Concerning The Horseherd
The appearance of my article in the _Deutsche Rundschau_ seems to have
caused much headshaking among my friends in Germany, England, and America.
Many letters came to me privately, others were sent directly to the
publishers. They came chiefly from two sides. Some were of the opinion
that I dealt too lightly with the Horseherd; others protested against what
I said about the current theory of evolution. The first objection I have
sought to make up for in what follows. The other required no answer, for I
had I think, in my previous writings, quite clearly and fully explained my
attitude in opposition to so-called Darwinism. Some of my correspondents
wished peremptorily to deny me the right of passing judgment upon Darwin’s
doctrine, because I am not a naturalist by profession. Here we see an
example of the confusion of ideas that results from confusion of language.
Darwinism is a high-sounding, but hollow and unreal word, like most of the
names that end in ism. What do such words as Puseyism, Jesuitism,
Buddhism, and now even Pre-Darwinism and Pre-Lamarckism signify?
Everything and nothing, and no one is more on his guard against these
generalising _termini technici_ than the _heroes eponymi_ himself. What
has not been called Darwinism? That the present has come out of the past,
has been called the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century. Darwin
himself is not responsible for such things. He wished to show how the
present has come out of the past, and he did it in such a manner that even
the laity could follow him and sincerely admire him. Now, of course, it
cannot be denied that if we understand _Darwinism_ to mean Darwin’s close
observations concerning the origin of the higher organisms out of lower as
well as the variations of individuals from their specific types, caused by
external conditions, it would as ill become me to pass either a favourable
or unfavourable judgment as it would Darwin to estimate my edition of the
Rig-Veda, or a follower of Darwin to criticise my root theory in
philology, without knowing the ABC of the science of language. If,
however, we speak of Darwinism in the domain of universal philosophical
problems, such as, for instance, the creation or development of the world,
then we poor philosophers also have no doubt a right to join in the
conversation. And if, without appearing too presuming, we now and then
dare to differ from Kant, or from Plato or Aristotle, is it mere
insolence, or perhaps treason, to differ from Darwin on certain points?
This was not the tone assumed by Darwin, giant as he was, even when he
spoke to so insignificant a person as myself. I have on a previous
occasion published a short letter addressed to me by Darwin (_Auld Lang
Syne_, p. 178). Here follows another, which I may no doubt also publish
without being indiscreet.
* * * * *
“
Down, Beckenham, Kent, July 3, 1873.
“DEAR SIR: I am much obliged for your kind note and present of your
lectures. I am extremely glad to have received them from you, and I had
intended ordering them.
“I feel quite sure from what I have read in your work, that you would
never say anything to an honest adversary to which he would have any just
right to object; and as for myself, you have often spoken highly of me,
perhaps more highly than I deserve.
“As far as language is concerned, I am not worthy to be your adversary, as
I know extremely little about it, and that little learnt from very few
books. I should have been glad to have avoided the whole subject, but was
compelled to take it up as well as I could. He who is fully convinced, as
I am, that man is descended from some lower animal, is almost forced to
believe, _a priori_, that articulate language has been developed from
inarticulate cries, and he is therefore hardly a fair judge of the
arguments opposed to this belief.”
With cordial respect I remain, dear sir,
Yours very faithfully,
Charles Darwin.
”
This will at all events show that a man who could look upon a chimpanzee
as his equal, did not entirely ignore, as an uninformed layman, a poor
philologist. Darwin did not in the least disdain the uninformed layman. He
thought and wrote for him, and there is scarcely one of Darwin’s books
that cannot be read by the uninformed layman with profit. And in the
interchange of acquired facts or ideas, mental science has at least as
much right as natural science. We live, it is true, in different worlds.
What some look upon as the real, others regard as phenomenal. What these
in their turn look upon as the real, seems to the first to be
non-existent. It will always be thus until philology has defined the true
meaning of reality.
It is, however, a worn-out device to place all those who differ from
Darwin in the pillory of science as mystics, metaphysicians, and (what
seems worst of all) as orthodox. It requires more than courage, too, to
class all who do not agree with us as uninformed laymen, “to accuse them
of ignorance and superstition, and to praise our friends and disciples as
the only experts or competent judges, as impartial and consistent
thinkers.” Through such a defence the greatest truths would lose their
worth and dignity. The true scholar simply leaves such attacks alone. It
is to be regretted that this resounding trumpet blast of a few naturalists
renders any peaceful interchange of ideas impossible from the beginning. I
have expressed my admiration for Darwin more freely and earlier than many
of his present eulogists. But I maintain, that when anthropogeny is
discussed, it is desirable first of all to explain what is understood by
_anthropos_. Man is not only an object, but a subject also. All that man
is as an object, or appears to be for a time on earth, is his organic body
with its organs of sense and will, and with its slowly developed so-called
ego. This body is, however, only phenomenal; it comes and goes, it is not
real in the true sense of the word. To man belongs, together with the
visible objective body, the invisible subjective Something which we may
call mind or soul or _x_, but which, at all events, first makes the body
into a man. To observe and make out this Something is in my view the true
anthropogeny; how the body originated concerns me as little as does the
question whether my gloves are made of kid or _peau de suède_. That will,
of course, be called mysticism, second sight, orthodoxy, hypocrisy, but
fortunately it is not contradicted by such nicknames. If an animal could
ever speak and think in concepts, it would be my brother in spite of tail
or snout; if any human being had a tail or a forty-four toothed snout, but
could use the language of concepts, then he would be and remain a man, as
far as I am concerned, in spite of all that. We, too, have a right to
express our convictions. They are as dear to us as to those who believe or
believed in the Protogenes Haeckelii. It is true we do not preach to the
whole world that our age is the great age of the study of language and
mind, and that it has cast more light on the origin of the mind (logogeny)
and on the classification of the human race (anthropology) than all other
sciences together. A little progress, however, we have made. Who is there
that still classifies the human race by their skulls, hair, anatomy, etc.,
and not by their speech? If, like zoölogy, we may borrow countless
millions of years, where is there any pure blood left, amid the endless
wars and migrations, the polygamy and slavery of the ancient world?
Language alone is and remains identical, whoever may speak it; but the
blood, “this very peculiar fluid,” how can we get at that scientifically?
It is, however, and remains a fixed idea with these “consistent thinkers”
that the sciences of language and mind lead to superstition and hypocrisy,
while on the other hand the science of language gratefully acknowledges
the results of zoölogy, and only protests against encroachments. Both
sciences might advance peacefully side by side, rendering aid and seeking
it; and as for prejudices, there are plenty of them surviving among
zoölogists as well as philologists, which must be removed _viribus
unitis_. What is common to us is the love of truth and clearness, and the
honest effort to learn to understand the processes of growth in mind and
language, as well as in nature, in the individual (ontogenetically) as
well as in the race (phylogenetically). Whether we now call this evolution
or growth, philology at all events has been in advance of natural science
in setting a good example, and securing recognition of the genetic method.
Such men as William Humboldt, Grimm, and Bopp did not exactly belong to
the dark ages, and I do not believe that they ever doubted that man is a
mammal and stands at the head of the mammalia. This is no discovery of the
nineteenth century. Linnæus lived in the eighteenth century and Aristotle
somewhat earlier. I see that the Standard Dictionary already makes a
distinction between Darwinism and Darwinianism, between the views of
Darwin and those of the Darwinians, and we clearly see that in some of the
most essential points these two tendencies are diametrically opposed to
each other. There is one thing that naturalists could certainly learn from
philologists, viz., to define their _termini technici_, and not to believe
that wonders can be performed with words, if only they are spoken loud
enough.
The following letter comes from a naturalist, but is written in a sincere
and courteous tone, and deserves to be made public. I believe that the
writer and I could easily come to terms, as I have briefly indicated in my
parentheses.
* * * * *
“
An Open Letter To Professor F. Max Müller.
“RESPECTED SIR: Your correspondence in this periodical with the
‘Horseherd’ has no doubt aroused an interest on many sides. There are many
more Horseherds than might be supposed; that is to say, men in all
possible positions and callings, who after earnest reflection have reached
a conclusion that does not essentially differ from the mode of thought of
your backwoods friend.
“The present writer considers himself one of these; he is, indeed, not
self-taught like the Horseherd, but a scientific man, and like you, a
professor; but as he had no philosophical training, and he has only
reached his views through observation and reflection; in contrast to you,
the profound philologist, he stands not much higher than the Silesian
countryman. And to complete the contrast, he adds, that he has long been a
severe sufferer. So that instead of guiding the plough on the field of
science with a strong hand, he must remain idly at home, and modestly
whittle pine shavings for the enlightenment of his home circle.
“I do not know whether the Horseherd will consider that his argument has
been refuted when he reads your letter by his warm stove. In this,
according to my view, you have practically failed. (_My counter arguments
shall follow later._)
“Yes, I find in your reasoning very remarkable contradictions. You
acknowledge for instance the infinity of space and time, and in spite of
this you say that there was a time before the world was a year old. I do
not understand that. We must assume for matter, for that is no doubt what
you mean by the term ‘world,’ the same eternity as for space and time,
whose infinity can be proved but not comprehended. (_Well, when we say
that the world is 1898 years old, we can also say that it once __ was a
year, or half a year old; of course not otherwise_.)
“A ‘creation’ in the sense of the various religions is equally
incomprehensible to us. (_Certainly._)
“But I do not wish to enlarge on this point any farther. Here begins the
limit of our thinking faculties, and it is the defect of all religions
that they require us to occupy ourselves with matters that lie beyond this
limit, that never can be revealed to us, since we are denied the
understanding of them; a revelation is at all events a chimera. For either
that which is to be revealed lies beyond our senses and ideas,—and then it
cannot be revealed to us,—or it lies on this side, and then it need not be
revealed to us. (_This is not directed against me._)
“I believe, moreover, dear sir, that through your comparative studies of
religion you must reach the same conclusion as myself, that all religious
ideas have arisen solely in the brain of man himself, as efforts at
explanation in the broadest sense; that dogmas were made out of
hypotheses, and that no religion as a matter of fact reveals anything to
us. (_Not only religious ideas, but all ideas have arisen in the brain._)
“You express a profound truth when you say that atheism is properly a
search for a _truer_ God. I was reminded by it of a passage in one of
Daudet’s novels, in which the blasphemy of one who despairs of a good God,
is yet called a kind of prayer. You will therefore bear with me if I
explain to you how a scientific man who thinks consistently can reach a
conclusion not far removed from that which prompted the Horseherd to turn
a somersault.
“Good and evil are purely human notions; an almighty God stands beyond
good and evil. He is as incomprehensible to us in moral relations as in
every other. (_From the highest point of view, yes; but in the lives of
men there is such a distinction._)
“Only look at the world! The existence of the majority of living creatures
is possible only through the destruction of others. What refined cruelty
is expressed by the various weapons with which animals are provided. Some
zoölogist ought to write an illustrated work entitled, _The Torture
Chamber of Nature_. I merely wish to touch upon this field; to exhaust it
would require pages and volumes. Your adopted countryman, Wallace, seeks,
it is true, to set aside these facts by a superficial observation. That
most of the animals that are doomed to be devoured, enjoy their lives
until immediately before the catastrophe, takes none of its horror from
the mode of death. To be dismembered alive is certainly not an agreeable
experience, and I suggest that you should observe how, for instance, a
water-adder swallows a frog; how the poor creature, seized by the hind
legs, gradually disappears down its throat, while its eyes project staring
out of their sockets; how it does not cease struggling desperately even as
it reaches the stomach.
“Now I, who am but a poor child of man, full of evil inclinations
according to Biblical lore, liberated the poor frog on my ground. But
‘merciful nature’ daily brings millions and millions of innocent creatures
to a like cruel and miserable end.
“I intentionally leave out of consideration here the unspeakable
sufferings of mankind. Believers in the Bible find it so convenient to
argue about original sin. Where is the original sin of the tormented
animal kingdom?
“Of course man in his unutterable pride looks with deep disdain on all
living creatures that are not human. As if he were not bone of their bone,
as if suffering did not form a common bond with all living creatures! (_I
have never done that, but I think that it is difficult to establish a
thermometer of suffering._)
“Do you not bethink you, honoured student of Sanskrit, of the religion of
the Brahmins? In sparing all animals, the Hindus have shown only the
broadest consistency.
“There will come a time when there will be only one religion, without
dogma: the religion of compassion. (_Buddhism is founded on Kârunya,
compassion._) Christianity, lofty as is its ethical content, is not the
goal, but only a stage in our religious development.
“It is a misfortune that Nietzsche, the great keen thinker, should have
been misled into an opposite conclusion by the mental weakness, the
paralytic imbecility, which gradually enveloped his brain like a growth of
mould. And the foolish youths, who esteem the expressions of this
incipient insanity as the revelations of a vigorous genius, swear by his
later hallucinations about the Over-man and the blond beast.
“A specialist in mental disease can point out the traces of his malady
years before it openly broke out. And as if he had not written enough when
the world still considered him of sound mind, must men still try to glean
from the time when his brain was already visibly clouded?
“How few there are who can pick out of the desolate morass of growing
imbecility the scanty grains of higher intelligence! There will always be
people who will be impressed, not by the sound part of his thought, but by
his paradoxical nonsense. (_May be._)
“But—I am straying from the path. Now to the subject. I perfectly
understand that the majority of religions had to assume a good and evil
principle to guard themselves against the blasphemy of attributing all the
suffering of the world to an all-merciful Creator. (_Some religions have
done this, on the theory that an almighty God stands beyond good and
evil._) The devil is a necessary antithesis to God; to deny him is the
first step made by the consistent man of science toward that atheism which
originates really from the search for a better God. The Horseherd is wrong
when he denies the existence of things beyond our power of conception.
There are, as can be proved, tones that we do not hear, and rays that we
cannot see. There are many things that we shall learn to comprehend in the
hundreds of thousands of years that are in store for mankind. We are
merely in the beginning of our development. Something, however, will
always remain over. The ‘Ignorabimus’ of one of our foremost thinkers and
investigators will always retain its value for us. (_Most certainly._)
“The other world is of but little concern to him who has constantly
endeavoured to lead a good life, even if he has never given much thought
to correct belief. If personal existence is continued, our earthly being
must be divested of so many of its outer husks that we should scarcely
recognise each other, for only a part of the soul is the soul. (_What we
call soul is a modification of the Self._) If, however, an eternal sleep
is decreed for us, then this can be no great misfortune. Let the wise
saying in _Stobœi Florilegium_, Vol. VI, No. 19, in ‘praise of death’
serve to comfort us: ‘Ἀναξαγόρας δύο ἔλεγε διδασκαλίας εῖναι θανάτου, τὸν
τε πρὸ τοῦ γενέσθαι χρόνον καὶ τὸν ὕπνον,’—‘Anaxagoras said that two
things admonished us about death: the time before birth and sleep.’
“The raindrop, because it is a drop, may fear for its individuality when
it falls back into the sea whence it came. We men are perhaps only passing
drops formed out of the everlasting changes of the world-sea. (_Of what
does the world-sea consist but drops?_)
“Those who think as I do constitute a silent but large congregation:
silent, because the time is not yet ripe for a view that will rob
thousands of their illusions. We do not preach a new salvation, but a
silent, for many, a painful, renunciation. But the profound peace that
lies in this view is as precious to those who have acquired it as is the
hope of heaven to the believer. In honest doubt, too, lies a saving power
as well as in faith; and your Horseherd is on the path of this salvation.
(_I believe that too._)”
With great respect,
Yours very faithfully,
Ignotus Agnosticus.
”
* * * * *
Whilst I received this and many other letters from many lands, no sign of
life reached me from my Horseherd. He must have received my letter, or it
would have been returned to me through the post. I regretted this, for I
had formed a liking for the man as he appeared in his letter, and he no
doubt would have had much to say in reply to my letter, which would have
placed his views in a clearer light. He was an honest fellow, and I
respect every conviction that is honest and sincere, even if it is
diametrically opposite to my own. Now, my unknown friend could have had no
thought of self in the matter. He knew that his name would not be
mentioned by me, and it would probably have been of little concern to him
if his name had become known. The worst feature of all discussions is the
intrusion of the personal element. If for instance in a criticism of a new
book we emphasise that which we think erroneous, for which every author
should be grateful, we feel at the same time, that while desiring to
render a service to the cause of truth, we may not only have hurt the book
or the writer, but may have done a positive injury. The writer then feels
himself impelled to defend his view not only with all the legitimate arts
of advocacy, but also with the illegitimate. This poor truth is the
greatest sufferer. As long as two paths are open, there is room for quiet
discussion with one’s travelling companion as to which may be the right
and best path by which to reach the desired point. Both parties have the
same object in view, the truth. As soon however as one goes, or has gone
his own way, the controversy becomes personal and violent. There is no
thought of turning back. It is no longer said: “This is the wrong path,”
but “You are on the wrong path,” and even if it were possible to turn
back, the controversy generally ends with, “I told you so.” Poor Truth
stands by sorrowfully and rubs its eyes.
Now what was the Horseherd to me, and what is he now, even if he has been
brought to what he called a joyful end by his catarrh “verging upon a
perfect asthma.” There was nothing personal between us. He knew me only by
that which I have thought and said; I knew of him only what he had
gathered in his hours of leisure, and had laid aside for life. I have
never seen him face to face, do not know the colour of his eyes, hardly
even whether he was old or young. He was a man, but he may be even that no
longer. Everything that in our common view constitutes a man, his body,
his speech, his experience, is gone. We did not bring these things with us
into the world and probably shall not take them away with us. What the
body is, we see with our eyes, especially if we attend a cremation, or if
in ancient graves we look into the urns which contain the grayish black
ashes, whilst near by there sleeps in cold marble, as in the Museo
Nazionale in Rome, the lovely head of the young Roman maiden, to whom two
thousand years ago belonged these ashes, as well as the beautiful mansion
that has been excavated from the earth and rebuilt round about her. And
the language, the language in which all our experience here on earth lies
stored, will this be everlasting? Shall we in another life speak English
or Sanscrit? The philologist knows too well of what material speech is
made, how much of the temporal and accidental it has adopted in its
eternal forms, to cherish such a hope, and to think that the Logos can be
eternally bound to the regular or irregular declensions or conjugations of
the Greek, the German, or even the Hottentot languages. What then remains?
Not the person, or the so-called ego—that had a beginning, a continuation,
and an end. Everything that had a beginning, once was not, and what once
was not, has in itself, from its very beginning, the germ of its end. What
remains is only the eternal One, the eternal Self, that lives in us all
without beginning and without end, in which each one has his true
existence, in which we live, move, and have our being. Each temporal ego
is only one of the million phenomena of this eternal Self, and such a
phenomenon was the Horseherd to me. It is only what we recognise in all
men as the eternal, or as the divine, that we can love and retain.
Everything else comes and goes, as the day comes in the morning and goes
at night, but the light of the sun remains forever. Now it may be said:
This Self, that is and abides, is after all next to nothing. It _is_,
however, and that “_is_” is more than everything else. Light is not much
either, probably only vibration, but what would the world be without it?
Did we not begin this life simply with this Self, continue it with this
Self, and bring it to an end with this Self? There is nothing that
justifies us in saying that this Self had a beginning, and will therefore
have an end. The ego had a beginning, the _persona_, the temporal mask
that unfolds itself in this life, but not the Self that wears the mask.
When therefore my Horseherd says, “After death we are just as much a
nullity as before our birth,” I say, _quoderat demonstrandum_ is still to
be proved. What does he mean by _we_? If we were nothing before birth,
that is, if we never had been at all, what would that be that is born?
Being born does not mean becoming something out of nothing. What is born
or produced was there, before it was born or produced, before it came into
the light of the world. All creation out of nothing is a pure chimera for
us. Have we ever the feeling or experience that we had a beginning here
on earth, or have we entirely forgotten the most remarkable thing in our
life, viz., its beginning? Have we ever seen a beginning? Can we even
think of an absolute beginning? In order to have had our beginning on
earth, there must have been something that begins, be it a cell or be it
the Self. All that we call ego, personality, character, etc., has unfolded
itself on earth, is earthly, but not the Self. If we now on earth were
content with the pure Self, if in all those that we love, we loved the
eternal Self and not only the appearance, what then is more natural than
that it should be so in the next world, that the continuity of existence
cannot be severed, that the Self should find itself again, even though in
new and unexpected forms? When therefore my friend makes the bold
assertion: “After our death we are again as much a nullity as before our
birth,” I say, “Yes, if we take nullity in the Hegelian sense.” Otherwise
I say the direct contrary to this: “After our death we are again as little
a nullity as before our birth. What we shall be we cannot know; but that
we shall be, follows from this, that the Self or the divine within us can
neither have a beginning nor an end.” That is what the ancients meant in
saying that death was to be best understood from the time before birth.
But we must not think that each single ego lays claim only to a part of
the Self, for then the Self would be divided, limited, and finite. No, the
entire Self bears us, just as the entire light illumines all, every grain
of sand and every star, but for that reason does not belong exclusively to
any one grain of sand or star. It is that which is eternal, or in the true
sense of the word that which is divine in us, that endures in all changes,
that makes all change possible, for without something that endures in
change, there could be no change; without something continuous, that
persists through transformation, nothing could be transformed. The Self is
the bond that unites all souls, the red thread which runs through all
being, and the knowledge of which alone gives us knowledge of our true
nature. “Know thyself” no longer means for us “Know thy ego,” but “Know
what lies beyond thy ego, know the Self,” the Self that runs through the
whole world, through all hearts, the same for all men, the same for the
highest and the lowest, the same for creator and creature, the _Âtman_ of
the Veda, the oldest and truest word for God.
For this reason the Horseherd was to me what all men have always been to
me—an appearance of the Self, the same as I myself, not only a
fellow-creature, but a fellow-man, a fellow-self. Had I met him in life,
who knows whether his ego or his appearance would have attracted me as
much as his letter. We all have our prejudices, and much as I honour a
Silesian peasant who has spent his life faithfully and honestly in a
strange land, I do not know whether I should have sat down by his iron
stove and chatted with him about τὰ μέγιστα.
I also felt as I read his letter, that it was not a solitary voice in the
desert, but that he spoke in the name of many who felt as he felt, without
being willing or able to express it. This also has proved to be entirely
true.
Judging by the numerous letters and manuscripts that reach me, the
Horseherd was not alone in his opinions. There are countless others in the
world of the same mind, and even if his voice is silenced, his ideas
survive in all places and directions, and he will not lack followers and
defenders. The striking thing in the letters that reached me was that the
greater number and the most characteristic among his sympathisers did not
wish their names to be known. What does this signify? Do we still live on
a planet on which we dare not express what we hold to be the truth—planet
Terra so huge and yet so contemptibly small? Has mankind still only
freedom of thought, but not freedom of utterance? The powers may blockade
Greece; can they blockade thoughts on wings of words? It has been
attempted, but force is no proof, and when we have visited the prisons in
which Galilei or even Giordano Bruno was immured, we learn how nothing
lends greater strength to the wings of truth than the heavy chains with
which men try to fetter it. It is still the general opinion that even in
free England thought and speech are not free, that in the realm of thought
there is even less freedom on this side of the Channel than on the
other.(37) Oxford especially, my own university, is still considered the
stronghold of obscurantists, and my Horseherd even considers the fact that
I have lived so long in Oxford a _circonstance atténuante_ of my so-called
orthodoxy. Plainly what is thought, said, and published in England, and
especially in Oxford, is not read. In England we can say anything we
please, we must only bear in mind that the same consideration is due to
others that we claim from others. It is true that from time to time in
England, and even in Oxford, feeble efforts have been made, if not to
curtail freedom of thought, at least to punish those who laid claim to it.
Where possible the salaries of professors were curtailed; in certain
elections very weak candidates were preferred because they were outwardly
orthodox. I do not wish to mention any names, but I myself have received
in England, even if not in Oxford, a gentle aftertaste of this antiquated
physic. When at the request of my friend Stanley, the Dean of Westminster
Abbey, I delivered a discourse in his venerable church, which was crowded
to the doors, petitions were sent to Parliament to condemn me to six
months’ imprisonment. I was accosted in the streets and an ordinary
tradesman said to me, “Sir, if you are sent to prison, you shall have at
least two warm dinners each week from me.” I am, to be sure, the first
layman that ever spoke publicly in an English church, but I had the advice
of the highest authorities that the Dean was perfectly within his rights
and that we were guilty of no violation of law. I therefore waited in
silence; I knew that public opinion was on my side, and that in the end
the petition to Parliament would simply be laid aside. Later on it was
attempted again. At the time that I delivered my lectures on the Science
of Religion at the university of Glasgow, by invitation of the Senate, I
was accused first before the presbytery at Glasgow, and when this attempt
failed, the charge was carried before the great Synod at Edinburgh. In
this case, too, I went on my way, in silence, and in the end, even in
Scotland, the old saying, “Much cry and little wool,” was verified. This
proverb is frequently heard in England. I have often inquired into its
origin. Finally I found that there is a second line, “As the deil said
when he shore the sow.” Of course such an operation was accompanied with
much noise on the part of the sow, but little wool, nothing but bristles.
I have never, however, had to turn my bristles against the gentlemen who
wished to shear me.
I am of opinion, therefore, that those who wished to espouse the cause of
my Horseherd should have done so publicly and with open visor. As soon as
any one feels that he has found the truth, he knows also that what is real
and true can never be killed or silenced; and secondly, that truth in the
world has its purpose, and this purpose must in the end be a good one. We
do not complain about thunder and lightning, but accustom ourselves to
them, and seek to understand them, so as to live on good terms with them;
and we finally invent lightning conductors, to protect ourselves, as far
as we can, against the inevitable. So it is with every new truth, if it is
only maintained with courage. At first we cry and clamour that it is
false, that it is dangerous. In the end we shake our wise heads and say
these are old matters known long since, of which only old women were
afraid. In the end, after the thunder and lightning, the air is made
clearer, fresher, and more wholesome. When I first read the long letter of
my Horseherd, I said to myself, “He is a man who has done the best he
could in his position.” He has let himself be taught, but also
irresistibly influenced, by certain popular books, and has come to think
that the abandonment of views that have been instilled into him from his
youth is so brave and meritorious, that all who disagree with him must be
cowards. This inculcation of truth into childish minds is always a
dangerous matter, and even if I do not use the strong expressions that are
used by my friend,—for I always think, the stronger the expression the
weaker the argument,—I must admit that he is right up to a certain point.
It does not seem fair that in the decision of the most important questions
of life the young mind should have no voice. A Jewish child becomes a Jew,
a Christian child a Christian, and a Buddhist child a Buddhist. What does
this prove? Unquestionably, that in the highest concern in life the child
is not allowed a voice. My friend asks indignantly: “Is there anything in
face of our knowledge, and of the realm of nature and of man’s position in
it, so unbearable, yes so odious, as the inoculation of such error in the
tender consciousness of our school children? I shudder when I think that
in thousands of our churches and schools this systematic ruin of the
greatest of all gifts, the consciousness, the human brain, is daily, even
hourly, going on. Max, can you, too, still cling to the God-fable?” etc.
Now I have explained clearly and concisely in what sense I cling to the
God-fable, and I should like to know if I have convinced my Horseherd. I
belong, above all, to those who do not consider the world an irrational
chaos, and also to those who cannot concede that there can be reason
without a reasoner. Reason is an activity, or, as others have it, an
attribute, and there can neither be an activity without an agent, nor an
attribute without a subject; at least, not in the world in which we live.
When ordinary persons and even professional philosophers speak of reason
as if it were a jewel that can be placed in a drawer or in a human skull,
they are simply myth-makers. It is precisely in this ever recurring
elevation of an adjective or a verb to a noun, of a predicate to a
subject, that this disease of language, as I have called mythology, has
its deepest roots. Here lies the genesis of the majority of gods, not by
any means, as it is generally believed I have taught, merely in later
quibbles and misunderstandings, which are interesting and popular, but
have little reference to the deepest nature of the myth. We must not take
these matters too lightly.
I recognise therefore a reasoner, and consequent reason in the world, or
in other words, I believe in a thinker and ruler of the world, but gladly
concede that this Being so infinitely transcends our faculties of
comprehension, that even to wish only to give him a name borders on
madness. If, in spite of all of this, we use such names as Jehovah, Allah,
Deva, God, Father, Creator, this is only a result of human weakness. I
cling therefore to the God-fable in the sense which is more fully set
forth in my letter, and it pleased me very much to see that at least a few
of those, who as they said were formerly on the side of the Horseherd, now
fully agree with me, that the world is not irrational. Here is the
dividing line between two systems of philosophy. Whoever thinks that an
irrational world becomes rational by the survival of the fittest, etc.,
stands on one side; I stand on the other, and hold with the Greek
thinkers, who accept the world as the expression of the Logos, or of a
reasonable thought or thinker.
But here the matter became serious. To my Horseherd I thought that I could
make myself intelligible in a humorous strain, for his letter was
permeated with a quiet humour. But my known and unknown opponents take the
matter much more seriously and thoroughly, and I am consequently obliged
at least to try to answer them seriously and thoroughly. What my readers
will say to this I do not know. I believe that even in short words we can
be serious and profound. When Schiller says that he belongs to no
religion, and why? because of religion, the statement is short and
concise, and yet easily understood. I shall, however, at least attempt to
follow my opponents step by step, even at the risk of becoming tedious.
And first of all a confession. It has been pointed out to me that in one
place I did my Horseherd an injustice. I wrote: “You are of opinion that
to love God and your neighbour is equivalent to being good, and are
evidently very proud of your discovery that there is no distinction
between good and evil. Well,” I then continue, “if loving God and your
neighbour is equivalent to being good, then it follows that not loving God
and not loving your neighbour is equivalent to not being good, or to being
evil. There is, then, a very plain distinction between good and evil. And
yet you say that you turned a somersault when you discovered that there
was no such distinction.”
Well, that looked as though I had driven my friend into a corner from
which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an
injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My
memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that
I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates
to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one’s
neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which the
followers of any or every faith could accept. Thus it befell that I
supposed the Horseherd in America to stand at the same point of view, and
consequently to be guilty of a contradiction. Such is, however, not the
case; he made no such concession of love of God and one’s neighbour in his
letter. If he therefore insists that there is no distinction between good
and evil, I cannot at least refute him out of his own mouth. The only
place where he is inconsistent is where he concedes that he could not
strike a dog, but is filled with bloodthirstiness toward the Jewish idea
of God. Here he clearly holds it good that he cannot be cruel to an
animal, and that he looks upon bloodthirstiness as a contrast. He also
concedes that a lie can never accomplish any good, and believes that the
truth is beautiful and holy. If a lie can accomplish no good, only evil,
then there must be a distinction between good and evil. And what is the
meaning of beautiful and holy, if there is no contrast between good and
evil. But I shall argue this point no farther, but simply say _peccavi_,
and I believe that he, and those like-minded with him, will be satisfied
with that. How different it would have been, however, had I been guilty of
such a mistake in a personal dispute! The injured party would never have
believed that my oversight was accidental, and not malicious, in spite of
the fact that it would have been the most stupid malevolence to say that
which every one who can read would instantly recognise as untrue. But
enough of this, and enough to show that my Horseherd at least remained
consistent. Even when he so far forgets himself as to say, “God be
praised,” he excuses himself. Only he has unfortunately not told us what
he really means when he says that good and evil are identical. Good and
evil are relative ideas, just like right and left, black and white, and
although he has told us that he turned somersaults with joy over the
discovery that this distinction is false, he has left us in total darkness
as to how we shall conceive this identity.
But let us turn back to more important things. My opponents further call
me sharply to account, and ask how I can imagine that the material world
can be rational, or permeated with reason. I believed that it must be
clear to every person with a philosophical training, that there are things
that are beyond our understanding, that man can neither sensibly apprehend
nor logically conceive an actual beginning, and that to inquire for the
beginning of the subjective self, or of the objective world, is like
inquiring for the beginning of the beginning. All that we can do is to
investigate our perceptions, to see what they presuppose. A perception
plainly presupposes a self that perceives, or that resists, and on the
other side, something that forces itself upon us, or, as Kant says,
something that is given. This “given” element might be mere confusion, but
it is not; it displays order, cause and effect, and reveals itself as
rational. This revelation of a rational world may, however, be explained
in two ways. That there is reason in nature, even the majority of
Darwinians admit, but they think that it arises of itself, since in the
struggle for life that which is most adapted to its conditions, fittest,
best, necessarily survives. In this view of the world, however, if I see
it aright, much is admitted surreptitiously. Whence comes all at once this
idea of the best, of the good, the fit, the adapted, in the world? Do
roasted pigeons fall from the sky? Is the pigeon itself an accidental
combination, an evolution, that might as well have been as it is, or
otherwise? It is all very fine to recognise in the ascending series of
protozoa, cœlenterata, echinoderms, worms, mollusks, fishes, amphibia,
reptiles, the stages of progress toward birds and finally to mammals and
man. But whence comes the idea of bird or pigeon? Is it no more than an
abstraction from our perceptions of thousands of birds or pigeons, or must
the idea of bird, of pigeon, even of the wood pigeon, be there already,
that we may detect it behind the multiplicity of our perceptions?
Is the pigeon, in whose wing each feather is counted, a mere accident, a
mere survival which might have been what it is or something different, or
is it something willed and thought, an organic whole? It is the old
question whether the idea preceded or followed the reality, on which the
whole Middle Ages broke their teeth, the question which separated and
still separates philosophers into two camps,—the Realists and the
Nominalists. I think that the latest investigations show us that the Greek
philosophers, and especially Plato, saw more correctly when they
recognised behind the multiplicity of individuals the unity of the idea,
or the species, and then sought the true sequence of evolution not in this
world, in a struggle for existence, but beyond the perception of the
senses, in a development of the Logos or the idea. The circumstances, it
appears to me, in this view remain just the same; the sequence, and the
purposiveness in this sequence, remain untouched, only that the Greeks saw
in the rational and purposive in nature the realisation of rational
progressive thoughts, not the bloody survivals of a monstrous gladiatorial
combat in nature. The Darwinians appear to me to resemble the Roman
emperors, who waited till the combat was ended, and then applauded the
survival of the fittest. The idealist philosophy, be it Plato’s or
Hegel’s, recognises in what actually is, the rational, the realisation of
eternal, rational ideas. This realisation, or the process of what we call
creation, can never be conceived by us otherwise than figuratively. But we
can make this figurative presentation clearer and clearer. That the world
was made by a wood cutter, as was originally implied in the Hebrew word
_bara_, and in the German _schoepfer_, _schaffer_, in the English
_shaper_, or in the Vedic _tvashtâ_, and the Greek τέκτων, was quite
comprehensible at a time in which man’s highest product was that of the
carpenter and the stone mason; and in which the name of timber
(_materies_) could become the universal name for matter (ὕλη, wood). After
this idea of the founder of the universe as a carpenter or builder was
abandoned as inadequate, the world was divided into two parties. The one
adopted the theory of material primitive elements, whether they be called
atoms, or monads, or cells, which by collision or struggle with each
other, and by mutual affinity, became that which we now see around us. The
other saw the impossibility of the rise of something rational out of the
irrational, and conceived a rational being, in which was developed the
original type of everything produced, the so-called Logos of the universe.
How this Logos became objectively and materially real, is as far beyond
human comprehension as is the origin of the cosmos out of countless atoms,
or even out of living cells. So far, then, one hypothesis would be as
complete and as incomplete as the other. But the Logos hypothesis has the
far-reaching advantage, that instead of a long succession of wonders,—call
them if you like the wonder of the monads, or the worm, or the mollusk, or
the fish, or the amphibian, or the reptile, or the bird, or, lastly,
man,—it has but one wonder before it, the Logos, the idea of thought, or
of the eternal thinker, who thought everything that exists in natural
sequence, and in this sense made all. In this view we need not even
abandon the survival of the fittest, only it proceeds in the Logos, in the
mind, not in the outward phenomenal world. It would then also become
conceivable that the embryological development of animated nature runs
parallel with the biological or historical, or as it were recapitulates
it, only the continuity of the idea is far closer and more intimate than
that of the reality. Thus, for instance, in the development of the human
embryo, the transition from the invertebrate to the vertebrate may be
represented in the reality by the isolated amphioxus, which remains
stationary where vertebrate man begins, and can make no step forward,
while the human embryo advances farther and farther till it reaches its
highest limit.
In order now to infer from these and similar facts that man at one time
really existed in this scarcely vertebrate condition of the amphioxus,—a
conclusion which, strictly understood, yields no meaning,—we can make the
case much more easily conceivable if we represent the thinking, or
invention of the world, as an ascending scale, in which even the least
chromatic tone must have a place without a break, while the principal
tones do not become clear and full until the requisite number of
vibrations is attained. These gradations of tone are the really
interesting thing in nature. As the full, clear tones imply certain
numerical relations among the vibrations, so the successive stages or the
true species in nature imply a will or thought in which the true _Origin
of Species_ has its foundation. That natural selection, as it is called,
could suffice to explain the origin of species, was doubted even by
Huxley,(38) who yet described himself as Darwin’s bull-dog.
If we have followed the supporters of my Horseherd so far, I should like
here to enter a caveat, that is indeed of no great significance, but may
turn one or another from a by-way, which the Horseherd himself has not
avoided. He speaks of the place of man in nature; he thinks (like so many
others) that man is not only an animal belonging to the mammalia, which no
one has ever denied, but that he is of the same nature as the animal
world. He need not therefore have accepted the whole simian theory, at
least he does not say so; but that each man, and the entire human race,
has descended from an unknown pair of animals, he appears to receive as
indubitable. This would not, so far as I can see, make the slightest
difference in the so-called dignity of mankind. If man had a prehensile
tail, it would not detract from his worth. I myself have little doubt that
there were men with tails in prehistoric or even in historic times. I go
still farther and declare that if ever there should be an ape who can form
ideas and words, he would _ipso facto_ be a man. I have therefore no
prejudices such as the advocates of the simian theory like to attribute to
us. What I and those who agree with me demand of our opponents, is merely
somewhat keener thought, and a certain consideration for the results of
our knowledge, such as we on our side have bestowed on their researches.
They have taught us that the body in which we live was at first a simple
cell. The significance of this “at first” is left somewhat vague. This
cell was really what the word means, the _cella_ (room) of a dumb
inhabitant, the Self. The essential thing is and remains what was in the
cell. Through gemmation, differentiation, segmentation, evolution, or
whatever other technical expressions we may use for division,
multiplication, budding, increase, etc., each cell became a hundred, a
thousand, a million. Within this cell is a bright spot into which not even
the microscope can penetrate, although whole worlds may be contained
therein. If it is now remembered that no one has ever succeeded in
distinguishing the human cell from the cell of a horse, an elephant, or an
ape, we shall see how much unnecessary indignation has been expended in
recent years over the simian origin of the human race, and how much
intelligent thought has been wasted about the animal origin of man, that
is of the individual. My body, your body, his body, is derived
(ontogenetically) from the cell, is in fact the cell which has remained
persistently the same from beginning to end, without ever, in spite of all
changes, losing its identity. This cell in its transformations has shown
remarkable analogies with the transformations of other animal cells.
While, however, the other animal cells in their transformations remain
stationary here and there, either at the boundary line of worms, fishes,
amphibia, reptiles, or mammals, the one cell which was destined to become
man moves on to the stage of the tailed catarrhine apes, then of the
tailless apes, and without staying here it irresistibly strides towards
its original goal, and only stops where it is destined to stop. Speaking,
however, not phylogenetically, but ontogenetically, at what point does our
own cell come in contact with the cell that was intended to become an ape,
and that became and remained an ape? If we accept the cell theory in its
latest form, what meaning can there be in the statement of the late Henry
Drummond, that “In a very distant period the progenitors of birds and the
progenitors of men were one and the same”?(39) Would not a very small
quantity of strictly logical thought have cut off _a priori_ the bold
hypothesis that directly or indirectly we descend from a menagerie? Every
man, and consequently all mankind, has accomplished his uninterrupted
embryological development on his own account; no man and no human cell
springs from the womb of an ape or any other animal, but only from the
womb of a human mother, fertilised by a human father. Or do men owe their
being to a miscarriage?
As many streams may flow alongside of each other and through the same
strata, and one ends in a lake while the others flow on and grow larger
and larger, till finally one river attains its highest goal, the sea, so
the cells develop for a time alongside of each other, then some remain
stationary at their points of destination, while others move on farther;
but the cell that has moved forward is as little derived from the
stationary cell as the Indus from the Sarasvati. It is at the points of
destination that the true species digress, and when these points are
reached, the specific development ceases, and there remains only the
possibility of the variety, the origin of which is conditioned by the
multiplicity of individuals; but which must never be confounded with a
true species. Every species represents an act of the will, a thought, and
this thought cannot be shaken from its course, however close temptation
may often come.
With this I believe I have cleared up and refuted one of the objections
that my correspondents made, at any rate to the best of my ability.
Whoever is convinced that each individual, be it fish or bird, springs
from its own cell, knows _ipso facto_ that a human cell, however
undistinguishable it may be to the human eye from the cell of a catarrhine
ape, could never have been the cell of an ape. And what is true
ontogenetically, is of course true phylogenetically. For myself this
inquiry into the simian origin of man never had any great interest; I even
doubt whether the Horseherd would have laid great stress upon it. His
champions, however, plainly consider it one of the principal and
fundamental questions on which our whole view of the world must be
erected. In my opinion so little depends on our covering of flesh, that as
I have often said, I should instantly acknowledge an ape that could speak,
that is, think in concepts, as a man and brother, in spite of his hide, in
spite of his tail, in spite of his stunted brain. We are not that which is
buried or burned. We are not even the cell, but the inhabitant of the
cell. But this leads me to new questions and objections, which have been
made by the representatives and successors of the Horseherd, and to which
I hope to reply on some other occasion, assuming that my own somewhat
dilapidated cell holds out so long against wind and rain.
F. MAX MÜLLER.
FRASCATI, April, 1897.