laws of some sort again, whatever they be, that he may again resume
his calm, his work and his gossip.
[Sidenote: _Laws as preparation for action._]
Passing from consideration _ad oculos_ to the philosophical, it is to
be said, on the other hand, that the utility of law does not at all
reside in its effectuality, which is something impossible, since the
single act of the individual is alone effectual; but in this, that in
order to will and to carry out the single act, it is usually necessary
to address oneself to the general, of which that individual is a single
case; that is, to address oneself to the group, of which the individual
is a component part, just as in aiming we generally begin by aiming at
the region where is the point upon which the aim will be fixed. Law is
not a real and effectual volition; it is without doubt an imperfect and
contradictory volition, but for that very reason a preparation for the
synthetic and perfect volition. Law, in short, since it is the volition
of an abstract, is not a real volition, but an _aid_ to real volition;
as (to employ the usual comparison) wooden bridges and scaffoldings are
aids to the construction of a house and have not been useless, because
they must be pulled down when the house has been built.
[Sidenote: _Analogy between the practical and the theoretical spirit:
practical laws and empirical concepts._]
Here the analogy between the constitution of the practical and of the
theoretical spirit is again shown to be most exact. We meet with
theoretical forms in the latter also, which are not really so and are
contradictory in themselves, positing representations that function as
universals and universals that are representative: arbitrary forms,
in which the will undertakes to command what it is not possible to
command, that is to say, representations and concepts, things which
precede and do not follow the volitional and practical form. But we
know that those fictitious concepts, those formulæ, those laws that
are not laws, those admitted falsities, which, therefore, are not
falsities, serve as a help to memory, and assist thought in finding
its way amid the multiform spectacle of the world, which it must
penetrate for itself. We do not think them, but they help us to
think; we do not imagine them, but they help us to imagine. Thus the
philosopher generally fixes his mind upon the pseudo-concepts, that he
may afterwards rise to the universals; and the artist also turns his
attention to them that he may find beneath them the individual, the
lively and ingenuous intuition that he seeks. The same pseudo-concepts,
made the object of volition and changed from formulæ to laws, fulfil
an analogous office in the practical spirit, making it possible for
the will to will in a certain direction, where it afterwards meets the
useful action, which is always individuated.
[Sidenote: _The promotion of order in reality and representation._]
Another aspect of the analogy is not less important. The
pseudo-concepts would not be possible, if reality did not offer the
like side by side with the unlike; which is not the universal and
necessary, but the general, a contingent (so to speak) less contingent
than others, a relatively constant variable. Pseudo-concepts are
arbitrary, not because they posit the like where is the unlike, but
because they make that variable rigid, which is only relatively
constant, making of it something absolutely constant and changing
the like into the identical. Now the practical spirit, which creates
reality, has need to create not only the unlike, but also the like; not
only that which lasts an instant, but also that which endures almost
unchanged for a year, a century, a millennium, or a millennium of
millenniums; not only the individual, but also the species, not only
the great man, but also the people, not only the actions that do not
occur again, but also those that return periodically, similar, though
not identical. Laws fulfil this function, for they constitute what
is called the _social,_ or _cosmic order._ This order, however, is
always relative and includes instability in itself; it is a rectilinear
figure, which, on being closely examined, reveals itself as also
curvilinear. For this reason it is necessary to make laws, and it is
necessary to violate, though obeying them in their execution.
[Sidenote: _Origin of the concept of plan or design._]
This function of law as an unreal volition, aiding nevertheless and
preparing the real, throws light upon a concept that we have had to
reject when exposing the nature and method of functioning of the
volitional act; that is to say, on the concept of _plan or design or
model,_ as proper to the practical activity, which is said to act by
carrying out a pre-established _design._ We have already demonstrated
that design and the execution of the design are in reality all one, and
that man acts by changing his design at every instant, because reality,
which is the basis of his action, changes. And as in the Philosophy
of the practical in general, so in particular in Ethic, the concept
of pre-established design has no place; because, if it be true than
in ethicity the universal is distinguished from the merely individual
action, it is also true that the universal does not exist in concrete,
save incorporated and individualized as this or that good action. The
universal of ethicity is not a design and cannot be willed for itself
outside all individuation, in the same way as to fall in love is to
fall in love with an individual and not with love. But that concept
of design, proposed for action and carried out by its means, though
erroneously adopted in Economy and in Ethic, must nevertheless have its
legitimate meaning in some special order of facts; otherwise it would
not be possible to make even erroneous use of it. This meaning is to be
found, as has been seen, in the fact of laws.
IV
CONFUSION BETWEEN LAWS AND PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL
LEGALISM AND OF JESUITIC MORALITY
[Sidenote: _Transformation of principles into practical laws:
legalism._]
Nothing perhaps better makes clear the true nature of laws than the
examination of the very grave errors introduced by their means into
the Philosophy of the practical: for, owing to the failure to perceive
the character of mere _aid_ proper to their function, laws have been
confused with practical principles, these being looked upon as laws and
those as principles.
[Sidenote: _Genesis of the concept of the practically licit and
indifferent._]
We always live surrounded by innumerable laws, although these are
always finite in number. The Decalogue also admonishes: "Take not
the name of God in vain"; "Honour thy father and thy, mother"; "Thou
shalt not steal"; "Thou shalt commit no murder"; "Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbour's house, nor his wife, nor his man-servant, nor his
maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his"; etc.
The decalogue or hectalogue of prudence admonishes us: "Raise not up
against thee too many enemies "; "Mind your own business"; "Conciliate
him who is more powerful than thou"; "Hurt him who hurts thee"; etc.
Those laws that are so many and so minute easily lead to the false
belief that they suffice together to regulate our economic action and
our moral life, and that practical principles can be substituted for
and be fully represented by a Decalogue or code, which should be the
true and proper regulator of human life.
But the Decalogue, the code, the _Corpus juris,_ ample and minute
though they be, are not, as we know, capable of exhausting the infinity
of actions conditioned by the infinite variety of facts. Every law
brings with it, as its necessary correlative, as the shadow of its
light, actions that are indifferent and indifferentiable, the legally
indifferent, the licit, the permissible, the right, the faculty of
doing or of not doing. As an inevitable consequence of this, practical
principles having been conceived as a series or complex of laws, the
concept of the _practically indifferent_ must also be posited and the
_licit_ changed from _legal_ to _practical._
[Sidenote: _Consequence of this: the arbitrary._]
And this is what happens. At every moment of life we find ourselves
face to face with actual situations, to which the laws that we possess
either do not apply at all, or apply only in the approximative way
that we have seen; at every moment of life, we find ourselves without
the guidance of the law, face to face with the indifferent and the
indifferentiated. The practical man knows well that the laws were a
mere help, merely a preparatory stage to action, and that he must in
each case face the actual situation as it arises, intuite and perceive
it in its originality, and perform his own action with originality.
But he who has accepted the _legalitarian_ conception of the practical
activity and has abandoned practical principles as useless or looked
upon them as non-existent, now that he finds himself abandoned also by
the laws, in which he had put too much trust, has no other guide on
which to fall back save his own _will._
And will is not a guide but _the lack of a guide_; it is not action
but inaction, that is to say, contradictory action; not activity, but
passivity, not prudence and good, but imprudence and evil.
Thus the legalitarian conception of practical principles produces
neither more nor less than the death of the practical, installing
passivity in the place of activity, evil in the place of good.
The legalitarian theory, which proposes to fix and to determine with
precision the true concept of freedom, arrives at just the opposite
result: the will.
[Sidenote: _Ethical legalism as simply a particular case of practical
legalism._]
It is opportune to remark here that moral legalism, which has hitherto
alone occupied the attention of critics, is nothing but a particular
case of general practical legalism, and if the particular and not
the general case has been observed, this has depended upon the
failure to recognize the economic form in its autonomy, so common
with philosophers. But from the examples that we have given, it has
clearly resulted that legalism is an error which embraces alike
Economy and Ethic, introducing into both the philosophic absurdity of
the _practically indifferent._ Even a man without moral conscience,
or one deprived of it for a moment, if he conceive the guidance of
his utilitarian action in the form of laws, loses the compass of his
utilitarianism and falls into the arbitrary, which is the ruin of his
own individuality. If (to resume the usual example) I impose upon
myself the not drinking of wine as a hygienic law, and it happen to me
to find myself at a certain moment in such physiological conditions
that a glass of wine can accelerate the beating of the heart and
restore to me the strength of which I am in need; and if, through faith
in the established law, I forget that the law is conditional and not
absolute and that the only absolute law is to do at a given moment
what is useful at that moment; it is evident that by so reasoning and
acting, I am substituting superstition and therefore the arbitrary for
prudence and that I am causing injury to myself.
[Sidenote: _Critique of the practically indifferent._]
It is necessary to maintain against the morally and practically
indifferent, that it is a concept altogether external to Ethic and
Economic and devastates it terribly whenever it penetrates into it,
or (what is worse) subtly corrupts it. In Economic as in Ethic, in
the true and proper practical field, there is no _faculty_ that is
not also _obligation_; there is no _right_ that is not at the same
time a _duty;_ there is nothing _licit_ that is not _forbidden;_ nor
_permitted_ that is not turned into a _command._ πάντα ἔξεστιν, ἀλλ' οὐ
πάντα συμφέρει, said St. Paul,[1] in obscure but suggestive language
that has been much discussed--all is allowed to us but we do not allow
anything--we should say in explanation; everything can and should be
spiritually elaborated by the will and receive the form of freedom.
But in order to destroy that paradoxical concept at the roots, it
is necessary to reach the point underground where the concept of
_practical legalism_ is to be found, and to show, as we have done, its
origin, in the confusion between _principles and laws._
[Sidenote: _Contests between rigorists and latitudinarians and their
common error._]
In vain have the _rigorists,_ becoming aware of the ruin that menaced
the theory of Ethic, struggled against the theoreticians of the morally
indifferent, or _latitudinarians._ So long as neither party left the
legalitarian field, one side was right against the other and both were
equally wrong, Pharisees and Sadducees, Jansenists and Molinists.
The rigorists clung desperately to the law, refusing to admit that
it could be _doubtful_ and give rise to the morally indifferent; the
law was _certain._ But the law is never really either doubtful or
certain: revolving upon empirical concepts, it never limits anything
with precision and therefore is not certain; having for its object,
not concrete action, but only preparation for it, does not propose to
limit the illimitable and so is neither uncertain nor doubtful: it
stands on this side or the other of such categories. Thus the rigorists
also found themselves face to face with the morally indifferent, and
had no way of vanquishing it. They could advise the choice of the
most painful and repugnant action, self-denial, self-tormenting; but
this too was a kind of wilfulness and evil. The latitudinarians, on
the other hand, could enlarge the field of the morally indifferent
at their pleasure, placing in evidence the dubiety of law and its
consequent impotence as a practical principle; but since they did not
recognize any practical principle outside the form of law, they were
finally obliged to have recourse to it, that they might have some
point of orientation in the guidance of their lives. And since they
could not find it in the law itself, recognized as doubtful, they were
obliged to place it in the authority of its interpreters; and when
these authorities were at variance, in the adding up of authorities
(just as is done for the Roman jurists in the law of citation made
by Theodosius II.); and since, finally, two or three or four or a
hundred authorities, when they are uncertain, are not of greater value
than one who is equally uncertain, any sort of authority finally had
to suffice them as justification for an action. _Probabilitism,_ far
from being merely an illegitimate degeneration of legalism, is its
logical consequence. Reduced as they were to authority, why should
one be of more account than another, when all are estimable people
worthy of credence? Why should the precedence be given to Papinian
over Paul or over Ulpian? If Villalobos be of opinion that a priest
who has committed a moral sin cannot say mass the same day, Sanchez,
on the other hand, Jopines that he can: why, then, should a priest who
finds himself in that case follow Villalobos rather than Sanchez? It
is true that if he make a blind choice between Villalobos and Sanchez,
he becomes the prey of self-will; but self-will and legalism are
indissoluble, and the more carefully he tries to free himself from the
bond, the more tightly it winds itself around him.
[Sidenote: _Jesuitic morality as doctrine of fraud against the moral
law._]
Practical legalism can also give rise to a monstrously absurd theory,
which we shall call _Jesuitic morality,_ not because it is peculiar
to the Jesuits or to Catholicism, but as dutiful homage to the most
conspicuous and likewise the most celebrated in literature of its
historical incarnations. The theory of Jesuitic morality admits that we
can rationally _defraud_ ethical law.
[Sidenote: _Concept of legal fraud._]
That the law is _defrauded or eluded_ every day, taken in itself, is
neither moral nor immoral, since it is an expedient of social strife
like another, and in certain cases may be a legitimate act of war and
a fraud only in name. A law held to be iniquitous should be combated
openly; but if the imposer of the iniquitous law, or he who wishes to
profit by it, have committed a mistake in drafting it, so that it can
be interpreted in such a way as to become good, or at least better, it
is very natural that the adversary should profit by the mistake, if
for no other reason than that he may discredit the law as equivocal
and lacking in precision and compel society to discuss it again. Who
does not applaud the fraud of Portia, when it is a question of saving
the life of the noble Antonio from a Shylock? And if even the _ferox
animus_ of Shylock has found defenders, as symbol of the tenacity with
which we must make our own rights respected, yet Portia also will
always find her supporters, as symbol of ingenious rebellion against an
unjust law.
[Sidenote: _Absurdity of the fraud against ones self and against the
moral law._]
But what is altogether irrational and yet seems to be admitted by
Jesuitic morality, is _the fraud against oneself,_ and so against one's
own moral conscience. To defraud one's own conscience, to rebel against
it with violence or with artifice, is contradiction, wilfulness, evil.
It sometimes happens that we exert ourselves to still what is called
the internal voice of admonition, the Socratic demon, or the guardian
angel. This happens in the utilitarian, not less than in the moral
field; when, for instance, we yield to a pleasure which we know to be
harmful and had intended to avoid for that reason, and when by dint of
subtleties we try to persuade ourselves that it differs from that which
we had recognized as harmful. We attempt, but we never really succeed;
we may be able to obscure our conscience for an instant, but we can
never permanently and altogether darken it; the effort itself calls for
the light that we would avoid.
[Sidenote: _Jesuitic morality not explainable as mere legalism._]
But that pretension of Jesuitic morality cannot on the other hand
derive from mere ethical legalism, because legalism produces the
contradictions that we have already placed in relief; it generates the
morally indifferent and at the same time suppresses it; and when it
has suppressed again generates, in order again to suppress it; and so
on to infinity, an anxious and sterile doing and undoing. But it never
authorizes fraud. Simple legalism will never justify our pretending to
ourselves when a definite action is willed or when we have a definite
intention, that we will another action and have a different intention;
or, as they say, _direction of the intention_: the intention is that
which it is and it does not allow itself to be directed at will. To
obey the letter of the law with the clear intention of breaking it in
spirit will never be justified.
[Sidenote: _Jesuitic morality as alliance between legalism and
theological utilitarianism._]
The pretension of Jesuitic morality becomes illuminated and transparent
to the intellect, only when we make the hypothesis of an alliance
between _practical legalism and theological utilitarianism_; that is
to say, when not only do we conceive morality as a series or complex
of legislative decisions, but when we likewise consider these to
be nothing less than the product of the will of God. They are not
in themselves moral as such, and to observe them does not arise of
intrinsic necessity; but they are obeyed as the lesser evil, through
fear of worse or in hope of future advantage. In this case there is a
silent struggle between God the legislator and man, a struggle between
the weak and the overbearing, in which the strength of the weak lies in
ingenuity, their tactic in fraud. Hence the dominant concept of Jesuit
morality: to get the better of the divine laws as far as possible, to
do the least possible of what they command; and when called upon to
give an account of one's own actions before the tribunal of confession,
or before the universal judgment, so to subtilize upon the law, that
from the interpretation thus put upon it, what has been done seems to
belong to the licit and permissive. God forbids man to kill man; but
does he intend to forbid this, when the motive for this killing is the
glory of God himself? When the slayer acts as though he were the hand
of God himself and is all one with him? Without doubt, no: so that
it will be lawful for the Jesuit to kill or cause to be killed his
Jansenist adversary, who injures divine interests by disclosing the
defects of the holy Company, which is the image of God upon earth: that
killing, then, is not only lawful, but ordained. But if he want to kill
his adversary, not through zeal for the divine glory, but because of
the injury that he causes to the personal and immoral interests of the
Jesuit? This too is permitted, provided that when killing him, though
animated with personal hate, he withdraw his regard from the real
motive, and _directing_ his intention to the divine glory, thus justify
the _means_ by the _end._
[Sidenote: _Distinction between the doctrine and the practice of the
Jesuits._]