from the undue transference of one theoretical form to another, or
of one theoretical product into another distinct from it. Thus, the
artist who substitutes for the representation of the affections,
reasoning on the affections, mingling art and philosophy, or he who
in the composition of a work, fills the voids that his fancy has left
in the composition, with unsuitable elements taken from other works,
commits the artistic error, ugliness. Thus too, the philosopher, who
solves a philosophical problem in a fantastic way, as would an artist,
or, instead of a philosopheme, employs the historical, naturalistic
or mathematical method, and so produces a myth, or a contingent fact
universalized, or an abstraction in place of concreteness, that is
to say, a philosophical error. It is also a philosophical error to
transport philosophical concepts from one order to another and to
treat art as though it were philosophy or morality as though it were
economy. This also happens in an analogous manner with the historian,
the natural scientist, and the mathematician, all of whom are wrong, if
they interweave extraneous methods with those that are their own, and
with the views, conceptions, and classification of one order, those of
another.--But if this be the way in which particular errors and general
forms of theoretical error arise, what is the origin of the theoretical
error in universal? We have not asked this question explicitly
elsewhere, because only now can it receive the most effective reply.
[Sidenote: _Distinction between ignorance and error: practical genesis
of the latter._]
Error is not ignorance, lack of knowledge, obscurity or doubt. An error
of which we are altogether without consciousness is not error at all,
but that inexhaustible field which the spiritual activity continues to
fill to infinity. True and proper error is the affirmation of knowing
what we do not know, the substitution of a representation for that
which we do not possess, an extraneous conception for the one that
is wanting. Now affirmation is thought itself, it is truth itself.
When an inquiry has been completed, a process of cogitation closed,
the result is the affirmation that a man makes to himself, not with
a new act added to the foregoing, but with the act itself of thought
that has thought. It is therefore impossible that in the circle of the
pure theoretical spirit error should ever arise. Man has in himself
the fountain of truth. If it be true that on the death-bed there is
no lying, because man transcends the finite and communicates with
the infinite, then man who thinks is always on his bed of death, the
death-bed of the finite, in contact with the infinite. We may know that
we are ignorant, but this consciousness of ignorance is the cogitative
process in its _fieri,_ not yet having attained to its end, certainly
not (as has been said) error. Before this last can appear, before
we can affirm that we have reached a result, which the testimony of
the conscience says has not been reached, something extraneous to
the theoretical spirit must intervene, that is to say, a practical
act which simulates the theoretical. And it simulates it, not indeed
intrinsically (one does not lie with the depth of oneself or on one's
death-bed), but in taking hold of the external means of communication,
of the word or expression as sound and physical fact, and diverting
it to mean what, in the given circumstances, it could not mean. The
erroneous affirmation has been rendered possible, because something
else has followed the true affirmation, which is purely theoretical,
something that is improperly called affirmation in the practical sense,
whereas it is only _communication,_ which can be substituted in a
greater or less degree for the truth and falsely represent it. Thus the
theoretical error _in general_ arises, as do its particular forms and
manifestations, from the substitution for, or the illegitimate mating
of two forms of the spirit. These cannot be both theoretical here, but
must be the theoretical and the practical forms, precisely because we
are here in the field of the spirit in general and of the fundamental
forms of its activity. We are ignorant, then, because it is necessary
to be ignorant and to feel oneself ignorant, in order to attain to
truth; but we err only because _we wish to err._
[Sidenote: _Proofs and confirmation._]
Like all true doctrines, this of the practical nature of the
theoretical error, which at first sight seems most strange (especially
to professed philosophers), is yet found to be constantly confirmed
in ordinary thought. For all know and all continually repeat that
(immoderate) passions and (illegitimate) interests lead insidiously
into error, that we err, to be quick and finish or to obtain for
ourselves undeserved repose, that we err by acquiescence in old ideas,
that is to say, in order not to allow ourselves to be disturbed in our
repose that has been unduly prolonged, and so on. We do not mention
those cases in which it is a question of solemn and evident lies,
the brazen-faced manifestation of interests openly illegitimate. Let
us limit ourselves to the modest forms of error, to the venial sins,
because if these be proved to be the result of will, by so much the
more will this be proved of the shameless forms, the deadly sins. It is
also said that we err in _deafening_ ourselves and others with words,
with the verse that sounds and does not create, with the brush that
charms but does not express, with the formulæ that seem to contain a
thought but contain the void. In this way we come to recognize that
will has been rendered possible, owing to the communication being a
practical fact, of which a bad use can be made by means of a volitional
act. For the rest, if this were not so, what guarantee would truth
ever possess? If it were possible to err even once in perfect good
faith and that the mind should confuse true and false, embracing the
false as true, how could we any longer distinguish the one from the
other? Thought would be radically corrupt, whereas it is incorrupt and
incorruptible.
It is vain, therefore, to except the existence or the possibility of
errors of good faith, because truth alone is of good faith, and error
is always in a greater or less or least degree, of bad faith. Were
this not so, it would be incorrigible, whereas it is by definition
corrigible. Consequently, the last attempt to differentiate intention
from volition fails, since it posits an intention that is frustrated in
the volition, as the effect of a theoretical error, a good intention
that becomes, through no fault of its own, a bad volition. The
intention, being volition, takes possession of the whole volitional
man, causing the intellect to be attentive and indefatigable in the
search for truth, the soul ready to accept it, whatever it be, pure of
every passion that is not the passion for truth itself, and eliminates
the possibility, or assumes the responsibility of error.
A proof of this is afforded by the fact that to exquisite and delicate
souls, to consciences pure and dignified, even what are called their
theoretical errors are a biting bitterness, and they blame themselves
with them. On the other hand, in the presence of the foolish and the
wicked, one is often in doubt as to whether their folly and wickedness
come from the head or from the heart, whether it be madness rather
than set purpose. The truth is that all this evil, which seems to
arise from defective vision, comes really from the heart, for they
have themselves forged those false views with their sophisms, their
illegitimate internal affirmations and suggestions, that they may be
more free in their evil inclinations, thus obtaining for themselves
and for others a false moral _alibi._ We must applaud the former and
exhort them to continue to persevere in their scruple, the condition
of theoretical and practical health: we must inculcate to the second
a return to themselves and the removal of the mask that they have
assumed' as a disguise from themselves, before assuming it towards
others.
[Sidenote: _Justification of the practical repression of error._]
A consequence of the principle established is the justification of the
use of practical measures to induce those who err theoretically to
correct themselves, castigating them, when this is of assistance, for
admonition and example. It will be replied that these are measures of
other times, and that we are now in an epoch of liberty, when their
use is no longer permissible, and that we should now employ only the
persuasive power of truth. But those who say this are without eyes to
look within upon themselves. The Holy Inquisition is truly _holy_ and
lives for that reason in its _eternal_ idea. The Inquisition that is
dead was nothing but one of its contingent historical incarnations.
And the Inquisition must have been justified and beneficial, if whole
peoples invoked and defended it, if men of the loftiest souls founded
and created it severely and impartially, and its very adversaries
applied it on their own account, pyre answering to pyre. Thus Christian
Rome persecuted heretics as Imperial Rome had persecuted Christians,
and Protestants burned Catholics as Catholics had burned Protestants.
If certain ferocious practices are now abandoned (are they definitely
abandoned, or do they not persist in a different form?), we do not for
that reason cease from practically oppressing those who promulgate
errors. No society can dispense with this discipline, although the
mode of its application is subject to practical, utilitarian and moral
deliberation. We begin with man as a child, whose mental education is
at once and above all practical and moral education, education for
work and for sincerity (and no one has ever been seriously educated
who has not received at the least a provident slap or two or had his
ears pulled). This education is continued with the punishments for
culpable negligence and ignorance threatened in the laws, and so on
until we reach the spontaneous discipline of society, by means of which
the artist who produces the ugly and the man of science who teaches
the false are rebuked by the intelligent, or fall into discredit with
them. Such illegitimate and transitory applause as they may sometimes
obtain at the hands of the unintelligent and of the multitude is but
a poor and precarious recompense for them. Literary and artistic
criticism always has of necessity, and the more so the better it
understands its office, a practical and moral aspect reconcilable with
the purest æstheticity and theoreticity in the intrinsic examination of
works.
[Sidenote: _Empirical distinctions of errors and philosophical
distinctions._]
We certainly have good empirical reasons for distinguishing between
errors of bad faith and errors of good faith, errors that are avoidable
and errors that are unavoidable, pardonable and unpardonable,
mortal and venial. No one would wish to deny that there is a wide
difference between a slight distraction that leads to a wide erroneous
affirmation, and such malice as gives rise to a small and almost
imperceptible error, to a lie, which, externally considered, is almost
harmless. We should be as indulgent in respect to the former as we are
severe in respect to the latter. And from the empirical standpoint
we should recommend in certain cases tolerance and indulgence in
respect to the theoretical error, which should be looked upon rather
as ignorance than as sin. We cannot but take count of all those
affirmations, which, while they do not represent the firm security
of the true, are yet offered as points of support, or as provisional
affirmations, like those _tibicines,_ props or stakes, those bad verses
that Virgil allowed to remain in the _Aeneid,_ with the intention of
returning to them again. But it was needful to record the true bases
of the theory of error against the illusions arising from empiricism,
the more so since the general tendency of our times (for reasons that
we need not here inquire into) has led to their not being recognized.
Those bases are in the practical spirit, and the practical theory of
error is one of the justified forms of pragmatism, although perhaps it
be that very truth against which the pragmatists sin.
V
IDENTITY OF VOLITION AND ACTION AND DISTINCTION BETWEEN VOLITION AND
EVENT
[Sidenote: _Volition and action: intuition and expression._]
Such are the relations between the practical activity and the
theoretical, which precedes and conditions it.
Asking ourselves now, what are the relations of this same activity with
that which seems to follow it and to be outside the spirit, in company
with corporeality, naturality, physic and matter (or however else it
may be called)? we find ourselves face to face with a problem which
we have already treated and solved in another part of the system of
the spirit, and which we shall solve here in an analogous manner. What
we may now designate as the problem of the relation between _volition
and action,_ formerly appeared in the theoretical philosophy as the
problem of the relation between _intuition_ and _expression._--Are then
volitions and actions two distinct terms that may appear now together,
now separate? Can volition remain for its part isolated from action,
whereas action is not able to separate itself from volition, or is the
opposite true?--We reply, as we did on the former occasion, by denying
the problem itself and by identifying intuition with expression,
in such a manner that effective intuition became at the same time
expression, and it was declared that a so-called expression, which was
not at the same time intuition, was declared to be non-existent.--We
reply in like manner on this occasion, that _volition and action_ are
_one,_ and that volition without action or action without volition is
inconceivable.
[Sidenote: _Spirit and nature._]
Indeed, the relation between spirit and nature (which is a general
relation, including the other particulars between intuition and
expression, or between volition and action), understood in the way
that it is here, is a relation, not between two entities, but only
between two different methods of elaborating one unique reality,
which is spiritual reality: thus it is not truly a relation. Nor are
the two modes of elaboration two co-ordinated modes of knowledge,
for that would lead back to a duplicity of objects, but the first is
cognoscitive elaboration and true science, or philosophy, in which
reality is revealed as activity and spirituality, while the other is an
abstract elaboration for practical convenience, without cognoscitive
character. When this has been posited, the spiritual act of volition
has not another reality face to face with it, with which it must join
or combine, in order to become concrete, but is itself full reality.
That which is called matter, movement, and material modification from
the naturalistic point of view, is already included in the volitional
spiritual act, of which it might be said without difficulty (as was
once said amid much scandal of the Ego) that it is heavy, round,
square, white, red, sonorous, and, therefore, physically determinable.
The volition is not followed by a movement of the legs or arms; it
is those movements themselves that are material for the physical,
spiritual for the philosopher, extrinsic for the former, at once
intrinsic and extrinsic for the latter, or better, neither extrinsic
nor intrinsic (an arbitrary division). As poetry lives in speech and
painting in colours, so the will lives in actions, not because the one
is in the other as in an envelope, but because the one is the other and
without the other would be mutilated and indeed inconceivable.
[Sidenote: _Inexistence of volitions without actions and vice versa._]
We cannot affirm the distinction between volition and action, save in
force and as a proof of a dualistic metaphysical view, of an abstract
spiritualism, with matter as being and substance for correlative
term. But this point of view is eliminated by the idealist view,
which recognizes only one unique substance, and that as spirituality
and subjectivity. Without, however, now basing ourselves upon such
considerations, and according to the order that we follow, applying
ourselves to the examination of the facts of consciousness, we affirm
that it would be impossible to adduce one volitional fact that should
not be also a movement called physical. Those volitional acts, which
according to some philosophers are consumed within the will and are
in that way distinguished from external facts, are a phantasm. Every
volition, be it never so small, sets the organism in motion and
produces what are called external facts. The purpose is already an
effectuation, a beginning of combat; indeed, simple desire is not
without effects, if it be possible to destroy oneself with desires,
as is in effect maintained On the other hand, it is not possible to
indicate actions without volitions. Instinctive or habitual acts that
have become instinctive are adduced; but these too are not set in
motion, save by the will, not one by one, in their particulars, but
as a whole, in the same way as a single hand sets in motion a most
complicated machine which a thousand hands have previously constructed.
There cannot then be volition without action, nor action without
volition, as there cannot be intuition without expression or expression
without intuition.
[Sidenote: _Illusions as to the distinction between these terms._]
It is well, however, to indicate one among the many sources from which
is derived the illusion of this distinction and separation, effectively
inexistent. A volitional act, which is a process of some duration,
may be interrupted and substituted for other volitional acts; it may
declare itself again and again begin its work (although this will
always be more or less modified), and this may give occasion to new
interruptions and new beginnings. It seems that in this way the will
stands on one side, as something formed and definite, and that on the
other execution pursues its way and is subject to the most varied
accidents. But volition and execution proceed with equal and indeed
with one single step. What we will we execute; the volition changes as
the execution changes. In the same way, when we are engaged upon a work
of art, on a long poem for instance, the illusion arises of an abstract
conception or plan, which the poet carries out as he versifies. But
every poet knows that a poem is not created from an abstract plan, that
the initial poetical image is not without rhythm and verse, and that
it does not need rhythm and verse applied to it afterwards. He knows
that it is in reality a primitive intuition-expression, in which all
is determined and nothing is determined, and what has been already
intuified is already expressed, and what will afterwards be expressed
will only afterwards be intuified. The initial intuition is certainly
not an abstract plan, but a living and vital germ; and so is the
volitional act.
[Sidenote: _Distinction between action and succession or event._]
When, therefore, it is affirmed that a volition is truly such, only
when it produces effects, or that a volition is to be judged by
its results, it is impossible not to assent, as we assent that an
unexpressed expression or an unversified verse is neither an expression
nor a verse. But in this signification only, because those propositions
have sometimes assumed another, which on the contrary it is needful
resolutely to reject. This is that in them action (will-action) has
been confused with _succession or event._ Now, if volition coincide
with action, it does not and cannot coincide with _event._
[Sidenote: _Volition and event._]
It cannot coincide, because what is action and what is event? Action
is the act of the one; event, is the act of the whole: will is of man,
event of God. Or, to put this proposition in a less imaginary form,
the volition of the individual is as it were the contribution that he
brings to the volitions of all the other beings in the universe, event
the aggregate of all the wills and the answer to all the questions. In
this answer is included and absorbed the will itself of the individual,
which we have taken and contemplated alone. If, then, we wished to make
the volition depend upon event, action upon succession, we should be
undertaking to make one fact depend upon another fact, of which the
first is a constituent part, placing among the antecedents of action
what is its consequence, among things given those to be created, the
unknown with the known, the future in the past.
[Sidenote: _Successful and unsuccessful actions: criticism._]
The concepts of actions that are successful and of those that are
unsuccessful, of actions that become fully concrete in the fact, and of
those that become concrete only in part or not at all, are therefore
inexact. No action (not even those that are empirically said to be most
successful, not even the most obvious and ordinary) succeeds fully, in
the sense that it alone constitutes the fact: every action diverges by
necessity and by definition from succession or happening. If I return
home every day by the usual road, my return home is every day new and
different from that which might have been, imagined. This often amounts
to a diversity of particulars which we may call of least importance,
but which yet are not for that reason the less real. On the other hand,
no action, however vain it be held (if it be action and not velleity of
action and intrinsic contradiction, or by as much as it is action and
not imagination and contradiction), passes without trace and without
result.
If any action could be rendered altogether vain, this same rendering
vain would invade all other actions and no fact would happen.
[Sidenote: _Action and foresight: critique._]