point of view of nature, no inconsistency is felt in the fact that only
a short span of time is granted to the life of individuals; that they
come and go in most rapid succession. For here the individuals do not
rise to the consideration of anything beyond their own time; their
presentation and desire are exhausted in the present; they feel no
longing for a continuation of life. The position is radically changed
with the entrance of thought. Thought does not drift along with time: as
certainly as it strives to attain truth, it must rise above time and its
treatment must be timeless: a timeless validity appertains to truth, a
comprehension of things "under the form of eternity" (_sub specie
aeternitatis_). To a being who, in his thought, rises to comprehension
of experience from the point of view of the eternal, all temporal
limitation, and especially the short duration of human life, is a source
of surprise and a contradiction. The rapid sequence of generations, the
perpetual decay of all that impels us so forcibly to desire life and
holds us so firmly to it, seem to deprive our endeavour of all its
value, and give to the whole of existence a shadowy, phantom-like
character. Feelings of this kind have been aroused anew in our own time.
The restlessness of the activities of our civilisation and the lack of
real meaning in this civilisation, which to the present age seems to
constitute the whole of life, need only to be clearly and forcibly
comprehended by thought, and all its bustle and all its passion cannot
prevent the emergence of an acute feeling of its dream-like nature.
The feeling of the lack of reality and depth in the life of nature will
become the keener in proportion to the degree of independence thought
evolves. For the more thought finds its own basis in itself, the more
will it treat nature as an appearance, the more clearly will it
recognise that sense, with all its obviousness and palpability, does not
guarantee the possession of truth; for truth comes to us only through
thought. In thought, therefore, the world of nature loses its immediacy
and becomes a realm of appearances and phantoms.
A consideration of all the facts leads us to the result that a life
consisting solely of nature and intelligence involves an intolerable
inconsistency: form and content are sharply separated from each other;
thought is strong enough to disturb the sense of satisfaction with
nature, but is too weak to construct a new world in opposition to it.
Life is in a state of painful uncertainty, and man is a "Prometheus
bound" in that he must needs experience all the constraint and
meaninglessness of the life of nature, and must suffer therefrom an
increasing pain without being able to change this state in any way.
The experience of our time confirms this conclusion in no indefinite
manner. Since, with regard to the material and the technical, we have
attained heights never before reached, the bonds between us and our
environment have increased a thousandfold, and our work has united us
more closely with the world, we seem now for the first time to attain a
sure hold of reality. At the same time, however, the activity of
thought, and with it unrestrained reflection, have also increased
immeasurably in modern life. This reflection forbids all naïve
submission to the immediacy of nature; destroys all feeling of security;
and comes between us and our own soul, our own volition. We are thrown
back once more on to the world of sense, that we may seek in it a
support and a scope for our life and effort; and from the point of view
of this world the work of thought appears to be a formation of clouds.
But this formation persists; draws us back again to itself and, with all
its insubstantiality, proves strong enough to make us regard the
physical as appearance. Our life is divided into two parts which cannot
and will not coalesce. The emergence of a new life, which can do nothing
but comprehend the other in thought, and which, while it is indeed
capable of depreciating the other, cannot itself advance further, is
seen to involve a monstrous inconsistency.
If the union of nature and intelligence produces so much confusion, we
are inevitably led to ask whether man does not possess in himself more
than thought; whether thought is not rooted in a deeper and a more
comprehensive life, from which it derives its power. It is not necessary
that such a life should be manifest to us in all its completeness; we
shall also be compelled to acknowledge it as a fact even if in the first
place it has to struggle up in face of opposition; however, in its
development it must show distinctive contents and powers which could not
be the work of a subjective reflection. If there is a life and a
development of this kind, it will be necessary for us to comprehend it
in its various aspects and tendencies, and only when we have
accomplished this may we endeavour to obtain a representation of the
whole.
Now, developments of life which defy limitation by the mechanism of
nature and set a new kind of being in opposition to it do, in truth,
appear. We recognise such developments in the processes by which life
liberates itself from bondage to an individualism and its subjectivity,
and afterwards attains a self-conscious inwardness. We may consider both
these developments somewhat more in detail. So far as man belongs to
nature, his conduct is determined solely by the impulse to
self-preservation; every movement must either directly or indirectly
tend to the welfare of the individual; everything may be traced back to
what happens to the individuals. This by no means indicates a distinct
separation of man from his environment. For even the mechanism of nature
closely unites that which happens to the individual with that which
happens around him; the individual can progress only in so far as he is
united with others: he cannot advance his own well-being without
advancing that of others. Even in a "state of nature" man takes his
family, his nation, and the whole of humanity indeed, up into his
interests; and as this tendency is not bounded from without, but may be
immeasurably refined and extended in an indefinite number of directions,
it easily comes to appear that this involves an inner deliverance from
self, and that another is of value to us for his own sake. But it is no
more than an appearance; for with all the external agreement the inward
separation is far greater, and amounts to opposition. Within the limits
of nature we can certainly concern ourselves with something which is
only indirectly useful to us; but we can never be concerned with
anything which is devoid of all use to ourselves; we cannot take such a
direct interest in the welfare of others as will tend to our own
disadvantage. If experience gives evidence of such an activity and such
an interest, in so doing it demonstrates a transcendence of nature. Now,
experience does give such evidence, and indeed with irresistible
clearness. A witness to this is seen in the zeal with which man
habitually attempts to give to his struggles for mere self-preservation
a better appearance, a semblance of conduct performed out of genuine
regard for the interests of others. To what purpose all this trouble to
acquire such an appearance; for what reason this hypocrisy which
permeates the whole of human life; and whence this appearance itself if
we belong solely and entirely to nature? Further, whatever elements of
semblance there may be in the general state of human life, the
development of that life is by no means nothing but semblance. The
social life of man is not explicable as a simple collection of
individuals related to one another in different ways; but in the family,
in the state, in humanity as a whole there is evolved an inner unity, a
sphere of life with distinctive values and contents. And as it is of the
nature of these to transcend the ends and aims of the individuals, to
arouse other feelings and stimulate to other efforts, so their demands
may be directly opposed to those of individual self-preservation. Man
sees himself compelled to decide whether he will pursue his own welfare
or that of the whole: from the necessity of a decision it is impossible
to escape. However much in the majority of cases self-interest may
preponderate, we cannot dispute the possibility of his acting in direct
and conscious opposition to his own interest; of his subordinating and
sacrificing himself; and of his doing this "not grudgingly nor of
necessity," but willingly and gladly; of his feeling this subordination
to be not a negation and a limitation, but an affirmation and an
expansion of his life. All who strive for some essential renewal and
elevation of human life base their hope and trust upon such a
disposition. A renewal and an elevation of life involve far too much
toil, conflict, and danger; they demand a renunciation and a sacrifice
far too great for them to be commended to us by consideration of our own
welfare, or for them to dispense with the necessity of counting upon an
unselfish submission, a sincere sympathy, a genuine love. That which was
produced with glowing passion in heroic beginnings must with a quieter
warmth pervade all progress also. An inner community of minds is
indispensable if the whole of culture is not to become a soulless
mechanism and inwardly alien to us. It is true that the external way of
regarding the facts of life often fuses together as one, lower and
higher, a continuation of nature and the beginning of a new life.
Language also supports this tendency, since it indicates fundamentally
different psychical states with the same terms. Yet the love in which
the union with others is sought only in order to advance one's own
interests, and the love which finds in this union a release from the
limitations of the natural _ego_, and gains a new life, remain distinct.
The sympathy which feels the sufferings of others to be unpleasant
because one's own complacency is disturbed by them, and which in
consequence fades away and disappears as soon as the sight of the
suffering comes to an end, is absolutely separated from a sympathy which
extends to the soul of the other, and possessing which, in order to
contribute to the relieving of the other's need, one willingly
sacrifices one's own complacency: a sympathy, therefore, which extends
its interest and help without limit beyond all that simply has to do
with the relation to the environment. How much real love and genuine
sympathy the experience of humanity shows is a question in itself. Even
as possibilities of our being, as matters of thought which occupy our
attention, and as tasks and problems, they give evidence of a
development of our life beyond the limits of nature.
This forgetfulness of self is a kind of deliverance of life from the
limitations and the interests of the individual: a new relation of man
to man, of person to person, thus arises and brings about an essential
change, indeed a complete transformation of aims and feelings. The
deliverance is effected in another direction with the emergence of a
new relation to things, to the object. In the realm of nature everything
that is external has a value for man only as a means and an instrument
to the advancement of his own welfare; from the point of view of nature,
it is impossible to understand how a thing could attract us on account
of a content and a value of its own. As a matter of fact, the object
does attract us and acquire a power over us in this manner, and this not
merely here and there but over a wide area in movements which affect and
transform the whole of life. Nothing else differentiates work--viewed
spiritually--from other activity, and nothing else elevates work above
other activity than this: that in work the object is inwardly present;
and that man may make its moulding and extension a motive, and find this
a source of joy. This seems to be something self-evident, only because
it happens daily to us and around us; and we do not recognise a new type
of life in it, simply because in human life it is usual to find that
work only gradually attains complete independence. For it is the
pressing necessity of life, the impulse to self-preservation, that first
arouses us from our natural inactivity and compels us to occupy
ourselves with things; and in this change from inactivity to activity it
is our own advantage that we first seek. But that which to us, to
commence with, was simply a means; that which was perhaps most
unwillingly done, begins to attract and hold us more and more for its
own sake; becomes an end in itself, and is able so to charm us that it
forces the idea of utility completely into the background. It is
possible for work to become so attractive, and of such a value in our
estimation, that to ensure its success we can make sacrifices, and can
pursue it in direct opposition to our own welfare. Only when the object
is regarded and treated in this manner can it win an inner proximity to
us; reveal to us its relations; develop characteristic laws; make
demands upon us and call forth our power to meet them. In this way it
constrains us, but the constraint is not exerted upon us from without,
but proceeds from our own decision and activity. We do not feel the
relation to be an oppression, but rather as a witness to our freedom; in
the subordination to the object we feel that we are caught up into a
life more comprehensive, clearer and richer than any we can develop from
the subjective. We reach a stability and a calm in ourselves, and have
within our own being a support against all vacillation and error. Work,
therefore, produces relations which on the one hand unify the endeavour
of the individual and fashion his life as a definite whole; and on the
other, bind humanity into a creative community. In the former case we
have vocation, with its demands and its limitations, it is true, but
with them also its strengthening and its elevation of life; in the
latter complexes of work develop in whole departments of life, in which
the individuals find themselves side by side and are ultimately united
into the community of an all-inclusive whole of culture. From this
something is evolved which is independent not only of the choice but
also of the interests of mere man: a kingdom of truth, a world of
thought transcending all human subjectivity is formed. Thus we see
something grow up within the human sphere which leads man beyond
himself, and which is valid not simply for him but even in opposition to
him. The whole matter bristles with problems: from the point of view of
the life of nature this new life must appear to be an insoluble riddle;
and yet it has far too much value and certitude to be banished as
imaginary.
Along with this detachment of life from the mere individual and the mere
subjectivity of man, there is a liberation from external ties, and the
development of a self-conscious spirituality. As at the level of nature
life is spent in the development of relations with the environment, in
action and reaction, so the form of life in man remains bound, since the
life of the soul cannot dissociate itself from the experience of sense.
The apparent inwardness that is evolved at this level is simply an
after-effect of sensuous feelings and desires. So far as the life of
nature extends, the forces and laws of the life of the soul will only
refine what the external world exhibits in coarser features. The
mechanism of nature also extends into human life; natural impulses of
conduct, as well as association of ideas, reveal the fact that the life
of the soul is in complete dependence upon natural conditions. From this
point of view it seems impossible that inwardness should ever become
independent. The actual experience of human life, however, shows that
what is thus regarded as impossible is indisputably real. The detachment
from the mere subjectivity of the _ego_ and the development of universal
values, which exist over against us, can be effected only if the basis
of life lies deeper than the contact with the environment. It was a work
of thought which brought about the transition and gave birth to the new
life; only with the help of thought did it ever become possible to form
relations of a new kind and to rouse man's interest in them. The
realities which arose were not of sense but conceptual, ideal. The more
this movement increased in extent, the more human existence was
transformed into realities of thought. Is not such a transformation
evident when in ourselves we see before all else, not the sensuous being
of nature, but a personality or an individuality; when in relationship
with one another we form the idea of the state, and feel that we are
ourselves members of the state; when we regard and value the cognate
beings around us from the conception of humanity? As a matter of fact, a
strong tendency in this direction runs through the whole history of
humanity: sense does not disappear, but is taken up more and more into
something conceptual; the world of thought gives us increasingly the
point of view from which we fashion our lives. We find a progressive
spiritualisation of religion, of morality, of law, of the whole life of
culture. In everything life seeks a deeper basis; an inwardness wins an
independence of the environment, and exercises on the environment a
transforming power. The relations and the order of the realities of
thought manifest a law different from that of sense presentations with
their mere juxtaposition. For in the former case an inner unity, an
objective relation is evolved, and the significance of the individual
member is estimated according to its position in the whole. The
distinctive attributes in a conception form no mere collection, and the
statement of a syllogism no mere sequence; rather, in both, a
comprehending act of thought grasps the manifold and arranges the
separate elements according to their relationship within the whole. The
course of presentation with its mere succession is by no means simply
suppressed through this development of thought; it persists and governs
consciousness on the surface. But the surface is not the totality of the
intellectual life; through it and transcending it an activity of thought
manifests itself, forms new connections, and maintains itself against
all opposition.
Accordingly, the power that thought exercises is fundamentally different
from the physical power of association, or even of custom. In the case
of thought there is an insistence upon a consistent and related whole
which, even though externally insignificant, produces most powerful
effects. If contradictions exist in our world of thought and condition
of life, they may become intolerable, and the desire to remove them lead
to the emergence of impetuous movements. If, on the other hand, we
recognise that certain things which formerly seemed to be unrelated,
even though they existed side by side, are really inwardly related; or
if, again, an assertion involves a consequence that has not hitherto
been deduced, then the demand, that these things shall be unified and
this consequence developed, is capable of breaking down even the
strongest opposition. In this matter an invisible is capable of more
than a visible power. Of course, thought in isolation has not such a
power; it acquires it only through its relation to a wider life and in
championing the cause of that life. For thought is wont to defend the
life of the individual, of a people, a historical situation of humanity,
on the one hand from an abundance of inconsistencies, and on the other
from dissolution and incompleteness, without any conflict growing out of
it. Life as we experience it immediately is anything but a regular
logic of the schools. In itself simple perception of the fact that an
inconsistency exists, or that ideas which have been regarded as valid
require further development, need not arouse the feeling of man and lead
him to assert his activity; he can acquiesce, and leave the condition of
things unaltered; he can voluntarily resign himself to the
inconsistencies and incompleteness. But, nevertheless, there is a point
at which this condition of inconsistency can be endured no longer, at
which to transcend it becomes the dominant task of life. This point is
reached when the confusion is no longer something external to us which
we contemplate, but enters into the substance of our life, so that the
inconsistency becomes a division, and an attitude of inconsequence
towards it a limitation of our own being. The solving of the problem
then becomes an essential part of our spiritual preservation. And in
that it commands the whole energy and passion of such preservation it
can do that of which thought, with its necessity, is not in itself
capable, it can rouse our whole life to activity and break down even the
strongest opposition. It is from the inner presence of a determining and
moulding process of life that thought itself first obtains a
characteristic form, and is able to impress it upon things, and so
subject them to itself. A spiritual self-preservation of this kind is
fundamentally different from all physical self-preservation: for the
former, it is not a matter of the self asserting its place in the
co-existence of things, but of becoming an independent inward nature,
and of establishing a distinctive whole of life. The exact significance
of spiritual self-preservation is for the present obscure enough; but
whatever it may be, it derives its power from within and not from
contact with the environment.
How deeply these inner movements are rooted in human life the so-called
historical ideas show with particular clearness. Certain thought
complexes, or rather certain tendencies of life, arise, and win an
overwhelming power in opposition to all narrowly human concerns. They
force the activity of mankind into particular channels; they follow out
their consequences with pitiless rigour; they speak to us in a tone of
command, and require absolute obedience. Neither the interests of
individuals nor those of whole classes prevail against them; every
consideration of utility vanishes before their inner necessity. The
history of religions, for example, has often shown such an astonishing
consistency in the following of characteristic tendencies that their
adherents could see in it the working of a divine spirit. Similarly, the
Enlightenment, in its time with overpowering might seized minds and
penetrated deeply into every department of life; to-day we have a
similar experience in the case of the social movement. On all sides
something is acknowledged as an imperative requirement, as indispensable
for the spiritual persistence of man--something which cannot be brought
in from outside, and which may indeed be entirely inconsistent with
external conditions. Has not the conflict of inner necessities with the
external circumstances that were opposed to them been a leading motive
power in history, and is not all genuine progress achieved through such
an opposition?