The Approach to Philosophy Part 23

Moral endeavor is the elevation of physical and psychical existence to the level of goodness.

"Relate the inheritance to life, convert the tradition into a servant of character, draw upon the history for support in the struggles of the spirit, declare a war of extermination against the total evil of the world; and then raise new armies and organize into fighting force every belief available in the faith that has descended to you."[423:14]

Evil is here a practical, not a theoretical, problem. It is not to be solved by thinking it good, for to think it good is to deaden the very nerve of action; but by destroying it and replacing it with good.

[Sidenote: The Justification of Faith.]

- 216. The justification of faith is in the promise of reality. For what, after all, would be the meaning of a faith which declares that all things, good, bad, and indifferent, are everlastingly and necessarily what they are--even if it were concluded on philosophical grounds to call that ultimate necessity good. Faith has interests; faith is faith _in_ goodness or beauty. Then what more just and potent cause of despair than the thought that the ideal must be held accountable for error, ugliness, and evil, or for the indifferent necessities of nature?[424:15] Are ideals to be prized the less, or believed in the less, when there is no ground for their impeachment? How much more hopeful for what is worth the hoping, that nature should discern ideals and take some steps toward realizing them, than that ideals should have created nature--such as it is! How much better a report can we give of nature for its ideals, than of the ideals for their handiwork, if it be nature! Emerson writes:

"Suffice it for the joy of the universe that we have not arrived at a wall, but at interminable oceans. Our life seems not present so much as prospective; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this vast-flowing vigor.

Most of life seems to be mere advertis.e.m.e.nt of faculty; information is given us not to sell ourselves cheap; that we are very great. So, in particulars, our greatness is always in a tendency or direction, not in an action. It is for us to believe in the rule, not in the exception. The n.o.ble are thus known from the ign.o.ble. So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul or the like, but _the universal impulse to believe_, that is the material circ.u.mstance and is the princ.i.p.al fact in the history of the globe."[425:16]

[Sidenote: The Wors.h.i.+p and Service of G.o.d.]

- 217. If G.o.d be rid of the imputation of moral evil and indifference, he may be _intrinsically wors.h.i.+pful_, because regarded under the form of the highest ideals. And if the great cause of goodness be in fact at stake, G.o.d may both command the adoration of men through his purity, and reenforce their virtuous living through representing to them that realization of goodness in the universe at large which both contains and exceeds their individual endeavor.

[Sidenote: The Philosopher and the Standards of the Marketplace.]

- 218. Bishop Berkeley wrote in his "Commonplace Book":

"My speculations have the same effect as visiting foreign countries: in the end I return where I was before, but my heart at ease, and enjoying life with new satisfaction."

If it be essential to the meaning of philosophy that it should issue from life, it is equally essential that it should return to life. But this connection of philosophy with life does not mean its reduction to the terms of life as conceived in the market-place. Philosophy cannot emanate from life, and quicken life, without elevating and enn.o.bling it, and will therefore always be incommensurable with life narrowly conceived. Hence the philosopher must always be as little understood by men of the street as was Thales by the Thracian handmaiden. He has an innocence and a wisdom peculiar to his perspective.

"When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in answer to the civilities of his adversaries, for he knows no scandals of anyone, and they do not interest him; and therefore he is laughed at for his sheepishness; and when others are being praised and glorified, he cannot help laughing very sincerely in the simplicity of his heart; and this again makes him look like a fool. When he hears a tyrant or king eulogized, he fancies that he is listening to the praises of some keeper of cattle--a swineherd, or shepherd, or cowherd, who is being praised for the quant.i.ty of milk which he squeezes from them; and he remarks that the creature whom they tend, and out of whom they squeeze the wealth, is of a less tractable and more insidious nature. Then, again, he observes that the great man is of necessity as ill-mannered and uneducated as any shepherd, for he has no leisure, and he is surrounded by a wall, which is his mountain-pen. Hearing of enormous landed proprietors of ten thousand acres and more, our philosopher deems this to be a trifle, because he has been accustomed to think of the whole earth; and when they sing the praises of family, and say that some one is a gentleman because he has had seven generations of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments only betray the dulness and narrowness of vision of those who utter them, and who are not educated enough to look at the whole, nor to consider that every man has had thousands and thousands of progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves, h.e.l.lenes and barbarians, many times over."[427:17]

It is not to be expected that the opinion of the "narrow, keen, little, legal mind" should appreciate the philosophy which has acquired the "music of speech," and hymns "the true life which is lived by immortals or men blessed of heaven." Complacency cannot understand reverence, nor secularism, religion.

[Sidenote: The Secularism of the Present Age.]

- 219. If we may believe the report of a contemporary philosopher, the present age is made insensible to the meaning of life through preoccupation with its very achievements:

"The world of finite interests and objects has rounded itself, as it were, into a separate whole, within which the mind of man can fortify itself, and live _securus adversus deos_, in independence of the infinite. In the sphere of _thought_, there has been forming itself an ever-increasing body of science, which, tracing out the relation of finite things to finite things, never finds it necessary to seek for a beginning or an end to its infinite series of phenomena, and which meets the claims of theology with the saying of the astronomer, 'I do not need that hypothesis.' In the sphere of _action_, again, the complexity of modern life presents a thousand isolated interests, crossing each other in ways too subtle to trace out--interests commercial, social, and political--in pursuing one or other of which the individual may find ample occupation for his existence, without ever feeling the need of any return upon himself, or seeing any reason to ask himself whether this endless striving has any meaning or object beyond itself."[428:18]

[Sidenote: The Value of Contemplation for Life.]

- 220. There is no dignity in living except it be in the solemn presence of the universe; and only contemplation can summon such a presence.

Moreover, the sessions must be not infrequent, for memory is short and visions fade. Truth does not require, however, to be followed out of the world. There is a speculative detachment from life which is less courageous, even if more n.o.ble, than worldliness. Such is Dante's exalted but mediaeval intellectualism.

"And it may be said that (as true friends.h.i.+p between men consists in each wholly loving the other) the true philosopher loves every part of wisdom, and wisdom every part of the philosopher, inasmuch as she draws all to herself, and allows no one of his thoughts to wander to other things."

Even though, as Aristotle thought, pure contemplation be alone proper to the G.o.ds in their perfection and blessedness, for the sublunary world this is less worthy than that balance and unity of faculty which distinguished the humanity of the Greek.

"Then," writes Thucydides, "we are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there is a real use for it. To avoid poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the State because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not as a harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges, of a policy. The great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance, but hesitate upon reflection."[429:19]

Thus life may be broadened and deepened without being made thin and ineffectual. As the civil community is related to the individual's private interests, so the community of the universe is related to the civil community. There is a citizens.h.i.+p in this larger community which requires a wider and more generous interest, rooted in a deeper and more quiet reflection. The world, however, is not to be left behind, but served with a new sense of proportion, with the peculiar fort.i.tude and reverence which are the proper fruits of philosophy.

"This is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets: Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action."[430:20]

FOOTNOTES:

[402:1] Cf. Josiah Royce: _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, Lecture XII; _The World and the Individual, Second Series_.

[403:2] Cf. Hugo Munsterberg: _Psychology and Life_. The more important writings of this school are: _Die Philosophie im Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts_, edited by Wilhelm Windelband, and contributed to by Windelband, H. Rickert, O. Liebmann, E. Troeltsch, B. Bauch, and others.

This book contains an excellent bibliography. Also, Rickert: _Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis_; _Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung_, and other works. Windelband: _Praludien_; _Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft_. Munsterberg: _Grundzuge der Psychologie_.

Eucken: _Die Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart_.

[403:3] Cf. F. A. Lange: _History of Materialism_, Book II, Chap. I, on _Kant and Materialism_; also Alois Riehl: _Introduction to the Theory of Science and Metaphysics_. Translation by Fairbanks. The more important writings of this school are: Hermann Cohen: _Kant's Theorie der Erfahrung_; _Die Logik der reinen Erkenntniss_, and other works. Paul Natorp: _Sozialpadagogik_; _Einleitung in die Psychologie nach kritischer Methode_, and other works. E. Ca.s.sirer: _Leibniz' System in seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen_. Riehl: _Der philosophische Kriticismus, und seine Bedeutung fur die Positive Wissenschaft_. Cf.

also E. Husserl: _Logische Untersuchungen_.

[404:4] Cf. J. M. E. McTaggart: _Studies in Hegelian Cosmology_, Chap.

III.

[404:5] Cf. Royce: _The Conception of G.o.d, Supplementary Essay_, pp.

135-322; _The World and the Individual, First Series_.

[405:6] This movement began as a criticism of Hegelianism in behalf of the human personality. Cf. Andrew Seth: _Hegelianism and Personality_; _Man and the Cosmos_; _Two Lectures on Theism_. G. H. Howison: _The Limits of Evolution_. The important writings of the more independent movement are: William James: _The Will to Believe_. H. Sturt, editor: _Personal Idealism, Philosophical Essays by Eight Members of Oxford University_. F. C. S. Schiller: _Humanism_. Henri Bergson: _Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience_; _Matiere et memoire_. This movement is closely related to that of _Pragmatism_. See under - 203.

[406:7] Cf. Bertrand Russell: _Principles of Mathematics_, Vol. I. Among the more important writings of this movement are the following: Giuseppi Peano: _Formulaire de Mathematique_, published by the _Rivista di matematica_, Tom. I-IV. Richard Dedekind: _Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen?_ Georg Cantor: _Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre_. Louis Couturat: _De l'Infini Mathematique_, and articles in _Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale_. A. N. Whitehead: _A Treatise on Universal Algebra_. Heinrich Hertz: _Die Prinzipien der Mechanik_. Henri Poincare: _La Science et l'Hypothese_. For the bearing of these investigations on philosophy, see Royce: _The Sciences of the Ideal_, in _Science_, Vol. XX, No. 510.

[407:8] The term used by Karl Pearson in his _Grammar of Science_.

[408:9] The important English writings of the recent independent movement known as _pragmatism_ are: C. S. Peirce: _Ill.u.s.trations of the Logic of Science_, in _Popular Science Monthly_, Vol. XII. W. James: _The Pragmatic Method_, in _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_, Vol. I; _Humanism and Truth_, in _Mind_, Vol. XIII, N. S.; _The Essence of Humanism_, in _Jour. of Phil., Psych., and Sc.

Meth._, Vol. II (with bibliography); _The Will to Believe_. John Dewey: _Studies in Logical Theory_. W. Caldwell: _Pragmatism_, in _Mind_, Vol.

XXV., N. S. See also literature on _personal idealism_, - 201. A similar tendency has appeared in France in Bergson, LeRoy, Milhaud, and in Germany in Simmel.

[410:10] Cf. Ernst Mach: _a.n.a.lysis of Sensation_. Translation by Williams.

[411:11] Cf. F. H. Bradley: _Appearance and Reality_.

[413:12] Cf. Carstanjen: _Richard Avenarius, and his General Theory of Knowledge, Empiriocriticism_. Translation by H. Bosanquet, in _Mind_, Vol. VI, N. S. Also James: _Does Consciousness Exist?_ and _A World of Pure Experience_, in _Jour. of Phil., Psych., and Sc. Meth_., Vol. I; _The Thing and its Relations_, _ibid._, Vol. II.

The standard literature of this movement is unfortunately not available in English. Among the more important writings are: R. Avenarius: _Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_; _Der menschliche Weltbegriff_, and other works.

Joseph Petzoldt: _Einfuhrung in die Philosophie der reinen Erfahrung_.

Ernst Mach: _Die a.n.a.lyse der Empfindung und das Verhaltniss des Physischen zum Psychischen, 2. Auff._ Wilhelm Schuppe: _Grundriss der Erkenntnisstheorie und Logik_. Friedrich Carstanjen: _Einfuhrung in die "Kritik der reinen Erfahrung"_--an exposition of Avenarius. Also articles by the above, R. w.i.l.l.y, R. v. Schubert-Soldern, and others, in the _Vierteljahrsschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie_.

[420:13] It is not, of course, denied that there may be other orders, such as, _e. g._, an aesthetic order; or that there may be definite relations between these orders, such as, _e. g._, the psycho-physical relation.

[423:14] Quoted from George A. Gordon: _The New Epoch for Faith_, p. 27.

[424:15] Cf. James: _The Will to Believe_, essay on _The Dilemma of Determinism, pa.s.sim_.

[425:16] _Essays, Second Series_, p. 75.

[427:17] Plato: _Theaetetus_, 174-175. Translation by Jowett.

[428:18] E. Caird: _Literature and Philosophy_, Vol. I, pp. 218-219.