Dear Eugene:
Socrates teaches: When we walk, it is not walking, when we stand still,
it is not standing which is our purpose. We always have something
ulterior in view, until finally the general welfare is the true end of
our actions, in other words, the "good." And on closer analysis you will
find that your individual welfare, the socalled egoistic good, is not
enough in itself.
You are not only related to your father, mother, brothers, sisters,
relatives and friends, but also to your community, state, and finally to
the entire population of the globe. Your welfare is dependent on their
welfare, on the welfare of the whole.
I know very well that the horizon of the everyday capitalist minds does
not reach farther than they can see from the steeple of their church.
They think according to the bad maxim: The shirt is closer to the skin
than the coat. If I had to choose between the shirt and the coat, I
should prefer to wear the coat without a shirt rather than to run
around in shirt sleeves as the object of universal ridicule. The old man
who plants a tree the fruits of which he will perhaps never see is not
such a capitalist mind, otherwise he would sow seeds that would ripen
during this year's summer.
At this juncture we must remember that the disciples of Socrates who
looked for the absolute under the name of the "good," were in so far
narrow as they conceived of it only from the moral, specifically human,
standpoint, instead of at the same time considering its cosmic side.
Just as health and wealth belong together, and even these are not
sufficient for human welfare which further requires all social and
political virtues, so the good is not comprised in the interrelations of
all mankind, but passes beyond them and connects itself with the entire
universe. Without the universe man is nothing. He has no eyes without
light, no ears without sound, no morals without physics. Man is not so
much the measure of all things; his more or less intimate connection
with all things is rather the measure of all humanity. Not narrow
morality, but the universe, the supreme being, is the good in the very
highest meaning of the word, is absolute good, right, truth, beauty, and
reason.
In my preceding letter I spoke of universal reason and said that not
alone men, but also mountains, valleys, forests and fields, and even
fools and knaves were reasonable. Now you are familiar with that
student's song: "What's Coming from the Heights?" and you know that it
makes everything leathern. It speaks of a leathern hill, a leathern
coach-driver, a leathern letter, even father, mother, and sister are of
leather. And I mention this simply for the purpose of showing that I
understand that we cannot call leather reasonable and reasonable
leathern without brewing a mixture of language which is lacking the mark
by which all reasonable language is distinguished from chattering,
howling, and roaring. Language is only reasonable when it classifies the
world and distinguishes things by different names.
This is easily understood. But it is more difficult to see that those
who use their intellect without logical training exaggerate distinctions
to such an extent that they ignore the connection between them. All
things are not only distinct, but also connected. But logic so far must
be blamed for not rising to the recognition of the interrelation of all
things. The science of understanding frequently treats reason and
experience as if they were two different things without a common nature.
Therefore, I make it a point to insist that there is no experience
without reason and no reason without experience.
The linguists who dispute about the question whether reason has
developed after language or language after reason agree that both belong
together. One cannot speak without the use of reason, or talk without
sense, because chattering, or babbling, or whatever one may wish to call
it, are everything else but language. On the other hand, there can be no
reason without naming the things of this world, so as to distinguish
between leather and lady, between reason and experience.
Of course, the idea of a leathern lady is only a youthful prank. Still
it is calculated to illustrate the dialectic transfusion of all names
and things, of all subjects and predicates. It shows indirectly that
according to common sense thought, reason has its home only in the brain
of man, and that this reason is nevertheless unsound when it does not
know and remember that the individual human brain is connected with all
brains, and reasons with the whole world, so that only all existence and
the entire universe is reasonable in the highest meaning of the word.
In order to be able to use your reason in all research and on all
objects in a reasonable manner, you must know that the whole world has
one nature, even leather and your sister. Apparently there is a wide
gulf between these two, and yet in both of them the same forces are
active, just as a black horse has the same horse nature as a white
horse, so that from this point of view your sister is indeed leathern
and leather sisterly. Such statements sound paradoxical enough, yet I
insist on making them in this extreme manner in order to fully reveal
the absolute oneness of all existence, since it is the indispensable
basis of a reasonable understanding of logic.
Take one of the questions of the day now agitating the public mind, for
a further illustration. Two tendencies are now observed in the most
radical political movement of the nations. One of them is called
propaganda of the deed. It works in Russia and Ireland with dynamite,
powder, and lead. The other recommends the propaganda of the word, of
the vote, and of lawful agitation. And the difference between these two
is not discussed reasonably with a view to ascertaining for whom, when,
where, and why, this or that propaganda is fitting, but every one tries
to present his relative truth with the fanatical sectarianism of those
who claim absolute truth. But if you have grasped the method of getting
at truth, the true method of using your reasoning faculty, you will take
sides for one thing today and for another thing tomorrow, because you
will understand that all roads are leading toward Rome. And if some of
the comrades outvote you occasionally, you will still value these
antagonists as friends, and if you combat them, even in a war to the
knife, this will still be a relative war, a use of the knife with
reason.
Our proletarian logic is tolerant, not fanatical. This logic does not
want to be reasonable without passion, nor passionate without reason. It
does not abolish the difference between friend and foe, between truth
and falsehood, between reason and nonsense, but calms the fanaticism
which exaggerates those distinctions. Its fundamental maxim is: There is
only one absolute, the universe.
Remember well that the conception of a universe which has anything
outside or beside itself is still more senseless, if possible, than the
idea of wooden iron. You thus see that all differences have one common
nature which does not permit a transcendentally wide difference between
things or opinions. Because the universe is the supreme being, therefore
all differences, even those of opinion, are unessential.
For the purpose of studying logic, I entreat you to pay special
attention to the question of essential differences and to test it by
your own experience which will come to you from day to day.
By means of our logic we learn the language of the gods. In the
dictionary of this language, there is only one essential being, the
universal or supreme being. On the other hand, the language of the
mortals calls every particle a "being," but such being can be relative
beings only.
Every ear of a cornfield, every hair of an ox skin, and even every one
of their particles, is such a being. But these relative beings are at
the same time unessential attributes. Thus all differences between the
particles of the world are simultaneously essential and unessential; in
other words, they have a relative existence, they merely partake of the
supreme being, compared to whom they are absolutely unessential. Whether
you are a good or a bad man, whether your country is happy or unhappy,
free or oppressed, is very essential to you or me, but compared with the
great absolute whole it is very unessential. In the universal history
the fate of any single nation has no more significance than one hair on
my head, although none of my hairs is there by mere chance and all of
them have been counted. Hence everything is in its particular and
isolated self an unessential thing, but in the general interrelation
everything is a necessary, reasonable, essential and divine particle.
And now we come to the moral of it all. The human reason, the special
object of logical research, partakes of the nature of the universe. It
is nothing in itself. As an isolated being, it is wholly void and
incapable of producing any understanding or knowledge. Only in
connection, not merely with the material brain, but with the entire
universe, is the intellect capable of existing and acting. It is not the
mere brain which thinks, but the whole man is required for that purpose;
and not man alone, but the total interrelation with the universe is
necessary for the purpose of thinking. Reason itself reveals no truths.
The truths which are revealed to us by means of reason, are revelations
of the general nature of the absolute universe.
If you think of reason in this way, then, my son, you are thinking
reasonably, are world-wise, logical, and true.