Rupture of the unity of the a priori synthesis.
The three modes of error examined exhaust the possible combinations of the pure concept with the forms of the theoretic or theoretic-practical spirit, anterior or posterior to it. Other modes of error arise from the breaking up of the unity of the concept, from the separation of its constitutive elements. Each one of these elements, abstracted from the other, and finding that other before it, annuls, instead of recognizing the other as an organic part of itself; that is to say, substitutes for it its own abstract existence.
The concept, as we know, is the logicala priorisynthesis, and so the unity of subject and predicate, unity in distinction and distinction in unity, affirmation of the concept and judgment of the fact, at once philosophy and history. In pure and effective thought, the two elements constitute an indissoluble organism. A fact cannot be affirmed without thinking; it isimpossible to think without affirming a fact. In logical thought, the representation without the concept is blind, it is pure representation deprived of logical right, it is not the subject of a judgment; the concept without representation is void.
Philosophism, logicism or panlogism.
This unity can be severed, practically, in the act which is called error, where propositions expressing the truth are combined, not according to their theoretical connection, but according to what is deemed useful by him who makes the combination. It then happens that in the first place we have an empty concept, which, being without any internal rule (owing to this very vacuity), fills itself with a content which does not belong to it—for this it could have only from contact with the representation—and gives itself afalsesubject. The opposite also occurs, that is to say, a false predicate or concept is posited, a case which will be considered further on. Limiting ourselves, meanwhile, to the first and observing that it consists in the abuse of the logical element, we shall be able to call that mode of errorlogicismorpanlogism,or alsophilosophism(since the abuse of the logical element is identical with the abuse of the philosophic element).
Philosophy of history.
Logicism, panlogism or philosophism, is the usurpation that philosophy in the narrow sense wreaks upon history, by pretending to deduce history apriori,as the process is called. This usurpation is logically impossible owing to the identity of philosophy and history already demonstrated, whence bad history is bad philosophy, and inversely. It may happen that the same individual who at a given moment creates excellent philosophy (and excellent history at the same time) may create bad history (and so bad philosophy) the moment after. But this amounts to saying that he who at one moment has philosophized well, may philosophize badly and err the moment after, and not by any means that the two things are possible in the same act. However, the usurpation, logically impossible, is practically effected, in which case, it is not strictly speaking usurpation, although it comes to be so considered from the logical point of view. On the other hand, the claim for thea prioriin history is perfectly just; for to affirm a fact means to think it, and it is not possible to think without transforming the representation by means of the concept, and so deducing it from the concept. But this deduction is ana priorisynthesis and therefore also induction, whereasthe claim to deduce historya prioriwould amount to a deduction without induction, notHistory(which is, for that very reason,Philosophy),but aPhilosophy of History.
The contradictions in this undertaking.
The absurdity of this programme must be clearly set forth, because those who formulate it are wont to concede equivocally that a Philosophy of history must be founded upon actual data, and have induction as its basis. In reality, were those actual data documents to be interpreted, we should not have the Philosophy of history that they desire, but simply History. The actual data, the so-called formless material, in the programme of the Philosophy of history, are at the most already constructed histories, which do not content the philosophers of history. They do not content them, not because they judge them to be false interpretations of the documents (in which case nothing else would be needed but to correct history with history, carrying out the work that all historians do); but because thevery method of historydoes not content them, and they demand something else. History is despised as mere narration, and considered not as a form of thought, but as its material, a chaotic mass of representations. The true form of thought is for them the Philosophy of history,which appears in history and not in documents. And how does it appear? If the documents are removed, thea priorisynthesis is no longer possible. It arises, then, by the parthenogenesis of the abstract concept, which history finds in itself, without the spark being struck by confrontation with documents. History is deduceda priori,not in the concrete but in the void. Whatever be the declarations which philosophers of history add to their programme, its essence cannot be changed. Were these declarations made seriously and all their logical consequences accepted, there would be no reason for maintaining a Philosophy of history beside and beyond history. The two things would become identical, and the programme itself would be annulled, both for those who propose it, and for us who judge it to be contradictory. This is the dilemma, from which there is no escape: either the Philosophy of history is an interpretation of documents, and in this case it is synonymous with History and makes no new claim;—or it does make a new claim and in that case, being no longer interpretation of documents and intending all the same to think facts, it thinks them without documents and draws them from the empty concept, and we have the Philosophy of history, philosophism, panlogism.
Philosophy of history and false analogies.
In order to give itself body, the Philosophy of history has recourse to analogy. This is a legitimate process of thought, which, in its search for truth, seeks analogies and harmonies. But it is legitimate, as we know, only on condition that the analogy does not remain a merely heuristic hypothesis, but is effectively thinkable and thought. Now the concepts that the Philosophy of history deduces cannot be effectively thought, because they are void; they are neither pure concepts nor pure representations, but an arbitrary mixture of the two forms, and therefore contradiction and vacuity. Thus the analogies of which the Philosophy of history avails itself, arefalse analogies,that is to say,metaphorsandcomparisons,transformed into analogies and concepts. It will declare, for instance, that the Middle Ages are the negation of ancient civilization, and that the modern epoch is the synthesis of these two opposites. But ancient civilization is nothing but an unending series of facts, of which each is a synthesis of opposites, real only in so far as it is a synthesis of opposites. And between ancient civilization and the Middle Ages, there is absolute continuity, not less than between the Middle Ages and the modern epoch. Facts cannot stand to one another as oppositeconcepts, because they cannot be opposed to one another as positive and negative. The fact that is called positive is positive-negative and so, in like manner, is that which is called negative. It will further declare (always by way of example) that Greece was thought and Rome action, and the modern world is the unity of thought and action. But in reality, Greek life was thought and action, like that of Rome, and like modern life. Every epoch, every people, every individual, every instant of life is thought and action, in virtue of the unity of the spirit, whose distinctions are never broken up into separate existences. The affirmations that belong to the Philosophy of history are all of this kind, and when they are not of this kind, it means that they do not belong to the essence of the Philosophy of history.
Distinction between the Philosophy of history, and the books thus entitled. Philosophical and historical merits of these.
The last-mentioned case occurs frequently in books that bear the title of Philosophy of history. These certainly cannot be considered to have been refuted when the concept of that science has been refuted. Science is one thing and the book another. The error of a false attempt at science is one thing and the value of books, which usually (especially with great thinkers and writers) have deeper motives and more valuable parts, is another. Among books upon thephilosophy of history are numbered some masterpieces of human genius,—fountains of truth, at which many generations have quenched their thirst and to which men return perpetually. They have often indeed been marvellous books on history, true history, produced by reaction against superficial, partisan or trifling histories. They have for the first time revealed the true character of certain epochs, of certain events, of certain individuals.[1]The sterile form of duality and opposition between Philosophy of history and simple History, concealed the fruitful polemic of a better history against a worse history. Even the formulae, which were falsely regarded as deductions of concepts (for example, that the Middle Ages are the negation of antiquity and the Renaissance the negation of the Middle Ages, or that the Germanic spirit, from the Reformation to the Romantic movement, is the affirmation of inward liberty, or that Italy of the fifteenth century represents Art, France the State, and so on), were at bottom vivacious expressions of predominant characteristics, by means of which the various epochs and events were portrayed. These expressions and truthscould be accepted without there being any necessity for presupposing clear and fixed oppositions and distinctions, or for denying the extra-temporality of spiritual forms. Besides these historical characteristics, discoveries more strictly philosophical appeared for the first time in those books; hence not only do we find in them the first outlines of a Logic of historical science (a Logic of the individual judgment), but also, sometimes in imaginative forms, determinations of eternal aspects of the Spirit, which had previously been unknown or ill-known. Such is the case with the concept ofprogressandprovidence,and of that other concept concerning the spiritual autonomy oflanguageand ofart,which presented itself for the first time as the discovery of the historical epoch, in which man, wholly sense and imagination, without intelligible genera and concepts, is supposed to have spoken and poetized without reasoning. In an equally imaginary fashion the constancy of the spirit, which eternally repeats itself, also found in those philosophies the formula of the perpetualpassingaway and returning of the various epochs of civilization. These philosophical truths, like the historical characteristics, must be purged, the first from the representations improperly united with them, thesecond from the logical character which they wrongly assumed. But they cannot be discarded, unless we are willing to throw away the gold, through our unwillingness to have the trouble of separating it from the dross. And this necessity for purification further confirms the error of the philosophism, since it is the purification of Philosophy and of History from the Philosophy of History.
Philosophy of nature.
Another manifestation of the philosophism, somewhat different from the preceding, is the science which assumes the name ofPhilosophyofnature.Here it is claimed to deduce, not the historical facts themselves, but the general concepts, which constitute the natural sciences. The philosophy of nature can be considered as the converse error to the empiricist error, which claims to induce philosophic categoriesa posteriori,whereas this claims to deduce empirical conceptsa priori.
Its substantial identity with the Philosophy of history.
But the theoretic content of empirical concepts and of the natural sciences is, as we know, nothing but perception and history. So that, in the final analysis, the Philosophy of nature can be reduced to the Philosophy of history (extended to so-called inferior or subhuman reality), making, like the other, the vain attempt to produce in thevoid what thought can produce only in the concrete, that is to say, by synthesizing. And that it tends to become a Philosophy of history is also to be seen from its not infrequent hesitances before abstract concepts, or mathematical science, sometimes declaring that the pure abstractions of the intellect must remain such and are not otherwise deducible and capable of being philosophized about. The Philosophy of nature has usually been extended to the field of the physical and natural sciences, including also some parts of mechanics. But it has refused to undertake the deduction of the theorems of geometry and still more the operations of the Calculus.
The contradictions of the Philosophy of nature.
The Philosophy of nature, like the Philosophy of history, has abounded in declarations of the necessity of the historical and empirical method. It has recognized that the physical and natural sciences are its antecedent and presupposition and that it continues and completes their work. But it is not permitted to complete this work because this work extends to infinity. And it would not be able to continue it, save by turning itself into physics and natural sciences, working as these do in laboratories, observing, classifying, and making laws (legislating). Now the Philosophy of nature does not wish to adopt such aprocedure, but to introduce a new method into the study of nature. And since a new method and a new science are the same thing, it does not wish to be a continuation of physics and of the natural sciences, but a new science. And since a new science implies a new object, it wishes to give a new object, which is precisely thephilosophic idea of nature.This philosophic idea of nature would therefore be constructed by a method which would not and could not have anything in common with that of the empirical sciences. Yet the Philosophy of nature is not able to dispense with the empirical concepts, which it strives to deducea priori.And here lies the contradictoriness of its undertaking. The dilemma which confronted the Philosophy of history must be repeated in this case also:—either it has to continue the work of the physical and natural sciences, and in this case there will be progress in the physical and natural sciences and not in the Philosophy of nature; or it has to construct the Philosophy of nature (the physical and natural sciences); and this cannot be done, save by ana priorideduction of the empirical and thus falling into the error of panlogism or philosophism.
False analogies in the Philosophy of nature.
The Philosophy of nature, like that of history,expresses itself in false analogies. It will say, for instance, that the poles of the magnet are the opposed moments of the concept, made extrinsic and appearing in space; or that light is the ideality of nature; or that magnetism corresponds to length, electricity to breadth and gravity to volume; or again (like more ancient philosophers), that water, or fire, or sulphur, or mercury, is the essence of all natural facts. But these phenomena which are given as essences, those classes of natural facts which are given as moments of the concept and of the spirit, are no longer either scientific phenomena, or the concepts and spiritual forms of philosophy. The first are intuitions and not categories; the second categories and not intuitions; and just because they are so clearly distinguished from one another they mutually mingle in thea priorisynthesis. On the other hand, the concepts of the Philosophy of nature are categories, which as such present themselves in their emptiness as intuitions, and intuitions, which in their blindness present themselves as categories. These thoughts are contradictory. They can bespoken,or rathertittered,because it is possible to combine phonetically contradictory propositions, but it is impossible to think them. Such combinations by their ingenuity often giverise to surprise or astonishment. But mental satisfaction is never obtained from them merely because the mind is excited and deluded. On the other hand, the Philosophy of nature, in this labour of ingenuity, runs against limits, which even ingenuity cannot overcome. Then are heard affirmations, which amount to open confessions of the impossibility of the task. Of this sort is the assertion that nature contains the contingent and the irrational and therefore is incapable of complete rationalization; or that nature in its self-externality is impotent to achieve the concept and the spirit. In like manner. Philosophies of history end by confessing that there are facts which are told and are not deduced, because they are small, contingent and fortuitous matter for chronicle. Thus, after having announced in the programme the rationality of nature and of history, they recognize in the execution of the programme that the contrary is true. They simply deny the rationality of the world, because they cannot bring themselves to deny the rationality of the pseudo-sciences of philosophism.
Works entitled Philosophy of nature.
Finally, the reservations made in the case of works dealing with the Philosophy of history are to be repeated for those dealing with thePhilosophy of nature. In them, too, there is something more than, and something different from, the sterile analogical exercises that we have mentioned. Some of the philosophers of nature, in the pursuit of their illusions, have made occasional scientific discoveries, in the same way that the alchemists seeking the philosopher's stone made discoveries in Chemistry. Those discoveries in physical and natural science cannot serve to increase the value of the theory of the Philosophy of nature any more than those made in chemistry increased the value of alchemy. But they confer value on the books entitled Philosophy of nature, and do honour to their authors as physicists, not as metaphysicians. From the philosophical point of view, those works have had the merit of affirming, though but in imaginative and symbolical ways, the unity and spirituality of nature, opening the path to its unification with the history of man. They have the yet greater merit of contributing effectively in the battle engaged by them against the sciences of making clear the empirical character of the naturalistic concepts and the abstract character of the mathematical. Nevertheless, they drew illegitimate conclusions from such gnoseological truth and carried on a war ofconquest, which must be held to be unjust. In virtue of the positive elements that they contain, works on the Philosophy of nature have aided the advance both of the sciences and of philosophy, which in their properly philosophico-naturalistic parts they have violated and debased and forced into hybrid unions.
Contemporary demands for a Philosophy of nature and their various meanings.
In our day demands for a Philosophy of history are rare and received with scant favour; but it seems that those for a Philosophy of nature are again acquiring vigour. On seeking the inward meaning of this fact, it is seen that on the one hand many of those who demand a Philosophy of nature are empiricists, desirous of a natural science elaborated into a philosophy, and therefore not properly of a Philosophy of nature, but of a view of the natural sciences that may supplant philosophy. Other upholders of a Philosophy of nature echo the only programme of such a philosophy, as it was formulated especially by Schelling and by Hegel, but declare themselves altogether dissatisfied with the attempts to carry it out made by Schelling, by Hegel and by the followers of both. They are dissatisfied, but incapable of setting their dissatisfaction at rest by a new attempt at carrying out the programme. They are also without the intellectual couragenecessary to question and to re—examine the solidity of the programme itself, which is in their judgment plausible and guaranteed by such great names. For what indeed is more plausible upon first inspection than the affirmation that the empirical sciences must be elevated to the rank of philosophy? It seems that too much mental liberty is needed to understand and to distinguish from the preceding, the somewhat different proposition that empiricism (empirical philosophy) must certainly be elevated to the rank of non-empirical philosophy, but that theempirical sciencesmust be left in peace to their own methods, without any attempt to render perfect by means of extrinsic additions that which has in itself all the perfection of which it is capable. It seems that more intelligence than is usually met with is necessary in order to recognize that this last proposition does not establish adualismof spirit and nature, of philosophy and the natural sciences, but for ever destroys every dualism by making of the natural sciences a merely practical formation of the spirit, which has no voice in the assembly of the philosophical sciences, as the object which it has created has no reality. An ultimate tendency can be discerned in the complex movement of the day toward a Philosophy of nature. This isthe attainment of the consciousness that reality is on this side of the classifications of the natural sciences, and that the natural sciences must be retranslated intohistory,by means of a historical consideration (concrete and not abstract) of the facts that are called natural. But this tendency is not something that will attain its end in a near or in a distant future. It has always shown its value and shows it also to-day; it can be recommended and promoted, but neither more nor less than every other legitimate form of spiritual activity can be recommended and promoted. Classifications are classifications; and what man really seeks out, what continually enriches the empirical sciences, is always the history of nature,—the series of facts, which, as we know, can be distinguished only in an empirical manner from the history of man, and which along with this constitutesHistorywithout genitive or adjective; history, which cannot even be strictly called history of the spirit, for the Spirit is, itself, History.
[1]See myEssay on Hegel,chap. ix. (What is living, etc., of Hegel,tr. D. Ainslie).
[1]See myEssay on Hegel,chap. ix. (What is living, etc., of Hegel,tr. D. Ainslie).
Rupture of the unity of the synthesis a priori. Mythologism.
When by the severance of subject from predicate, of history from philosophy, the mutilated subject is given as predicate, mutilated history as philosophy, and consequently a false predicate is posited, which predicate is an abstract subject and therefore mere representation; when this happens, there occurs the opposite error to that which we have just particularly examined. That was called philosophism; this might be called historicism; but since this last term has usually been employed to indicate a form of positivism, it will be more convenient to call itmythologism.
The process of this error (somewhat abstruse in the way that we have stated it) becomes clear at once in virtue of the name that has been assigned to it. Every one has examples of myths present in his memory. Let us take the myths of Uranus and Gæa, of the seven days of creation, of the earthly Paradise, and of Prometheus,of Danaë, or of Niobe. Every one is ready to say of a scientific theory which introduces causes not demonstrable either in the experience or in thought, that it is not theory, but mythology, not concept, but myth.
Essence of the myth.
What then is it that is called myth? It is certainly not a simple poetic and artistic fancy. The myth contains an affirmation or logical judgment, and precisely for this reason may be considered a hybrid affirmation, half fanciful and erroneous. If it has been confused with art, it is not so much a false doctrine of the myth that should be blamed, as a false æsthetic doctrine, which we have already refuted, and which fails to recognize the original and ingenuous character of art. On the other hand, the logical affirmation does not stand to the myth as something extrinsic, as in the case of a fable or image put forward to express a given concept, where the difference of the two terms and the arbitrariness of the relation between them declares itself more or less openly. In this case there is not myth, butallegory.In myth, on the contrary, the concept is not separated from the representation, indeed it is throughout penetrated by it. Yet the compenetration is not effected in a logical manner, as in the singular judgment and in thea priorisynthesis. The compenetration is obtained capriciously, yet it gives itself out as necessary and logical. For instance, it is desired to explain how sky and earth were formed, how sea and rivers, plants and animals, men and language arose; and behold, we are given as explanations, the stories of the marriage of Uranus and Gæa, and the birth of Chronos and of the other Titans; or the story of a God Creator, who successively drew all things out of chaos in seven days, and made man of clay and taught him the names of things. It is desired to explain the origin of human civilization, and the tale is told of Prometheus, who steals fire and instructs men in the arts; or of Adam and Eve, who eat the forbidden fruit, and driven from the earthly Paradise are forced to till the ground and bathe it with their sweat. It is desired to explain the astronomical phenomena of dawn or of winter, and the story is told of Phœbus, who pursues Daphne, or of the same god who slays one after the other the sons of Niobe. These naturalistic interpretations may pass as examples, however contested and antiquated they may be. In place of the concepts which should illuminate single facts, we are given representations. Hence are derived what we have called false predicates.Philosophy becomes a little anecdote, a novelette, a story; history too becomes a story and ceases to be history, because it lacks the logical element necessary for its constitution. The true philosophic doctrine in the preceding cases, for example, will be that of an immanent spirit, of which stars and sky, earth and sea, plants and animals, constitute the contingent manifestations; the doctrine which looks upon the consciousness of good and evil and the necessity for work, not as the result of a theft made from the gods or of a violation of one of their commands, but as eternal categories of reality; and which regards language, not as the teaching of men by a god, but as an essential determination of humanity, or indeed of spirituality, which is not truly, if it does not express itself. They will also, if we like, be the philosophic doctrines of materialism and of evolutionism; but these, in order to be accepted as philosophic, must prove, like the preceding, that they do not substitute representations for concepts and are strictly founded upon thought and employ its method, that is to say, that they are philosophy and not mythology. For this reason, in philosophical criticism, adverse philosophies often accuse one another of being more or less mythological, and we hear of themythology ofatoms,the mythology ofchance,the mythology ofether,of thetwo substances,ofmonads,of theblind will,of theUnconscious,or, if you like, of the mythology of theimmanent Spirit.
Problems concerning the theory of myth.
The particular treatment of all the problems that concern the myth does not belong to this place, where it was important solely to determine the proper nature of that spiritual formation. It is customary, for instance, to distinguish betweenmythandlegend,attributing the first name to stories of universal content, and the second to stories with an individual and historical content. This partition is analogous to that between philosophy in the strict sense and history, and as such, though it possesses no little practical importance, it is without philosophic value, because, as has been remarked, in myth the universal becomes history and history becomes legend. Nor is it only legend of the past, but it extends even to the future, and thus appearapocalypses,the legend of theMillennium,andeschatology.Again, myths are usually distinguished asphysicalandethical,and this division is in turn analogous to that between the philosophy of the external world and the philosophy of the internal world, the philosophyof nature and the philosophy of the spirit, and stands or falls with it. So that by this criticism we can solve the disputes as to whether physical myths precede ethical or inversely, whether the origin of myth is or is not anthropomorphic, and the like.
Myth and religion. Identity of the two spiritual formations.
But the myth can assume another name, which makes yet clearer the knowledge of the logical error of which the analysis has been given: the name ofreligion.Mythologism is thereligious error.Against this thesis various objections have been brought, such as that religion is not theoretical but practical, and has therefore nothing to do with myth; or that it is somethingsui generis,or that it is not exhausted in the myth, since it consists of the complex of all the activities of the human spirit. But against these objections it must above all be maintained that religion is a theoretic fact, since there is no religionwithout affirmation.The practical activity, however noble it may be held, is always an operating, a doing, a producing, and to that extent is mute and alogical. It will be said that that affirmation issui generisand goes beyond the limits of human science. This is most true, if by science we understand the empirical sciences; but it is not true, if by human sciencewe understand philosophy, since philosophy also goes beyond or is outside the limits of the empirical sciences. It will be said that every religion is founded upon arevelation,whereas philosophy does not admit of other revelation than that which the spirit makes to itself as thought. That too is most true; but the revelation of religion, in so far as it is not that of the spirit as thought, expresses precisely the logical contradiction of mythologism: the affirmation of the universal as mere representation, and this asserted as a universal truth on the strength of a contingent fact, a communication which ought to be proved and thought, whereas on the contrary it is taken capriciously, as a principle of proof and as equivalent or superior to an act of thought. The theory of religion as a mixture hardly merits refutation, since that complex of the activities of the spirit is a metaphor of the spirit in its totality; that is to say, it gives not a theory of religion, but a new name of the spirit itself,—the object of philosophic speculation.
Religion and philosophy.
Since then, religion is identical with myth, and since myth is not distinguishable from philosophy by any positive character, but only as false philosophy from true philosophy and as errorfrom the truth which rectifies and contains it, we must affirm that religion, in so far as it is truth, is identical with philosophy, or as can also be said,that philosophyis thetrue religion.All ancient and modern thought about religions, which have always been dissolved in philosophies, leads to this result. And since philosophy coincides with history, and religion and the history of religion are the same, and myth and religion are strictly speaking indistinguishable, we can see very well the vanity of the attempt that is being made beneath our eyes to preserve a religion or mythological truth side by side with a history of religions, which on the contrary is supposed to be practised with complete mental freedom and with an entirely critical method. This, which is one of the tendencies of so-calledmodernism,is condemned as contradictory and illogical, by philosophy not less than by the Catholic Church.[1]The history of religions is an integral part of the history of philosophy, and as inseparable from it as error from the history of truth.
Conversion of errors into one another. Conversion of mythologism into philosophism (theology) and of philosophism into mythologism (mythology of nature, historical apocalypses, etc.).
When religion does not dissolve into philosophy and wishes to persist together with it, or to substitute itself for philosophy, it reveals itself aseffective error; that is to say, as an arbitrary attempt against truth, due to habit, feelings and individual passions. But the destiny of every form of error is to be unable to persist before the light of truth. Hence the constant change of tactics and the passage of every error into the error from which it had at first wished to disassociate itself, or into which it did not mean to fall. Thus æstheticism, dislodged from its positions, takes refuge in those of empiricism; and empiricism either descends again into pure sensationalism and æstheticism, or becomes volatilized in mysticism. Thus (to stop at the case we have before us) mythologism, which intends to be the opposite of philosophism and to work with blind fancy instead of with empty concepts, is obliged in order to save itself from the attacks of criticism to have recourse to philosophism; and religion is then calledtheology.Theology is philosophism, because it works with concepts which are empty of all historical and empirical content. Myth becomesdogma; the myth of the expulsion from Paradise becomes the dogma of original sin; the myth of the son of God becomes the dogma of the incarnation and of the Trinity. Nor must it be thought that for its part philosophism does not accomplish the opposite transition.Every philosophy of nature ends by appearing as amythology of nature,every philosophy of history as anapocalypse.Sometimes even a sort of revelation occurs in them, and we often find that the unthinkable connections of concepts constituting those pseudo-philosophies are obtained and comprehended in virtue of second sight, as the result of a mental illumination, which is the prerogative of but a few privileged persons. Finally, philosophism and mythologism embrace one another and fall embracing into empiricism and into the other forms of error previously described.
Scepsis.
This perpetual transition from one form of error to another gives rise to ascepsis,which promotes the reciprocal dissolution of errors, and scorning illusions and confusions, throws theirmental vacuityinto clear light. Such a scepsis fulfils an important function. The lies of æstheticism, mathematicism, philosophism, mythologism, cannot resist it. Their little wordy strongholds are broken into; the shadows are dispersed. Especially against mythologism, which in a certain sense may be called the most complete negation of thought, a scepsis is helpful; and owing to the resistance offered here more than elsewhere, by passions and interests, itoften takes the form of violent satire. The last great epoch of this strife is what is called theAufklärung,Encyclopedism or Voltaireism, and was directed against Christianity, especially in its Catholic form. We must make so many reservations in what follows concerning the enlightened Encyclopedist and Voltairean attitude, that here we feel obliged to indicate explicitly its serious and fruitful side.
[1]See with reference to this G. Gentile,Il modernismo e l'enciclica, Critica,vi. pp. 208-229.
[1]See with reference to this G. Gentile,Il modernismo e l'enciclica, Critica,vi. pp. 208-229.
Dualism.
Total scepticism can be reached only throughdualism,which, in addition to being a particular error in a given philosophic problem, is a logical error, consisting in the attempt to affirm two methods of truth at the same time—the philosophic method and the non-philosophic method, however the second of these be afterwards determined. Such an error would not be error but supreme truth, if the various methods were given each its due post (which is what has been attempted in this Logic); but it becomes error when the various methods are made philosophical and placedalongsidethe philosophical. This is the error of those conciliatory people, who, unwilling to seek out where reason stands, admit that reason is operative in all of them, and divide the kingdom of truth amongst all in equal parts. Thus arise those logical doctrines which demand for the solution of philosophic problems, thesuccessive or contemporaneous application of the naturalistic method, of mathematics, of historical research, and so on. At the least they demand the combination of the naturalistic method (empiricism) with the speculative and the use of what they call the double criterion ofteleologyandcausality,or ofdoublecausality. To the question, what is reality, they reply with two methods and consequently offer two concurrent and parallel realities. Beneath the appearance of treatment and solution, they abandon the philosophic problem. Instead of conceiving, they describe, and description is given as concept, and concept as description: hence the justifiable intervention of the scepsis.
Scepsis and scepticism.
But the scepsis, which clears the ground of all forms of erroneous logical affirmation, is the negation of error and consequently the negativity of negativity. The negativity of negativity is affirmation, and for this reason, the true scepsis, like every true negation, always contains a positive content in the negative verbal form, which can be also verbally developed as such. If this positive content, instead of being developed, is choked in the bud, if instead of negation, which is also affirmation, a mere negation is given,—an abstract negation, which destroys withoutconstructing, and if this negation claims to pass as truth, the final form of error is obtained, which is no longer called scepsis, butscepticism.
Mystery.
Scepticism is the proclamation of mystery made in the name of thought;—a definition the contradictoriness of which leaps to the eye. It is mortally wounded both by the ancient dilemma against scepticism and by thecogitoof Descartes. Nevertheless, since a singular tenderness for the idea of mystery seems to have invaded the contemporary world, it is desirable to leave open no loophole whatever for misunderstanding. Themysteryislife itself,which is an eternalproblemfor thought; but this problem would not even be a problem, if thought did not eternally solve it. For this reason, both those who consider mystery to be definitely penetrated by thought and those who consider it impenetrable are equally wrong. The first we already know: they are the philosophists who reduce reality to pure terms of abstract thought, by breaking up thea priorisynthesis and by neglecting the historical element, which is ever new and ever assuming forms not determinablea priori.Thus, they claim to shut up the world for ever in one single act (maybe in some particular philosophic system). Through their excessive love of the infinite theymake it finite; the sun and the earth and all the stars, the historical forms of life, and what is called human life, which has been known for some thousands of years, are transformed by them into categories of thought, solidified and made eternal. This conception, which appears (at least as a tendency) in certain parts of the Hegelian philosophy, is narrow and suffocating. The spirit is superior to all its manifestations hitherto known, and its power is infinite. It will never be able to surpass itself, that is to say, its eternal categories, just as God (according to the best theological doctrines) could destroy heaven and earth, but not the true and the good, which are his very essence; yet the spirit is able to surpass, and actually does surpass, its every contingent incarnation. The world, which is abstractly assumed to be more or less constant, is all in movement and becoming. Those who will be raised up to think it will know what worlds will issue from this world of ours. That we cannot know, for we must think this world which exists at our moment, and must act on the basis of it.
Critique of the affirmations of mystery in philosophy.
But if the philosophers incur the guilt of arrogance, the sceptics, who affirm a mystery, that is to say, that reality is impenetrable tothought, fall under the accusation of cowardice. These, when faced with the problems of the real (soluble, we repeat, by the very fact that they are problems), avoid the hard work of dominating and penetrating them, and think it convenient to wrap themselves in abstract negation and to affirm thatmystery is.There is mystery, without doubt; and this means that there is a problem, something that invokes the light of thought. And it is a beautiful solution which these mysterious ones and sceptics offer, for it consists in stating the problem and leaving it untouched. In the same way, when a man asks for help, we might claim to have given it to him when we had noticed his request. Charity consists in hastening to render effective aid, not in noting that aid has been asked for and then turning the back. To think is to break up the mystery and to solve the problem, not simply to recognize that there is a problem and a mystery, and to renounce seeking the solution as though it had already been given and the matter settled by that recognition.
It seems strange that it should be necessary to explain these elementary concepts; yet in our time it is necessary, so much have those concepts been darkened for historical reasons, which itwould take long to expound here, and which can all of them be summarized as due to a certain moral weakening. And it may be opportune here to give a warning (since we are dealing with a theme that belongs to the elementary school of philosophy) that to inculcate the courage to confront and to solve the problem and to conquer the mystery, is not to counsel the neglect of difficulties, or superficiality and arrogance. Mysteries are covered and must continually be covered by their own shadows; problems torment and must torment, yet it is only through these shadows and by means of those torments that we attain to momentary repose in the true; and only thus does repose not become sloth, but the restoration of our forces to resume the eternal journey. Superficiality, arrogance, neglect of difficulties, belong to the sceptics who deafen themselves with words and contrive to live at their ease in their abstract negation. True thinkers suffer, but do not flee from pain. "Et iterum ecce turbatio(groans St. Anselm amid the anxious vicissitudes of his meditations),ecce iterum obviat maeror et luctus quaerenti gaudium et laetitiam. Sperabat jam anima mea satietatem, et ecce iterum obruitur egestate. Conabar assurgere ad lucem Dei, et recidi in tenebras meas: immo non modocecidi in eas, sed sentio me involutum in eis...."[1]Such words as these are the pessimistic lyric of the thinker. Sceptics create no such lyric, because they have cut the desire at the root. They are as a rule blissfully calm and smiling.