FOOTNOTE:[2]Which was gained by the mind's contact with its sense-perceived multiplicity of the world.—Editor.
[2]Which was gained by the mind's contact with its sense-perceived multiplicity of the world.—Editor.
[2]Which was gained by the mind's contact with its sense-perceived multiplicity of the world.—Editor.
Especially Democratic-Proletarian Logic
BY JOSEPH DIETZGEN
Translated by Ernest Untermann
Editorial Remark.
The "Letters on Logic," treating on the same subjects as "The Positive Outcome of Philosophy," were intended by the author to be replaced by this subsequent work.
We publish, however, both these works in hopes that the reader will pardon the frequent repetitions on account of the additional light that other parts of the "Letters on Logic" are apt to impart.
LETTERS ON LOGIC
Dear Eugene:
You have now reached the age at which the students go to the university. There, according to custom, they register first of all for a course in logic, whether they choose the study of law, medicine, or theology. Logic is, so to say, the elementary study in all branches of learning. Now you know, my dear, that school and life are regarded as two separate things. I should like to call your attention to their connection. We live also in school, we are schooled also by life. I should like to consider your trip across the Atlantic ocean as your first venture in the high school of life, and assume the role of your professor of logic.
I feel well qualified for this office. Although I am not well up in Latin and Greek, still I feel competent to guide you to the depths of logical science better than a German professor trained and installed according to the most approved pattern. You will admit the possibility of such a thing. For one who knows little may explain that little with more ease and efficacy than one who has his head stuffed full of the prescribed bunch of official wisdom.
You, my son, have been so fortunate as to enjoy a seven years' course in a German college. And sinceyour teachers, at your departure, gave you the highest certificate, I may well consider you as qualified not only to enter the school of life in the United States, but also to listen intelligently to my lectures on logic.
But in order that my well trained pupil may not look down upon his self-taught teacher, I appeal to the fact that even the man with the best all-around education will be a tyro in specialties; and that, on the other hand, ignorance in many things does not exclude the possibility of knowing more about a certain specialty than science has heretofore grasped. Now I claim in this case to have acquired a knowledge of the subject with which I intend to deal here that surpasses anything I have been able to find in the professional literature. I mention this, my dear Eugene, with all due modesty, not for the purpose of throwing a halo around my personality, but in order to give a certain authority to my office as teacher and to inspire my pupil with confidence.
Yes, I value confidence. Although you know me as a democrat who cares nothing for authority, you shall also learn to know me as a graduate in dialectics who, though he may empty the bath, still retains his hold on the child and does not permit it to float off with the water. Children, and one may say nations in their childhood, cannot do without authority, and a teacher, whether he instruct children or nations, cannot dispense with a certain confidence-inspiring air. The pupil must believe in the wisdom of his teacher, in order that he may approach the master with the necessary attention and willingness to learn. Later on the understanding of the subject makes all authority superfluous. Thus a thing so sublime asauthority is subject to the destructive tendencies of time, to the historical process.
Hitherto mankind has often been tempted by preconceived notions to idolize vain things. It has been attempted to shield not only authority in general, but, what is still worse, this or that throne or altar, against the attacks of time. The relation between the perishable and the imperishable has always been subject to much misunderstanding. Now since logic is that science which aims to set the intellect aright, we shall have to touch occasionally on the general misconception of time and eternity.
The most famous expounders of logic are reproached for their cumbrous style and their obscure mode of explanation. Even masters of languages have complained in my hearing about the foreign terms used by that branch of science, terms which even they could not understand. Much of the blame for this condition of things may fall on the difficulties of the subject, which have baffled all elucidation for thousands of years. Some of the blame also falls on the bad habit of using learned vernacular. But the greatest fault lies with the mental laziness of the students. Nothing can be learned without mental exertion. If you are concerned in your further development, you will recognize the Christian word as to the curse of work as untrue. Work cannot be descended from sin, for it is a blessing. You will have experienced in yourself how elated one feels after successful physical or mental work.
The things which science yields without exertion can be at most axiomatic commonplaces.
I assume that you are quite willing to perform thenecessary mental labor, and I promise you that I shall do my best to make this study easy for you. I do this so much more readily, as I frankly confess that these letters to my son are written with the intention of making them accessible to a wider circle of readers by means of the press.
Before concluding, let me say a word about my aim of speaking especially of democratic-proletarian logic. You will think or say: Logic may be a subject worthy of study, but a special democratic-proletarian logic can surely treat of nothing but party matters. But just as the special accomplishments in this or that line, the special advances of this or that nation, are at the same time general advances, progress of civilization, so the ideas of proletarian logic are not party ideas, but conclusions of logic in general. You may reply: Even though the special thought of a Chinaman may be quite consistent and logical, still we would not call it Chinese logic. That would be quite true, but it does not meet my point.
The thought on which the proletarian demands are based, the idea of the equality of all human beings, this ultimate proletarian idea, if I may say so, is fully backed up by the deeper insight into the tortuous problem of logic. Now, since this idea dominates mankind, it certainly has more right than any Chinese idea. Furthermore, industrial development has leveled, simplified, cleared all social conditions to such an extent that it becomes ever easier to penetrate with sober eyes into the secrets of logic. Finally, my logic deserves its proletarian qualification for the reason that it requires for its understanding the overcomingof all prejudices by which the capitalist world is held together.
The cause of the people is not a party matter, but the general object of all science.
The people's cause as the ultimate object, and logic as the most elementary and most abstract science, as ultimate science, are as intimately connected as plants and botany, or as laws and the legal profession. So are the interests of democracy and the proletariat intimately connected. The fact that this has not been well recognized in the United States so far, is more a proof of the lucky condition of that country than of the scientific knowledge of its democracy. The spreading primeval forests and prairies offered innumerable homesteads to the poor and they obscured the antagonism between capitalists and wage workers, between capitalist and proletarian democracy. But you still lack the knowledge of proletarian economics which would enable you to recognize without a doubt that it is precisely on the republican ground of America that capitalism makes giant strides and reveals ever more clearly its twofold task of first enslaving the people for the purpose of freeing them in due time.
Dear Eugene:
Having written the first letter by way of introduction, I now am ready for a gradual approach to my subject.
Logic aims to instruct the human mind as to its own nature and processes; it will lay bare the interior working of our mind for our guidance. The object ofthe study of logic is thought, its nature, and its proper classification.
The human brain performs the function of thinking as involuntarily as the chest the function of breathing. However, we can, by our will, stop breathing for a while, and accelerate or retard the breathing movements. In the same way, the will can control the thoughts. We may choose any object as the subject matter of our thought, and yet we may quickly convince ourselves that the power of our will and the freedom of the mind are not any greater than the freedom of the chest in breathing.
While logic undertakes to assign the proper position to our brain, still it has to remember that nature has already assigned that position.
It is with logic as it is with other sciences. They draw wisdom from the mysterious source of plain experience. Agriculture, e. g., aims to teach the farmer how to cultivate the soil; but fields were tilled long before any agricultural college had begun its lectures. In the same way human beings think without ever having heard of logic. But by practice they improve their innate faculty of thought, they make progress, they gradually learn to make better use of it. Finally, just as the farmer arrives at the science of agriculture, so the thinker arrives at logic, acquires a clear consciousness of his faculty of thought and a professional dexterity in applying it.
I have two purposes in mind in saying this. Firstly, you must not expect too much from this science, for you cannot set contrary brains to rights by any logic. Secondly, you must not think too little of it, by regarding the matter as mere scholasticword-mongery and useless hairsplitting. In daily life, as well as in all sciences, we never operate without the help of thought, but only with it, hence an understanding of the nature of the processes of thought is of eminent value.
Logic has its history like all sciences. Aristotle, whom Marx calls the "Grecian giant of thought," is universally recognized as its founder.
After the classic culture of antiquity had been buried by barbarism, the name of Bacon of Verulam rose with the beginning of modern times as a philosophical light of the first order. His most famous work is entitled "Novum Organon." By the new organ he meant a new method of research which should be founded on experience, instead of the subtleties of the purely introspective method hitherto in vogue. After him, Descartes, or Cartesius, as he called himself in literature, wrote his still famous work, "About Methods." I furthermore recall Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Reason," Johann Gottlieb Fichte's "Theory of Science," and finally Hegel, of whom the biographer said that he was as famous in the scientific world as Napoleon in the political.
Hegel calls his chief work "Logic," and bases his whole system on the "dialectic method." You have only to look at the titles of these philosophical masterpieces in order to recognize that they all treat of the same subject which we are making our special study, viz., the light of understanding. The great philosophers of all times have searched for the true method, the method of truth, for the way in which understanding and reason arrive at science.
I merely wish to indicate that this subject has itsfamous history, but I do not care to enter more deeply into it. I will not speak of the oppression and persecution, which was inaugurated by religious fanaticism. I will not enumerate the various events that led to a greater and greater light from generation to generation. The attempt to trace this history would entangle us in many disputed questions and errors which would only increase the difficulties of this study for the beginner.
If a teacher of technology were to instruct you on steam engines and, to explain their first incomplete invention, trace their further development historically from improvement to improvement, until he should arrive at the height of perfection attained in their present day construction, he would also be advancing on a path, but on a tedious one. I shall endeavor to show my subject at the outset in the very clearest light which has ever been thrown on it by the help of the nations of all times. If I succeed in this, it will be easy in the future, in the reading of any author, to separate the chaff from the wheat.
I can afford to dispense with quotations and proofs from others in trying to make my case and demonstrating the positive product of social culture, for we are dealing with the most universal and omnipresent object,—one which enters into every spoken or written sentence with its own body. If anybody tells of far off times or wonderful things, he must quote witnesses. Now, much of what I have to say for my case may sound wonderful, because it runs counter to the popular prejudice, but the only witness required to prove the truth of my statements is the clear brain of my pupil, who has only to examine his own experiencewithout preconceived notions, in order to find proofs on every hand.
It is surprising in the first place, that such a near at hand object has not been understood long ago and that so much still remains to be explained and to be taught after thousands of years of study. But you know that just as the small things are often great, and great things small, so the nearest things are often hidden and the hidden things nearest.
I promised you in the first sentences of this letter, dear Eugene, that I would now pass from introduction to subject matter. But since I have really continued to move around the outer edge of the subject instead of entering into its midst, you might become impatient, and so I will justify my method. It is a peculiarity of this subject matter that it exposes me to this charge. It is a peculiarity of thought that it never stays with itself, but always digresses to other things. The thought is the plank to which I should stick, but it is the nature of this plank never to stick. Thinking is a thing full of contradictions, a dialectical secret.
Now I know that here I am saying something which it is very hard for you to understand. But look here, has it not always been so? When you began declining Latin words in the sixth class, you were unable at once to grasp the full meaning of declension. You knew what you were doing, and yet you did not entirely understand it. Only after penetrating more deeply into the construction of the language did the meaning and purpose of the beginning become clear to you. In the same way, you now must try to digest as much as you can of what I say, and after you have gone more deeply into this matter, you will fullyunderstand me from beginning to end. In taking lessons from an author, on an unknown subject, I have always followed the method of first getting a superficial view of the subject, of glancing over its many pages and chapters, in order to return to the beginning and acquire a thorough knowledge by repeated study. With the growing familiarity with the subject the ability to understand it grew, and at the conclusion the thing became clear to me. This is the only correct method I can recommend to you.
In conclusion let me say for to-day in passing that the recommendation of the correct method for studying logic is not only an introduction, but, as I have already said, the subject matter of science itself.
Dear Eugene:
My task of teaching logic requires two things: a logician and a teacher.
The last named capacity requires that I should clothe the subject in an attractive way. Permit me, therefore, to combine the didactic style with that of the story teller, and to relate at this point an episode from a novel of Gustav zu Putlitz:
The organist of a certain village is lying on his deathbed. His last strength has been spent on the previous day in playing a hymn, and after its conclusion he was carried from the church in an unconscious state. He had played his masterpiece, but at the same time his last piece. A despised stage girl hadaccompanied him with a voice like that of a nightingale. But neither she nor the organ player had earned any applause from the stupid villagers.
The old man looked around in his room, his eyes were first riveted on his faithful piano, his friend and companion through life. He extended his hand, but it sank down exhausted. He had not had the intention to touch the piano anyway. It was only like stretching out one's hand for a friend far away. Then he looked through the window trying to recollect what time of the day it was. And when he had taken in the situation, he turned to the girl kneeling at his feet.
"Poor child," he began, "you were deeply disappointed yesterday. I felt very much hurt, when I first heard of it, but after that everything became clear to me while I heard the music all night, until a short while ago. Rejoice, my girl, at being reviled, for it is done for the sake of that sacred music, and it is an ecstasy, a blessing, to be martyred for one's music which is well worth all injuries. I did not fare any better all my life, and if I thank God for all the good he has done me until this hour, I also thank him first and most fervently for the gift of music which he bestowed on the world, and which he revealed to me most wonderfully in my most painful hours.
"For my music I have starved and suffered all my life, and my gain was delicious, my reward celestial for this poor perishable stake.
"My father was an organist in a little town of Eastern Frisia. His father had held the same position in the same church, and, I think, so did the father of his father follow music for a profession. Music has beenthe heirloom of our family for generations. True, it was the only heirloom, but I have cherished it and held its flag aloft all my life. When God calls me away, I shall leave nothing behind but that old piano and the sheet music which I wrote myself, for in all other respects I have always been poor. I might have done differently, and my wife has often upbraided me for it, but she does not understand the blessing of music. I do not blame her for that, for it was not her fault that God closed her ear to music as he did the ears of many others. Poor people, how cold and dreary must be their lives when music does not scatter blossoms in their path and bathe their temples in light. But there will come a time when their ears will be opened, and God will compensate them in heaven for what they missed here below.
"We who love music have tasted a part of eternal bliss here below, for harmony which dissolves all chords is eternal life and its wings are fanning us in this terrestrial life——
"Do you see, I know it well, and no one besides me, how it is when the soul prepares to leave the perishable body and enter the song of the spheres—
"You do not understand me, my girl, but do not worry, you also will understand some day. I will only tell you this much, and it shall be a consolation to you when the world treats you roughly hereafter. All of us, whether rich or poor, whether reclining on soft silken cushions or on hard straw, all of us enter life with the celestial melodies in our hearts. The beating of time goes with us as long as we are breathing. It is the beating of the heart in our breast. We may seem to lose the melody, even the measured step of timeseems to become confused by our passion, but in the blessed hours we always find our melody anew, and then we feel at home in the path of our life."
Thus the old organist idolized his music.
But it is not alone the harmony of music which has such a power over the mind. The harmony of colors, every art and science, has the same power. Even the most common craft, and the most prosaic of all prose, the chase after the dollar, may take possession of a man's soul and prostrate him in adoration before its idol. True, not every one is so sentimentally inclined, and even the sentimentalist is so only in especially sentimental moments. Furthermore it cannot be denied that artists, inventors, and explorers are worshipping the most worthy and most adorable objects. And I admit that no great success can be accomplished without putting your whole soul into some great aim.
Nevertheless you should know that anything which may take possession of one's soul shares its sublimity with all other things, and is for this reason at the same time something ordinary. Without such a dialectic clarification of our consciousness all adoration is idol worship.
The actual experience, then, that anything and everything may serve as an idol should clearly convince you that no one thing, but only the universe is the true God, is truth and life.
Now, is this logic or is it theology?
It is both. At closer range you will notice that all great logicians occupy themselves a great deal with God and deity, and that on the other hand all honesttheologians are trying to base their faith on some logical order. Logic is by its whole nature metaphysical.[3]
There exists a class of logicians who attempt to deny the inevitable connection between the celestial region and the tangible universe. Some of them do so from excessive religious delicacy of feeling, in order to protect the sublime from the disintegrating effects of critique. Others have such an antipathy against the religious abuses that they do not wish to hear any more about religion. Both classes adhere to the so-called formal logic.
These adherents of formal logic may be compared to a maker of porcelain dishes who would contend that he was simply paying attention to the form of his dishes, pots, and vases, but that he did not have anything to do with the raw material, while it is evident that he is compelled to form the body in trying to embody forms. These things can be separated by words only, but not by actions. In the same way as body and form, the finite and infinite or so-called celestial spheres, the physical and the metaphysical, are inseparable.
Logic analyzes thought. But it analyzes thought as it is in reality, and therefore it unavoidably searches for truth. And whether this truth is found above or below, or anywhere, is a question which just as inevitably brings the logician into contact with the theologian. To think of avoiding such a meeting from considerations of sympathy or antipathy, would be a rude lack of consideration for science.
Metaphysical logic which aims to extend its fieldto eternity, which looks for logical order even in heaven, and seeks to solve even the so-called last questions of all knowledge, differs in a distinct way from formal logic, which selects a restricted field for its research and confines itself to investigating the logical order of the socalled physical world. This difference is worthy of your special attention, because in it there is hidden the kernel of our whole correspondence.
It is quite a practical method to set a limit for one's investigations, not to fly into clouds, not to undertake anything that cannot be accomplished. Yet you must not forget that practical boundaries are not theoretical boundaries, that they are not invariable boundaries for you, or for others. Although you cannot fly to heaven and will give up the idea of flying machines from considerations of practical expediency, yet you will not wish to deny to man the theoretical freedom of infinite striving even in the matter of airships, and you will not be so small as to give up the idea of the capacity for our race for metaphysical, or in other words, infinite development.
FOOTNOTE:[3]In the sense of: mental and physical world embracing, all-embracing.—Editor.
[3]In the sense of: mental and physical world embracing, all-embracing.—Editor.
[3]In the sense of: mental and physical world embracing, all-embracing.—Editor.
Dear Eugene:
In my first letter I acquainted you with my purpose, in the second I lifted the subject on my finger tips, so to say, to show it for a brief moment; in the third I showed that its color had inevitably a religious shade. Now, to continue, permit me to introduce another point to your consideration.
The great cause of the working class has hithertoalways been the beast of burden of a small and exclusive minority. This is most evident in the slave states of antiquity, in Egypt, Greece, Rome. Likewise in the feudal and guild systems of the middle ages the oppression of the mass of the people is sufficiently apparent. At present this condition of things is more visible in Eastern Europe, in Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Eastern Prussia, etc., than in the industrial countries of the West. In the United States of America it is most obscured, so that there the people hardly realize their enslaved condition. In America, many of the upper ten thousand have made their way from the bottom up, and it happens more frequently than in Europe that the captains of industry laid their foundation by hard work. The shortsighted observers then easily forget out of sympathy for the hard beginning that there is sharper's practice at the end, and they indulge in the idle hope that every hard working beast of burden might transform itself into a happy millionaire by thrift and smartness.
You will probably ask: What has that to do with logic or the art of reasoning? Patience! You will admit that the emancipation of the nations from beastly toil, misery and suffering is the highest goal of the human mind. Nor will you deny that the thought is the most essential instrument for reaching this high goal. The accomplishments of thought are visible in the results of civilization. The proletariat of the present, also that of Russia, Turkey, East Prussia, participates in these accomplishments of thought. It participates not alone in the sense that its brains are better educated and cultured, but also that its food, clothing, and shelter have become more civilized through theprogressive deeds of intellect.
You see, then, that the people's cause is connected with the faculty of thought, and the nature of the latter may be illustrated as well by the example of the development of civilization. The complicated network of wheels in a watch may also serve to demonstrate the nature of that which language designates by many names, such as spirit, intellect, faculty of knowledge, reason, etc. Only it must be remembered that this mysterious something cannot be shown by itself, but only in connection with other things, whether they be the history of civilization or a watch. There will then be no contradiction in finding that the intellectual life appears more powerful and magnificent through the clockwork of the history of civilization than through any miniature product of thought.
In searching for the connection of things, one generally seeks to recognize the manner or the degree of the connection. But we, in this case, disregard the question as to how the things of this world are related to one another and to thought, and we simply make a note of the fact of the interdependence of thought and being, of nature and mind. This fact of the universal interconnection of things contradicts the untrained prejudice. The uncultivated brain nurses the illusion that the earth, the trees on it, and the clouds and the sun above them are separate things. But it requires a better training of reason to understand that the earth, the tree, the clouds, and the sun, can be what they are only in the universal interconnection. I remember reading an article from Fichte, in a German school reader, which clearly showed that the disarrangement of an insignificant object during the process ofthinking causes us to disarrange the whole history of the world in our thoughts. It is well known that one unfamiliar with political economy overlooks the fact that the business men not only carry on their trading for their private benefit, but are also members of the process of social production. It is overlooked that all labor, aside from being individual activity, is at the same time an organic part of social labor. And just as ignorance of economics overlooks the industrial interdependence, so ignorance of logic overlooks the cosmic interrelations.
Here is a drop of water. Look how different it is according to the different things with which it is connected. It cannot be what it is without a certain temperature. According to changes in temperature, it will assume either the form of ice or of steam. In fat the drop remains compact, in salt it divides infinitely, runs downhill in general and uphill in a loaf of sugar. According to the specific gravity of a certain fluid, with which it may come into contact, it either floats on the surface or sinks. Without a connection with the earth, its temperature and gravitation, this drop and all others would disappear in the fathomless abyss and have no existence. Thus the forms of things change according to their connections, and they are what they are only as parts of the universal interrelation.
What is true of a drop of water, is true of all things, all forces and substances, even of our thoughts. The human mind lives and works only in connection with the rest of the material universe—and the recognition of the organic unity of all things is the fulcrum of my logic.
Old line metaphysical logic was so enamored of its object that the descent, the kinship, and the connection with the common things of this world seemed too ordinary for the exquisite spirit. That logic was transcendental, and therefore its chosen object likewise had to be in touch with a transcendental world. And though it was scientific enough to regard the tale of the creation of the first soul by the breath of God as a fable, it was nevertheless so prejudiced in favor of the extraordinary nature of the intellect that it did not abandon, for thousands of years, the hope of finding in that intellect a source which would reveal transcendental matters. Formal logic now entirely discards this hope of a fantastical world, but at the same time it misunderstands the natural connection between the spirit and the common world. It isolates the instrument of thought and leaves the question undecided whether this instrument has a natural, supernatural, or no connection at all. It overlooks that just as logic is real, so reality is logical, and does not see that the back door which leads to illogical heaven by way of faith deserves the disdain of science.
Thought, intellect, are really existing, and their existence is a uniform part of the universal existence. That is the cardinal point of sober logic.
The fact that the thoughts are of the same worldly substance as the other parts of the universe, that they are parts of common nature and not a transcendental essence, has already been expressed by Cartesius in the famous words: "Cogito, ergo sum," I think, therefore I am.
The fact of my thinking, says the philosopher, proves my existence. In order to come to an absoluteconviction on the nature of truth and error, he sets out by doubting everything. And then he says that he cannot doubt the existence of his thoughts. He thus placed the spirit on the basis of real life, delivered it of its transcendentalism, and that constitutes his everlasting merit.
However, not alone Cartesius, but also your own experience testifies to the inseparable connection between thinking and being. Have not your thoughts been connected always and everywhere with some worldly or real object? If you attempt to isolate thought in order to ponder over it, you can only do so because that thought has been experienced by you and therefore was in every instance attached to some worldly object. True, you have thought of Greek gods, brownies, and mermaids. But you, an amateur in painting, are familiar enough with that part of the mind which is called imagination in order to admit that even this eccentric part of the mind does not only act, and therefore, exist in reality, but also derives all its products from reality, so that even its most fantastical vagaries and illusions are still real pictures, reflections of reality.
But how is it that I require such a multitude of words in order to state over and over again that the thought has a real existence and is a uniform part of the universe? Simply because from time immemorial the confusion in matters of logic is so great that the human spirit is in the same breath exalted to heaven, and yet its thoughts regarded as nothing real, nothing true. This is made plain by the fact that a sharp distinction is commonly made between that which is real and that which is only imagined, and thisdifference is exaggerated to such an extent that it appears as if the idea, which indeed is only in the brain, has no real existence at all.
In order that you may understand the interrelations of the things of the universe, I must warn you against this exaggeration and prove that the intellect has a real existence which is connected with the universe or reality. Botany, which occupies itself with plants, does not only teach us to divide them into classes, orders, and families, but it also does more by showing us what place in the entire realm of nature is occupied by the vegetable kingdom, by pointing out the differences which distinguish the plants from the inorganic mineral kingdom or the organic animal kingdom. Formal logic similarly dissects the spirit into its parts, makes distinctions between conceptions, ideas, judgments, conclusions, divides these into subdivisions, classifies conceptions according to species, separates abstract and concrete thought, knows many varieties of judgments, registers three, four, or more modes of conclusion. But at the same time this formal logic recoils from touching on the question as to how the universal spirit is related to the universe, what role it plays in the general existence, whether it is part and parcel of nature or transcendental. And yet this is the most interesting part, the part which logically connects the intellect and the science of the intellect with all other sciences and things.
Logic must teach us how to distinguish. It is not a question, however, of distinguishing sheet iron from gold, or a greyhound from a pug-dog, for this is done by special lines of knowledge. Logic must rather enlighten us about that part of the faculty ofdistinguishing which is generally required in all branches of knowledge, whereby truth and error, imagination and reality are recognized. To this end I feel impelled to advise you not to overlook that even error and imagination belong to the one infinite and absolutely coherent reality. For the purpose of distinguishing true imagination from actual reality, it must be remembered that just as rye bread and cream puffs agree in belonging to the general category of baker's products, so imagination and truth, thought and reality, are two different kinds of the same nature.
To sum up the contents of this letter, let me point out that its beginning shows the connection of the intellect with the development of the people, while its conclusion explains the wider connection of the mind with the universal existence.
A man not trained in logical thinking is handicapped by the absence of a monistic method of thought. Monistic is synonymous with systematic, logical, or uniform.
If we call a cream puff a tidbit and rye bread a food without remembering that every food is a tidbit and every tidbit food, and if we ignore the fact that both of them, in spite of their difference, belong to the same category and are, therefore, related, then we lack logic. And logic is lacking whenever the fact is ignored that all things without exception: substances, forces, or qualities of the world, are chips of the same block, finite parts of the infinite, which is the only truth and reality.
That insects, fishes, birds, and mammals form one and the same animal kingdom, is an old story which has long been patched up by the logical instinct. Darwin did not only enrich the natural sciences, but also perform an invaluable service for logic. In proving how amphibia developed into birds, he bored a hole into the hitherto fixed order of classification. He brought motion, life, spirit into the zoological swamp.
In case you should not be familiar enough with Darwin's work to understand my allusions, I will enter a little more deeply into the matter in a few sentences. The zoologists knew well enough that all species of animals belonged to the animal kingdom; but this classification was a mechanical affair. Now the "Origin of Species," which demonstrates that the zoological classification is not constant but variable, which outlines the actual transition from one species of animals to another, reveals at the same time that this alignment of all animal species in one kingdom is not only a logical mechanism, but also a fact of actual existence. This classification of all animals from the minutest to the most gigantic in one kingdom appeared before the time of Darwin as an order which had been accomplished by thought alone, while after him it was known as an order of nature.
What the zoologists did to the animal kingdom, must be done by the logician to existence in general, to the cosmos. It must be shown that the whole world, all forms of its existence, including the spirit, are logically or monistically connected, related, welded together.
A certain narrow materialism thinks that everything is done and said when the inter-connection between thought and brain is pointed out. A good many thingsmay still be discovered by the help of the dissecting knife, microscope, and experiment; but this does not make the function of logic superfluous. True, thought and brain are connected, just as intimately as the brain is related to the blood, the blood with oxygen, etc.; but moreover thought is connected quite as intimately with all other things as all physical objects are.
That the apple is not alone dependent on the stem which attaches it to the tree, but also on sunshine and rain, that these things are not one-sidedly but universally connected, this is what logic wants to teach you particularly in regard to the spirit, the thought.
If a traveler in Africa had to report a new animal species, he would not make special mention of the fact of its existence, because that is obvious. And though he were to relate things about the most abnormal existence, we should still know that this abnormality is only a deviation in degree which does not overstep the bounds of existence in general. But the human intellect is a greater novelty than the most wonderful animal species of the interior of Africa.
You know my sharpwitted friend Engländer. When I told him that I was writing articles on the human mind, he advised me not to bother my head about it. He said that this was a subject no man knew anything about. And when the learned Mr. Hinze, whom you also know, wanted to prove the inevitability of religious faith and the inadequacy of all science, he always asked the pathetic question: What is consciousness? And he used to take on an expression, as if he had presented a book with seven seals. Now I don't want to class the professors of logic with such men. But it is a fact that the great multitude, among them many scientists, are quiteunfamiliar with the truth that the existence of the blue sky and of the green trees is a uniform part of the same generality with the existence of our intellect.
For this reason it is necessary to prove that the intellect exists in the same way that all other things do. For it is denied and misunderstood, not only by those who regard the spirit as a being of a transcendental nature, but also by those who admit the existence of the true contents of an ideological concept, but not of thought itself. In short, the matter is so obscure that I feel sure that you will likewise be as yet in doubt whether there are not two kinds of ideological concepts, one of them real, the other unreal.
For two thousand years logic has proclaimed the sentence that thought is a form to be filled with real contents. True thought "must coincide with reality." It is true that there is a germ of sense in this statement, but it is misunderstood. The central point of logic is overlooked. Every thought must not only have a real content, but it is also necessary, in order to distinguish true thoughts or perceptions from untrue, to realize that thought is always and everywhere a part of reality and truth, even when it contains the most singular imaginations and errors.
Just as the domestic cat and the panther are different species of cats and yet belong to the same genus of cats, so true and false thoughts, in spite of all their differences, are of the same genus. For truth is so great that it comprises absolutely everything. Truth, reality, the world, the all, the infinite and the absolute are synonymous expressions. A clear conception of truth is indispensable for the understanding of logic. And in the last analysis it is simply using differentwords for the same thing, when I base the quintessence of logic, its fulcrum, cardinal, salient, or distinctive point on the spirit intimately united to nature or on the concept of a uniform world, truth, or reality. I cannot give you a clearer view of truth than by quoting at this place the famous words of Lessing: "If God were to offer me the ever active striving for truth in his left hand and truth in his right hand, I should grasp his left and say: Father, keep truth, it is for you alone." This statement is somewhat highflown and mystical, and Lessing was no doubt somewhat embarrassed by mystical thinking. Still there is a sober truth in these words, which is quite clear and to the point.
"Truth itself" is the universe, the infinite and inexhaustible. Every part of it is a finite part of the infinite and is, therefore, finite and infinite, perishable and imperishable at the same time. Every part is a separate part and connected inseparably with the whole. The human mind, among others, is such a part.
The universal existence, or truth, is the inexhaustible object of the human mind. The fact that in the study of logic the human mind has itself for an object must be explained to the student by pointing out that in this case the subject and the object are both things like all other things, in other words, are a part of truth, a part of natural existence.
"Truth itself" cannot be wholly conceived by the human brain, but in parts. For this reason we possess only the ever active striving for truth; for this reason, furthermore, the conception or knowledge can never be completely identical with reality, but can be only a part of it.
Now permit me to say a few words which do notsound as would those spoken on the throne of logic, but which are expressed in popular language. If you conceive some real object, whether a church steeple or a thimble, then this object exists twice, viz., in reality and in conception. On the other hand, a certain creation of imagination has only a simple fantastical existence. Such a popular way of thinking is undoubtedly correct. It is incorrect only when the fact is universally ignored that all modes of existence belong to the same genus, the same as a domestic cat and a panther, so that the existence of a thing in our brains, and outside of them in the heavens, on earth, and in all places has a logical meaning only when it is the same existence in spite of all multiplicity. An existence not partaking of the general nature of all existence would be an illogical, nonsensical, thing.
Now, I think you will have no difficulty in understanding me when I say that a church steeple in imagination and the same church steeple in reality are not two church steeples, but that imagination and reality are forms of the same existence.
Ancient logic ordered a medal and had stamped on its face: The thought must be identical with the reality. We now stamp on its reverse side: (1) The thought is itself a part of reality and (2) the reality outside of thought is too voluminous and cannot enter thought even with its smallest particle. What good, under these circumstances, is the old inscription, especially since it does not teach us at all how the identity between thought and its real object is to be attained, known, or measured?
If you, my dear Eugene, should become confused by these statements instead of enlightened, you should have patience and consider that a thing which is to beilluminated by logic must, of course, be first obscure. I believe that I have served you in some way by simply raising a doubt in your mind as to the soundness of the popular way of speaking and if I thus have convinced you of the confusion and inadequacy of the plausible idea of the identity of thought and reality.
True, a thought must agree with its object just as a portrait should. But what good will it do a painter to have his special attention called to this fact?
Have you ever seen a portrait or a copy that did not agree in some respect with the original? I am convinced that this has never been your experience any more than a portrait which was a complete likeness of its object. Your experience will be sufficiently cultivated to know that it can always be a question only of a more or less. I would seriously recommend to you to reflect on the relativeness of all equality, similarity, and identity. By far the greater part of humanity is in this respect barbarously thoughtless. It is very difficult to grasp for the logically untrained brain that two drops of water or twins are only relatively alike or unlike, just as are man and woman, negro and white man, and that all existence is just as alike as it is unlike.
It is with the thinker as it is with the painter. They both search for a likeness of reality and truth. In painting as in understanding there are excellent pictures and bad ones. In this respect one may make a distinction between true and false thoughts, but you must also know that even the unsuccessful portrait has some likeness, and that even the most accurate likeness is yet far from being in perfect harmony and identical with its object.
Reality, truth, universal nature, stands in the pulpitand preaches: "I am the Lord, thy God. Thou shalt not make any graven image to worship it." You must have a far too sublime conception of truth to entertain the idea that any painter or thinker might encompass it fully within the limit of a picture, no matter how good a likeness it may be.
Now, that we have recognized the human mind as a part of actual reality and truth, we see at the same time that undivided reality, the sum of all that is, represents absolute truth which comprises everything. In their capacity of parts of the universe, true and false thoughts, good and bad men, heaven and hell, and all other things, are all pieces of the same cloth, bombs of the same caliber.
My Dear Son:
After the third letter had acquainted you with the fact that the subject of logic has a certain religious flavor, the two subsequent letters endeavored to show that the logical subject is interconnected with the universal existence of the world, that the faculty of thought is an inseparable part of actual truth. In the vernacular of theology my last two letters have represented the human mind as a part of the living true God.
Christianity teaches: God is a spirit and who would worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
And logic teaches: The spirit is a part of universal existence. Whoever worships the spirit, is an idolator, for he worships a part and misunderstands the whole truth. Truth itself is identical with the universal existence, with the world, and all things are simply forms,phenomena, predicates, attributes, passing expressions of it. The universal existence may be called divine because it is infinite, being the alpha and omega which comprises all things as special truths. The intellect is such a limited part among other special parts of divine truth, and the latter is frequently called world without any bombastic emphasis.
Undoubtedly, every science, profession and trade can say the same thing of its object. The blue sky and the green trees are divine parts. Everything is interrelated and connected. If that were a good reason for not making any subdivisions, every part and description would become endlessly tiresome.
However, the specialty of logic is the cosmic sum of all truths, because it aims at a general elucidation of the nature of the human brain. This purpose is not so well served by an accumulation of other knowledge as by the general understanding of truth.
Logic, which seeks to enlighten the mind for the purpose of scientific thinking, does not so much treat of true conceptions as of the general and absolute conception of truth which is inseparably linked to the infinite universal life.
If you wish to think scientifically, you will first of all strive after clear ideas. And yet your head may be quite clear in regard to everyday things, without getting any nearer to general clearness. Nor is such clearness obtainable by the accumulation of mere special knowledge, for even if you were to grow in wisdom to the end of your days, nevertheless the fountain of wisdom, the universe, is inexhaustible and your brain will remain imperfectly informed or unclear as before. Yea, even the smallest part of the world is so inexhaustible that themost talented can never acquire all the knowledge necessary to understand entirely even the most minute object. The strongest microscope cannot see all there is to see in a drop of water, and the wisest man can never learn all there is to shoemaking.
You can see by all this that the scientific use of our intellect is furthered by special knowledge only in the corresponding details. For this reason it does not satisfy us to have some logicians tell us how many kinds of concepts, judgments and conclusions are contained in our intellect. These are special details of logic. But the thing of first importance for the student of logic is the elucidation of the universal concept of truth, not the accumulation of special truths.
Special truths enlighten the intellect. But the understanding that all specialties are connected with one another by one monad or unit which is truth itself gives us a certain general enlightenment which certainly does not render any special research unnecessary, or take the place of it, but which may well serve as the foundation of all research, which may therefore be called a fundamental assistance.
I may remark in passing that the understanding of logical science is rendered especially difficult by the fact that the unpracticed understands all terms and concepts only in their narrow popular meaning, while the subject matter leads up continually into the widest fields.
When I speak of parts of the world, you must not think merely of geographical parts, but you must think farther until you arrive at the insight that stars and bricks, matter and force, in short all parts of the world are world parts.
The logical difficulty may be principally traced to thelack of familiarity with the comprehensive categories. It will be clear to you that thinking and being, phenomenon and truth, etc., are conceptions of the widest scope. So you may have some difficulty in distinguishing between concepts of truth, and true concepts. And yet this is the same as making a distinction between the general class of herbs and its individual species. The mere intercourse with such comprehensive concepts as truth, existence, universe, is an excellent school of intellectual enlightenment.
Perhaps you may object to the deviation of a science devoted to the special study of the faculty of thought into such fields as existence or truth. But a logic confined to an analysis of the faculty of understanding would be narrow compared to one representing this faculty of understanding at work in real life. If the science of the eye were to treat only of the various parts of the eye without considering the things outside connected with its function, the light, the objects, in short, the vision of the eye, it would be more an anatomy of the eye than a general science of the eye. At all events a science which represents not alone the subjective faculty of vision, but also the living activity of the eye, the objective field of vision inseparable from the subjective faculty, is a far more comprehensive instruction, a higher enlightenment of the human brain.
In my opinion, logic should not so much treat of the analysis of the intellectual subject as of the purpose and object of the faculty of thought, its culture, which is not accomplished by the intellect itself, but by its connection with the world of truth, its interrelation with the universal existence.
What can a logic accomplish which divides thoughtinto analytical and synthetical thoughts, which speaks of inductive and deductive understanding and of a dozen other kinds, but which finally declines to meet the question of the relation of thought and understanding to truth, and fails to indicate what and where is divine truth and how we may arrive at it?
Pilate, the typical sceptic, shrugs his shoulders; the clergymen make a mystery of divine truth; the natural sciences care only for the true conceptions, but naught for the concept of truth; and then the special science of understanding, formal logic, tries to refer its task to philosophy or world wisdom.
I have already pointed out that the titles of the principal works on philosophy indicate that the whole world wisdom turns around the question: How can our brain be enlightened, how can it arrive at truth? The naturalists answer that this can be accomplished by special studies, and they are frequently opposed to philosophical research which makes general truth its main object, and belittle it. You will readily see that this is a mistake when you consider that, to illustrate, a machine or an organism as a whole is still something more than a mere sum of its parts.
No matter how well you may know each single part, yet you will not understand the whole machine or organism by this means alone. The universe is not an aggregation of unorganized parts, but a living process which must be understood not only in its parts but also as a whole. We may pass for the moment the question whether the Milky Way may be dissolved into stars, and whether the stars may become globes like our Earth which may develop plants, animals, and intelligent beings. The thing which is evident is that there is aprocess of development, that all nature takes part in this movement, that the universe is a whole without end, composed of an infinite number of parts; a coming and going, an eternal transformation, which is always identical with itself and always the same world. What all this would be without our eyes and ears and without the intellect by means of which we use eyes and ears, what the world "in itself" is, that is a senseless and transcendental speculation.
The science of logic must deal only with the actual world which is inseparable from us and from our thoughts.
This world which we hear, see, smell, in which we live and breathe, is the world of truth or the true world. That is a fact. Must I prove this? And how is a fact proven? How do we prove that a peach is a delicious fruit? One goes and eats it. In the same way, you may now go and enjoy life, of course in a rational manner, and I am convinced that your own love of life will tell you that it is proof positive of the truth of the world, of its actuality.
But even in the midst of this actual world there is present an inconsistent element, a human race with a confused logic. This race has been led by various depressing and saddening circumstances to blacken the delicious truth of this world and to look for a transcendental truth in philosophical metaphysics or religious fantasmagorias, both of which are parts of the same stew. The philosophers of misery who make of the world of truth a vain shadow and a miserable vale of sorrow must needs be convinced by logic that the living world is the only true one.
Well, that is not so difficult. But there is a dangerof getting into a vicious circle of errors, imitating a snake biting its own tail. I have to prove logically that the world and truth are one and the same thing, before we have come to an agreement as to what is logical truth or true logic. Nevertheless, nature has assisted us. The logic of nature is the true logic by the help of which we can agree. Nothing more is required than a somewhat trained brain.
Take two men having a dispute about truth. One of them says it is one thing, the other that it is something else. So they are arguing about that which is. This last word is a form of the verb to be. Hence in arguing whether the remote nebula in the heavens is a brick or a star, a male or a female, one is always discussing some form of existence. All disputes turn around forms of existence, but existence itself is an undisputable truth.
Have I now still to prove that all existence is of the same category? Are there any stones that do not belong to the category of stones, or any kind of wood which is iron? What would become of reason and language, if such a thing were to be considered? And yet, much that is being said by opponents is of such a nature.
If I have succeeded in convincing you that the universe is the truth, there still remains the special question: What place shall we assign to fantastic ideas, error, and untruth? If the universe is the truth, then everything would be true, and hence it seems contradictory that error and untruth should have a place in truth or in the world. Of this more anon. I shall only point out in passing that untruth may without any contradiction belong to truth, just as weeds are a negation of herbs and still at the same time herbs.
In conclusion I call your attention to the eminently proletarian character of the science of truth. It gives to the working class the logical justification to renounce all clerical and mystic control and to look for salvation in this same world in which divine truth is living.
The philologists distinguish carefully between a science of language and a science of languages. The latter teaches Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, French, etc., while the former treats of the general characteristics common to all languages, of language itself.
Philosophical logic stands in the same relation to other sciences. The latter make us acquainted with special truths, while logic treats of truth in general. Those overintelligent people who claim that truth is merely a collective term for many truths do not see the woods for trees. Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Max Müller, Steinthal, etc., have many things to say about the science of language of which the linguists with many languages never dream.
The science of language, aside from its many amenities, is also burdened with a difficult problem which it cannot solve without the help of logic. This problem is the point of differentiation where babbling and word-mongery cease and intelligent speech begins. For human speech has a certain meaning, and even the cries of the animals are not without sense. The sparrows know how to converse together, the rooster calls hisflock together, the dog knows how to announce that a stranger enters his master's home. Not alone the jokers, but serious thinkers speak of animal language, of a sign language, and maintain that speech does not alone consist of words, but also of inarticulate sounds and gestures. Poets endow even the storm, the thunder and the winds with speech. We wish to clear this confusion and ascertain what language is and where it begins. Languages, as is well known, have their beginning at the Tower of Babel. But in order to get close to language, we must look for a beginning of things either in God or in logic.
You know the old question: Which was first, the egg or the hen? But only a frivolous mind overlooks the serious side of this question and turns it into a mere joke. The question of beginning and end is an eminently logical one, and an unequivocal and clear answer to it would bring light not alone into the science of language, but also into the human brain.
Let us, therefore, follow up the problem of the "origin of language" a little farther. When our forefathers dealt with this question, they thought that a God had given speech to man or some genius had invented it. They thought of a beginning in time. The modern thinkers speculate more deeply. They have found out that language is not a fixed thing, but fluid, and has risen from low beginnings to a great perfection. We can no more find its temporal beginning by looking backward than we can see its end by looking ahead. For this reason we no longer look for its temporal, but for its ideological beginning. (Steinthal.) We should like to have a fixed mark where we might say: Up to this point that which resembles speech is only roaring,exclamation, noise, and here is the beginning of the well articulated sound which deserves the name of "spoken word."
But there is still another factor which complicates the question further. Some say: It is not only the sound, the word, which constitutes speech, but the connected sentence; there must be sense and reason mixed with it. And this applies to the speaker and to the listener. Language presupposes reason.
Then, again, intellect is not a fixed thing, but a fluid process which develops in, from, and by speech. So it appears on one side as if the mind produces language, and on the other, as if language produces the mind, the reason. Where, then, is the beginning and end, and how can we bring order into these relations?
For us, who are studying the mind, not the language, the conclusion follows that it is not alone the word, but also the sound, the tone, the gesture, that all things have a meaning and speak a language. We find mind wherever we penetrate with our mind. Not alone language, but the world is connected with the mind, with the thought. But the connection with language may well serve as an illustration by which the connection of the cosmic mind may be demonstrated and the human brain illuminated.
Language shares the honor with the mind of being extolled, even in this sober century, if not to the skies, at least far out of the general connection of common things. For this reason, we must emphasize in the case of language as in that of the mind, that they exist, that they are part and parcel of the universal existence. At this point I wish to give you a vivid illustration of the unity of all being by pointing out that it is indubitablyestablished by the existence of one single name which is sufficient to designateAll. True, language employs many names for this unity of the world, but that is a luxury. It is logical and necessary for the intellect to haveonename for theAll, because everything is not only infinitely variegated, but also infinitely one, or a unit. There are many different waters, but all water partakes of the general nature of water. Unless that nature is present, there is no water and the name of water does not apply. In the same way there are many kinds of oil; olive oil, kerosene oil, castor oil, etc., and each kind has its own subdivisions. But everything that has a common name is a unit.
Kindly observe, now, that the names of things form just such circles as the water does after being struck by a stone. Just as the name water, so the name oil indicates a ring. Then the name fluid constitutes another and wider ring which includes both oil and water. Then the name matter draws a still wider circle and includes solids as well as fluids, and finally the name being, orAll, includes mind and matter, all matter and force, including heaven and hell, in one sole ring, in one unit.
On the basis of this universal unity, from which it becomes apparent that high and low, dry and fluid, in short the whole universe is made of the same substance, any fantastic thinker can prove that human and animal language is one, for otherwise one could not refer to both of them as language. He may then justly contend that speech, producing a sound, is a noise, that speech and noise are one. Speech is sound and sound speaks. In this way language would have no beginning and no end. In the last analysis it would be one with all things, and all things would be one with it. In this way the wholeuniverse would become an inexplicable, incomprehensible, inexpressible mixture of speech.
And yet it is an old story that man's insight grows the more he magnifies a thing. The more excessively we exaggerate a thing, the plainer become its boundaries. Language indeed requires one single name forAll, but it also requires an infinite number of names in order to specify the parts ofAll. Inasmuch as language claims to be only a part of existence, this part has to be bounded, and you should in this connection remember the unlimited freedom of man in drawing such boundaries. Words are not merely empty words, but names of cosmic parts, of cosmic rings of undulation. Language, or rather the mind connected with language, wishes to bound the infinite by the help of language. The instinctive popular use of language does this in a haphazard way. Conscious science proceeds in an exact manner. Just as it has determined on the field of temperature what should be called hot and what warm, so it is at liberty on the field of sounds to determine where the name of language begins or ceases. The end of the discussion of language is therefore this: That which has already been done to horse power has not yet been done to the concept of language; it has been somewhat fixed by common usage, but only insufficiently. And so the moral of this tale is that the things of this world, even mind and language, are connected and intermingling undulations of the same stream, which has neither beginning nor end.
Let me say it once more clearly and without circumlocution: The logic which I teach and the thought which is its object are parts of the world, of the infinite, and every part being a piece of the infinite is likewiseinfinite. Every part partakes of the nature of the infinite. Hence you must not expect that I should exhaust my infinite subject. I confine myself to the logical chapter of "the One and the Many." I simply wish to make it plain that without any contradiction the whole multiplicity of existence is of the same nature, and that this oneness of nature subdivides into manifold forms. The world is interconnected and this interconnection is subdivided into departments. It adds to the general enlightenment of the human brain to recognize this in regard to language, to mind, to all parts of the universe.
I repeat, then: One may think logically without having attended any lectures on logic, just as one may raise potatoes without a scientific knowledge of agriculture. It was possible to invent the thermometer, to clearly distinguish between sounds and colors, and a hundred other things, without having explained the faculty of discrimination. But the most abstract distinctions, such as beginning and end, word and meaning, body and soul, man and animal, matter and force, truth and error, presuppose for their explanation a logical explanation of their interconnection with our intellect.