by

the law of contradiction. True, every one is aware that no single

philosophic doctrine is able to support such a trial, so that, pending

a better future, people consider it possible to display a certain

tenderness in the examination. They are usually satisfied if they

come to the conclusion that the philosopher made a genuine attempt

to avoid contradictions. For instance, they forgive Spinoza his

inconsistency because of his _amor intellectualis Dei_; Kant, for his

love of morality and his praise of disinterestedness; Plato, for the

originality and purity of his idealistic impulses; and Aristotle, for

the vastyness and universality of his knowledge. So that, strictly

speaking, we must confess that we have no real objective method of

verifying a philosophical truth, and when we criticise other people's

systems, we judge arbitrarily after all. If a philosopher suits us

for some reason, we do not trouble him with the law of contradiction;

if he does not, we summon him before the court to be judged with the

utmost rigour of the law, confident beforehand that he will be found

guilty on every count. But sometimes there arises the desire to verify

one's own philosophic convictions. To play the farce of objective

verification with them, to look for contradictions in oneself--I do not

suppose that even Germans are capable of that. And yet one desires to

know whether he does indeed possess the truth or whether he has only a

universal error in his hands. What is to be done? I think there is a

way. He should think to himself that it is absolutely impossible for

his truth to be binding upon anybody. If in spite of this he still

refuses to renounce her, if the truth can suffer such an ordeal and

yet remain the same to him as she was before, then it may be supposed

that she is worth something. For often we appreciate conviction, not

because it has an intrinsic value, but because it commands a high price

in the market. Robinson Crusoe probably had a totally different way

of thinking to that of a modern writer or professor, whose books are

exposed to the appreciation of his numerous confrères, who can create

for him the renown of a wise man and a scholar, or utterly ruin his

reputation. Even with the Greeks, whom we are accustomed to regard as

model thinkers, opinions had--to use the language of economics--not so

much a demand, as an exchange value.

The Greeks had no knowledge of the printing-press, and no literary

reviews. They usually took their wisdom out into the market-place,

and applied all their efforts to persuade people to acknowledge its

value. And it is hard to maintain that wisdom, which is constantly

being offered to people, should not adapt itself to people's tastes.

It is truer to say that wisdom became accustomed to value itself to

the exact degree to which it could count on people's appreciation. In

other words, it appears that the value of wisdom, like that of all

other commodities, not only with us, but with the Greeks before us, is

a social affair. The most modern philosophy has given up concealing the

fact. The teleology of the rationalists, who follow Fichte, as well as

of the pragmatists who consider themselves the successors of Mill is

openly based upon the social point of view, and speaks of collective

creations. Truth which is not good for all, and always, in the home

market and the foreign--is not truth. Perhaps its value is even defined

by the quantity of labour spent upon it. Marx might triumph: under

different flags his theory has found admission into every sphere of

contemporary thought. There would hardly be found one philosopher who

would apply the method of verifying truth which I have proposed; and

hardly a single modern idea which would stand the test.

_Doctrines and Deductions_

If you want to ruin a new idea--try to give it the widest possible

publicity. Men will begin to reflect upon it, to try it by their daily

needs, to interpret it, to make deductions from it, in a word to

squeeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus; or, more likely,

they will cover it up with the _débris_ of their own habitual and

intelligible ideas, and it will become as dead as everything that is

begotten by logic. Perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers

to so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of

the general public to them. The majority of philosophic systems are

chaotically and obscurely expounded, so that not every educated person

can understand them. It is a pity to kill one's own child, and every

one does his best to save it from premature death. The most dangerous

enemies of an idea are 'deductions' from it, as though they followed of

themselves. The idea does not presuppose them; they are usually pressed

upon it. Indeed, people very often say: 'The idea is quite right, but

it leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable.' Again, how

often has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil's

deserting all his ideas, and feeding only upon the conclusions from

them. Every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention

while he was yet alive, knows by bitter experience what 'deductions'

are. And yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and

courageous resistance to his continuators; and still more rarely a

philosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation, that

it will not bear continuation, that it exists only in and for itself,

that it is self-sufficient. If some one said this, how would he be

answered? People could not dispute with him--try to dispute with a man

who wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate.

The only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict, to lynch law.

People are so weak and naïve that they will at all costs see a teacher

(in the usual sense of the word) in every philosopher. In other words,

they really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their

actions, their present, their future, and their whole fate. Socrates

was not executed for teaching, but because the Athenians thought he

was dangerous to Athens. And in all ages men have approached truth

with this criterion, as though they knew beforehand that truth must

be of use and able to protect them. One of the greatest teachings,

Christianity, was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the

self-appointed guardians, or, if you will, because it was really very

dangerous to Roman ideals. Of course, neither Socrates' death nor the

deaths of thousands of the early Christians saved the ancient culture

and polity from decay: but no one has learned anything from the lesson.

People think that these were all accidental mistakes, against which no

one was secure in ancient times, but which will never again recur; and

therefore they continue to make 'deductions' as they used from every

truth, and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made. And

they have their reward. Although there have been on earth many wise men

who knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures

for which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives, still wisdom is

to us a book with seven seals, a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay

our hands. Many--the vast majority--are even seriously convinced that

philosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed

some miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called

philosophers. I believe that even professors of philosophy, the more

clever of them, not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein

lies the ultimate secret of their science, revealed to the initiate

alone. Fortunately, the position is otherwise. It may be that mankind

is destined never to change in this respect, and a thousand years hence

men will care much more about 'deductions,' theoretical and practical,

from the truth than about truth itself; but real philosophers, men who

know what they want and at what they aim, will hardly be embarrassed

by this. They will utter their truths as before, without in the least

considering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of

logic.

_Truths, Proven and Unproven_

Whence did we get the habit of requiring proofs of each idea that

is expressed? If we put aside the consideration, as having no real

meaning in the present case, that men do often purposely deceive their

neighbours for gain or other interests, then strictly speaking the

necessity for proof is entirely removed. It is true that we can still

deceive ourselves and fall into involuntary error. Sometimes we take

a vision for a reality, and we wish to guard against that offensive

mistake. But as soon as the possibility of _bona fide_ error is

removed, then we may relate simply without arguments, judgments, or

references. If you please, believe; if you don't, don't. And there is

one province, the very province which has always attracted to itself

the most remarkable representatives of the human race, where proofs

in the general acceptation are even quite impossible. We have been

hitherto taught that that which cannot be proved, should not be spoken

about. Still worse, we have so arranged our language that, strictly

speaking, everything we say is expressed in the form of a judgment,

that is, in a form which presupposes not merely the possibility but

the necessity of proofs. Perhaps this is the reason why metaphysics

has been the object of incessant attack. Metaphysics evidently was not

only unable to find a form of expression for her truths which would

free her from the obligation of proof; she did not even want to. She

considered herself the science _par excellence,_ and therefore supposed

that she had more largely and more strictly to prove the judgments

which she took under her wing. She thought that if she were to neglect

the duty of demonstration she would lose all her rights. And that, I

imagine, was her fatal mistake. The correspondence of rights and duties

is perhaps a cardinal truth (or a cardinal fiction) of the doctrine

of law, but it has been introduced into the sphere of philosophy by a

misunderstanding. Here, rather, the contrary principle is enthroned:

rights are in inverse proportion to duties. And only there where

all duties have ceased is the greatest and most sovereign right

acquired--the right of communion with ultimate truths. Here we must not

for one moment forget that ultimate truths have nothing in common with

middle truths, the logical construction of which we have so diligently

studied for the last two thousand years. The fundamental difference is

that the ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible. Unintelligible,

I repeat, but not inaccessible. It is true that middle truths also are,

strictly speaking, unintelligible. Who will assert that he understands

light, heat, pain, pride, joy, degradation?

Nevertheless, our mind, in alliance with omnipotent habit, has,

with the assistance of some strained interpretation, given to the

combination of phenomena in the segment of universal life that is

accessible to us, a certain kind of harmony and unity, and this from

time immemorial has gained repute under the name of an intelligible

explanation of the created world. But the known, which is the familiar,

world is sufficiently unintelligible to make good faith require of us

that we should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate

of being. It is impossible to hold, as some do, that the only reason

why we do not understand the world is that something is hidden from

us or that our mind is weak, so that if the Supreme Being wished to

unveil the secret of creation to us, or if the human brain should so

much develop in the next ten million years that he will excel us as

far as we excel our official ancestor, the ape, then the world will be

intelligible. No, no, no! By their very essence the operations which we

perform upon reality to understand it are useful and necessary only so

long as they do not pass a certain limit. It is possible to understand

the arrangement of a locomotive. It is also legitimate to seek an

explanation of an eclipse of the sun, or of an earthquake. But a moment

comes--only we cannot define it exactly--when explanations lose all

meaning and are good for nothing any more. It is as though we were led

by a rope--the law of sufficient reason--to a certain place and left

there: 'Now go wherever you like.' And since we have grown so used to

the rope in our lives, we begin to believe that it is part of the very

essence of the world. One of the most remarkable thinkers, Spinoza,

thought that God himself was bound by necessity.

Let any one probe himself carefully, and he will find that he is not

merely unable to think but almost unable to live without the hypothesis

of Spinoza. The work of Hume, who so brilliantly disputed the axiom

of causal necessity, was only half done. He clearly showed that it

is impossible to prove the existence of necessary connection. But it

is also impossible to prove the contrary. In the result, everything

remained as before: Kant, and all mankind after him, has returned to

Spinoza's position. Freedom has been driven into an intellectual world,

an unknown land,

'from whose bourne

No traveller returns,'

and everything is in its former place. Philosophy wants to be a science

at all costs. It is absolutely impossible for her to succeed in this;

but the price she has paid for the right to be called a science, is

not returned to her. She has waived the right of seeking that which

she needed wherever she would, and she is deprived of the right for

ever. But did she really need it? If you glance at contemporary German

philosophy you will say without hesitation that it was not needed at

all. Neither by mistake, nor even in pursuit of a new title, did she

renounce her great vocation: it has become an intolerable burden to

her. However hard it may be to confess, it is nevertheless indubitable

that the great secrets of the universe cannot be manifested with the

clarity and distinctness with which the visible and tangible world is

opened to us. Not only others--you will not even convince yourself of

your truth with the obviousness with which you can convince all men

without exception of scientific truths.

Revelations, if they do occur, are always revelations for an instant.

Mahomet--Dostoevsky explains--could only stay in paradise a very short

time, from half a second to five seconds, even if he succeeded in

falling into it. And Dostoevsky himself entered paradise only for an

instant. And here on earth, both of them lived for years, for tens of

years, and there seemed to be no end to the hell of earthly existence.

The hell was obvious, demonstrable; it could be fixed, exhibited,

_ad oculos._ But how could paradise be proven? How could one fix,

how express, those half-seconds of paradisic beatitude, which were

from the outside manifested in ugly and horrible epileptic fits with

convulsions, paroxysms, a foaming mouth, and sometimes an ill-omened

sudden fall, with the spilling of blood? Again, believe, if you will:

if you won't, don't. Surely a man who lives now in paradise, now in

hell sees life utterly differently from others. And he wants to think

that he is right, that his experience is of great value, that life is

not at all as it is described by men of different experience and more

limited emotions. How desperately did Dostoevsky desire to persuade all

men of his rightness, how stubbornly he used to demonstrate, and how

angry he was made by the consciousness that lived in the depths of his

soul that he was impotent to prove anything. But a fact remains a fact.

Perhaps epileptics and madmen know things of which normal men have

not even the remotest presentiment, but it is not vouchsafed to them

to communicate their knowledge to others, or to prove it. And there

is a universal knowledge which is the very object of philosophical

seeking, with which one may commune, but which by its very essence

cannot be communicated to all, that is, cannot be turned into verified

and demonstrable universal truths. To renounce this knowledge in order

that philosophy should have the right to be called a science! At times

men acted thus. There were sober epochs when the pursuit of positive

knowledge absorbed every one capable of intellectual labour. Or perhaps

there were epochs in which men who sought something other than positive

science were condemned to universal contempt, and passed unregarded: in

such an epoch Plato would have found no sympathy, but would have died

in obscurity. One thing at least is clear. He whose chief interest

and motive in life is in undemonstrable truths is doomed to complete

or relative sterility in the sense in which the word is generally

understood. If he is clever and gifted, men may perhaps be interested

in his mind and talent, but they will pass his work with indifference,

contempt, and even horror; and they will begin to warn the world

against him.

'Look at him, my children,

He is stern and pale and lean.

He is poor and naked,

And all men count him mean.'

Has not the work of the prophets who sought for ultimate truths been

barren and useless? Did life hold them in any account? Life went its

own way, and the voices of the prophets have been, are, and ever

will be, voices in the wilderness. For that which they see and know,

cannot be proved and is not capable of proof. Prophets have always

been isolated, dissevered, separate, helpless men, locked up in their

pride. Prophets are kings without an army. For all their love to their

subjects, they can do nothing for them, for subjects respect only those

kings who possess a formidable military power. And--long may it be so!

_The Limits of Reality_

After all, not even the most consistent and convinced realist

represents life to himself as it really is. He overlooks a great deal;

and on the other hand he often sees something which has no existence in

reality. I do not think there is any need to show this by example. For

all our desire to be objective we are, after all, extremely subjective,

and those things which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori,_ by

which our mind forms nature and dictates laws to her, do play a great

and serious part in our lives. We create something like the veil of

Maia: we are awake in sleep, and sleep in wakefulness, exactly as

though some magic power had charmed us. And just as in sleep we feel

for instants that what is happening to us is like a half-dream, an

intermediate half-life. Schopenhauer and the Buddhists were right in

asserting that it is equally wrong to say of the veil of Maia, the

world accessible to us, either that it exists or does not exist. It is

true that logic does not admit such judgments and persecutes them most

implacably, for they violate its most fundamental laws. But it cannot

be helped: when one has to choose between philosophy which is alluring

and promising, and empty logic, one will always sacrifice the latter

for the former. And philosophy without contradictory judgments would

be either doomed to eternal silence, or would be churned into a mud of

commonplace and reduced to nothing. Philosophers know that. The same

is true of our own case: we must confess that we are at the same time

awake and dreaming dreams, and at times we must own that though we

are alive, yet we have long since been dead. As living beings we still

hold to the accepted synthetic judgments _a priori,_ and as dead, we

try to do without them, or to replace them by other judgments which

have nothing in common with the former but are even opposite to them.

Philosophy is occupied in this work with extreme diligence, and _in

this and this alone_ is the meaning of the idealistic movement which

has never, since the time of Plato, disappeared from history. The

problem is not for us to find another, primordial, better, and eternal

world to replace the visible world accessible to all, as idealistic

philosophy is usually interpreted by her official and, unfortunately,

her most influential representatives. Interpretation of that kind

too obviously bears the mark of its empiric utilitarian origin: they

bring us as near to super-empiric reality as do the notions wherewith

we define what is valuable in life. We might as well consider the

super-empiric world as one of gold, diamond, or pearls simply because

gold, diamonds, and pearls are very costly. But so it usually happens.

God himself is usually represented as glimmering with gold and precious

stones, as omniscient and omnipotent. He is called the King of Kings

since on earth the lot of a crowned head is considered most enviable.

The meaning and value of idealistic philosophy thus appears to be that

she for ever ratifies all that we have found valuable on earth during

our brief existence. Herein, I believe, is a fatal error. Idealistic

philosophy, it is true, gave an excuse for falsely interpreting her,

since she loved to be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. The religion of

almost all nations has always sought for forms outwardly beautiful

without stopping even before such an obvious paradox--not to put it

more strongly--as a golden cross studded with diamonds. And for the

sake of sumptuous words and golden crosses men overlooked great truths,

and perhaps great possibilities. The philosophy of the schools also

loved to array herself, so that she should not be behind the masters in

this respect, and for the sake of dress she often forgot her necessary

work. Plato taught that our life was only a shadow of another reality.

If this is true, and he discovered the truth, then surely our first

task is to begin to live a different life, to turn our back to the wall

above which the shadows are walking and to turn our face to the source

of light which created the shadows or to those things of which the

visible outlines give only a remote resemblance. We must be awakened,

if only in part; to this end what is usually done to a person sound

asleep must be done to us. He is pulled, pinched, beaten, tickled,

and if all these things fail, still stronger and more heroic measures

must be applied. At all events, it is out of the question to advise

contemplation, which may well make one still sleepier, or quietude,

which leads to the same result. Philosophy should live by sarcasm,

irony, alarm, struggles, despairs, and allow herself contemplation

and quietude only from time to time, as a relaxation. Then perhaps she

will succeed in creating, by the side of realistic dreams, dreams of

a quite different order, and visibly demonstrate that the universally

accepted dreams are not the only ones. 'What is the use?' I do not

think this question need be answered. He who asks it, shows by the fact

that he needs neither an answer nor philosophy, while he who needs them

will not ask but will patiently await events: a temperature of 120°,

an epileptic fit, or something of this kind, which facilitates the

difficult task of seeking....

_The Given and the Possible_

The law of causation as a principle of inquiry is an excellent thing:

the existing sciences afford us convincing evidence of that. But as an

idea in the Platonic sense it is of little value, at times at least.

The strict harmony and order of the world have fascinated many people:

such giants of thought as Spinoza and Goethe paused with reverent

wonder in contemplation of the great and unchangeable order of nature.

Therefore they exalted necessity even to the rank of a primordial,

eternal, original principle. And we must confess that Goethe's and

Spinoza's conception of the world lives so much in each one of us that

in most cases we can love and respect the world only when our souls

feel in it a symmetrical harmony. Harmony seems to us at once-the

highest value and the ultimate truth. It gives to the soul great peace,

a stable firmness, a trust in the Creator--the highest boons accessible

to mortal men, as the philosophers teach. Nevertheless, there are

other yearnings. Man's heart is suddenly possessed by a longing for

the fantastic, the unforeseen, for that which cannot be foreseen. The

beautiful world loves its beauty, peace of soul seems disgraceful,

stability is felt as an intolerable burden. Just as a youth grown

to manhood suddenly feels irritated by the bountiful tutelage of

his parents, from which he has received so much, though he does not

know what to do with his freedom, so is a man of insight ashamed of

the happiness which is given to him, which some one has created. The

law of causation, like the whole harmony of the world, seems to him

a pleasant gift, facilitating life, but yet a degrading one. He has

sold his birthright for peace, for undisturbed happiness--his great

birthright of free creation. He does not understand how a giant like

Goethe could have been seduced by the temptation of a pleasant life,

he suspects the sincerity of Spinoza. There is something rotten in the

state of Denmark. The apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

has become to him the sole purpose of life, even though the path to it

should lie through extreme suffering.

And, strangely, nature herself seems to be preoccupied in urging man to

that fatal path. There comes a time in our life when some imperative

and secret voice forbids us to rejoice at the beauty and grandeur of

the world. The world allures us as before, but it no longer gives pure

happiness. Remember Tchekhov. How he loved nature! What immeasurable

yearning is audible in his wonderful descriptions of nature! Just as

though each time that he glanced at the blue sky, the troubled sea or

the green woods, a voice of authority whispered to him: 'All this is

yours no longer. You may look at it, but you have no right to rejoice.

Prepare yourself for another life, where nothing will be given,

complete, prepared, where nothing will be created, where there will

be illimitable creation alone. And everything which is in this world

shall be given to destruction, to destruction and destruction, even

this nature which you so passionately love, and which it is so hard and

painful for you to renounce.' Everything drives us to the mysterious

realm of the eternally fantastic, eternally chaotic, and--who

knows?--it may be, the eternally beautiful....

_Experiment and Proof_

When _cogito ergo sum_ came into Descartes' head, he marked the

day--November 10, 1619--as a remarkable day: 'The light of a wonderful

discovery,' he wrote in his diary, 'flashed into my mind.' Schelling

relates the same thing of himself: in the year 1801 he 'saw the light.'

And to Nietzsche when he roamed the mountains and the valleys of

the Engadine there came a mighty change: he grasped the doctrine of

eternal recurrence. One might name many philosophers, poets, artists,

preachers, who like these three suddenly saw the light, and considered

their vision the beginning of a new life. It is even probable that all

men who have been destined to display to the world something perfectly

new and original have without exception experienced that miracle of

sudden metamorphosis. Nevertheless, though much is spoken of these

miracles and often, in nearly all biographies of great men, we cannot

strictly make any use of them. Descartes, Schelling, Nietzsche tell

the story of their conversion; and with us, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky

tell of theirs; in the less remote past, there are Mahomet and Paul

the Apostle; in far antiquity the legend of Moses. But if I had

chosen tenfold the number, if thousands even had been collected, it

would still be impossible for the mind to make any deduction from

them. In other words, all these cases have no value as scientific

material, whereas one fossil skeleton or a unique case of an unknown

rare disease is a precious windfall to the scientist. What is still

more interesting, Descartes was so struck with his _cogito ergo sum,_

Nietzsche with his eternal recurrence, Mahomet with his paradise, Paul

the Apostle with his vision, while we remain more or less indifferent

to anything they may relate of their experiences. Only the most

sensitive among us have an ear for stories of that kind, and even they

are obliged to hide their impressions within them, for what can be done

with them?

It is even impossible to fix them as indubitable facts, for facts

also require a verification and must be proved. There are no proofs.

Philosophic and religious teachings offered by men who have had

extraordinary inward experiences, not only do not generally confirm,

but rather refute their own stories of revelation. For philosophic and

religious teaching have always hitherto assigned themselves the task

of attracting all and sundry to themselves, and in order to attain

this end they had to have recourse to such methods as have effect with

the ordinary man, who knows of nothing extraordinary--to proof, to the

authority of visible and tangible phenomena, which can be measured,

weighed and counted. In their pursuit of proofs, of persuasiveness

and popularity, they had to sacrifice the important and essential,

and expose for show that which is agreeable to reason--things already

more or less known, and therefore of little interest and importance.

In course of time, as experimental science, so-called, gained more

and more power, the habit of hiding in oneself all that cannot be

demonstrated _ad oculos,_ has become more and more firmly rooted,

until it is almost man's second nature. Nowadays we 'naturally'

share but a small part of an experience with our friends, so that

if Mahomet and Paul lived in our time, it would not enter their

heads to tell their extraordinary stories. And for all his bravery,

Nietzsche nevertheless passes quickly over eternal recurrence, and

is much more occupied with preaching the morality of the Superman,

which, though it at first astounded people, was after all accepted

with more or less modification, because it was demonstrable. Evidently

we are confronted with a great dilemma. If we continue to cultivate

modern methodology, we run the risk of becoming so accustomed to it

that we will lose not only the faculty of sharing all undemonstrable

and exceptional experiences with others, but even of retaining them

firmly in the memory. They will begin to be forgotten as dreams, they

will even seem to be waking dreams. Thus we will cut ourselves off

for ever from a vast realm of reality, whose meaning and value have

by no means been divined or appreciated. In olden times men could add

dreams and madmen's visions to reality; but we shall curtail the real

indubitable reality, transferring it to the realm of hallucinations and

dreams. I suppose even a modern man will feel some hesitation in coming

over to the side of this methodology, even though he is incapable of

thinking, with the ancients, that dreams are by no means worthless

things. And if this is so, then the rights of experiences must not be

defined by the degree of their demonstrability. However capricious

our experiences may be, however little they agree with the rooted and

predominant conceptions of the necessary character of events in the

inward and outward life--once they have taken place in the soul of man,

they acquire, _ipso facto,_ the lawful right of figuring side by side

with facts which are most demonstrable and susceptible of control and

verification, and even with a deliberate experiment.

It may be said that we would not then be protected against deliberate

frauds. People who have never been in paradise will give themselves out

for Mahomets. That is true; they will talk and they will he. There will

be no method of objective verification. But they will surely tell the

truth also. For the sake of that truth we may make up our minds to swim

through a whole ocean of lies. Yes, it is not in the least impossible

to distinguish truth from lie in this realm, though, certainly, not by

the signs which have been evolved by logic; and not even by signs, but

by no signs at all. The signs of the beautiful have not yet been even

approximately, defined, and, please God--be it said without offence to

the Germans--they never will be defined, but yet we distinguish between

Apollo and Venus. So it is with truth: she too may be recognised. But

what if a man cannot distinguish without signs, and, moreover, does

not want to?... What is to be done with him? Really, I do not know;

besides, I do not imagine that all men down to the last should act

in unison. When did all men act in agreement? Men have mostly acted

separately, meeting in certain places, and parting in others. Long may

it be so! Some will recognise and seek after truth by signs, others

without signs, as they please, and yet others, in both ways.

_The Seventh Day of Creation_

Socrates said that he often used to hear from poets thoughts remarkable

for their profundity and seriousness, but when he began to inquire of

them more particularly, he became convinced that they themselves did

not understand what they were saying. What did he really mean? Did

Socrates wish to compare the poets to parrots or trained blackbirds

who can learn by heart, with the assistance of a man to teach them,

any ideas whatever, perfectly foreign to them. That can hardly be.

Socrates hardly thought that what the poets say had been overheard by

them from some one, and mechanically fixed in their mind, though it

remained quite foreign to their soul. Most probably he used the word

'understand' in the sense that they could not demonstrate or explain

the soundness and stability of their ideas,--they could not deduce

them and relate them to a definite conception of the world. As every

one knows, Socrates thought that not merely poets, but all men, from

eminent statesmen down to ignorant artisans, had ideas, even a great

many ideas, but they never could explain where they had got them, or

make them agree among themselves.

In this respect poets were the same as the rest of people. From some

mysterious source they had acquired truths, often great and profound,

but they were unable to explain them. This seemed to Socrates a great

misery, a real misfortune. I do not know how it happened--not a single

historian of philosophy has explained it, and indeed very little

interest has been taken in it--but Socrates for some reason decided

that an unproven and unexplained truth had less value than a proven and

explained one. In our times, when a whole theory, even a conception

of the world, has been made of Socrates's idea, this notion seems

so natural and self-evident that no one doubts it. But in antiquity

the case was different. Strictly, Socrates thought that the poets

had acquired their truths, which they were unable to prove, from a

very respectable source, which deserved all possible confidence: he

himself compared the poets with oracles, and consequently admitted

that they had communion with the gods. There was, therefore, a most

excellent guarantee that the poets were possessed of real, undiluted

truth--the pledge of its purity being the divine authority. Socrates

said that he himself had frequently been guided in his actions, not by

considerations of reason, but by the voice of his mysterious 'demon.'

That is, at times, he abstained from certain actions--his demon gave

him never positive, but only negative advice--without being able to

produce reasons, simply because the secret voice, more authoritative

than any human mind, demanded abstinence from them.

Is it not strange that under such circumstances, at an epoch when the

gods vouchsafed truths to men, there should have suddenly appeared in

a man the unexplained desire to acquire truths without the help of the

gods, and in independence of them, by the dialectic method so beloved

of the Greeks? It is doubtful which is more important for us, to

acquire the truth or to acquire for one's self with one's own effort,

it may be a false, but one's _own_ judgment. The example of Socrates,

who has been a pattern for all subsequent generations of thinking

men, leaves not the slightest doubt. Men do not need a truth ready

made; they turn away from the gods to devote themselves to independent

creations. Practically the same story is told in the Bible. What indeed

was lacking to Adam? He lived in paradise, in direct proximity to God,

from whom he could learn anything he wanted. And yet it did not suit

him. It was enough that the Serpent should make his perfidious proposal

for the man to forget the wrath of God, and all the dangers which

threatened him, and to pluck the apple from the forbidden tree. Then

the truth, which until the creation of the world and man had been one,

split and broke with a great, perhaps an infinitely great, number of

most diverse truths, eternally being born, and eternally dying. This

was the seventh day of creation, unrecorded in history. Man became

God's collaborator. He himself became a creator. Socrates renounced the

divine truth and even spoke contemptuously of it, merely because it

was not proven, that is, because it does not bear the marks of man's

handiwork. Socrates really did not prove anything, but he was proving,

creating, and in this he saw the meaning of his own life and of all

human lives. Thus, surely, the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle

seems true even now: Socrates was the wisest of men. And he who would

be wise must, imitating Socrates, not be like him in anything. Thus did

all great men, and all great philosophers.

_What does the History of Philosophy teach us?_

Neo-Kantianism is the prevalent school of modern philosophy. The

literature about Kant has grown to unheard-of proportions. But if

you attempt to analyse the colossal mass that has been written upon

Kant, and put the question to yourself, what has really been left to

us of Kant's teaching, then to your great amazement you will have to

reply: Nothing at all. There is an extraordinary, incredibly famous

name--Kant, and there is positively not a single Kantian thesis which

in an uninterpreted form would have survived till our day. I say in

an uninterpreted form, for interpretations resolve at bottom into

arbitrary recastings, which often have not even an outward resemblance

to the original. These interpretations began while Kant was still

alive. Fichte gave the first example. It is well known that Kant

reacted, demanding that his teaching should be understood not in the

spirit but in the letter. And Kant was, naturally, quite right. Of

two things one: either you take his teaching as it is, or you invent

your own. But the fate of all thinkers who have been destined to

give their names to an epoch is similar: they have been interpreted,

recast, till they are unrecognisable. For after a short time had

elapsed, it became clear that their ideas were so overburdened with

contradictions, that in the form in which they emerged from the hands

of their creators, they are absolutely unacceptable. Indeed, all the

critics who had not made up their minds beforehand to be orthodox

Kantians, came to the conclusion that Kant had not proved a single

one of his fundamental propositions. Something stronger may be said.

By virtue of the fact that Kant, owing to the central position which

he occupied, attracted much attention to himself and was forced to

submit to very careful criticism, there gradually emerged a truth which

might have been known beforehand: that Kant's teaching is a mass of

contradictions. The sum-total of more than a century's study of Kant

may be resumed in a few words. Although he was not afraid of the most

crying contradictions, he did not have the smallest degree of success

in proving the correctness of his teaching. With an extraordinary

power and depth of mind, with all the originality, boldness, and

talent of his constructions, he really provided nothing that might be

indisputably called a positive acquisition of philosophy. I repeat that

I am not expressing my own opinion. I am only reckoning the sum-total

of the opinions of the German critics of Kant, of those same critics

who built him a monument _aere perennius._

The same may be said of all the great representatives of philosophic

thought beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and ending with Hegel,

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Their works astonish by their power, depth,

boldness, beauty and originality of thought. While you read them it

seems that truth herself speaks with their lips. And what strong

measures of precaution did they take to prevent themselves from being

mistaken! They believed in nothing that men had grown accustomed to

believe. They methodically doubted everything, reexamined everything,

tens, hundreds of times. They gave their life to the truth not in

words, but in deed. And still the sum-total is the same in their case

as in Kant's: not one of them succeeded in inventing a system free from

internal contradictions.

Aristotle was already criticising Plato, and the sceptics criticised

both of them, and so on until in our day each new thinker struggles

with his predecessors, refutes their contradictions and errors,

although he knows that he is doomed to the same fate. The historians

of philosophy are at infinite pains to conceal the most glaring and

noticeable trait of philosophic creation, which is, at bottom, no

secret to any one. The uninitiated, and people generally who do not

like thinking, and therefore wish to be contemptuous of philosophy,

point to the lack of unity among philosophers as evidence that it is

not worth while to study philosophy. But they are both wrong. The

history of philosophy not only does not inspire us with the thought

of the continual evolution of an idea, but palpably convinces us of

the contrary, that among philosophers there is not, has not been, and

will never be, any aspiration towards unity. Neither will they find

in future a truth free from contradiction, for they do not seek the

truth in the sense in which the word is understood by the people and

by science; and, after all, contradictions do not frighten them, but

rather attract. Schopenhauer begins his criticism of Kant's philosophy

with the words of Voltaire: 'It is the privilege of genius to make

great mistakes with impunity.' I believe that the secret of the

philosophic genius lies here. He makes great, the greatest, mistakes,

and with impunity. Moreover his mistakes are put to his credit, for

the important matter is not his truths, or his judgments, but himself.

When you hear from Plato that the life we see is only a shadow, when

Spinoza, intoxicated by God, exalts the idea of necessity, when Kant

declares that reason dictates laws to Nature,--listening to them you

do not examine whether their assertions are true or not, you agree with

each of them, whatever he says, and only this question arises in your

soul: 'Who is he that speaketh as one having authority?'

Later on, you will reject all their truths, with horror, perhaps with

indignation and disgust, even with utter indifference. You will not

consent to accept that our life is only a shadow of actual reality,

you will revolt against Spinoza's God, who cannot love, yet demands

love for himself, Kant's categorical imperative will seem to you a cold

monster,--but you will never forget Plato, or Spinoza, or Kant, and

will for ever keep your gratitude to them, who made you believe that

authority is given to mortals. Then you will understand that there are

no errors and no truths in philosophy; that errors and truths are only

for him above whom is set a superior authority, a law, a standard. But

philosophers themselves create laws and standards. This is what we are

taught by the history of philosophy; this is what is most difficult for

man to master and understand. I have already said that the historians

of philosophy draw quite a different moral from the study of the great

human creations.

_Science and Metaphysics_

In his autobiography Spencer confesses that he had really never

read Kant. He had had _The Critique of Pure Reason_ in his hands,

and had even read the beginning, the Transcendental Aesthetic, but

the beginning convinced him it was no use for him to read further.

Once a man had made the unconvincing admission which Kant had made,

by accepting the subjectivity of one form of perception, of space

and time, he could not be seriously taken into account. If he is

consistent, all his philosophy will be a system of absurdity and

nonsense; if he is inconsistent,--the less attention does he deserve.

Spencer confidently asserts that, once he could not accept Kant's

fundamental proposition, he not only could not be a Kantian any more,

but he found it useless even to become further acquainted with Kant's

philosophy. That he did not become a Kantian is nothing to grieve over

--there are Kantians enough without him--but that he did not acquaint

himself with Kant's principal works, and above all with the whole

school that rose out of Kant, may be sincerely regretted. Perhaps, as

a new man, remote from Continental traditions, he would have made a

curious discovery, and would have convinced himself that it was not at

all necessary to accept the proposition of the subjectivity of space

and time in order to become a Kantian. And perhaps with the frankness

and simplicity peculiar to him, which is not afraid to be taken for

naïveté, he would have told us that not a single Kantian (Schopenhauer

excepted), not even Kant himself, has ever seriously accepted the

fundamental propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic, and therefore

has never made from them any conclusions or deductions whatever. On

the contrary, the Transcendental Aesthetic was itself a deduction from

another proposition, that we have synthetic judgments _a priori._ The

original rôle of this, the most original of all theories ever invented,

was to be a support and an explanation of the mathematical sciences.

It had never had an independent, material content, susceptible of

analysis and investigation. Space and time are the eternal forms of our

perception of the world: to this, according to the strict meaning of

Kant's teaching, nothing can be added, and nothing abated. Spencer, not

having read the book to the end, imagined that Kant would begin to make

deductions and became nervous. But if he had read the book to the end,

he would have been convinced that Kant had not made any deductions, and

that the whole meaning of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ indeed is that

from the propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic no deductions can

be made. It is now about a hundred and fifty years since _The Critique

of Pure Reason_ appeared. No philosophic work has been so much studied

and criticised. And yet where are the Kantians who attempt to make

deductions from the proposition as to the subjectivity of space and

time? Schopenhauer is the only exception. He indeed took the Kantian

idea seriously, but it may be said without exaggeration that of all

Kantians the least like Kant was Schopenhauer.

The world is a veil of Maia. Would Kant really have agreed to such

an interpretation of his Transcendental Aesthetic? Or what would

Kant have said, if he had heard that Schopenhauer, referring to the

same Aesthetic in which he saw the greatest philosophic revelation,

had admitted the possibility of clairvoyance and magic? Probably

Spencer thought that Kant would himself make all these deductions, and

therefore threw away the book which bound him to conclusions so absurd.

It is a pity that Spencer was in such a hurry. Had he acquainted

himself with Kant, he would have been convinced that the most absurd

idea might serve a very useful purpose; and that there is not the least

necessity to make from an idea all the deductions to which it may lead.

A man is a free agent and he can deduce if he has a mind to; if he has

not, he will not; and there is no necessity to judge the character

of a philosophic theory by its general postulates. Even Schopenhauer

did not exploit Kant's theory to the full, which, if it had really

divined the truths hitherto hidden from men, would have not only put

an end to metaphysical researches, but also have given an impulse and

a justification to perfectly new experiments which from the previous

standpoint were quite mad and unimaginable. For if space and time are

forms of our human perception, then they do indeed hide the ultimate

truth from us. While men knew nothing of this, and, simple minded,

accepted the visible reality for the actual real, they could not of

course dream of true knowledge. But from the moment when the truth was

revealed to them through Kant's penetration, it is clear that their

true task was to use every possible means to free themselves from

the harness and to break away from it, while consolidating all those

judgments which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori_ for all

eternity.

And the new, the critical metaphysics, which should take account of

the stupid situation in which these had hitherto found themselves who

saw in apodeictic judgments eternal truths, had a great task to set

herself: to get rid at all costs of apodeictic judgments, knowing them

for false. In other words, Kant's task should not have been to minimise

the destructive effect of Hume's scepticism, but to find a still more

deadly explosive to destroy even those limits which Hume was obliged

to preserve. It is surely evident that truth lies beyond synthetic

judgments _a priori,_ and that it cannot at all resemble an _a priori_

judgment, and in fact cannot be like a judgment of any kind.

And it must be sought by methods quite different from those by which

it has been sought hitherto. To some extent Kant attempted to describe

how he represented to himself the meaning hidden beneath the words:

'Space and time are subjective forms of perception.' He even gave an

object-lesson, saying that perhaps there are beings who perceive the

world otherwise than under the forms of space and time: which means

that for such beings there is no change. All that we perceive by a

succession of changes, they perceive at once. To them Julius Caesar

is still alive, though he is dead; to them the twenty-fifth century

A.D., which none of us will live to see, and the twenty-fifth century

B.C., which we reconstruct with such difficulty from the fragmentary

traces of the past which have accidentally been preserved to us, the

remote North Pole, and even the stars which we cannot see through the

telescope--all are as accessible to them as to us the events which

are taking place before our eyes. Nevertheless Kant, in spite of all

temptation to acquire the knowledge to which such beings have access,

notwithstanding his profound conviction of the truth of his discovery,

did nothing to dispel the charm of forms of perception and categories

of the reason, or to tear the blinkers from his eyes and see all the

depth of the mysterious reality hitherto hidden from us. He does not

even give a little circumstantial explanation why he considered such a

task impracticable, and he confines himself to the dogmatic assertion

that man cannot conceive a reality beyond space and time. Why? It is

a question of immense importance. Compared with it all the problems

of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ are secondary. How is mathematics

possible, how are natural sciences possible?--these are not even

questions at all compared to the question whether it is possible to

free ourselves from conventional human knowledge in order to attain the

ultimate, all-embracing truth.

Herein the Kantians display an even greater indifference than Kant

himself: they are even proud of their indifference, they plume

themselves upon it as a high virtue. They assert that truth is not

_beyond_ synthetic judgments _a priori,_ but indeed _in_ them; and

that it is not the Creator who put blinkers upon us, but we ourselves

devised them, and that any attempt to remove them and look open-eyed

upon the world is evidence of perversity. If the old Serpent appeared

nowadays to seduce the modern Adam, he would retire discomfited.

Even Eve herself would be no use to him. The twentieth-century Eve

studies in a university and has quite sufficiently blunted her natural

curiosity. She can talk excellently well of the teleological point of

view and is quite as proof as man against temptation. I do not share

Kant's confidence that space and time are forms of our perception,

nor do I see a revelation in it. But if I had once accepted this

apocalyptic assertion, and could think that there was some truth in it,

I would not depart from it to positive science.

It is a pity that Spencer did not read _The Critique of Pure Reason_ to

the end. He would have convinced himself of an important truth: that a

philosopher has no need to take into consideration all the deductions

from his premisses. He need only have goodwill, and he can draw from

the most paradoxical and suspicious premisses conclusions which are

fully conformable to common-sense and the rules of decency. And since

Kant's will was as good as Spencer's, they would have agreed perfectly

in their deductions, though they were so far apart from each other in

their premisses.

_A Tacit Assumption_

Schopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life. And he

gave a definite answer: in life there is much more suffering than joy,

therefore life must be renounced. I must add that strictly speaking

he asked not only the value of life, but also the value of joy and

suffering. And to this question he gave an equally definite answer.

According to his teaching joy is always negative, suffering always

positive. Therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering.

In all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and

answering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious,

and interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from

the assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in

order to have the right to be called truth, must contain something

universal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with

the valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea?

Psychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible

and easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and

solution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged

him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct

us to the truth. He did not verify his premiss _ad hoc,_ and usually

it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises

for it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is

understood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal

and obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question

of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely

admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer

would probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to

formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life.

Still Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being

made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents.

He is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a

subjective point of view--eudaemonism.

The question of the value of life, people object, is not at all

decided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or _vice

versa._ Life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy, life may in

itself be one compact horror, and still be valuable. Schopenhauer's

philosophy was not discussed in his lifetime, so that he could not

answer his opponents. But, if he were still alive, would he accept

these objections and renounce his pessimism? I am convinced that he

would not. At the same time I am convinced that his opponents would

be no less firm and would go on repeating: 'The question is not one

of happiness or suffering. We value life by a quite different and

independent standard.' And in the discussion it would perhaps become

clear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above, which both

accepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation, does

indeed require proofs and explanations, but is provided with neither.

To one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive,

to another contemptible and degrading, and he seeks the meaning of

life in a higher, ethical or aesthetic purpose. There are also people

who love sorrow and pain, and see in them the justification and the

source of the depth and importance of life. Nor do I mention the fact

that when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants

reach different and directly contradictory results, or that insoluble

questions arise concerning these, or other details. Schopenhauer for

instance finds, as we have seen, that sufferings are positive, joys

negative. And hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit

to the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy. What

answer can be made? How can he be convinced of the contrary?

Nevertheless the fact is obvious: many people regard the matter in

quite a different light. For the sake of a single happiness they

are ready to endure a great many serious hardships. In a word,

Schopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified, and not only cannot

be accepted as an indubitable truth, but must be qualified as an

indubitable error. It is impossible to be certain beforehand that to

the question of the value of life a single, universally valid answer

can be given. So here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case

from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. It appears that

by the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given

to one of the most important questions, perhaps the most important

question of philosophy. If you are asked what is life, good or evil,

you are obliged to say that life is both good and evil; or something

independent of good and evil; or a mixture of good and evil in which

there is more good than evil, or more evil than good.

And, I repeat, each of these answers, although they logically quite

exclude each other, has the right to claim the title of _truth_; for

if it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before

it, at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents'

attacks and to defend its sovereign rights. Instead of a sole and

omnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble,

you have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths

excellently armed and defended. Instead of absolutism, you have a

feudal system. And the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles

that an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable.

I took for my instance Schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life.

But many philosophic doctrines, although they issue from the premiss

of one sovereign truth, display examples of the plurality of truths.

It is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy

in order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered

its delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth. My opinion

is that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person,

who is not infected by modern prejudices, to a directly opposite

conclusion. There can be no doubt that a whole series of questions

exists, like that of the value of life, which by their very essence

do not admit of a uniform solution. To this testimony is often borne

by men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of

sovereign truth: Natorp confidently asserts that Aristotle not only did

not understand but could not understand Plato. 'Der tiefere Grund ist

die ewige Unfähigkeit des Dogmatismus sich in der Gesichtspunkt der

kritischen Philosophie überhaupt zu versetzen.' 'Eternal incapability'

--what words! And used not of any common-place person, but of the

greatest human genius known to us, of Aristotle. Had Natorp been a

little more inquisitive, 'eternal incapability' of that kind should

have worried him at least as much as Plato's philosophy, on which he

wrote a large book. For here is evidently a great riddle. Different

people, according to the different constitution of their souls,

are while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different

philosophies. It reminds me of the famous Calvinistic view of

predetermination. Just as from before birth God has destined some to

damnation, others to salvation; so to some it is given and from others

withheld, to know the truth.

And not Natorp alone argues thus. It would be true to say all modern

philosophers, who are always contending with each other and suspecting

each other of 'eternal incapability.' Philosophers have not the same

means of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive

sciences: they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions. Their

_ultima ratio,_ their personal opinion, their private conviction,

their last refuge, is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to

understand them. Here the tragic dilemma is clear to all. Of two things

one: either renounce philosophy entirely, or allow that that which

Natorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness,

but a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood.

Aristotle, indeed, was organically incapable of understanding Plato,

just as Plato could not have understood Aristotle, just as neither of

them could understand the sceptics or the sophists, just as Leibnitz

could not understand Spinoza, as Schopenhauer could not understand

Hegel, and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher

can understand any one except himself. Besides, philosophers do not

aspire to mutual understanding and unity, but usually it is with the

utmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their

predecessors. When the similarity of Schopenhauer's teaching to that

of Spinoza was pointed out to him, he said _Pereant qui ante nos

nostra dixerint._ But representatives of the other positive sciences

understand each other, rarely dispute, and never argue by referring to

the 'eternal incapability' of their confrères. Perhaps in philosophy

this chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the

craft. Perhaps in this realm it is necessary that Aristotle should

not understand Plato and should not accept him, that the materialists

should always be at war with the idealists, the sceptics with the

dogmatists. In other words, the premiss with which Schopenhauer began

the investigation into the value of life, and which as we have shown he

took without verification from the representatives of positive science,

though perfectly applicable in its proper sphere, is quite out of place

in philosophy. And indeed, though they never speak of it, philosophers

value their own personal convictions much more highly than universally

valid truth. The impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic

truth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves, who, so soon

as they have worked out their own convictions, take not the smallest

trouble to secure general recognition for them. They are only busy with

getting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights

for themselves. The question whether there will be other sovereigns by

their side hardly concerns them at all.

The history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency

should be clearly manifest. This would spare us from many prejudices,

and would clear the way for new and important inquiries. Kant, who

shared the opinion that truth is the same for all, was convinced that

metaphysics must be a science _a priori,_ and since it cannot be a

science _a priori,_ must therefore cease to exist. If the history

of philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his

day, it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights

of metaphysics. And probably he would not have been vexed by the

contradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various

schools of metaphysics. It cannot be otherwise, neither should it

be. The interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of

philosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon

wide and deep development. Philosophers have always had an instinctive

longing for this: that is why they are so troublesome to the historian

of philosophy.

_The First and the Last_

In the first volume of _Human, All too Human,_ which Nietzsche wrote

at the very beginning of his disease, when he was still far from

final victory and chiefly told of his defeats, there is the following

remarkable, though half-involuntary confession: 'The complete

irresponsibility of Man for his actions and his being is the bitterest

drop for the man of knowledge to drink, since he has been accustomed to

see in responsibility and duty the very patent of his title to manhood.'

Much bitterness has the inquiring spirit to swallow, but the bitterest

of all is in the knowledge that his moral qualities, his readiness to

fulfil his duty ungrudgingly, gives him no preference over other men.

He thought he was a man of noble rank, even a prince of the blood,

crowned with a crown, and the other men boorish peasantry--but he is

just the same, a peasant, the same as all the rest. His patent of

nobility was that for which he fulfilled his most arduous duty and made

sacrifices; in it he saw the meaning of life. And when it is suddenly

revealed that there is no provision made for titles or patents, it

is a horrible catastrophe, a cataclysm--and life loses all meaning.

Evidently the conviction expressed with such moving frankness in these

words, was with Nietzsche a second nature, which he could not master

all his life long. What is the Superman but a title, a patent, giving

the right to be called a noble among the _canaille?_ What is the pathos

of distance and all Nietzsche's teaching of ranks? The formula, beyond

good and evil, was by no means so all-destructive as at first sight it

seemed. On the contrary, by erasing certain laws graven on the tables

of mankind of old, that formula as it were revealed other commandments,

obliterated by time, and therefore invisible to many.

All morality, all good in and for itself is rejected, but the patent of

nobility grows more precious until it becomes, if not the only value,

at least the chief. Life loses its meaning once titles and ranks are

destroyed, once he is deprived of the right to hold his head high, to

throw out his chest, his belly even, and to look with contempt upon

those about him.

In order to show to what extent the doctrine of rank has become

attached to the human soul, I would recall the words of the Gospel

about the first and last. Christ, who seemed to speak in a language

utterly new, who taught men to despise earthly blessings--riches, fame,

honours, who so easily yielded Caesar his due, because he thought

that only Caesar would find it useful--Christ himself, when he spoke

to men, did not think it possible to take away from them their hope

of distinction. 'The first shall be last.' What will there be first

and second there, too? Yes, so it stands in the Gospel. Is it because

there is indeed in the division of men into ranks something original

and warrantable, or is it because Christ who spoke to humankind could

not but use human words? It may be that, but for that promise, and

generally the series of promises of rewards, accessible to the human

understanding, the Gospel would not have fulfilled its great historic

mission, it would have passed unnoticed on the earth, and no one

would have detected or recognised in it the Evangel. Christ knew that

men could renounce all things, save the right to superiority alone,

to superiority over one's neighbours, to that which Nietzsche calls

'the patent of nobility.' Without that superiority men of a certain

kind cannot live. They become what the Germans so appropriately call

_Vogelfrei,_ deprived of the protection of the laws, since the laws

are the only source of _their_ right. Rude, nonsensical, disgusting

reality--against which, I repeat, their _only_ defence is the patent

of nobility, the unwritten charter--approaches them closer and closer,

with more and more menace and importunacy, and claims its right. 'If

you are the same as all other men,' it says, 'take your experience

of life from me, fulfil your trivial obligations, worse than that,

accept from me the fines and reprimands to which the rank and file

are subject, even to corporal punishment.' How could he accept these

degrading conditions who had been used to think he had the right to

carry his head high, to be proud and independent? Nietzsche tries

with dull submissiveness to swallow the horrible bitterness of

his confession, but courage and endurance, even _his_ courage and

endurance, are not enough for this his greatest and most terrible task.

He cannot bear the horror of a life deprived of rights and defences: he

seeks again for power and authority which would protect him and give

him his lost rights again. He will not rest until he receives under

another name a _restitutio in integrum_ of all the rights which had

previously been his.

And surely not Nietzsche alone acted thus. The whole history of ethics,

the whole history of philosophy is to no small degree the incessant

search for prerogative and privilege, patents and charters. The

Christians--Tolstoi and Dostoevsky--do not in the least differ from

the enemy of Christianity, Nietzsche. The humble Jew, Spinoza, and the

meek pagan, Socrates, the idealist Plato, and the idealist Aristotle,

the founders of the newest, noblest and loftiest systems, Kant, Fichte,

Hegel, even Schopenhauer, the pessimist, all as one man seek a charter,

a charter, a charter. Evidently life on earth without a charter

becomes for the 'best' men a horrible nightmare and an intolerable

torment. Even the founder of Christianity, who so easily renounced all

privileges, considered it possible to preserve _this_ privilege for

his disciples, and perhaps--who knows?--for himself too.

Whereas if Nietzsche and those other philosophers had been able

resolutely to renounce titles, ranks, and honours, which are

distributed not only by morality, but by all the other Sanhedrim,

real and imaginary, which are set over man; if they could have drunk

this cup to the dregs, then they might have known, seen, and heard

much that was suspected by none of them before. Long since men have

known that the road to knowledge lies by way of a great renunciation.

Neither righteousness nor genius gives a man privilege above others.

He is deprived, for ever deprived, of the protection of earthly laws.

There are no laws. To-day he is a king, to-morrow a slave; to-day God,

to-morrow a worm; to-day first, to-morrow last. And the worm crushed

by him to-day will be God, his god to-morrow. All the measures and

balances by which men are distinguished one from another are defaced

for ever, and there is no certainty that the place a man once occupied

will still be his. And all philosophers have known this; Nietzsche,

too, knew it, and by experience. He was the friend, the ally, and

the collaborator of the great Wagner, the herald of a new era upon

earth; and later, he grovelled in the dust, broken and crushed.

And a second time this thing happened to him. When he had finished

_Zarathustra,_ he became insane, more exactly, he became half-idiot.

It is true he carried the secret of the second fall with him to the

grave. Yet something has reached us, for all his sister's efforts to

conceal from carnal eyes the change that had befallen him. And now

we ask: Is the essence of life really in the rank, the charter, the

patent of nobility? And can the words of Christ be understood in their

literal sense? Are not all the Sanhedrim set over man, and as it were

giving meaning to his life, mere fictions, useful and even necessary

in certain moments of life, but pernicious and dangerous, to say no

more, when the circumstances are changed? Does not life, the real and

desirable life, which men have sought for thousands of years, begin

there where there is neither first nor last, righteous or sinner,

genius or incapable? Is not the pursuit of recognition, of superiority,

of patents and charters, of rank, that which prevents man from seeing

life with its hidden miracles? And must man really seek protection

in the College of Heralds, or has he another power that time cannot

destroy? One may be a good, able, learned, gifted man, even a man of

genius, but to demand in return any privileges whatsoever, is to betray

goodness and ability, and talent and genius, and the greatest hopes of

mankind. The last on earth will nowhere be first....