The proletarian logic of the working class searches after the supreme
being. The working class knows that it must serve but it wants to know
whom to serve. Shall it be an idol or a king? Where, who, what, is the
supreme being to which everything else is subordinate, which brings
system, consistency, logic, into our thought and actions? The next
question is then: By what road do we arrive at its understanding? Any
transcendental revelation being of no use to us, there are only two ways
open: Reason and experience.
Now it is a mistake of common logic to regard these two roads as
separate, while, in fact, they are one and the same common road, which
by the help of empirical reason or reasonable experience leads us to the
point where we recognize that the supreme being to which everything is
subordinate, is nothing special, not a part or a particle, but the
universe itself with all its parts.
We take medicine for the sake of health, we make efforts for the sake of
wealth. But neither health nor wealth are an end in themselves. What
good is health to us, when we have nothing to bite? What good are all
the treasures of Croesus, if health is lacking? Therefore health and
wealth must be combined. Nor is that enough. There is a spirit in us
that drives us farther ahead. There are still other treasures and
requirements, for instance contentment is surely one of them. But the
motive power of the world spirit is so infinite, that it is not
satisfied until it has everything. Everything, then, in other words the
whole world, that is the true end.
Socrates and his school, to whom I alluded in the preceding letter,
wandered the way of separate reason for the purpose of finding the
supreme being, the true, the good, the beautiful. The platonic dialogues
paint a very magnificent picture of the truth that neither health nor
wealth, neither bravery nor devotion, are "the greatest good," but that
it is mainly a question of the understanding and use to which mankind
put these things. Accordingly they are good or bad, they are but
relative "goods." Love and faith, honesty and veracity, are good enough,
but not _the_ good; they only partake of the good. What is sought is
that which is under all circumstances absolutely good, true, and
beautiful.
When Socrates asked his disciples to define the good or reasonable, they
enumerated as a rule a series of good and reasonable specialties, while
the master was continually compelled to instruct them, that his research
was not aimed at those objects. They name important virtues, and he
wants to know what absolute virtue is. They name good things, and he is
looking for _the_ good, for pure goodness, while the good things have
the bad quality of being good only under certain circumstances.
The Socratic school then finds out that only the understanding or the
intellect can find the circumstances under which we may arrive at the
absolute. Understanding, the human mind, philosophy, is to them the
divine. Thus they arrive at their famous "Know thyself," which in their
language means: Hold introspection and rack your brain. But they did not
succeed in thus using the intellect as an oracle. Nor did the Christian
philosophers of later times fare any better with that method, when they
changed the title of the object of their studies and substituted God,
Liberty, and Immortality, for the good, the true, and the beautiful.
In order to get out of the confusion resulting from the many names given
to the object of logic in the course of history, it must be remembered
that pagan as well as Christian research founded their quest for the
absolute on the innate need of understanding the supreme being which was
to be the pivot of all thought and action. Polytheism had to have a
supreme god, no matter whether his name was Zeus or Jupiter. In
consequence of this longing for unity it was very natural that the place
of the many immortals was finally taken by one eternal father of all.
The philosophers are distinguished from the theologians only in so far
as the former seek for the fulcrum of the world more on real than on
imaginary ground.
After more than two thousand years of mediation by intermediary links,
ancient philosophy has at last been transformed into modern
democratic-proletarian logic which recognizes that the intellect is an
instrument which leads to the supreme being on condition that it does
not rack the brain but goes outside of itself and consciously connects
itself with the world outside. This connection constitutes the supreme
being, the imperishable, eternal, truth, goodness, beauty, and reason.
All other things only "partake of it," to use Platonic language.
Although the Socratic school were handicapped by many fantastical
attributes, still they were on the road towards true logic, as neither
health nor wealth, nor any other treasure or virtue satisfied them. They
did not care for true phenomena, but for truth itself. But truth is the
universe, and man must understand that this is the only truth, in order
to be able to use his intellect logically, to be reasonable in the
highest and classical sense of this word.
All the world speaks of logic and logical thought. But when you, my son,
as a thinking man feel the need of getting out of phraseology and
knowing exactly what words should mean, you will hardly find one book
that will give you sufficient light on the subject of logic. The best
book would be the Bible, perhaps. I mean that, when you inquire after
beginning and end, purpose and destination, in short, after that which
would give you and all things a definite support, when you search for
the vortex around which everything revolves, then the Bible does not
tell you about the beginning of this or that part of history, but speaks
of the absolute beginning and end of all history, of the general purpose
and general destination of all existence. That is what I call logic.
The free thinkers were not satisfied with religious mythology, they
wanted to bring consistency and logic into their brains by their own
studies. Plato and Aristotle have done good work along this line. So
have the subsequent philosophers, Cartesius, Spinoza, Kant. The main
impediment for all of them was the obstinate prejudice that man could
have reason in his own brain. Of course, that is where he has it, but it
is not reasonable reason. The intellect shut up in the skull has not
wisdom in its keeping, as the ancients thought. Wisdom cannot be
acquired by racking your brain. Hegel is right: Reason is in the brain,
it is in all things, "everything is reasonable." I merely repeat, then,
that the universe is the true reason.
You will not misunderstand the term "racking your brain." I am not an
opponent of introspective thought, but only desire to call your
attention to the fact that it has led to the wrong habit of separating
thought from sight, hearing, feeling, of divesting the mind of the body.
Just as the Christian looked for salvation outside of the flesh, so the
philosophers looked for reason or understanding outside of the
connection with the rest of the world, outside of experience. It was
especially the research after the nature of the intellect which imagined
it had to creep inside of itself.
When studying the stars, we look at the heavens; when endeavoring to
enrich our knowledge of plants, we gather flowers. But if we attempt to
understand the mind, we must not rack our brain, nor dissect it with an
anatomical knife. We shall indeed find the brain, but not the mind, not
reason.
And even the brain is not so easily cut out, as many an overzealous
materialist may think. The student of anatomy who pries into the nature
of the brain substance knows very well that this substance is not
contained in the head of this or that fellow, but must be sought in many
heads before the average brain is found, which differs materially from
that of Peter or Paul. This will show that your brain is not only your
own, but also "partakes" of the universal brain, and you will easily
conclude from this how much less your reason is yours alone. Hegel is
right: Not only men, but everything is reasonable.
True, the most rotten conditions may be defended by such maxims. Hence
the great logician Hegel has the bad name of having been, not a
philosopher of the people, but a royal state philosopher of Prussia. I
will neither blacken nor whitewash him, nor will I overlook that he left
the great cause in a state of mystical obscurity. But I recognize that
even the worst prejudices, the most perverted morals, laws and
institutions, have their reasonable justification in the times and
conditions of their origin. Such an understanding is immediately
followed by the further insight, that the most reasonable things,
crushed by the wheel of time, will become rotten and unreasonable. In
short, the "good" is not any special institutions, but is found in the
interrelations of the universe. Only the absolute is absolutely good.
And for this reason not only some conservative editors of capitalist
papers, but also the revolutionary authors of the "Communist Manifesto,"
are genuine Hegelians.