“As regards the inverse endeavour to comprehend energies apart from
matter, for long one dared not attempt such a thing, albeit it was
soon perceived that as a matter of fact all we ever learn about the
world consists solely of a knowledge of its energical relations....
We will, therefore, venture the attempt to build up a view of the
world from which the concept of matter will be absent, a view composed
exclusively of energical materials (_i.e._ of the fact _work_),” this
has about as much meaning as if some one should say, “I will endeavour,
out of shadows and their innumerable modifications alone, to furnish
a complete theory of light.” Here we have to do simply with the
occurrence designated in another place as the “inversion of positions.”
From an extreme materialistic position one leaps at a bound into an
equally extreme energical position--each position as purely dialectical
as the other. If only one held by _actuality_, one would of oneself
repudiate as a profitless mental diversion the very _attempt_ to erect
a world-theory upon such premisses. On such one may build up physical
systems, achieve technical successes, measure, compute in advance--in
fine, carry on scientific studies; but one thing one can never do--out
of them build up a view of the world. For a view of the world in which
consciousness excludes itself from that which is to be comprehended,
has precisely as much value as a numerator without a denominator.
The law of the conservation of energy is purely a reading of the
physical facts, _i.e._ of the play of world-events in so far as
it manifests itself in the form of reversible processes--thus,
as re-actual; and as such is also recognized by physicists of
intelligence.[37]
At this point, however, the biologist enters and plays the part of the
countryman at the theatre by taking the picture for the reality itself.
He argues with that logical acuteness such as is only possible where no
actuality stands in its way: “If the law of the conservation of energy
is really a universal law, the life of the brain must be just as much
subject to it as the reversible processes that are not dependent on
time.” Thus, Hering says in his lecture on “Memory” already alluded to:
“(The facts of mind, consciousness, and so forth) cannot make the human
body to be anything else but that which it is--a complex of matter
subject to laws not to be turned aside by anything,--laws followed by
the material of the stone, by the substance of the plant.”
With this, however, the biologist is put in a difficult position. He
is all unaware that the reversible processes are “subject” to the law
of the conservation of energy, _i.e._ may be read by it, only because
it is possible here to be satisfied with reactions, only because here
one does not need to know anything about the energies themselves,
because here there is no “_I_”-sayer who might raise objections to
such a mode of apprehending things. The greatness, the exactitude of
physics consist precisely in this, that she confines herself strictly
to the realm of reactions. In the life of the brain, so far as directly
manifested--as consciousness--there are no reactions. The fact
“consciousness” in others is not accessible to me; and as for myself,
here action and reaction always merge into one another, though I go to
work with never so elaborate psycho-physiological precautions.
Hence the necessity of ever and again laying out fresh frontier
domains, such as bio-chemistry, bio-kinetics, and so forth and so on,
so as to be able to say with Lady Macbeth, “We are yet young in deeds!”
Thus, patience! Let us but once get these new courses drawn up and
then--how the results will come flowing in!
But the only new thing about these courses is the name! In truth, here
as everywhere, we have to do with the old, original problem “life”--at
once our hope and our despair. And to all these new courses, by means
of which men hope to master the old problem, applies that answer of
Pompey’s favourite cook when his master marvelled at the host of
different dishes, “All one meat: only the sauces are different.” For it
is even the same here, “All one thing: only the names are different.”
After all our vain attempts to subject consciousness also to law, this
remains as our final wisdom, that the mutual dependence between the
mental and the material is a thing subject to law; that is, we assume
as axiom to begin with, that which we are going to prove, whereby we
produce nothing but a paraphrase of the Buddha-thought, nothing but
a lifeless formula of the actuality itself--that the _I_-process is
subordinate to no laws, can _have_ no laws because it _is_ law itself.
And the worth of the Baconian maxim that truth may more easily come
forth from error than from confusion, is here put to a severe test, for
here are combined both error and confusion.
I now proceed to a brief account of the other school--that of modern
positivism.
What makes this system so interesting for us is the originality of its
point of departure. Despite the fact that for the most part it has been
developed by a physicist, it starts with the idea, unheard-of previous
to perhaps twenty-five years ago, that the next step in the progress
of science is to be looked for not from physics and its methods,
_i.e._ the non-personal, but from the personal, from the study of
sense-perceptions.[38]
Since positivism, like every scientific world-theory, must apprehend
the play of world-events purely as a sum of relation-values, one of its
tasks is to come to an understanding with the concept of substance.
As the direct successor of the criticism of Hume, its position
with respect to the concept of substance remains the same as with
Hume: the existence of such a concept is ascribed to the faculty of
imagination. Because one can remove any single constituent part of a
thing without the image thereof ceasing to represent the total whole
and to be recognized again as such, it is assumed that all may be taken
away and that something will still remain behind. “Thus arises the
monstrous idea of a thing in itself, different from its appearance and
unknowable. The thing, the body, the matter, and so on, is nothing else
but the complex of colours, sounds, and so forth, nothing more than the
so-called characteristics.”[39]
And now it is a question of formulating a new view with respect to a
world thus stripped of the concept of substance.
All previous attempts at world-theories have made shipwreck on the
fact that it was impossible for them in any wise to comprehend the
connection between the physical and the psychical. What is original
about the onset of positivism is this, that it starts out with
psycho-physical units as world-elements.
“Hence perceptions and conceptions, the will, the feelings--in brief,
the entire inner and outer world--are made up of a limited number
of homogeneous elements now in volatile, now in rigid combination.
These elements are usually called sensations; since, however, this
name already implies a one-sided theory, we prefer to speak simply
of elements.”[40] Again: “It is not the bodies that beget sensation
but the complex of sensations (complex of elements) that fashion
the bodies. If to the physicist, bodies appear to be that which is
permanent, real, and sensations, on the contrary, their fleeting,
transitory appearance, he forgets that all bodies are only mental
symbols for complexes of sensation.... Thus the world for us does
not consist of so many problematic beings, which through action and
reaction with another equally problematic being, the _I_, beget the
sensations alone accessible to us. Colours, sounds, spaces, times ...
for us are the ultimate elements whose given connection we have to
investigate.”[41]
This I call supplying a world-theory from the entire, completed play of
world-events. The only question is, “From a mental starting-point such
as this, how stands it with the fact of all facts--_I_?”
Well, it goes badly, very badly indeed, with the poor fellow! Like a
lump of sugar in a big tub of water it melts away incontinent into the
all. On this point one should read pages eight and nine of the _Analyse
der Sinnesempfindungen_. To cite them here in full would take up too
much space. The train of thought there developed concludes with the
words: “Accordingly the _I_ may be so extended as finally to cover and
embrace the whole world.”
It may be asked, “How out of this cosmic _I_-solution does the yet
actually existing _I_-deposit come about?” The answer is, “Through
accommodation.” The _I_-concept is a convention adapted to a certain
end, a procedure pertaining to the economy of thought.
“The gathering together of the elements being connected with pleasure
and pain, into an ideal unit of the economy of thought, the _I_, is of
the utmost significance to the intellect standing at the service of the
pain-shunning, pleasure-seeking will.”[42]
What attitude shall one adopt towards a structure of thought which is
nothing but an ingenious description, a picture of the fact “life,”
whose wealth of ingenuity, however, is purchased at the cost of a
downright, deadly indifference in respect of this same fact, _i.e._ in
respect of actuality?
Epistemologically the world is as free as a bird. Any one who chooses
may exercise his intellectual faculties upon it. The above view,
moreover, is expressly put forward as a theory, a reading. But after
all there is one requirement every theory must fulfil, and that is that
it shall not contradict itself. And that this theory does in the most
flagrant fashion.
Modern positivism may be briefly characterized as the application
of the definition of the “concept” in general to the _I_-concept in
particular. As the concept in general can be represented, “read” as a
procedure appertaining to the economy of thought, so here in a frankly
unexampled dis-actualizing of actuality, the _I_-concept is to be
“read” as a procedure appertaining to the economy of thought. But here
even the slightest attempt to think _in terms of actuality_, forthwith
conducts into the absurd. For an _I_-unity must first be given in order
that it may comprehend itself as an _I_-unity. On the other hand, were
the _I_-concept purely a procedure in the economy of thought, what is
there to prevent the thought-economy once in a while from demanding
to read me as an _I_-duality? a thing that has so far never been
entertained in the brains of thinking men, but only in the cells of
lunatic asylums.
Positivism is overtaken by the same fate that overtakes every
criticism, as, for example, that of Hume,--commonly and incorrectly
called scepticism,--it finds no substratum for the _I_-concept. And the
keener its search, the more critical its procedure, the more thorough
its unravelling, the more is it strengthened in this its mental
representation.
With this, pure criticism has no more that it can do. It must even
content itself with this negative result. Positivism, however, seeks to
round out this negative result into a world-theory and so obtain its
world consisting of elements of sensation--a world in which there is no
clearly outlined, definitely determined _I_ at all.
From a starting-point of this peculiar kind there follows, on one hand,
such a similarity of expression on the part of both, as to produce an
almost uncanny effect. On the other hand, however, there is such a
difference in essence as could scarcely be more pronounced. In brief:
modern positivism is the faithful mirror-image of the Buddha-thought,
and thereby accomplishes in the dis-actualizing of actuality what only
thought can accomplish at all.
In the Saŋyutta Nikāya a monk asks the Buddha, “Who has contact?
who has sensation?” To whom the Buddha replies, “The question is
not admissible. I do not say, ‘He has contact.’ Did I say, ‘He has
contact,’ then the question, ‘Who has contact, Reverend Sir?’ would be
admissible. Since, however, I do not say so, then of me that do not
speak thus, it is only admissible to ask, ‘From what, Reverend Sir,
does contact proceed?’”
In close correspondence with this, one reads in E. Mach’s _Analyse
der Empfindungen_, “If a knowledge of the continuity of the elements
(sensations) leaves us unsatisfied and we ask, ‘_Who_ has this
continuity of the sensations? _who_ experiences sensation?’ we are
dominated by the old habit of classifying each element (sensation) as
an item in an unanalysed complex, and thereby unwittingly descend to
the older, lower, more limited point of view.”
But whilst with positivism this mode of expression proceeds from the
notion of an _I_ that can be “read” from the play of world-events
as a unity pertaining purely to the economy of thought,--a coldly
contemplative point of view--with the Buddha it issues from the idea
of a beginningless, burning actuality that asserts its individual
tendencies regardless of the external world. Man by his nature is an
eater. To seek to dispose of him as a simple spectator is to play with
concepts. All that is actual by its very nature is aliment.
Herewith, as regards the problem of the concept, we stand in presence
of the Buddha-thought. Before I pass to it, however, I consider it
incumbent upon me, with respect to the criticism of positivism, yet
once more in this place to emphasise the fact that nothing is further
from my desire than to engage in polemical discussion. As a physicist,
Ernst Mach is in my opinion one of the most original, nay, perhaps the
most original of the thinkers of our day and time. His _Mechanik_ and
_Wärmelehre_ are genuine products of intellect, works of fermentative
value, and in this regard rank high above the smooth classicism of an
H. von Helmholtz. One only marvels the more that a mind of such calibre
should be able to find pleasure in such like mental diversions.[43]
When positivism says, “There is no substratum to the _I_-concept,
consequently the _I_-concept is the product of fancy and ‘actually’
admits of being extended to cover the whole world,” it is unaware that
between and above the two extremes--the _I_-concept as the expression
of an unconditioned constant, as a soul substance, and the _I_-concept
as the expression of a fancy--there is a third alternative, the
actuality itself, as pointed out and taught us by the Buddha, that
_concepts do not exist at all but only the conceiving_, and that the
_I_-process, albeit no unconditioned constant, dwells therein, is
not on that account something dissolving over the whole world, _but
is something conceiving itself at every moment of its existence_,
even as the flame is a thing conceiving itself at every moment of
its existence. By no inductive method can the limit of a flame be
defined with regard to its environment, and yet there is such a limit,
because the flame at every moment of its existence limits itself. Its
very existence is just this self-limitation. In the very same way no
inductive method can define the limits of the _I_-process: so far
the positivists are right. But this fact by no means imports what
positivism understands by it, that the _I_-process can now be dilated,
spread out to any extent one chooses: it only intimates that the _I_
conceives itself and _alone_ conceives itself, and therefore cannot
_be conceived_ inductively. When a blow swishes down, even the most
correct-thinking of positivists can tell whether it has struck him or
not. He “conceives” himself at every moment.
Where the _I_-process is cognized as a pure process of alimentation,
“conceiving” perforce receives a physo-psychical double meaning,--or
rather, that unitary meaning which comprehends in itself both the
physical and the psychical. All existence, whether manifesting itself
objectively or subjectively, is here a “conceiving,” and this unitary
“conceiving,” in which is comprehended the essence of all life, alike
devours both--concept as thing conceived.
Where there is nothing save “conceiving,” grasping the external world,
there are neither concepts nor anything fixed and stable, anything
corresponding to these concepts; and the purely dialectical nature of
the whole problem of the “concept” at once stands revealed. Such a
problem can only have being while one is working with the notion of a
“conceived,” which latter must always be also a “grasped,” a defined, a
complete in itself--in brief, an identity. Where there is nothing save
processes of combustion, of alimentation, each moment of the play of
world-events represents a new, unique, biological or _Kammic_ value,
which never before has been and never again will be. In such a universe
there are no identities. Where there are no identities there are no
things conceived. Where there are no things conceived there are no
concepts; there is found nothing save a beginningless reaction to the
outer world. And the problem “concept” presents itself as the negative
of all other problems, so to speak, the latter in their totality being
founded upon the idea of a something conceived, be it as a physical, be
it as a physiological, biological, cosmological identity.
This is one of the points where the genuine thinker must make good his
hold. It is like a rift in the clouds, through which the searching eye
penetrates into a new world, passes out of a world of error in which
we all see under the form of conceiving and conceived, of subject and
object, into a world wherein all oppositions blazing, melt and dissolve
in the beginningless glow of Becoming.
_There are no concepts as there is no conceived._ This idea one must
thoroughly have thought out if one would understand the Buddha, his
teaching, and his attitude towards certain questions.
All commonplace thinking, of scientist as of layman, takes its stand
on concepts, _i.e._ operates with the notion of a conceived, with the
notion of identities.
In formal logic this fact finds its due expression in the laws of
identity and of contradictories. For both these laws existence is only
possible where and for so long as there are things conceived, things
confined, identities; they have simply no meaning with reference to an
_actual_ universe, a universe that is naught save a sum of combustion
processes. This is the intellectual measuring-rod by which to test
whether any one is thinking _in terms of actuality_ or not: Do or do
not the laws of identity and of contradictories hold good for his world?
Just as Aristotle reproached Heraclitus with violations of the law
of contradictories,--for this really limited mind knew not, never
even suspected that actuality in its entirety is nothing else but one
huge violation of the law of contradictories,--just as the sun is a
violation of an absolutely correct-running chronometer, so do western
scholars repeatedly reproach the Buddha with violations of the law of
contradictories; whereby they only prove but that they understand
neither the Buddha nor actuality.