We took our departure from the fact that philosophy is searching for
"understanding." The first and principal acquisition of philosophy was
the perception that its object is not to be found in a transcendental
generality. Whoever wishes to obtain understanding, must confine himself
to something special, without, however, through this limitation losing
sight of all measure and aim to such an extent that he forgets the
infinite generality.
A modern psychologist who occupies himself with "Thoughts on
Enlightenment," which topic is evidently related to ours, says: "Real
and genuine enlightenment can proceed only from religious motives."
Expressed in our language, this would mean: Every genuine understanding,
every true conception or knowledge, must be based on the clear
consciousness that the infinite universe is the arch fundament of all
things.
Understanding and true enlightenment are identical. "It is true," say
the "Thoughts on Enlightenment," "that all enlightenment takes the form
of struggles on account of the nature of him who is to be enlightened
and of the object about which he is to be informed. But it is a struggle
for religion, not against it." The author, Professor Lazarus, says in
his preface that he does not wish the reader to base his opinion on any
single detached sentence. "Every single sentence," he says, "may be
tested as to its value, but the whole of my views on religion and
enlightenment cannot be recognized from any single one of them."
As this wish is entirely justified and as our position is somewhat
supported by his psychological treatment of enlightenment, we shall
comply with his wish and seek to grasp the meaning of his statements on
the religious nature of enlightenment in their entirety, not as isolated
sentences.
We even go a step farther than Professor Lazarus, by extending to
understanding what he says about enlightenment, viz., that genuine
knowledge and enlightenment must, so to say, take their departure from
religious motives. But we differ a little as to what motives are
religious. Lazarus refers, so far as I can see, to ideas and the ideal,
while we, thanks to the positive outcome of philosophy, understand the
terms _religion_ and _religious_ to refer to the universal
interdependence of things.
Obviously the dividing line between heat and cold is drawn by the human
mind. The point selected for this purpose is the freezing point of
water. One might just as well have selected any other point. Evidently
the dividing line between that which is religious and that which is
irreligious is as indeterminate as that between hot and cold. Neither
any university nor any usage of language can decide that, nor is the
pope a scientific authority in the matter.
It is mainly due to the socalled historical school that a thing is
considered not alone by its present condition, but by its origin and
decline. What, then, is religion and religious? The fetish cult, the
animal cult, the cult of the ideal and spiritual creator, or the cult of
the real human mind? Where are we to begin and where to end? If the
ancient Germans regarded the great oak as sacred and religious, why
should not art and science become religious among the modern Germans? In
this sense, Lazarus is correct. The "enlightenment" which was headed in
France by Voltaire and the encyclopedists, in Germany by Lessing and
Kant, the "enlightenment" which came as a struggle for reason and
against religion, was then in fact a struggle for religion, not against
it. By this means one may make everything out of anything. But this has
to be learned first in order to recognize how our mind ought to be
adjusted, so that it may perceive that not only everything is
everything, but that each thing also has its own place.
We wish to become clear in our minds how it is possible, and
reconcilable with sound conception, that such an anti-religious struggle
as that carried on during that period of "enlightenment" can
nevertheless be a struggle for and in the interest of religion. We wish
to find out how one may abolish religion and at the same time maintain
it.
This is easily understood, if we remember the repeatedly quoted
dialectic rule according to which our understanding must never
exaggerate the distinctions between two things. We must not too widely
separate the religious from the secular field. Of course, the religious
field is in heaven, while the secular is naturally in the profane
universe. Having become aware that even religious imagination, together
with its heaven and spirit creator, are profane conceptions in spite of
their alleged transcendentalism, we find religion in the secular field,
and thus this field has in a way become religious. The religious and the
profane infinite have something in common, at least this that the
indefinite religious name may also be applied to the secular or profane
infinity.
"All culture, every condition of humanity or of a nation, has its roots
as well as its bounds in history," says our Professor of psychology.
Should not religion, which according to the words of a German emperor
"must be preserved for the people," also have its bounds in history? Or
does it belong to the infinite and must it exist forever? In order to
free history of its bounds, it is necessary to avail ourselves of the
positive outcome of philosophy and to demonstrate that nothing is
infinite but the infinite itself, which has the double nature of being
infinite and inseparable from the finite phenomena of nature. The whole
of nature is eternal, but none of its individual phenomena is, although
even the imperishable whole is composed of perishable parts.
The relation of the constant whole of nature to its variable parts, the
relation of the general to the specialties composing it, includes, if we
fully grasp it, a perfect conception of the human mind as well as of the
understanding and enlightenment which it acquires. This mind cannot
enlighten itself as to its special nature without observing how it came
to enlighten itself as to the nature of other specialties. We then find
that it has likewise enlightened itself on religious phenomena by
recognizing them as a part, as a variation, of the general phenomenon of
the constant, eternal, natural universe. Hence secular nature, which is
at the same time eternal and temporal, is the mother of religious
nature. Of course, the child partakes of the nature of the mother.
Religion, historically considered, arises from nature, but the
determination of the date of the beginning of this specialty is left as
much to the choice of man as that of the point where the cold and the
warm meet. The general movement of nature, from which arise its
specialties, proceeds in infinite time. Its transformations are so
gradual that every determined point constitutes an arbitrary act which
is at the same time arbitrary and necessary; necessary for the human
being who wishes to gain a conception of it. A perfect conception of
religion, therefore, goes right to the center of the question, to the
point where the religious specialty reaches a characteristic stage, to
its freezing point, so to say. From this standpoint, heat and cold may
be sharply defined; likewise religion. If we say, for instance, that
religion is the conception of a supernatural spirit who rules nature,
and the reader thinks this definition somewhat appropriate, the simple
demonstration of the achievements of philosophy in the field of
understanding or dialectics proves that this religious conception is
untenable in this world of the human mind which knows how to obtain a
logical picture of its experiences.
To desire to preserve religion for the people as a sharply defined and
finite thing is contrary to all logic and equivalent to swimming against
the tide. On the other hand, it is equally illogical to identify
religion after the manner of Lazarus with the conception of natural
infinity or infinite nature, because that promotes mental haziness.
The laws of thought obtained by philosophical research give us
considerable enlightenment about the infinite material process, the
nature of which is sublime enough to be worthy of religious devotion,
and yet special and matter-of-fact enough to wash the dim eyes with
natural clearness.
We have already seen in preceding chapters that we must first define our
standpoint before we can decide which is the right or left bank of a
river. So it is also in the matter of abolishing and maintaining
religion for the people. It can be done the moment we extend the
discussion to the realm of infinity. The conception of infinity, called
substance by Spinoza, monad by Leibniz, thing itself by Kant, the
absolute by Hegel, is indeed necessary in order to explain anything, not
only by the fourth root, but by the infinite root of the adequate
reason. To that extent we are agreed that enlightenment, or
understanding as we say, is not alone a struggle against religion, but
also for it. In the theory of understanding acquired by philosophy,
there is contained a decisive repeal of religion. Nevertheless we say
with Lazarus: "The power of enlightenment and its aim are not expressed
in negation, not in that which is not believed, but in that which is
believed, venerated, and preserved." And yet every enlightening
perception, every understanding resulting from enlightenment, is a
negation. In seeking enlightenment, for instance, on understanding, it
is necessary, in order to prove that it is a natural phenomenon, to deny
the religious element in so far as it assumes the existence of a divine
chief spirit whose secondary copy the human spirit is supposed to be.
Or, in order to gain enlightenment on the nature of the universe, in
order to realize that it is a truly universal universe, we are compelled
to deny the existence of every "higher" world, including the religious.
But if we desire to become enlightened as to how it is that religion
may not alone be denied, but also preserved, we must transfer its origin
from an illogical other world into the natural and logical universe.
Thus religion becomes natural and nature religious.
If worship is confined to the idolization of the sun or the cat, every
one realizes the temporality of the matter. And if we restrict worship
to the adoration of the great omnipotent spirit, every one realizes the
temporality of this adoration who has acquired an accurate conception of
the small human spirit. If, on the other hand, we extend religious
worship to everything which has ever been venerated, or will ever be
venerated, by human beings, in other words, if we extend the conception
of religion to the entire universe, then it assumes a very far-reaching
significance.
This is the essence of enlightenment on religion: That we may at will
expand or contract our conceptions, that all things are alike to the
extent of representing only one nature, that all fantastical ideas, all
good and evil spirits and ghosts, no matter how "supernaturally"
conceived, are all natural.
The essential thing in the enlightenment acquired by philosophical study
is the appreciation of the fact that understanding, enlightenment,
science, etc., are not cultivated for their own sake, but must serve the
purpose of human development, the material interests of which demand a
correct mental picture of the natural processes.
We have chosen the religious idea for discussion in this chapter so that
it may serve as a means of illustrating the nature of thought in
general. We regard it as the merit of philosophy to have unveiled this
nature.
Professor Lazarus is quite a pleasing companion. He is a fine thinker,
saturated with the teachings of the philosophers, not overfond of any
particular school, and only about two hands' breadth removed from our
position. But this is just enough to demonstrate by his shortcomings the
advantages of our position which proves that the part of the human soul
performing the work of thinking is understood by us at least two hands'
breadth better than by this prominent psychologist.
"The function of enlightenment is to recognize that no phenomenon can be
an effect which has not another phenomenon as its cause, and to search
for the sole cause of every effect, noting all its parts and their
consecutive divisions."
These words describe the mental work performed by the human brain fairly
well, but still they require a little addition, to the effect that the
mental work is no exception from any other phenomena, all of which have
not alone their special, but also one general cause. The cause of all
causes, of which religion is making an idol, must be profaned, so to
speak, by the cult of science, so that the above definition of Lazarus
regarding enlightenment would read as follows: The sole and true cause
of all effects is the universe, or the general interdependence of all
things. But this is not by far the full scope of enlightenment. It is
further necessary, as Lazarus well says, to note "all its parts and
their consecutive divisions." We further add: The universal cause must
be understood not alone in its consecutive parts, but also in its
co-ordinate parts. It is only then that understanding, enlightenment,
become perfect. We then find that after all the relation between cause
and effect, or the relation between the universal truth and its natural
phenomena, is not a very trenchant one, but a relative one.
"Enlightenment advances in various, in all, fields of mental life.
Religious enlightenment has long been recognized as the most essential,
justly so, and for many reasons, the chief of them being that religious
enlightenment is the most important and hence the most bitterly
contested."
Thus religious enlightenment is a part of universal, cosmic,
enlightenment. It is a confusing expression to say that it is confined
to "all fields of mental life." We believe to be shedding more light on
the question by saying that there is enlightenment in all fields, not
alone in the mental, but also in the cosmic, which unites both the
material and mental. To classify this field, that is the exhaustive task
of our understanding, that its exhaustive definition.