to establish, without the necessity of special demonstration, the
existence of a circle of practical activity side by side with the
theoretical. We see in life men of thought and men of action, men of
contemplation and of action, materially distinct, as it were, from one
another: here, lofty brows and slow dreamy eyes; there, narrow brows,
eyes vigilant and mobile; poets and philosophers on the one side; on
the other, captains and soldiers of industry, commerce, politics, the
army, and the church. Their work seems to differ as do the men. While
we are intent upon some discovery just announced, in chemistry or
in physic, or upon some philosophy that comes to shake old beliefs,
upon a drama or a romance that revives an artist's dream, we are
suddenly interrupted and our attention is called to spectacles of an
altogether different nature, such as a war between two states, fought
with cannon or with custom-house tariffs; or to a colossal strike, in
which thousands upon thousands of workmen make the rest of society feel
the power of their numbers and of their strength, and the importance
of their work in the general total; or a potent organization which
collects and binds together the forces of conservative resistance,
employing interests and passions, hopes and fears, vices and virtues,
as the painter his colours, or the poet his words, sometimes making
like them a masterpiece, but of a practical nature. The man of action
is from time to time assailed as it were with nausea at his orgies of
volitional effort and eyes with envy the artist or the man of science
in the same way as polite society used to look upon the monks who had
known how to select the best and most tranquil lot in life. But as a
general rule they do not go beyond this fleeting feeling, or if they
do resolve to cease their business on the Ides, they return to it on
the Kalends. But the contemplative man in his turn also sometimes
experiences this same nausea and this same aspiration; he seems to
himself to be idle where so many are working and bleeding, and he cries
to the combatants: "Arms, give me arms,"[1] for he too would be a miner
with the miners, would navigate with the navigators, be an emperor
among the kings of coal. However, as a general rule, he does not make
more out of this than a song or a book. Nobody, whatever his efforts,
can issue from his own circle. It would seem that nature supplies men
made precisely for the one or for the other form of activity, in the
same way as she makes males and females for the preservation of the
species.
[Sidenote: _Insufficiency of descriptive distinctions._]
But this mode of existence with which the practical activity manifests
itself in life, as though physically limited, has no certainty, when
separated from the theoretical life, nor is it, as might be believed,
a fact that imposes itself. Facts never impose themselves, save
metaphorically: it is only our thought which _imposes_ them upon
_itself,_ when it has criticized them and has recognized their reality.
That existence and that distinction, which seem so obvious that one
can touch them with one's hand, are at bottom nothing but the result
of primary and superficial philosophic reflection, which posits as
essentially distinct that which is so only at a first glance and in
the mass. Indeed, if we continue to meditate with the same method and
assumptions as in the first instance, we shall find that those very
distinctions, which reflection had established, are by reflection
annulled. It is not true that men are practical or theoretical.
The theoretical man is also practical; he lives, he wills, he acts
like all the others. The so-called practical man is also theoretical;
he contemplates, believes, thinks, reads, writes, loves music and the
other arts. Those works that had been looked upon as inspired entirely
by the practical spirit, when examined more closely, are found to
be exceedingly complex and rich in theoretic elements--meditations,
reasonings, historical research, ideal contemplations. Those works
on the other hand that had been assumed to be manifestations of the
purely artistic or philosophic spirit, are also products of the will,
for without the will nothing can be done; the artist cannot prepare
himself for his masterpiece for years and years, nor the thinker bring
to completion his system. Was not the battle of Austerlitz also a
work of thought and the _Divine Comedy_ also a work of will? From
such reflections as these, which might be easily multiplied, arises
a mistrust, not only of the statement first made, but also of the
inquiry that has been undertaken. It is as though one had filled a
vessel with much difficulty and were then obliged to empty it anew
with a like effort, to find oneself again facing the vessel, empty as
before. Or one adheres to the conclusion that neither the theoretic
nor the practical exists as distinct, but that they are one single
fact, which is one or other of the two, or a third to be determined,
manifesting itself concretely in infinite shades and gradations, which
we arbitrarily attempt to reduce to one or more classes, separating and
denominating them as distinct in a not less arbitrary manner.
[Sidenote: _Insufficiency of the psychological method in philosophy._]
By describing this process of ordinary reflection, in relation to
reality and by demonstrating its philosophic impotence, has at the
same time been demonstrated the nature and the _impotence_ of the
_psychological method,_ applied to philosophical problems. For
psychological philosophy, though contained in ponderous treatises
and in solemn academical lectures, does not really achieve more than
ordinary reflection, or rather, is nothing but ordinary reflection.
Having classified the images of the infinite manifestations of human
activity, placing, for instance, will and action side, by side with
thought and imagination, it looks upon this classification as reality.
But classes are classes and not philosophical distinctions: whoever
takes them too seriously, and understands them in this second sense,
finds himself eventually obliged to admit that they possess no reality.
Thereupon he declares with shouts and protestations the non-existence
of the _faculties of the soul,_ or rather their existence as a mere
mental artifice, without relation to reality. He may do more than this
and throw overboard the criterion or distinction itself, together with
those false distinctions, proclaiming that all spiritual manifestations
are reducible to a single element. This element turns out in the end
to be precisely one of the rejected classes; hence the attempt to show
that facts of volition are nothing but facts of _representation,_ or
that those of representation are nothing but facts of _volition,_ or
that both are nothing but facts of _feeling,_ and so on.
[Sidenote: _Necessity of the philosophical method._]
We must then remain perfectly indifferent to the affirmations or
negations of this psychological philosophy. If it affirm the existence
of the practical activity, we must not put faith in it until we have
recognized its existence by the philosophical method, and equally
so in case it should deny it. The philosophical method demands
complete abstraction from empirical data and from their classes, and
a withdrawal into the recesses of the consciousness, in order to fix
upon it alone the eye of the mind. It has been affirmed that by this
method the individual consciousness is made the type and measure of
universal reality, and it has been suggested, with a view to obviate
this restriction and danger, that we should extend observations, so
as to include the soul of other individuals, of the present and of
the past, of our own and of other civilizations, thus completing (in
the accustomed phrase) the psychological with the historical and the
ethnographical methods. But there is no need to fear, because the
consciousness which is the object of the philosophical inquiry is not
that of the individual as individual, but the universal consciousness,
which is in every individual the basis of his individual consciousness
and of that of other individuals. The philosopher who withdraws into
himself is not seeking his own empirical self: Plato did not seek the
son of Aristo and of Perictione, nor Baruch Spinoza the poor sickly
Jew; they sought that Plato and that Spinoza, who are not Plato or
Spinoza, but man, the spirit, universal being. The remedy proposed
will therefore seem not only useless, but actually harmful; for in
an inquiry whose very object is to surpass the empirical itself, is
offered the aid of a multiplicity of selves, thus increasing the tumult
and the confusion, where there should be peace and silence; offering,
in exchange for the universal that was sought, something worse than the
individual, namely, the _general,_ which is an arbitrary complex of
mutilated individualities.
[Sidenote: _Constatation and deduction._]
It may seem, however, that the result of such an inquiry as to the form
and the universality of consciousness would merely possess the value of
a statement of fact, not different from any other statement, as when
we say, for instance, that the weather is rainy, or that Tizio has
married. If these two last facts be indubitable, because well observed,
in like manner indubitable, because likewise well observed, will be
an affirmation concerning the universal consciousness. And since both
affirmations are true, there is certainly no difference between them,
or between truth and truth, considered as such. But since single and
contingent facts, like the two adduced in the example, are single
and contingent, precisely because they have not their own reason in
themselves, and because the universal is the universal, precisely
because it is a sufficient reason to itself, it clearly results that
we cannot assume that truth has been definitely established from the
universal standpoint of consciousness, save when the reason for this
also has been seen, that is to say until that aspect has been simply
enunciated and asserted, as in the case of a single fact. To affirm
the existence of the practical form of activity, side by side with the
theoretical, means to deduce the one from the other, and both from
the unity of the spirit and of the real. We do not intend to withdraw
ourselves from this duty and exigency; and if we limit ourselves
here at the beginning to the assertion of its existence and to the
demonstration that the arguments brought against it are unfounded, we
do so for didascalic reasons, certain that in due course we shall be
able to free this assertion from what it may contain of provisional,
that is to say, from the character itself of assertion.
[Sidenote: _Theories which deny the practical form of the spirit._]
The doctrines which deny the practical form of the spirit are and
cannot but be of two fundamental kinds, according to the double
possibility offered by the proposition itself which they propose to
refute. The first doctrine affirms that _the practical form is not
spiritual activity,_ the second that although it be spiritual activity,
_yet it is not in any way distinguishable from the already recognized
theoretic form of the spirit._ The second, so to speak, denies to it
specific, the first generic character.
[Sidenote: _The practical as a fact of unconsciousness._]
Those who maintain the first of these theses say:--We are unconscious
of the will at the moment of willing and during its real development.
This consciousness is only attained after one has willed, that is to
say, after the volitional act has been developed. Even then, we are not
conscious of the will itself, but of our representation of the will.
Therefore the will, that is to say the practical activity, is not an
activity of the spirit. Since it is unconscious, it is nature and not
spirit. The theoretic activity which follows it is alone spiritual.
[Sidenote: _Critique._]
Were we, however, to allow this argument to pass, the result would be
that none of the activities of the spirit would belong to the spirit,
that they would all be unconscious and all, therefore, nature. Indeed,
the activity of the artist, at the moment when he is really so, that
is to say in what is called the moment of artistic creation, is not
conscious of itself: it becomes conscious only afterwards, either in
the mind of the critic or of the artist who becomes critic of himself.
And it has also often been said of the activity of the artist, that it
is unconscious; that it is a natural force, or madness, fury, divine
inspiration. _Est Deus in nobis_; and we only become conscious of the
divinity that burns and agitates us when the agitation is ceasing and
cooling begun. But what of the activity of the philosopher? It may
seem strange, but it is precisely the same with the philosopher. At
the moment in which he is philosophizing, he is unconscious of his
work; in him is God, or nature; he does not reflect upon his thought,
but thinks; or rather the thing thinks itself in him, as a microbe
living in us nourishes itself, reproduces itself and dies: so that
sometimes the philosopher has also seemed to be seized with madness.
The consciousness of his philosophy is not in him at that moment; but
it is in the critic and in the historian, or indeed in himself a moment
after, in so far as he is critic and historian of himself. And will the
critic or the historian at least be conscious? No, he will not be so
either, because he who will afterwards criticize the historico-critical
work is conscious of it, or he himself, in so far as he criticizes
himself, and by objectifying himself occupies a place in the history of
criticism and of historiography. In short, we should never be conscious
in any form of the spiritual activity.
But this negation is founded on a false idea of consciousness:
spontaneous is confused with reflex consciousness, or that which is
intrinsic to one activity with that which is intrinsic to another,
which surpasses the first and makes of it its object. In such a
sense we can certainly not be conscious of the will, save in the
representation which follows it, as we are not conscious of a poem,
save at the moment of criticizing it. But there is also consciousness
in the act itself of him who reads or composes a poem, and he "is
conscious" (there is no other expression) of its beauty and of its
ugliness, of how the poem should and of how it should not be. This
consciousness is not critical, but is not therefore less real and
efficacious, and without it internal control would be wanting to the
formative act of the poet. Thus also there is consciousness in the
volitional and practical act as such: we are not aware of this act
in a reflex manner, but we feel, or, if you will, we possess it.
Without it there would be no result. It is therefore developed in
moments or alternatives of happiness and of unhappiness, of well-being
and of malaise, of satisfaction and of remorse, of pleasure and of
pain. If this be unconsciousness, we must say that unconsciousness is
consciousness itself.
[Sidenote: _Nature and practical activity._]
The practical activity may appear to be nature in respect of the
theoretical, but not as something without the spirit and opposed to
it, but as a form of the spirit opposed to another form, esthetic
contemplation has in like manner, as has already been mentioned,
appeared to be a natural force creating the world of intuition, which
the philosophical activity of man afterwards understands and recreates
logically. Hence art can be called nature (and has indeed been so
called), and conversely philosophy has been called spirituality. This
gives rise to the further problem: whether it be correct to consider
nature (it is convenient so to call it) that which has afterwards
been recognized in substance as spiritual activity; or whether the
concept and the name of spirit should not be reserved for that which
is truly altogether outside the spirit, and whether this something
placed altogether outside the spirit truly exists. This point does
not concern us here, although we are much disposed to admit that
one of the mainstays of that absurd conception of nature as of the
extra-spiritual is precisely the practical or volitional form of the
spirit, so conspicuously different from the theoretical form and from
the sub-forms of the same. We do not therefore hold those philosophers
to have been so completely in the wrong, who have identified nature and
will, for they have thus at any rate discovered one aspect of the truth.
[Sidenote: _Reduction of the practical form to the theoretical._]
Passing to the second thesis, which does not place the will outside
the spirit, but denies to it the distinction between practical and
the theoretical forms and affirms that the will is thought, there is
nothing to be objected to it, provided that, as is often the case,
"thought" be taken as synonymous with "spirit." In this case, as in
that where it is affirmed that art is thought, we need only inquire,
what form of thought is the will, as in the other what form of thought
is art. It is not, for instance, logical or historical thought, and
the will is neither imaginative, logical nor historical thought: if
anything, it must be _volitional thought._
But we have the genuine form of this thesis in the affirmation that
the will is the intelligence itself, that to will is to know, and that
action practically well conducted is truth. This thesis would not have
arisen, had it not found support in the real situation of things (and
what this support is will be seen when studying the relation of the
practical with the theoretic activity, and the complicated process of
deliberation). But, when tested here independently, it proves to be
unsustainable.
[Sidenote: _Critique._]
We must not oppose to it the usual observations as to the lack of
connection between great intellectual and great volitional development,
or the cases of those theoreticians who are practically quite
ineffectual, of philosophers who are bad governors of States, of the
"very learned" who are not "men" and the like; for the reason already
given, that an observation is not a philosophical argument, but a
fact which itself has need of an explanation, and when this has been
done, it may serve as proof of the philosophical theory, but can never
be substituted for it. But it is well to recall to memory the quite
peculiar character of the will and the practical activity in respect
of knowledge, intellectual light is cold, the will is hot. When we
pass from theoretic contemplation to action and to the practical, we
have almost the feeling of generating, and sons are not made with
thoughts and words. With the greatest intellectual clearness, we yet
remain inert, if something does not intervene that rouses to action,
something analogous to the inspiration that makes run a shiver of joy
and of voluptuousness through the veins of the artist. If the will
be not engaged, every argument, however plausible it may seem, every
situation, however clear, remains mere theory.
The education of the will is not effected with theories or definitions,
æsthetic or historical culture, but with the exercise of the will
itself. We teach how to will as we teach how to think, by fortifying
and intensifying natural dispositions, by example, which suggests
imitation, by difficulties to be solved (practical problems), by
rousing energetic initiative and by disciplining it to persist. When
an act of will has taken place, no argument will extinguish it. As an
illness is not to be cured with reasons, so an affective and volitional
state cannot be altered by these means. Reasoning and knowledge may
and certainly do assist, but they do not constitute the ultimate and
determining moment. The will alone acts upon the will, not in the sense
that the will of one individual can act upon that of another (which
is merely a fact among the facts perceived by him), but in the sense
that the will of the individual himself, causing the previous volition
to enter upon a crisis, dissolves it and substitutes for it a new
practical synthesis, with a new volition.
[Sidenote: _The practical as thought which realizes itself. Recognition
of its autonomy._]
The evident paradox of the thesis which identifies without any
distinction thought and will, theory and practice, has caused it to
be modified and to be produced in another form, expressed in the
definition; that the will is thought in so far as it _is translated
into act,_ thought in so far as it is _imprinted_ upon nature, thought
when _held_ so _firmly_ before the mind as to _become action,_ and
so on. Now it remains to determine what may be the relation between
thought and will, and when this has been done, we shall see what
is exact and what inexact in the above formulæ, of translating,
imprinting, and holding fast. These formulæ are all logically vague,
however imaginative they may be. But what is important to note here is
that with the new turn given to the thesis that denies the peculiarity
of the practical activity, this same peculiarity is unconsciously
affirmed, because that transforming, that imprinting, that holding
fast, which did not exist in the simple theory, conceal precisely the
will. Thus the ultimate form of the negation comes to join hands with
that of the affirmation, and we can consider undisputed the existence
of a particular form of the spirit, which is the practical activity. We
must now examine the relation of this form with the other from which it
has been distinguished.
[1] Allusion to a verse of Leopardi in _Canzone all' Italia._
II
NEGATION OF THE SPIRITUAL FORM OF FEELING
[_Sidenote: The practical activity and the so-called third spiritual
form: feeling._]
In affirming the existence of the practical form of activity, we have
had in view only the theoretical form and have demonstrated that
the one cannot be absorbed and confused in the other, and we have
referred only to the theoretic form, when announcing our intention of
determining the relations of the practical with the other forms of the
spirit. This seems but little correct, and in any case not exhaustive,
because there are or may be other non-theoretical forms of the spirit,
into which the practical form could be resolved. Of these it would be
necessary to take account. And not to beat too long about the bush,
that of which in this case it is question, is the form of _feeling,_
the last or intermediary of the three forms into which it is customary
to divide the spiritual activity: representation, feeling, tendency;
thought, feeling, will. Attempts have not been wanting to reduce
tendency or will to feeling, or, as is said, to a sentimental reaction
from perceptions and thoughts. In fact there is hardly a treatise
of philosophy of the practical without a preliminary study of the
relations between the will and feeling. We cannot, then, escape from
the dilemma; either we must recognize the omission into which we have
fallen and hasten to correct it, or else make explicit the supposition
that may be contained in that omission (which would thus be intentional
and conscious), that _a third general form of the spirit, or a form of
feeling, does not exist._ We have adopted precisely this last position,
and it therefore becomes incumbent upon us briefly to expose the
reasons for which we hold that the concept of feeling must disappear
from the system of the spiritual forms or activities.
[Sidenote: _Various meanings of the word feeling, as a psychological
class._]
Feeling may and has been understood in various ways, some of which do
not at all concern our thesis. In the first place, the word "feeling"
has been used to designate a class of psychical facts constructed
according to the psychological and naturalistic method. Thus it
has happened that, with various times and authors, all the most
rudimentary, tenuous, and evanescent manifestations of the spirit have
been called "feelings," slight intuitions (or sensations as they are
called), not yet transformed into perceptions, slight perceptions,
slight tendencies and appetites, in fact all that forms, as it were,
the base of the life of the spirit. The name has thus, on the other
hand, also been given to psychical processes and conditions, in which
various forms follow one another or alternate in relation to a material
empirically limited. Such are what are called feelings of "fatherland,"
"love," "nature," "the divine." Nothing forbids the formation of such
classes and the use of that denomination, but as has already been
declared in relation to the psychological method, they are of no use
to philosophy, which not only does not receive them within its limits,
but does not occupy itself with them at all, save to reject them when
they present themselves, as philosophical psychology or psychological
philosophy. To classify is not to think philosophically, and philosophy
on the one hand does not recognize criteria of small and great, of
weak and strong, of more and of less, and a small or smallest thought,
a small or smallest tendency, is for it thought and tendency and not
feeling at all; on the other, it does not admit complicated processes
without resolving these into their simple components. Thus the feeling
of love or of patriotism, and the others made use of in the example,
are revealed to philosophy as series of acts of thought and of will,
variously interlaced. Let the psychologists, then, keep their classes
and sub-classes of feeling. We, for our part, not only do not dream of
di-possessing them of such a treasure, but shall continue to draw from
it, when necessary, the small change of ordinary conversation.
[Sidenote: _Feeling as a state of the spirit._]