My Dear Son:
After the third letter had acquainted you with the fact that the subject
of logic has a certain religious flavor, the two subsequent letters
endeavored to show that the logical subject is interconnected with the
universal existence of the world, that the faculty of thought is an
inseparable part of actual truth. In the vernacular of theology my last
two letters have represented the human mind as a part of the living true
God.
Christianity teaches: God is a spirit and who would worship him must
worship in spirit and in truth.
And logic teaches: The spirit is a part of universal existence. Whoever
worships the spirit, is an idolator, for he worships a part and
misunderstands the whole truth. Truth itself is identical with the
universal existence, with the world, and all things are simply forms,
phenomena, predicates, attributes, passing expressions of it. The
universal existence may be called divine because it is infinite, being
the alpha and omega which comprises all things as special truths. The
intellect is such a limited part among other special parts of divine
truth, and the latter is frequently called world without any bombastic
emphasis.
Undoubtedly, every science, profession and trade can say the same thing
of its object. The blue sky and the green trees are divine parts.
Everything is interrelated and connected. If that were a good reason for
not making any subdivisions, every part and description would become
endlessly tiresome.
However, the specialty of logic is the cosmic sum of all truths, because
it aims at a general elucidation of the nature of the human brain. This
purpose is not so well served by an accumulation of other knowledge as
by the general understanding of truth.
Logic, which seeks to enlighten the mind for the purpose of scientific
thinking, does not so much treat of true conceptions as of the general
and absolute conception of truth which is inseparably linked to the
infinite universal life.
If you wish to think scientifically, you will first of all strive after
clear ideas. And yet your head may be quite clear in regard to everyday
things, without getting any nearer to general clearness. Nor is such
clearness obtainable by the accumulation of mere special knowledge, for
even if you were to grow in wisdom to the end of your days, nevertheless
the fountain of wisdom, the universe, is inexhaustible and your brain
will remain imperfectly informed or unclear as before. Yea, even the
smallest part of the world is so inexhaustible that the most talented
can never acquire all the knowledge necessary to understand entirely
even the most minute object. The strongest microscope cannot see all
there is to see in a drop of water, and the wisest man can never learn
all there is to shoemaking.
You can see by all this that the scientific use of our intellect is
furthered by special knowledge only in the corresponding details. For
this reason it does not satisfy us to have some logicians tell us how
many kinds of concepts, judgments and conclusions are contained in our
intellect. These are special details of logic. But the thing of first
importance for the student of logic is the elucidation of the universal
concept of truth, not the accumulation of special truths.
Special truths enlighten the intellect. But the understanding that all
specialties are connected with one another by one monad or unit which is
truth itself gives us a certain general enlightenment which certainly
does not render any special research unnecessary, or take the place of
it, but which may well serve as the foundation of all research, which
may therefore be called a fundamental assistance.
I may remark in passing that the understanding of logical science is
rendered especially difficult by the fact that the unpracticed
understands all terms and concepts only in their narrow popular meaning,
while the subject matter leads up continually into the widest fields.
When I speak of parts of the world, you must not think merely of
geographical parts, but you must think farther until you arrive at the
insight that stars and bricks, matter and force, in short all parts of
the world are world parts.
The logical difficulty may be principally traced to the lack of
familiarity with the comprehensive categories. It will be clear to you
that thinking and being, phenomenon and truth, etc., are conceptions of
the widest scope. So you may have some difficulty in distinguishing
between concepts of truth, and true concepts. And yet this is the same
as making a distinction between the general class of herbs and its
individual species. The mere intercourse with such comprehensive
concepts as truth, existence, universe, is an excellent school of
intellectual enlightenment.
Perhaps you may object to the deviation of a science devoted to the
special study of the faculty of thought into such fields as existence or
truth. But a logic confined to an analysis of the faculty of
understanding would be narrow compared to one representing this faculty
of understanding at work in real life. If the science of the eye were to
treat only of the various parts of the eye without considering the
things outside connected with its function, the light, the objects, in
short, the vision of the eye, it would be more an anatomy of the eye
than a general science of the eye. At all events a science which
represents not alone the subjective faculty of vision, but also the
living activity of the eye, the objective field of vision inseparable
from the subjective faculty, is a far more comprehensive instruction, a
higher enlightenment of the human brain.
In my opinion, logic should not so much treat of the analysis of the
intellectual subject as of the purpose and object of the faculty of
thought, its culture, which is not accomplished by the intellect itself,
but by its connection with the world of truth, its interrelation with
the universal existence.
What can a logic accomplish which divides thought into analytical and
synthetical thoughts, which speaks of inductive and deductive
understanding and of a dozen other kinds, but which finally declines to
meet the question of the relation of thought and understanding to truth,
and fails to indicate what and where is divine truth and how we may
arrive at it?
Pilate, the typical sceptic, shrugs his shoulders; the clergymen make a
mystery of divine truth; the natural sciences care only for the true
conceptions, but naught for the concept of truth; and then the special
science of understanding, formal logic, tries to refer its task to
philosophy or world wisdom.
I have already pointed out that the titles of the principal works on
philosophy indicate that the whole world wisdom turns around the
question: How can our brain be enlightened, how can it arrive at truth?
The naturalists answer that this can be accomplished by special studies,
and they are frequently opposed to philosophical research which makes
general truth its main object, and belittle it. You will readily see
that this is a mistake when you consider that, to illustrate, a machine
or an organism as a whole is still something more than a mere sum of its
parts.
No matter how well you may know each single part, yet you will not
understand the whole machine or organism by this means alone. The
universe is not an aggregation of unorganized parts, but a living
process which must be understood not only in its parts but also as a
whole. We may pass for the moment the question whether the Milky Way may
be dissolved into stars, and whether the stars may become globes like
our Earth which may develop plants, animals, and intelligent beings. The
thing which is evident is that there is a process of development, that
all nature takes part in this movement, that the universe is a whole
without end, composed of an infinite number of parts; a coming and
going, an eternal transformation, which is always identical with itself
and always the same world. What all this would be without our eyes and
ears and without the intellect by means of which we use eyes and ears,
what the world "in itself" is, that is a senseless and transcendental
speculation.
The science of logic must deal only with the actual world which is
inseparable from us and from our thoughts.
This world which we hear, see, smell, in which we live and breathe, is
the world of truth or the true world. That is a fact. Must I prove this?
And how is a fact proven? How do we prove that a peach is a delicious
fruit? One goes and eats it. In the same way, you may now go and enjoy
life, of course in a rational manner, and I am convinced that your own
love of life will tell you that it is proof positive of the truth of the
world, of its actuality.
But even in the midst of this actual world there is present an
inconsistent element, a human race with a confused logic. This race has
been led by various depressing and saddening circumstances to blacken
the delicious truth of this world and to look for a transcendental truth
in philosophical metaphysics or religious fantasmagorias, both of which
are parts of the same stew. The philosophers of misery who make of the
world of truth a vain shadow and a miserable vale of sorrow must needs
be convinced by logic that the living world is the only true one.
Well, that is not so difficult. But there is a danger of getting into a
vicious circle of errors, imitating a snake biting its own tail. I have
to prove logically that the world and truth are one and the same thing,
before we have come to an agreement as to what is logical truth or true
logic. Nevertheless, nature has assisted us. The logic of nature is the
true logic by the help of which we can agree. Nothing more is required
than a somewhat trained brain.
Take two men having a dispute about truth. One of them says it is one
thing, the other that it is something else. So they are arguing about
that which is. This last word is a form of the verb to be. Hence in
arguing whether the remote nebula in the heavens is a brick or a star, a
male or a female, one is always discussing some form of existence. All
disputes turn around forms of existence, but existence itself is an
undisputable truth.
Have I now still to prove that all existence is of the same category?
Are there any stones that do not belong to the category of stones, or
any kind of wood which is iron? What would become of reason and
language, if such a thing were to be considered? And yet, much that is
being said by opponents is of such a nature.
If I have succeeded in convincing you that the universe is the truth,
there still remains the special question: What place shall we assign to
fantastic ideas, error, and untruth? If the universe is the truth, then
everything would be true, and hence it seems contradictory that error
and untruth should have a place in truth or in the world. Of this more
anon. I shall only point out in passing that untruth may without any
contradiction belong to truth, just as weeds are a negation of herbs and
still at the same time herbs.
In conclusion I call your attention to the eminently proletarian
character of the science of truth. It gives to the working class the
logical justification to renounce all clerical and mystic control and to
look for salvation in this same world in which divine truth is living.