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